When Jesus was about to be born to Mary, an angel appeared to Joseph and said “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel” (which means, God with us). Matthew 1:23
GOD WITH US!
Over the next few weeks, we’re going to be looking at God’s desire to be with us. And today I want to focus on a short verse in Genesis that tells us “(Adam and Eve) heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day.” (Genesis 3:8) Now, that’s a very simple statement - but to me it implies that this was normal behavior for God. It’s almost like it was common for God to come down and walk in the Garden with Adam and Eve, and regularly spend time with them.
One author said that this verse “suggested a closeness and intimacy and fellowship. The natural implication was that God did this a lot perhaps daily ‘in the cool of the day’” (Randy Alcorn)
A major commentary stated that God’s walk in the garden “Suggested an enjoyment of fellowship between (God) and our first parents” (New American Commentary)
There’s even an old hymn that tells us… that this was exactly what God wants. (SING IT WITH ME)
“I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. And the voice I hear falling on my ear, the Son of God discloses. (Chorus) And He walks with me, and He talks with me, and He tells me I am His own;
And the joy we share as we tarry there, none other has ever known. (2nd Verse) He speaks, and the sound of His voice is so sweet the birds hush their singing, And the melody that He gave to me within my heart is ringing.”
The very creation of Adam tells us that people (like you and I) are special to God. In Genesis 1 we’re told that, when God created the world, He SPOKE everything into existence. He’d say “daisies”… and daisies would pop out of the ground. He’d say “elephant”… and there’d be huge mound of dirt that would shake itself off and there’d be an elephant. There were Showers of birds coming out from the trees. Butterflies fluttering all around. And Bees got to work on the flowers as if they hadn't a second to lose. (this description is loosely based on the creation story in “The Tales of Narnia – The Magician’s Nephew, by C.S. Lewis)
Everything God created was instantaneously alive at the very sound of His voice
But when God created Adam - He did something different. He got down into the mud and he shaped Adam from the dirt of the ground and He formed and shaped Adam… IN HIS OWN IMAGE. And He breathed into Adam the breath of life. God didn’t do that with anything else. Just with man. Because God wanted to create us differently… in His own image.
BUT WHY? Why would God go to all that trouble in creating mankind? I mean, obviously we were the height of His creation… (PAUSE) but why bother to create us differently? WellGod created US as He did because He wanted to spend time with us. He walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve; In Genesis 5 we read that “Enoch walked with God” (Gen 5:22, 24); And in Genesis 6 “Noah walked with God” (Genesis 6:9).; when Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, "I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless”
Genesis 17:1: And when God led Israel out of captivity… He told them “I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people." Leviticus 26:12
And on… and on … and on.
God created us because He wanted to spend time with us. He wanted to walk with US. YOU ARE THAT IMPORTANT!
In fact, one of my favorite passages says “The eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to show Himself strong on behalf of those whose heart is loyal to Him.” (II Chronicles 16:9) God is LOOKING for someone who wants to walk with Him - someone who will be loyal to Him. He’s looking… FOR YOU! And, if we do it right, we can become a mirror image of the God we love. Jesus said “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven.” Matthew 5:16
LET ME REPEAT… GOD WANTS TO WALK WITH US.
Oddly enough… it appeared to me that a lot theologians and preachers struggle with this idea. I mean, it seemed like the very idea that God would want to spend time with us - that He would DESIRE to walk with us - (well) it was hard for many religious men to grasp. I looked at a number of sermons on-line (I typed in “Walk With God”) and I was struck by the fact that that all the sermons I saw had preachers viewing the idea of “walking with God” as being all about US… but not really about God. The sermons focused on the idea that we MUST walk with God. It’s REQUIRED of us. We NEED to do it. But NONE of the sermons I saw focused on the idea that God really WANTED US to be near Him.
Now there’s a reason for that. It’s called … SIN.
Now, if I’m right – if God regularly walked with Adam & Eve in the garden, then something different happened in Genesis 3. Genesis 3 tells us that Adam and Eve had eaten of the fruit that God had forbidden, and once they ate of that fruit… they realized they were naked, and they made clothing from leaves to cover themselves. But then, WHEN God came down for His regular visit, they heard the sound of Him walking in the garden and … THEY HID from Him. WHY DID THEY HIDE? They hid because God had forbidden them to do what they’d done. They’d sinned.
You see, the problem was NOT that God didn’t want to walk with THEM. The problem was that THEY DIDN’T feel comfortable walking with Him… because they’d sinned. And their sin had caused them to be ashamed… and so they hid!!!!
And people have tried to hide their sins from God for centuries.
One of the most popular ways is to compare your sin to someone else’s. “YES, I SINNED… but my neighbor has done worse.” “YES, I SINNED… but there’s a church member who’s done more.” When God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?" (Genesis 3:11) Adam basically replied “Yes I sinned, but that woman you gave me - SHE did worse than me. She ate the fruit FIRST … it’s her fault.”
ILLUS: Do you remember the joke about 2 men who were being chased thru the woods by a bear. One of the men stopped and started putting on track shoes. The other man said “What are you doing that for? You can’t outrun that bear.” And the 1st man said “I don’t have to outrun the bear… I just have to outrun you.”
That’s the kind of thinking that many people live by when it comes to hiding from their sins. "I don’t have to be really dedicated to being righteous with my life… I just have to be more righteous than you are!" They think they can outrun their sins by outrunning YOU. And they think that’ll work with God. But while comparing my failures with the failures of others may be popular… God’s never impressed… and it never works. God doesn't compare our sins to those of others. He compares our sins to His righteousness.
Another way to hide our sins is to cover our sins with SOMETHING else. When Adam and Eve realized they’d sinned they tried covering their nakedness with leaves. The only problem is - all it takes is one good brisk wind, and those leaves didn’t count for much.
ILLUS: I’ve been visiting the jail for several months now and I heard about an inmate (TIM) that swore he was innocent. And everyone who was in jail with him believed him, because he was one of the most religious men in his pod. He was always praying, always reading scripture, always encouraging the other inmates. Everybody in the pod KNEW he was innocent because nobody could be that religious, and that guilty. And for months he maintained his innocence.
But then his trial came and he was convicted and sentenced to decades behind bars. And suddenly he wasn’t “religious” anymore. He stopped praying, stopped studying, stopped encouraging others just stopped talking about God altogether. And he became angry with anyone who wanted to talk about God. ne of the other inmates (DAVE) refused to give up on him. Dave and I would talk about how he could help this man deal with this obvious and tragic miscarriage of justice. It was bad enough to lose his freedom… but to lose Jesus too? Eventually Dave got Tim to start talking to him, and to his amazement, TIM confessed that he actually had been guilty. He’d been lying to the other inmates for months, and he’d been hiding his sin behind his religiosity
Tim figured if he covered his sin with enough leaves he might even fool God… and he’d get off. But Hebrews 4:13 tells us: “NOTHING in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. EVERYTHING is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
You see here’s the deal: You and I can’t COVER our sins. But wait! If we can’t cover our sins… WHO CAN?
Well… that would be God.
When Adam and Eve sinned, they tried covering their nakedness with leaves, but even THEY knew that wasn’t going to work, because when God came walking in the garden… they hid! The leaves couldn’t hide their nakedness. But something DID cover their nakedness. Do you remember what that was? “The LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.” Genesis 3:21
Their leaves couldn’t hide what they’d done, so God made them NEW garments from the skins of animals.
WHERE DID GOD GET THOSE SKINS? Well, God had to kill the animals to make the skins to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. Something had to die to cover their sins.
In the same way, something (or SOMEONE) had to die so that we could be clothed. Well… what had to die so we could be clothed? That would have been Jesus. He died on the cross so that we could live for Him.
There was a famous preacher who said: “Never is a man in his right mind till he is converted, or in his right place till he sits by faith at the feet of Jesus, or rightly clothed till he has put on the Lord Jesus Christ. -- J. C. Ryle
Jesus died for us… so we could put on HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS!
Did you realize that there’s only ONE VERSE in the Bible that talks about putting on Christ? It’s Galatians 3:26-27 “In Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ.” To be accepted by God… we must be clothed with Christ. We “put on” Christ in baptism (Galatians 3:26-27). Have you been clothed with Christ?
CLOSE: One more thought. God wants to walk with us. We have to believe that. We have to build our lives around that, because that’s the only thing that explains why Jesus died for us. There’s a famous poem that says it this way:
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along the beach with the Lord. Across the sky flashed scenes from his life. For each scene, he noticed footprints in the sand. One belonged to him, and the other to the LORD. When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest points of his life. This really bothered him, and he questioned the LORD about it. “Lord, you promised me that you would walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there’s only one set of footprints. I don’t understand why, when I needed you most, you would leave me.” The Lord replied, "My precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you saw only one set of footprints, IT WAS THEN THAT I CARRIED YOU.” (this is a variation of the original poem by Mary Stevenson)
INVITATION
