Where Are You? Series

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."