GENESIS 3 RESOLVE YOUR SIN PROBLEM2015 Teaching by Jerry B Simmons

Teaching Transcript: Genesis 3 Resolve Your Sin Problem

You are listening to FerventWord, an online Bible study ministry with teachings and tools to help you grow deeper in your relationship with God. The following message was taught by Jerry Simmons in 2015. And we're going to be here in Genesis chapter 3, looking at a big portion of this chapter, but we want to start out just by looking at verses 1 through 6 and reading that together. And so would you stand with me as we read this passage together?

Genesis chapter 3, looking first at verses 1 through 6, I'm going to read the odd-numbered verses, and would you please read the even-numbered verses? All right, so Genesis chapter 3, verse 1 says, Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? No.

But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, as we consider this passage that you've provided for us, that gives us great insight into the beginning of this problem of sin, I pray, Lord, that you would pour out your Holy Spirit upon us.

that we would have understanding, Lord, that we would know what it is you want to speak to us. Lord, those things that you want to deal with specifically in our hearts and lives, I pray, Lord, that we would be open and receptive to all that you have, that we would hear your voice this morning, and that we would respond as you speak. And so, Lord, we pray that you would minister to us through your word. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. You can have a seat.

This morning, as we look at Genesis chapter 3, I want to teach you how to resolve your sin problem.

Many of us as believers, of course, we're familiar with the concept of sin. We're familiar with Genesis chapter 3. We know this passage. And yet we find that, well, we often still do not deal with sin very well. We don't know how to resolve the sin problems that we have. And as those who have not believed in Jesus and haven't walked with the Lord previously in our lives, or maybe that's you today, I

In that condition as well, we do not handle sin very well at all. And there needs to be a resolution to sin. It needs to be solved. It's a big issue. And so I want to help you understand how to resolve your sin problem. Now, before we get to that, before we can resolve it, I think that we do need to understand it. And so I'm going to highlight five things specifically

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And so the first thing to understand about your sin problem is that sin is desirable.

This is something important to know because, well, sometimes we get in our minds the concept or the idea that sin is going to look hideous. It's going to look horrible. But that's not the reality. Sin does not look hideous. Well, if you have experience with sin, maybe looking back, you can see, whoa, that's hideous. But when you're looking ahead, when there's temptation at hand, sin is going to look hideous.

Sin does not look awful. It looks amazing. It looks appealing. It's alluring and we are drawn to it. And we can see that here in the passage in verse 6. Here's what it says. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her and he ate."

As this exchange is going on between the serpent, inspired by Satan, and Eve, in this attempt to get her to partake of the forbidden fruit, he gets her to the point where she's looking at it. And notice what it says. She saw that it was good for food. It looked yummy. It was appetizing. It was appealing. It was nice. And it was desirable.

But it also goes on to say that it was pleasant to the eyes. It was beautiful fruit to behold.

wow, that looks really beautiful. That looks really tasty. It looks quite delicious. And so it wasn't something hideous, but something desirable. And then it goes on to say that it's desirable to make one wise. And so there was wisdom to be had. It was beautiful to look at. It looked like it tasted really good. It was packaged in this desirable way. And so there was this temptation to sin. We know there's...

horrendous consequences to this sin, but that's not how it looks. That's not what she sees. She sees something that is very desirable. And that's something that we need to come to terms with.

Because as we face temptation, as we struggle with sin, as we have opportunity to sin, we need to understand that it's not going to be something that we see from a mile away and say, oh, that's a mess. That's hideous. That's horrible. I got to stay away from that. But we're going to see opportunities that look good. We're going to see things that are attractive, that are beautiful, that

that are appealing to us, and we're going to be drawn to them, it will be desirable for us. In that way, sin is a lot like fishing bait, right? To the fish, it looks good. Now, to me, as I put it on the hook, it doesn't look good. It doesn't smell good. I don't like to touch it, but to a fish, it's like, oh, that's really good. At least that's what you want, right? So you catch the fish, but the bait is

hides the real problem, right? It hides the hook that they're about to be caught on. It hides the consequences for partaking of that. And in the same way, sin is beautiful. It's enticing. It's desirable. And it hides for us

the real devastation that results, the consequences. And yet, even when we know there's consequences, again, we have to come to terms with this. Even when you know there's devastating consequences to sin, sin is still desirable to you.

It's part of who we are. And that's the second thing I'd like to highlight from this passage about sin, to understand our sin problem. And that is that sin is in your nature. When Adam and Eve partook of this fruit, they were forever changed. Look at verse 7. It says,

And they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. Something happened when they partook of that fruit. Something changed. And now suddenly, it says, the eyes of both of them were opened. There was a transformation that took place. Previously, they didn't see certain things and now they are able to see these things.

They are permanently affected, forever changed. In my mind, and maybe because I enjoy movies a little bit too much, but I picture, you know those scenes in the superhero movies?

when the superhero is being transformed, you know, Spider-Man is bitten by the spider. You know, he's not Spider-Man yet, but he's bitten by the spider. And then it shows, you know, like internally as if, you know, we could see what was happening. And you see the DNA, you know, and the strands are just like changing. The molecules are changing. The cells are being transformed. And now it's, you know, now he's Spider-Man. Or maybe, if maybe it's more appropriate to you, you know, the movie Turbo, the superhero.

snail that became really fast, right? You know, it got caught up in the engine, the nitrous oxide, you know, permeated it, and its cells were transformed, and it was able to move really fast. And I see that kind of change is what happened with Adam and Eve, that from the inside, at the core, their very nature was changed when they partook of this fruit. And so now sin has forever, well, it's forever impacted them.

And not only them, but their descendants. And the descendants of their descendants. And the descendants of their descendants of their descendants. All the way down to you and I. That we inherit this sinful nature. This nature that has been forever impacted by sin. That's what you and I have. We inherit that from Adam and Eve. And so when they partook of this...

that change took place. And suddenly, their eyes are opened. I think Dave Guzik had an interesting thought to consider. He says, It's possible. It's something, you know, that we could consider and speculate about. You know, we read about God and the coming kingdom.

That he is the light of the city. There's no need for a sun or moon. It could be that in their perfection, Adam and Eve shined. They were clothed in the righteousness of God. And it could be that when they partook, that light was gone and now they were exposed. Now they were not covered any longer, but now they see their nakedness. Well, whatever it was, however it took place, they were forever changed.

And the consequence of that is that you have a sinful nature. You've inherited it from Adam and Eve. And so for us, it's inescapable. We will deal with sin. We will fall into sin. We will choose to sin. We are drawn to sin. And we could try really, really, really, really hard to be perfect, and yet we will fail.

we will still sin. You could lock yourself in a room, you know, cut yourself off from all whatever we might consider evil influences, cut yourself off from TV, cut yourself off from friends, and yet all by yourself in a room, you will still sin. No matter how hard we try, sin is in your nature. It is something that we will have with us for the rest of this life. This side of eternity is

we will always be dealing with sin. Well, not only that, but as we go on and look at verses eight through 10, we see that sin causes you to hide from God. Check out with me verse eight. It says, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to Adam and said to him, where are you? Verse 10.

So he said, I heard your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. Adam and Eve's response to their changed condition, to their now sinful nature, well, when they hear God in the garden, he's coming to meet with them in the cool of the day, they hide from the presence of the Lord.

We often say that sin separates, and it definitely does. It separates us from God. It separates us from one another. Sin separates. But the interesting thing to look at here is that the change that took place wasn't regarding God. God was still there in the cool of the day, just as he would be expected to be. But what changed now is Adam and Eve.

And instead of meeting with God as they typically would, now they are hiding from the presence of the Lord. It's kind of hard to imagine what it must have been like before this event in Genesis chapter 3. What was it like for Adam to have perfect fellowship with God? What was it like for him to be there in the cool of the day in the Garden of Eden with God?

God Almighty, and to have that time in his presence. We don't exactly know, but whatever it was, now it has changed. But God didn't change. It's Adam who changed. And now fear has been introduced. Previously, he would meet with God. He would be in the presence of God. But now he's hiding from the presence of God. And that's what sin does. It causes us

to hide, to remove ourselves from God's presence. And we'll come back to that thought as we talk about how to resolve sin a little bit later. But going on to verses 11 through 13, the next thing to highlight about our sin problem that we need to understand is that sin causes you to blame others. Look at verse 11. And he said, "'Who told you that you were naked? "'Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you "'that you should not eat?'

Then the man said, the woman who you gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate. And the Lord God said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. Adam and Eve tried to hide from God. Of course, that will always fail. And so here God has this discussion with them and he's helping them confess. He's helping them get to the bottom of what took place.

And so he says, did you eat of that tree? And Adam responds with blame. He says, well, you see, it was the woman. She gave me the fruit, and so I ate it. But then Adam, you can also see blaming God here. He says, the woman which you gave me, God, you gave this woman to me, and then she made me sin. She made me eat of this fruit. And so God says to Eve, well, what is it that you have done?

And she now points the finger at the serpent. The serpent deceived me, which is true. The serpent did deceive her. But it's this pointing of fingers that you see happening because of sin. This is what sin brings in people's lives. It's not just something that Adam and Eve faced, but this is what you and I experience as well. We blame others for our sin.

And sin prompts us to bring this blame on other people. So we say things like, well, I don't normally talk that way, but that guy cut me off and made me so angry. And what we're saying when we say that is those aren't my words. That guy put those words in me. It's his fault. I don't talk that way. I don't say those words, but he cut me off.

You know what Jesus said about that, right? He said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. That guy who cuts you off, he's not putting those words there. Those words are already there. That condition is already there. It just reveals the reality of who you actually are and what's really going on within. But we often assign the blame. Another way that we blame others, maybe you've had that difficult experience of having to say, I'm sorry. You ever had to do that?

It's one of those things that we struggle with many times, right? I'm sorry. But the way that we handle it many times is we say, I'm sorry, and then we add another word onto it. We say, I'm sorry, but, and then we go on to explain why we're not at fault for what we did. We blame others. We blame circumstances. We blame whatever we can, anything but us. That's what sin is.

prompts us to do, causes us to do. And so we have this tendency, it's natural for us to blame others for our sin. Well, the final thing that I'd like to highlight to understand our sin problem is in verses 14 through 21, and that is that sin causes pain and death. Here we see the consequences of sin revealed.

God first addresses the serpent in verses 14 and 15. Now, the serpent was an actual animal, but we know from the rest of the scriptures that Satan inspired or inhabited this animal. And so the serpent is cursed first.

And so God says of this animal, this creature, on your belly you shall go and you shall eat dust all the days of your life. And so serpents or snakes as we know them now are that way as a result of the curse, the fall. Before this, they were something different. We don't know exactly what they were, but there is this now new form that the serpent takes.

But then in verse 15, we're not going to get into it, but it's an amazing verse because as Jesus addresses the serpent and Satan, who is the inspiration of the serpent there, he addresses the issue of sin and prophesies of the coming victory over sin that's found in Jesus Christ. He says in verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman.

and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heels.

And this bruising of the head and the bruising of the heel between the seed of the serpent and the seed of the woman, this is a prophecy. It's a reference to the victory that Jesus will have on the cross. And so if you don't believe me, I encourage you to check it out. It's amazing to look into this prophecy that God gives. The gospel is promised right from the very beginning as sin is introduced. But then we see the consequences that are brought upon the woman in verse 16.

It says, And so here's the consequences. Here's the judgment for the woman for partaking of this sin.

The primary thing here is pain. It's pain in childbirth. Now, a woman had this unique role, this unique opportunity to bring forth children. It was a great joy, but now God says this great joy, this unique place that you have is also going to be accompanied by great pain. And so you'll still bring forth children, but it will be costly. It will be painful.

Along with that, there's going to be now conflict in the home. He says, "'Your desire shall be for your husband.'"

This idea of desire, it's also used in the next chapter. Jake's going to talk about it tonight, so you can come back tonight to hear it. But how God told Cain, sin desires to rule over you. And there's going to be this conflict, this desire in that same way. As God has designed the Christian home to be with the husband as the head of the home, but there's going to be this conflict.

Prior to this, the same authority structure was created by God. Adam was still the head, but there wasn't conflict for him to lead in the way that God had called him to.

But ever since the fall, there's conflict. And every husband and wife can tell you, there's conflict regarding leadership in the home. Even though we know, even as believers, we know what God has said. We read the scriptures and study them. But there's still this struggle, this conflict. And what was used to be, you know, harmony, now many times there's great conflict.

Well, the judgment that's pronounced upon the man in verses 17 through 19 says, he says to Adam, "...because you have heeded the voice of your wife and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, you shall not eat of it, curse it is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat of the herb of the field."

Here is God announces this judgment upon man. The ground is cursed.

The ground would still produce fruit. He would still be able to eat the fruit of the ground. But in addition to the fruit, the good things that the ground produced, now the ground is also going to produce thorns and thistles. And it's going to be difficult to manage those thorns and thistles. It's going to be difficult. And so it will be by the sweat of your brow. It will take work. It will be toil and sweat.

And so that's one aspect of the judgment that was brought upon Adam and all of humanity, this cursed ground. But then also he announces to Adam that, Adam, you're not going to live forever. To dust you are, and to dust you will return. You're going to die. Your physical body will come to an end, and you'll return to dust. And so pain and death are the product of sin.

For Adam, for Eve, for all of us as descendants of Adam and Eve, the sin that we commit today still brings these same things. And so these are essential things for us to understand our sin problem. It is desirable. It's not going to present to you in a way that's hideous, you know, that you know, like, oh yeah, for sure, I need to stay away from that. But no, there's going to be a longing. You're going to fight a craving. There's going to be great desire to sin because it's in your nature.

And when you do sin, whether it be a one-time thing, you know, like you fall because of a weakness of your flesh, or maybe something that you choose to do knowing what you're doing, or maybe something that you struggle with every day, and it's a struggle that you battle. When you do sin, it's going to cause you, you're going to desire to hide from God, to withdraw from the presence of God. It's also going to cause you to blame others.

to shift the blame so that you're not responsible and say that other things, other circumstances are to blame, but also the sin causes pain and death in your life. And this is the reality of sin. It's a terrible thing. It destroys lives. It stinks. And that's why...

I want to talk to you about resolving your sin problem. Because, well, what it brings is great devastation. And God has provided a solution for your sin problem. The solution to your sin problem is Jesus. We know that God for so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son. He gave us Jesus.

Not just to live on the earth and teach good things, but Jesus being God became man in order to die upon the cross for our sins. And his penalty, not his penalty, but he received the penalty that we deserve. And his payment for our penalty was sufficient because he is God. And so there's infinite value to his sacrifice and giving of himself to

Well, he's paid the price to such an extent that every person can be forgiven of every sin. And yet this forgiveness is not automatically applied to everyone. This forgiveness must be received. In a little bit, as we get to the end of service, we're going to have the opportunity to partake of communion today.

And I bring this up now because this is good preparation. As we look at these things and resolving your sin problem, this is good preparation for partaking of communion. Because communion was given to us by Jesus as a reminder for his payment for our sin upon the cross. And so he gave us the bread and he said, this is my body. This is my body, which is broken for you. So do this in remembrance of me.

And he gave us the cup and he said, this is my blood which is shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me. It's shed for the forgiveness of sins, he says. And so he says, I want you to do this often and remember what I've done for you in paying the price for your sin, in offering to you forgiveness. And so when we partake of communion, it's not some mystic ritual. It's a reminder that

to receive what Christ has done for us, to receive the forgiveness that he has accomplished for us. And so how do we receive this forgiveness? How do we receive this solution that God has provided? And that's what I'd like to go on to now, to talk about how to resolve your sin problem. Three steps I'd like to give you on how to resolve your sin problem.

The first one we find in verse 7, and that is we need to acknowledge sin. Acknowledge your sin. I think that Adam and Eve, in the midst of this fall, actually did something good here. And that is that they didn't try to pretend like nothing happened. Verse 7 again says, Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings.

So they realized something had changed. They knew that they were naked, and so they tried to do something about it. Now what they did wasn't sufficient. The fig leaves, that wasn't what God had in mind. That wasn't ultimately what God wanted to do. But highlighting something good here, they acknowledged that something was wrong. They acknowledged that there was an issue. In the next verse, they're going to hide from God. Now that wasn't the right thing to do either. But

But at least they're acknowledging that there's a problem. They're acknowledging that there's an issue. You know, we are really good at deceiving ourselves. God tells us that in Jeremiah chapter 17, right? The heart is deceitful above all things. More than anything else, your heart is good at deceiving and even deceiving yourself. Not only are we good at deceiving ourselves, but we're good at justifying ourselves.

Again, assigning the blame, explaining away our sin, our problems, our issues. And so there's many times that we can be living in denial, pretending like there's no problem, pretending like there's no issue. Although we know there's an issue, but we've talked ourselves out of it being an issue. It's not that big of a deal.

Well, she's this way, and so that's why I practice this, and he does that, and that's why I do this, and I'm this way because my parents were like that, and we have all these reasons why we deceive ourselves, we justify ourselves, or sometimes we just think, hey, there was no real consequences. We think, I got away with it. It must not be a big deal. God must not care really about this sin because he doesn't seem to be really bringing any judgment or anything.

And so we pretend like there's not a problem. We pretend like there's not an issue. I think Proverbs chapter 30 verse 20 is appropriate for us to consider in this. It says, this is the way of an adulterous woman. She eats and wipes her mouth and says, I have done no wickedness. Now this isn't just for the sin of adultery. This is true of all sin. And sometimes we sin, we wipe our mouth,

Everything gone? Check my teeth in the mirror? Yeah, I think I'm good. Nobody's going to notice? Okay, I'm going to pretend like nothing happened. I haven't done any wickedness. Nobody's going to know. God doesn't seem to mind. He's not really doing anything about it. No lightning is striking. And so we pretend. We don't acknowledge the issue. We try to just change the subject in our mind and in our hearts and try to go forward pretending like nothing really happened. But if we do that...

Our sin will not be resolved. This is step one. And this is true, again, for you, you might be dealing with a specific sin. And maybe you've been struggling with that sin for a really long time. And you go back and forth and your mind plays all kinds of games on you and you're caught up in this turmoil of it. First things first, acknowledge your sin. Recognize it as a problem. Recognize it as an issue. Recognize it as a violation of God's word.

But this is also true of, well, sometimes it's not that you have this habit that you're struggling with, but sometimes in a moment of weakness, you fall and you give in to sin, maybe even without realizing it until later on. And in that situation as well, step number one is acknowledge your sin. Recognize it. Don't try to talk yourself out of it. Don't try to explain it away. Don't try to change the subject in your head so you don't have to think about it.

Come to terms with the reality that you practice sin. It's desirable to you, and so you engage in it. That's step one. Now, step two, we find in verse eight, is to stop hiding from God. Again, look at verse eight. It says, "'And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.'"

So here's Adam and Eve. They've partaken of the fruit. There's been a change. They try to sow fig leaves together and then they hear the rustling. Oh no, here comes God in the cool of the day. He's coming to meet with us. Quick, hide. And so they jump in the bushes to hide from God as he comes to meet with them. Now, why did they hide? Adam explains in verse 10, "'I was afraid because I was naked.'"

I was afraid because I was naked and so I hid in the bushes. Do you see the futility of this attempt by Adam and Eve to hide from God? Here's God the creator. God who is omnipresent. He's everywhere. God who's omniscient, who knows everything. God who is almighty. You're gonna hide from God behind a tree.

Like sideways. Suck it in. Okay, God can't see me now. Do you see the futility of that? To hide from him in the bushes? Adam says, I was afraid because I was naked. Now here's the thing. Adam just recently discovered his nakedness. But God always saw it. Again, God hasn't changed here. He's the same. It's Adam who's changed.

And as we look at this, we can kind of giggle about it, hiding from God in the bushes. I mean, that's kind of funny, right? We know it's futile, and yet you and I still try to hide from God ourselves. Same reasons. Fear, shame, trying to cover things up on our own. We try to hide from God because of sin. Going back many years, Pastor Tom was still here. He was the pastor. I was

running away from God, but starting to come back, wanting to be right with God, but not really wanting to deal with things. And I would come here on Sunday mornings. And at that time, we had the opportunity. We had the speaker outside and the chairs and tables outside. And so I would sit outside to listen to the service. Now, not because there was no room inside, but I would sit outside because it was more comfortable outside.

than sitting inside. I felt less conviction on the outside than when I came inside. And I would kind of tune out. I would feel good because I kind of did my religious duty and I wanted to be, you know, getting right with God again, but then I still didn't want to address things. And so I kind of was like trying to walk the line and do both, live the way I want and also be part of what God's doing. I was hiding from God out there. It was futile because God was still there and God was still at work.

And he'd still bring conviction of my sin, but I would try to hide from God. That's one example, but maybe you hide from God in other ways. Maybe in a similar way, you come, but it's more convicting to be in the front rows, so you sit in the back. Right, Rick Dominguez? Just teasing him. We make those kinds of decisions. Or maybe, oh yeah, I can't go to church today because...

Yeah, I really blew it this week, you know, and I don't want to show up and have to deal with the Lord or the people or explain anything. I don't want to. And so I'll go next week. And we kind of think in our minds, well, enough time has passed, you know, in two weeks. It's not an issue. And so I can just come back. But again, we're just trying to hide from God.

Just using time as our covering. Like, I'll just come back in a couple weeks when I feel better about myself. And I think God's forgotten. And so now, you know, it's time I can come back to service. It leaves the sin unresolved, unaddressed. Or maybe you stop praying. You hide from God by not spending time in prayer anymore.

And so you don't have your normal morning devotion. You don't have your time where you cry out to the Lord, where you ask God for blessings because, well, I don't deserve blessings because look at what I've done. Or you don't pray for other people because you think somebody else should pray for them because I was involved in these things. And we remove ourselves from the presence of God. And I want to encourage you to stop hiding from God. We know it's futile.

Pastor Tom on Wednesday shared a great message out of Hebrews chapter 4, and verse 13 stood out as I was preparing for this message. And so it stood out. I'd like to remind you of it. Hebrews 4.13 says, Everything is naked. Adam just barely figured out he's naked, but God knew all along.

Everything is naked to God. He sees everything. Now, he already sees your nakedness, but still he offers forgiveness. He already sees your shame. He already sees your struggles. He already sees your failures. He already sees those things. They're not news to God. God's not like, I can't believe he did that. He knew it already. That's why he sent God.

a savior. That's why he provided an opportunity for salvation and forgiveness, because he sees your wickedness. You might wipe your mouth and say, oh, I look clean. I've done no wickedness, but God saw it all. Everything's open and naked. He says to him whom we must give account. We're going to stand before God, and there's nothing hidden. It's all exposed.

But the great news is that none of those things that are exposed before him changes anything for him. No sin that you do changes God's love for you. It doesn't. God loved you so much that he sent his only son to deal with that sin, to pay the price for that sin. And so no sin that you do changes that. No sin that you do changes his offer of forgiveness. We feel that way sometimes. We're like,

You know, I've had to ask for forgiveness for that sin. One, two, three thousand, four thousand, seventy-five thousand times. I'm pretty sure the seventy-five thousand and first time, like, God's, He's done giving me forgiveness for that. No. No sin that you do changes God's offer of forgiveness. It doesn't happen. He loves you. He doesn't change. We change. We change.

He doesn't hide himself from Adam. Adam hides from him. In the same way he doesn't hide himself from us, we remove ourselves from his presence. We step back. We miss out. We change. And so when you sin, there's going to be this tendency, this desire in your heart to hide from God, to step back from God's presence. And I'm telling you, stop hiding from God.

to resolve your sin problem. First of all, acknowledge sin, deal with it, recognize it's an issue. And secondly, don't run away from God, but draw near to God. And I know that's contrary to what we think needs to happen many times. And maybe even it's painful. You feel like, ah, I can't come to God. Look at what I've done. Look at how I've been. But God already knew that. And he still invited you in.

Draw near to God. Listen, when you have fallen into sin, when you have chosen to sin, when you've been flat out rebellious, that's the time where you need to draw near to God most. Stop hiding from God. He's already right there. He's already seen everything. He already knew it was going to happen before you even did it. All that hiding does is it keeps you from receiving the

the forgiveness, the grace, the blessings that he has for you. You miss out because you're hiding from God. And so we need to acknowledge our sin. We need to stop hiding from God. And then finally, let God cover your sin. In verse 7, we see Adam and Eve try to cover themselves. They're sewing together fig leaves. It wasn't sufficient. It wasn't comfortable. It wasn't good.

But now God covers them. Verse 21 says, God made tunics of skin. The clothing that they had made for themselves was not sufficient. It wasn't a good covering for their nakedness. God says, I have a better covering for your nakedness. I have a better way to deal with this. But we also can recognize that there was a sacrifice that was necessary for

For God to deal with their nakedness, their sinfulness or the results of their sin. Because, well, there was an animal that had to lose its life. There had to be blood that was shed in order for these tunics of skin to be made.

Blood being shed is always required for forgiveness. And for us, we look back to the blood of Jesus Christ. Again, as we partake of communion in just a few moments, it's the reminder. He said, this is the cup of my blood, which is shed for the remission of sins. This is the solution. This is the answer. My blood is shed that you might have forgiveness. And so we need to let God cover our sins.

There's way too many times that we try to cover sin ourselves. And so we're sowing fig leaves together. How do we try to cover it? Sometimes we try to cover it with good works. It's like, well, I did this wrong, so let me do this many right things to make up for that wrong that I did. Try to cover up. You know, it's like there's a pothole, you know, my sin, and so let me fill it up, pack it in, make it back smooth and even. And so we try to cover it with good works.

That doesn't work. Whatever good works that we think we're offering, God says, that's filthiness. It's not righteousness. It can't cover. You can never pay for your sin. Sometimes we try to pay for our own sin by putting ourselves on time out. We say, Jerry, you're grounded. You can't spend time with God for two weeks. You can't witness for a month. You can't pray. You can't expect blessings. You can't ask God for things.

We put ourselves on time out. Again, we hide from his presence, try to cover up our sin with time. And that's not sufficient. It doesn't work. We can't fix the sin problem with our coverings. And that's why God provided a rescue. He's provided a solution. He's provided a covering. I picture it this way. Waking up in a boat on a river,

about to go down a cliff. Certain death lies below. You know, you're there about to go off the Niagara Falls, and God's there offering you a rope. He's offering you. He says, grab on. Here's salvation. Now, with that picture, sometimes the way that we respond to our sin is we, well, we would be wasting time blaming people. Well, I'm this way because I did that because it

all the way down the end, you know, all the way down the waterfall. We'd be pointing fingers and go to our doom. Stop the blame game. Don't waste time with that. No, grab the rope of salvation that is offered to you. Grab the rope of forgiveness, the redemption that is there. Or sometimes the way that we handle our sin, again, paralleling that with being in a boat about to go over the cliff, we think, no, no, just give me a paddle. I don't need the rope. Give me a paddle. I don't need the rope.

I'll pull myself out of this. I'll work hard enough. I'm going to be really determined and I'm going to paddle my way out of this situation. And it's not going to work. We're going to go to our doom. We try to do things on our own strength. We try to do things in our own effort to try to cover our sin. And God says, knock it off. It doesn't work. You'll end up dead anyways. No, grab the rope that I'm offering to you. Grab the rescue that I've provided. Grab the rope that I've provided.

Our coverings will always be inadequate. But you know how God deals with sin? It's quite amazing. Psalm 103 verse 12 tells us, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. The east and the west don't meet. They're infinitely away from each other in each direction. And that's how far he removes your sin from you when you let him deal with it.

when you receive the solution that he's provided, the resolution that he's given, when we try to cover our sin, it's not effective. It stays right there. God sees it. It doesn't hide nothing. It doesn't pay for nothing. It doesn't deal with it. But when God deals with our sin, when God forgives our sin, he removes it from us infinitely far away.

There's still consequences. Notice Adam and Eve, they're clothed, but they still experience the judgment, the pain, the death, the suffering, the toil. There's still consequences for sin. So it's not an excuse, well, you know, hey, God's going to forgive me, so I'm just going to keep on living in sin and doing whatever I want. Well, there's going to be consequences for that. There's still consequences for sin, but there's forgiveness, there's redemption, there's grace, and there's mercy as well.

I'd like to close our time together in 1 John 1. Would you turn there with me, please? 1 John 1. As we consider how to resolve the sin problem, these three points here, acknowledging your sin, stop hiding from God, and let God cover your sin. John the Apostle also addresses this sin problem, and it parallels these same things that we've been looking at here in Genesis 3. It's 1 John 1, verse 8 and 9.

Here's what it says. Here John says, That is, acknowledge your sin. Don't try to pretend like there's no problem. Many times as believers, we're like,

We'll walk into a service on Sunday morning pretending like there's no problem. Stop it. Acknowledge your sin. Recognize that it really is an issue. Don't try to say that you have no sin. You're only deceiving yourself. You're not fooling anybody else. Everybody else around you could say, yeah, right, you have no sin. No, no, we can't fool everybody else. We can't fool God. We can only fool ourselves. Acknowledge your sin.

But then we also need to stop hiding from God. And that's in verse 9 here. He says, if we confess our sins, confess, bring it all before the Lord. Come clean. Lay it bare. He already sees the nakedness. He already knows all the details. He already knows all the motivations. He already knows all the issues. He already knows all that's in your heart. But you need to come clean. And you need to confess that before the Lord.

Stop hiding from God. It's not working. He knows it all. But come out into the open. Step into the light. Come clean. Confess before the Lord what it is you've done, what it is you struggle with, what it is you continue to practice, what it is that you're involved with. And then finally, let God cover your sin. Notice at the end of verse nine, when you confess your sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

If we'll come clean, confess our sin to the Lord, he will cleanse us from all unrighteousness. He will remove that sin from us as far as the east is to the west. He will deal with us as if we had never even sinned, not even once. As we come to him in this way, acknowledging our sin, not hiding from him, but coming to him in openness, confessing, agreeing with him about our sin,

He will cover it. He will cleanse it. He will wash us. This is not a one-time thing. It's not, this is what happens when you first believe in Jesus or make a decision to follow him. But this is something that is ongoing for us because the problem of sin is ongoing for us. And even if you've been a Christian for 10s and 20s and 30s, 40 years, whatever, it's always gonna be the case. You gotta come back to God, acknowledge your sin,

You got to stop hiding from him and you got to let him clean you up. It's humbling, but it's what's necessary. He's the only one who can really resolve your sin issue. Listen, you have great riches in Jesus, great redemption, forgiveness that is offered. You need to receive it. Let God do what he wants to do in you. Zach's going to come up and prepare.

to lead us in worship that we could partake of communion together. And as he gets ready, I want to share one last thought. I was watching recently an episode, it was an old episode of The Amazing Race. I'm not sure if you've ever seen that, but it's one of those shows where they're in this big race and they have to go all over the world, find these clues and get from place to place. And then the end prize is a million dollars. And so this final episode, there was three couples left

And the couple that came in last place before the next day where they had the final race to the finish, the couple that came in last place have a penalty. They get all their money taken away and all their possessions except for their passports. And so it puts them in a position where the next day in the final leg of the race, they have to beg.

And so they're in this foreign land. They're going to whoever they can find on the street. They're going to the airport and just begging people to contribute, explaining the situation. This is where we're at. We lost everything. We're trying to get there first. Will you help us? It's kind of a terrible place to be. I think that's definitely part of the show. I would not want to be. I'd rather just be eliminated. Just send me home. Don't make me go out there and beg. And you could see the torment for them. It was like they...

It was horrible. It was hard for them. They were not excited about it at all. And so they're out there begging. And they get enough money to get back to Florida where they need to be, where the final leg of the race is. They get enough money to get the cab ride to the final destination. They get to the final destination, but then they're short on the cab fare. And the gate's right there for them to go through. And the finish line is right beyond the gate.

but they can't enter in because they don't have the cab fare. And so now they're begging again. They're out on the streets. They're telling people the situation, trying to get $50 to be able to pay for the cab to be able to run through the gate and to make it to the end. Well, after asking many people, they finally come up with enough money and they're able to pay the cab driver. They go through the gate. They get to the finish line and they find out they're the first ones there.

They were the last to arrive. They had everything taken away, great disadvantage, but they were the first to arrive, and they won a million dollars. Now, that was pretty amazing. It was quite exciting to watch, but imagine if the next day they were out on the street again begging. We need, we're in Florida. We just finished this race, and we got to get back home. Is there any way you can give me like 20 bucks? You know, I'm just trying to get bus fare home.

Wait a minute, you just won a million dollars. Why are you begging? It would be crazy. And yet that's what we do, spiritually speaking, many times. Listen, we have great riches in Christ. Why are you begging? Why are you living in spiritual poverty? Why are you trying to cover your sin with your rags? When you have God's glorious grace and forgiveness and redemption, don't live like that.

This is a time, and as he leads us in this song, you can come on up, Zach. As he leads us in this song, the ushers are gonna pass out the bread and the cup, and I would ask that you would do business with God. Let this be a time where you acknowledge your sin. As you hold those elements, acknowledge your sin. Confess it to the Lord. Stop hiding from him and just come clean. God, this is what I'm doing, and I like it, and I enjoy it.

but I don't want to do it, but I enjoy it. I desire it, but I don't want it. God knows those wrestlings that you have. Come clean. And then as you partake, you partake with a declaration to the Lord that you receive the forgiveness that he offers. You receive his covering for your sin. You don't deserve it. You can't earn it. It's humbling, but you're going to rely upon him and the price that he paid there upon the cross.

And so the ushers are gonna pass out the bread and the cup and I would encourage you at any time during the song, as you do business with God, you go ahead and partake and you receive the great riches and forgiveness that God has for you. And so let's worship the Lord together. Don't let this time go by without resolving your sin problem. It's not a once and for all thing. You'll need to do it again tomorrow, but for today, let's receive the great work that Christ has done for us. Amen.

Let's worship the Lord together and you can partake at any time during the song.