Who Told You to Hide?
Nothing Left to Prove: Living Within the Father’s Verdict • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Introduction: A Robe on the Road
Introduction: A Robe on the Road
1. If you were here for the early service, you just watched a father run.
a. A boy comes home from the far country smelling like pigs. He's got a speech memorized. He wants to ask for a job.
b. His father sees him while he's still a long way off, runs down the road, and throws his arms around him. The boy gets part of his speech out, and the father cuts him off and calls for the best robe.
c. If you're here for the late service, you know that story too. You'll hear it preached in about an hour.
2. Here's what bothers me about that story, in a good way.
a. If that's really what the Father is like, hiding from him makes no sense.
b. And we do it anyway. All the time. Grown Christians, raised in church, who know Luke 15 by heart.
3. So that's the question for this hour. If the Father runs toward us, why do we keep running the other way?
a. To answer it, we need to go back to the first time anybody ever hid from God.
b. Turn to Genesis 3.
Before Anybody Hid
Before Anybody Hid
1. Start one verse before the chapter.
25 Both the man and his wife were naked, yet felt no shame.
2. That verse is easy to skip. Don't.
a. It describes two people with nothing to cover and nothing to hide. They could be fully seen, by each other and by God, and it didn't bother them at all.
b. That's what we were made for. Being known all the way down and being completely at ease about it.
3. Then the serpent shows up in 3:1, and the first thing he does is ask a question about God.
1 “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”
4 “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman.
5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
a. Listen to the story he's selling. God is holding out on you. He's keeping the good stuff for himself. You're not quite enough yet.
b. The sad irony is that they were already made in God's image, Genesis 1:27. The serpent offered them something they already had, and charged them everything for it.
4. They ate. And verse 7 says their eyes were opened
7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
a. Their bodies hadn't changed since 2:25. What changed was trust.
b. Once they believed the serpent's story about God, they couldn't stand to be seen by him.
5. And look at the very first thing sinful people did. They made something to cover themselves.
a. Fig leaves. Homemade, and not very good ones.
b. We've been sewing them ever since.
The Sound in the Garden
The Sound in the Garden
1.Back to our text:
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 And he said, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
2. *The LORD God walking in the garden.*
a. Some of you grew up with *the cool of the day*. The CSB says *the time of the evening breeze*. Either way it's the end of the day, when the heat breaks and people come outside.
b. And God comes on foot. The Creator of everything is out for an evening walk in the garden he planted.
c. The way this reads, it doesn't sound like the first time. It sounds like something he'd done before, and they knew the sound of it.
3. That word *walking* shows up again later, in a promise.
12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people.
a. It's the same Hebrew verb. What God did in Eden is what he promised to do with Israel.
b. He has always wanted to be near his people. The walking is his idea.
4. Now, how does the sound of God coming close make them feel?
a. It should have been the best sound in the garden. It sends them into the trees.
b. Adam tells us why in verse 10. *I heard you. I was afraid. I was naked. I hid.*
c. Those are his first recorded words to God after the fall. The very first thing sin taught a man to say was *I was afraid.*
5. Put that next to what John says:
18 There is no fear in love; instead, perfect love drives out fear, because fear involves punishment. So the one who fears is not complete in love.
a. Fear is what hiding runs on. We hide because we expect punishment.
b. The younger son expected it too. That's why he planned to ask to be a hired worker. He figured the best he could hope for was a spot on the porch.
"Where Are You?"
"Where Are You?"
1. Go back to verse 9.
9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
2. Does God know where Adam is?
a. Of course he does. He planted the trees Adam is hiding behind.
b. So why ask?
3. Think about how you talk to a child hiding under the bed after he's broken something.
a. You know exactly where he is. You can see his feet.
b. You still say, *Where are you, buddy?* You're giving him the chance to come out on his own.
c. God's question works the same way. He already has the answer. He's calling Adam to step out of the trees and stand in front of him.
4. And notice who does the looking.
a. Adam doesn't come looking for God. God comes looking for Adam.
b. That's the pattern of scripture. God sent Nathan to David. He tore open the sky at the Jordan. The father in Luke 15 ran down the road.
c. Jesus said it about himself: *For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save the lost,* Luke 19:10.
d. *Where are you?* is the first time in the Bible God goes looking for a lost man. It isn't the last.
"Who Told You That You Were Naked?"
"Who Told You That You Were Naked?"
1. Now read the next verses:
11 Then he asked, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man replied, “The woman you gave to be with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 So the Lord God asked the woman, “What have you done?” And the woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
2. *Who told you that you were naked?*
a. It's a fair question. Nobody in the garden had said a word about it. God hadn't. He'd made them that way and called it *very good*, Genesis 1:31.
b. They'd been listening to another voice, and now they had a new story about themselves. It said, *If he really sees you, it's over.*
c. God never said that. They picked it up somewhere else.
3. A lot of us are living on stories God never told us.
a. *You're too far gone.* *You've used up your chances.* *He puts up with you, but he's disappointed.* *If people at church knew, they'd be done with you.*
b. Some of those came from a hard father. Some came from a church that talked more about the rules than the Father. Some we wrote ourselves at three in the morning.
c. And some of them came straight from the same voice that asked *Did God really say?*
4. Now watch what happens next. God asks a direct question, and Adam points at his wife, and then at God. *The woman you gave me.* Eve points at the serpent
a. That's another way to hide. You don't need trees if you can stand behind somebody else.
b. The older brother in Luke 15 did a version of this. He hid behind his brother's sins. *This son of yours . . . devoured your assets with prostitutes.* Talking about somebody else's failures kept him from looking at his own heart.
God Makes Them Clothes
God Makes Them Clothes
1. Now skip ahead in the chapter. There are consequences in verses 14–19, and they're real. The ground is cursed. Childbirth will be painful. Death comes. God doesn't pretend the sin didn't happen.
2. But before he sends them out of the garden, look what he does:
21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.
3. Set that next to verse 7.
a. In verse 7, *they* made coverings for themselves. Fig leaves they sewed together.
b. In verse 21, *God* makes the clothing, and *he* puts it on them.
c. The homemade covering is set aside. They leave the garden wearing something God made.
4. The text doesn't stop to explain it, but skins come from somewhere. Something died so they could be covered.
5. Now think back to the road in Luke 15.
a. The younger son came home with a speech. His father never let him finish it, and he called for the best robe and put it on him.
b. The same Father who made clothes for Adam and Eve at the gate of Eden threw a robe over a boy on the road.
c. That's what God does with people who come out of hiding. He covers them himself.
6. And he's done it for us.
27 For those of you who were baptized into Christ have been clothed with Christ.
a. Every Christian in this room came up out of the water wearing Christ.
b. Our fig leaves were never going to be enough. His covering is.
7. That's why Hebrews can say two things that sound like they shouldn't go together:
13 No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.
16 Therefore, let us approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in time of need.
a. Verse 13 is Eden. You can't hide. Everything is *naked and exposed*.
b. Verse 16 is the answer. So come boldly anyway.
c. You can walk into the presence of a God who sees everything, because the one sitting beside him, our high priest, has already covered you.
Conclusion: Come Out of the Trees
1. Let's go back to the question we started with. If the Father runs toward us, why do we keep hiding?
a. Genesis 3 gives us the answer. We hide because we're afraid, and we're afraid because we've believed a story about God that he never told.
b. The cure is to hear his voice again. *Where are you?* is an invitation.
2. So here's one thing to take home, and it's small.
a. Think of one place you've been hiding. From God, from your family, from this church. You don't have to say it out loud.
b. This week, step out of the trees in that one place. Pray honestly about it, the way a child talks to his dad. Or tell one person the truth when they ask how you're doing.
3. If you were with us for the men's weekend, you know what that might look like. It's the name and the date on the back of your card.
4. And tonight we'll finish this series by looking at what a whole church looks like when people stop hiding from each other. Paul calls it a household. I hope you'll come back for it.
9 So the Lord God called out to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
5. He's still asking. And he's already made the clothes.
