God and Guilt

made with Proclaim

Jack Lamb

Anchor Bible Church

Revisiting Faith in a Pandemic • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago • Presented 4 years ago • 50:59

Genesis 3:7–15

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Praise God Who Seeks Sinners

BIG IDEA: Guilt drives man away from God, but God seeks and saves sinners by his grace.

Introduction

Guilt and shame are timeless problems! The Bible provides timeless solutions! This is what makes the ancient story of Adam and Eve so relevant to our daily lives. Have you ever felt guilty and tried to cover it up? Do you feel a deep sense of shame about things you’ve experienced in the past? How can you find freedom from guilt and shame? I’m praying the sermon today can help you find freedom.

BIG IDEA: Guilt drives man away from God, but God seeks and saves sinners by his grace.

1. God Sees Sinners - vs. 7-8

In Genesis 3 man distorts, denies, and defies God’s Word—reducing it to an alternative viewpoint, while man is the judge of what is “true for me.”

This rebellion against God’s Word is responsible for all our woes—our alienation from God, our self-deception, our broken relationships with each other, the failure of animals to respond to our dominion, our toil to raise food from the ground, the “groaning” creation, and our own physical death.

Eyes were opened; sin was exposed; covering was sought

We first see shame in the Bible in Genesis 3:7, when Adam and Eve covered themselves because they were naked. This is in contrast to Genesis 2:25, when Adam and Eve experienced no shame about being naked during the period of innocence before the fall. The experience of shame is connected to the guilt of sinning against God.

“naked” in vs. 7 is slightly different than 2:25; “exposed/vulnerable” vs “unclothed”

The shame of nakedness is seen again in 2 Samuel 10:4, when Hanun shamed David’s men by stripping them of their clothes. In this case, the shame experienced was a result of a deliberate attempt by Hanun’s men to humiliate David’s men.

Shame includes feeling ashamed internally and being disgraced externally.

guilt tries to hide what God sees

guilt tries covering instead of confessing

But God sees sinners.

Proverbs 15:3 NKJV

The eyes of the Lord are in every place, Keeping watch on the evil and the good.

How often have we felt as if all is well?

You are certain of your salvation

Home work and health are doing fine

Your prayer life and study of the Word is average; at least by your own shifting standards

You have completely justified all your shortcomings and failures as normal Christian life

And then along comes the tempter and brings you down on your face. Before you know it you find yourself hiding with fig leaves.

It’s been said that sin will take you farther than you want to go, it will leave you longer than you want to stay and it will cost you more than you want to pay.

Consider how guilty they actually were:

some sin and have no guilt

Consider how foolish it is to hide from God

If this was all there was for us to learn about God and guilt, we would be in a terrible position.

2. God Seeks Sinners - vs. 9-13

guilt tries to hide while God seeks

first they covered their bodies from one another, then they covered their faces from God

guilt fears instead of hopes

developing a godly fear

confrontation

In vs. 9, God asks: “Where are you?” How would you answer that question? Where are you in your walk with God today?

fear and hiding

God confronts

Blame is shifted

guilt tries avoiding instead of agreeing

The novice sinners responded to God in ways that are all too familiar to us.

First, they felt shame, resulting in concealment. (Verse 8 indicates that they tried to go unnoticed by an omnipresent Creator by blending with vegetation!)

Second, they felt fear, which resulted in an attempt to escape God’s presence (vv. 9–10).

Third, they felt guilt, but then compounded their offense by shifting blame (vv. 12–13). Adam blamed both Eve and God (“the woman . . . you gave me”). Eve blamed the serpent (“the serpent deceived me”).

In contrast to Adam and Eve, God did not invite the serpent to repent. Instead, God decreed a series of three judgments—first upon the serpent, then the woman, and finally the man.

3. God Saves Sinners - vs. 14-15

guilt is removed by God alone

He curses the snake

Because the serpent had “destroyed” (or ruined) the human race, the serpent would be destroyed by a member of the human race.

The enmity between the woman and the serpent and their “seed” (or offspring) involves more than future hatred between women and snakes.

He promises Satan’s defeat

From eternity past, God ordained a plan, knowing full well that He would become the chief victim of that plan to purchase our redemption and our eternal good. To God be the glory!

1 Peter 1:20 NKJV

He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you

He is the only innocent victim of sin

2 Corinthians 5:21 NKJV

For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Christ is the answer for the person experiencing shame. In the Gospels, we see that Christ associated with those who were shamed by others because they were seen to be inferior. Examples are the woman at the well (John 4:1-45) and the tax collectors (Matthew 9:9-13).

By dying on the cross, Jesus died in a shameful way, being naked and exposed to everybody who was looking at him. He fulfilled Isaiah 53:3-5, knowing the shame of being “as one from whom men hide their faces, he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Even though he was innocent, he suffered shame so that others would be made righteous. Through his death and resurrection on the cross, Jesus canceled the debt that is against us (Colossians 2:14).

As a result of Jesus’ death on the cross, when he became sin, believers become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). We are justified by faith through Christ (Romans 5:1). There is now no condemnation (Romans 8:1), and we are to live according to God’s plan for us by being holy and blameless before him (Ephesians 1:4).

you can’t forgive yourself

Instead of accepting others’ judgments of us, we are to see ourselves as Christ does. We belong to him, even if others reject and exclude us. We can know that Christ has removed our shame in a personal, intimate way. In Isaiah 54:4-6, the Lord comforts Israel by saying that she is to forget her shame, as he, her Maker, is her husband. This is true of the church, the bride of Christ (Revelation 21:1-4). We are part of the bride of Christ. We are to live out of the truth that, in him, we are holy and without blemish (Ephesians 5:27).

By looking at Christ on the cross, we are given a key answer about dealing with shame. We read the following about the sinless, perfect Son of God in Hebrews 12:2: “…who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of God.”

Christ despised, or scorned, the shame of the cross because he knew what was before him. Now he is seated at the right hand of God. When others try to shame us, it is important not only to refuse accepting someone else’s wrong assessment or judgment of us, but also to despise the shame. We are to scorn the sinful judgment and focus on the things of God. This does not mean that we despise, or scorn, the perpetrator. We despise the lie that threatens to distract us from the reality of the work of the cross in our lives. Instead, we refocus on the Lord, what he has done, and what lies before us in him.

Conclusion

Application Questions

Why do you think God didn’t show up before Genesis 3:8? What does that tell us about our responsibility?

In vs. 9, God asks: “Where are you?” How would you answer that question? Where are you in your walk with God today?

Adam and Eve hid when they sinned. What should we do instead?

Your sin will affect everyone around you. How can you see that in Genesis 3? Have you ever seen that in your life?

How does the virgin birth of Jesus fulfill the prophecy of vs. 15? How did Jesus crush the head of Satan?