Where Are You, Adam?

Introduction

Turn to…thank you...

Yoo-hoo! In these recent times, God is trying to get our attention. Mankind has been following his course, and God says, “Yoo-hoo!” Think: Covid, national and political factions, fear, unrest, famine, and plague.

In America, we are less in-tune with God. 50% of faithful worshippers walked out of church in 2020; 1 in 5 churches are facing the probability of closing in less than two years.

The once shocking and shameful characteristics of our times coincide as normal when we read them in 2 Timothy.

We have opinions we readily share, but it’s like we’re in the days of the Judges when “every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

Is God getting our attention? I contend in this series that God is saying, “Yoo-hoo!,” but we are not listening.

We are shooting radio waves into space trying to look for answers and for help beyond our own atmosphere. We keep searching Google. We try to blend biology with technology to “save” ourselves into an artificially-intelligent world.

Folks, we do this and more, but we have turned a deaf ear to God! Is it that God is not speaking, or do we intentionally keep turning away from Him?

In this series, we’re going straight to the start--the beginning of time--to see how God got the attention of a few people like ourselves. We’ll see why He wanted their attention, and we’ll (hopefully) wake up and respond to the “Yoo-hoo! moments” of today!

Today, we’ll focus on the time God was trying to get Adam’s attention.

ILL: During our wedding, Amy Sue’s uncle, Phil, told how God got Adam’s attention in the Garden of Eden. “Shazam!” God created Eve. “Boom shakalaka!” Eve did get Adam’s attention, but we want to look at a time a little later.

ILL: Marco Polo. Ever played the game, Marco Polo? Someone who has his eyes closed calls out, “Marco,” and the others he is chasing reply with, “Polo!” and continually adjust their location to avoid being caught. It’s a game that reminds us of God’s continual pursuit of us when we continue to run and hide from Him.

Read Text: Genesis 3:1-15. Adam hid from God, and God said, [v. 9 in Hebrew] “Yoo-hoo! Where are you?” Where are you in relationship to God?

Genesis 3 works because in chapters one and two, God created the world, and in the world He made creatures, and then He made people, mankind in His own image—Adam, a male, and Eve, a female. We bear His image, in part, because we have a conscience to both think and make decisions. God gave man a choice to live in perfect harmony with God by choosing out of love to obey, or man could live on a broken planet apart from God out of selfishness to disobey. All of the sudden, the world makes sense.

Why is everything broken? Because it’s the world mankind chose.

A foundational principle of Scripture is that, like elections, choices have consequences, and the consequences involve life and death.

So how do things get fixed?

Proposition: Know where you are in relationship to God.

1. God wants us to know where we are.

Adam and Eve hid their nakedness from each other, and they hid themselves from God.

Today, we’re still hiding! Atheists hide by ignoring and saying God does not exist. Self-righteous people hide behind others’ unrighteousness that is worse than their own. Others hide by redefining God and remaking Him in their minds.

ILL: Many say they believe in God! That sounds great, but they merely believe in the God Who they’ve made themselves to believe in—they have tried to hide from the real God!

A. Adam was ashamed.

Adam was ashamed of his failure and the broken relationship. And the source of the shame came from knowing he had violated his conscience, which came from being created by God.

It was some time before God showed up. Enough time for Adam and Eve to sew fig leaves together.

The world, like Adam and Eve, sow “fig leaves” to cover their sin and thoughts about sin.

God’s presence reminded them of the punishment for their sin, which was death.

Genesis 2:17 KJV 1900

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

They do not listen to God’s Word.

Instead, the world listens to its father, the god of this world, the devil, whose message is filled with lies to encourage sin.

The world, the flesh, and the devil dangle temptation before us!

1 John 2:16 KJV 1900

For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world.

They rename and redefine “sin,” so that they do not may try to ignore the shame.

The world argues that if they could remove the influence of the Bible and religion, then everything would be fine.

It is not the influence of God’s Word that is the problem; sin and our depraved nature is the problem!

What the world says is that if God and His people would stop existing, then they could feel good about doing what they wanted.

Not so fast. Because we are created in God’s image, we have an innate sense of right and wrong—fair and unfair—choosing and judging—loving and hating. These are not evolutionary principles that govern animals, these are part of our personality and relationships.

Romans 1:32 KJV 1900

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

B. Adam was apart.

Adam started seeing things differently.

Now, he saw sin, and he started seeing the consequences of his sin.

ILL: John MacArthur describes Adam’s realization of sin as if Adam had taken a stone out from the corner of a mountain that caused an avalanche of death to cover all of humanity.

Prior to sinning, Adam and Eve were close to God. After sinning, the corruption of sin instantly showed. They evaded God, and they were unwilling to repent of their sin.

People saw each other differently. They lost God’s holiness. They saw each other as objects to lust over and as obstacles and stepping stones to happiness and fulfillment.

Being apart became a chain instead of freedom.

Sin’s conscience brought about a broken self-consciousness of values, where previously mankind was focused on glorifying God.

Transition: When God came, it was the evening, like when He often came. He may have been speaking as He came—it says Adam and Eve heard God’s voice. “Hey, guys, how was your day? Where are you?” If we had to describe this day, we could say it was a really bad, terrible, no good day. Adam and Eve did what they never did before—hid. Usually, they would have been running to God to spend time with Him.

Genesis 3:8 KJV 1900

And they heard the voice 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 amongst the trees of the garden.

Think about it. Adam was trying to hide from an all-seeing God in God’s own garden. It makes no more sense for Adam to hide in the garden than it does for any of us to hide from God in our own philosophies and arguments. The only way to protect ourselves from God’s judgment is to run, to flee to Him! But sin said otherwise: “Hide!”

2. God wants us to know where He is.

Genesis 3:9 KJV 1900

And the Lord God called unto Adam, and said unto him, Where art thou?

God knew sin caused shame and distance to curse Adam and Eve, but what was God doing? He was pursuing the newly-marred sinners. “Where are you?” Would it have been just for God to kill the pair? Certainly, yes. But God showed grace to not destroy them. When God asks about where you are, He wants you to know your spiritual condition in relation to Him.

Did Adam and Eve acknowledge their sin?

Genesis 3:10 KJV 1900

And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.

Nope. Neither of them said, “We ate the fruit You said not to eat.” They tried to deflect and distract, but they never came to the point of acknowledging what they were really hiding: a new love—sin, wrapped up in the Pride of life, the lust of the eyes, and the lust of the flesh. They still wanted what Satan promised them—to be like God.

Do you know why many do not go to churches where God is present and the Bible is preached? Because sinners naturally gravitate to religious institutions and other pursuits where they will not be exposed to God. Instead of freedom, they choose shame and slavery to sin—and fear crushes real joy.

God tried to put the words of confession in Adam’s mouth:

Genesis 3:11 KJV 1900

And he said, Who told thee that thou wast naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?

Did you catch what they said next?

Genesis 3:12 KJV 1900

And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.

Adam and Eve kept pushing God away and not confessing they ate from the forbidden tree!

Often we say that Adam was passing the buck down to Eve, but note Who gave Eve to Adam…God. God Who was the good guy, all of the sudden when truth confronts sin the sinner blames God for His sin! “If only you had not given me Eve!” (I wonder if Eve’s jaw dropped…and maybe they had a few arguments over that one later!)

Adam went from being the most-blessed guy ever…great land, a great wife—perfect—all the sudden he is pulling the victim card. “God, it’s Your fault, and there’s something wrong with the wife you gave me.”

As long as people can maintain their victim status, they think they are off the hook. No, God has principles that detangle such tangled thinking.

God speaks to Eve, and then the disastrous duo is banned from the Garden. Adam and Eve are separated from God. They want nothing to do with God. They feel as if everything was lost due to God.

ILL: God kept talking with them, even with the Devil who was present at the scene, and they never confessed to sinning and being apart from God. To put it in modern vernacular, God was waiting for Adam to say, “I’ve fallen, and I can’t get up.”

They rejected God. Why?

Jeremiah 17:9 KJV 1900

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

But God kept pursuing the sinful duo with His holy love.

A. I am here, and I love you.

Genesis 3:15 God prepared His sacrifice to show us His love.

B. I am here, and I have a plan.

Earlier we asked how we can get to the point of God forgiving us? Skipping ahead on the timeline of history, the point of our forgiveness is the cross upon which Jesus died.

God pursued us by sending His Son, Jesus!

Romans 5:8, But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

C. I am here if you want to be close again.

Adam moved. God had not—except God pursued Adam.

God doesn’t force people to know Him.

The greatest freedom is making a choice—choices show what we love.

ILL: John Gill, was an extremely intelligent Baptist preacher who preached in 1700’s London at a time of persecution when England was pushing back against her Christian foundation. At age 11, he had learned Greek and had read the New Testament. He taught himself Hebrew on his own time using a dictionary. At age 12, John Gill’s pastor preached a sermon, and the words that stuck with him for seven years are from our text (Genesis 3:9). These words drew Gill to Christ, knowing as a sinner he was apart from God, and Gill professed Christ as his Savior at age 19. You may not know who John Gill is, but he pastored a church for 51 years that later became the Metropolitan Tabernacle pastored by Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

Conclusion: Where are you?

As soon as mankind had sinned and broke his relationship with God, God broke the silence and got Adam's attention. God wanted the rest of history to be petitioned by His love, His plan, and His invitation.

This theme repeats through the Bible and is true today.

But God writes this to get our attention and to ask you, “Where are you?”