Genesis 3:7-13 | Sin & Our Response
Introduction
How many of you have a repeating reaction to something in your life? Perhaps you have a funny laugh or scream that comes out when certain things happen to you, like when you're scared or when something is funny. I know some people always sneeze in certain numbers–like three in a row. My wife hiccups with her first drink of soda every single time for the 27 years I have known her!
Mine happens when I am awakened out of a dead sleep by a little person. Even worse, it happens when I sense someone breathing slightly, just standing there, staring at me, at 3AM, right at face level. The first time this happened, one of our kids had woken up in the night and, for some reason, had come to my side of the bed rather than my wife’s. They poked me to wake me up, and boy, did I wake up! I sat straight up in bed, throwing covers off, my arms cocked back, ready to defend myself and everyone else in the house from this certain intruder who chose to poke me instead of just kill me in my sleep. I don’t remember what the child needed—they probably had a bad dream or needed water or to go to the bathroom—but my reaction to being poked instantly became the larger problem in their world. Crying ensued. I felt really bad. We finally got everyone back to bed.
I’m sure for a lot of my kids, the simple answer became just going to Katie instead of me during the night. But it happened enough times that I would wake up and scare them way more than they were scaring me, so I tried to work on my reaction. I often had to think about why I would be so scared, why I would assume the worst was happening, and learn to be a little slower to react. I think it has worked—most of the time.
There are good sides to those kinds of knee-jerk reactions as well. It is why some people see a problem or an accident and run towards it, not away from it. It is why some people instantly feel indignant or offended when others are not being treated fairly. Holy reactions can helpfully orient us quickly to the right choice without much thought.
However, we all tend to have these kinds of reactions in our sin as well. We have typical ways we all tend to move and think, almost instinctively, when we all sin. And it is something to consider carefully.
Review
Last week, we reached Genesis chapter three. After all the beauty that God had created and the ways he had provided for Adam and Eve, we see that Satan, Adam, and Eve all chose rebellion and sin over relationship with God. We talked about four main sins that we see in Genesis 3:1–6:
Lust of the Flesh
Lust of the Eyes
Lust for Wisdom
Silence
Lust of the Flesh—this idea that we often just want what we want because it appeals to our senses, to our fleshly desires. Hunger. Sexuality. Comfort. Immediate gratification. This happened when Eve saw that the fruit was good to eat and desired to eat it.
Lust for the Eyes often gets confused with lust of the flesh, but Lust of the Eyes is really thinking about our internal and emotional desires more than our external or physical desires. This is the idea of ‘coveting’ in Scripture. The idea that I really have what I need, but I WANT something else. I want it because I think I deserve it. It isn’t really that bad to have it. I will be better off if I get it. This happened when Eve began to think about the fruit and desired it, we are told.
Lust for Wisdom is our desire to make the rules and not listen to God and his rules. When we choose to listen to our logic, or Satan’s logic, we can get what we want. This happened when Eve began to twist God’s words and listened to Satan’s logic to get wisdom in her own way and her timing (through the fruit), instead of waiting on God. This happened as Eve saw that the fruit was good for wisdom and took it.
And all along, we had another sin. Silence. Adam did not try to intervene with Eve and the Serpent. He did not recall God’s goodness that he had seen, even when Eve didn’t. Adam didn’t call out to God for help. He stood there in silence and took the fruit.
The recalling of the first sin entering our world through humanity and Satan has in it no excuse that any of us would have done any better, nor likely any different, than Adam and Eve. You and I regularly sin in these same ways across many areas of our lives. We actively go towards sin in many ways Eve did. Or we stand back, remain passive, and just accept sin in silence, like Adam. Between those two, we see a fair representation of the breadth and types of sin we choose often.
But praise God that we see in Jesus, the God-Man, another image and role. He is the more perfect Adam who came and succeeded where Adam failed. In Jesus’s temptation in Matthew 4, we see him face each type of temptation that Adam and Eve faced, and we see him overcome sin and Satan where they failed. That is what you and I receive from Jesus through faith as well. We don’t receive salvation and the removal of our sins alone; we also receive Jesus’s righteous life and choices. When God looks on you and me, he sees Jesus’s righteous choices and loves us in Jesus. We don’t have to worry about earning that love because we never could have done enough to satisfy the penalty of our sins. Instead, Jesus did it all for us.
That gives you, and I hope. Hope that, as believers, we can look at passages like Genesis 3 and talk honestly about our own sins. We can admit our failures, as Adam and Eve, Abraham and Sarah, David, and many others in Scripture did. We can admit those sins because Jesus has already dealt with them on the cross and given us his righteousness.
Our Reactions to Sin
We come to a similar section today. Where Genesis 3:1–6 showed us the sins of Adam and Eve, Genesis 3:7–13 shows us their reaction to sin. And we will see ourselves. Their reactions to their sin, as well as Satan’s reaction, are emblematic of how you and I react to sin all the time. Their story really is our story, which is why we need Jesus so badly. Look at our passage again with me this morning:
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(Genesis 3:7–13 ESV)
We see here again several examples that we should identify with in many ways. We see in Adam and Eve's reactions to sin include:
Fixing
Hiding
Blaming
Accepting? (Partial)
Silence
We will talk about each of those in turn this morning.
They Got What They Wanted
But before we talk about that, notice something else. Adam and Eve got what they wanted. They got a type of wisdom. But interestingly, the first thing they noticed in themselves with this wisdom was their nakedness.
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked…
Which is ironic, because they have been naked for a bit, and it hasn’t been a problem. Clearly, the weather is good, the grass must be soft, and God is not doing anything to make them feel awkward. This type of wisdom that they received after eating the fruit made them aware of something true about themselves, but now they perceive it as a bad thing when it previously hadn’t been a bad thing.
Isn’t that the interesting thing about sin? When we choose to sin, we never find a better path than the one God and others were just hiding from us. We don’t find a deep satisfaction that blows away the holy and righteous choices God encourages us to make. We don’t even find joy that lasts more than a moment. Rather, in choosing sin, what we see is ourselves better, and we find that we are exposed. Sin only reveals our weaknesses, our brokenness, our nakedness. God, in his infinite knowledge and wisdom, has always known our weaknesses and is always protecting us with his good ways and words. It really is just us who see something new in sin. In sin, we see our brokenness and need more accurately.
Fixing
And, seeing ourselves and our situation better, we react. Adam and Eve react. All of us have different impulses, different immediate thoughts when we sin. And they are usually a reaction to continue to think only about ourselves and not the one offended by our sin (whether that is God or another person).
The first reaction we see in Adam and Eve is the desire to fix the problem, to cover it up.
And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.
It is hard not to see this humorously. It reminds me of the kid whose bedroom was supposed to be clean, but you can see the bulging closet door with the sleeve of a sweatshirt sticking out underneath it, or the toys peaking out from under the bed. “Doesn’t this bedroom look so clean!” they say. “Why would you want to open the closet door or lift up the bedspread?”
We might laugh a bit thinking about Adam and Eve, noticing they were naked, grabbing some large leaves and some cordage from a tree or plant, and trying to stitch it together and cover themselves up, as though God wouldn’t notice something was different. We laugh, but we do the same thing.
How often have you noticed you have sinned, and instead of immediately confessing, repenting, and seeking forgiveness, you have thought you might just be able to do enough to cover it up, so no one will notice, and you won’t have to admit what happened? Maybe if you are extra nice to that person that you hurt, you don’t have to say you are sorry, admit the real issue, and change. Perhaps life can just go on. Or if you don’t do what you said you would do at work, maybe there is a way to talk about the project, a twist of phrase, that will make it sound okay that you don’t have the right results yet, but don’t worry, boss, I’m doing a good job. Kids, maybe it's literally pushing that broken toy into the closet or under the bed, then acting good in front of your parents, hoping you don’t really have to discuss what happened.
Like Adam and Eve, we usually try this approach when we think we have time. When we think we might just be able to make an outfit good enough to cover it up, and no one will notice. We can tell if this is one of our recurring reactions when we are surprised. What happens when you are quickly caught in a sin and confronted with it? Do you still try to fix it, cover it up, hope they won’t notice? As you may have noticed, that seldom works. As CS Lewis has said:
Surely, what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of a man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in the cellar, you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way, the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily, they will have taken cover before you switch on the light.”
CS Lewis, Mere Christianity
Are you the kind of person who, when confronted with sin, is quick to try to fix it and cover it up in your own power and not through the means of grace God has given us through confession, repentance, and seeking forgiveness? I must admit, this is probably one of my go-to reactions in my sin. And it doesn’t make me feel better to say why I tend to choose this—I believe I can think fast enough to get away with it. That I can come up with a plausible story, a reason, a justification that will work, and I, without confessing, can “fix” the problem enough that life can go on. Is that you too? That is not what God would want us to do.
Hiding
For those of us who don’t think we can fix and cover up our sin quickly, or for those of us whose fixing job might look more like a fig-leaf tank-top, we often pivot quickly to this next way of responding to sin. We try to hide it.
And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
Again, it is like the videos of those small children playing hide-and-seek, getting behind the curtains with their legs and feet sticking out, or hiding behind a pole where they can’t be seen, and thinking, “They’ll never see me here!”
For most of us, hiding looks like avoidance. Not talking about the moment and the situation, and just moving on. Acting as though nothing is wrong and hoping others will go along with us. I know for some of you that ‘ostrich with their head in the sand’ reaction is the easiest and quickest one to go to. “Sin, what sin? We’re all good!” We try to hide the sin through our words, our avoidance of others, or even our pretense that everything should be alright. Again, this may seem to work, but if we are honest, people are rarely fooled by our hiding. The question isn’t whether we succeeded in hiding the sin, but rather whether people just move on and don't make a big deal of it. And if we did hide it, what would happen one day, one day when we can’t hide it anymore?
Blaming Others
But God, in mercy and grace, won’t usually let us stay with our own fixes and hiding. He doesn’t let Adam and Eve stay there. He goes into the garden to walk and talk with his people, and, not finding them, calls out to them. Importantly, as we will see in a couple of weeks, he calls out to Adam first. And here is what happens:
And he [Adam] said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.”
God calls out to Adam, and when Adam answers, it becomes apparent quickly that he has tried to fix the problem himself and has been hiding. He admits to that. Yet when God tries to get to the root of the problem, Adam continues to sin.
Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?
That is a yes-or-no question. Adam gives another answer. It was the woman! It was her fault. And not JUST the woman’s fault. Note this audacity:
The woman whom you gave to be with me
The woman YOU, GOD, gave to me. Really, it is her fault, but even more so, God, it was your fault. Again, this makes me think of the kids in the videos who have spilled flour everywhere and turn to look at mom or dad with an expression of incredulity when asked if they spilled anything. “Who, me?!” and then point to the dog. Adam, in his desire to avoid his sin, not only throws Eve under the bus but also throws God under the bus.
How many times have you and I done exactly this? When confronted with our sin, we blame others, we deflect, we justify. When we get into an argument with our spouse or friend, the real problem isn’t that we are too quick to get angry; it's that they have angered us one too many times. They deserve it. It really is their fault. Our choice to lust is really not our problem, but the problem with the internet, the laws that don’t make pornography illegal, or the people themselves who have enticed us.
I don’t think we realize that this response—blaming others or justifying our sin—in the end is always really us blaming God. Adam was just honest with that reality.
We are told by Paul in 1 Corinthians:
No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it.
(1 Corinthians 10:13 ESV)
If we try to make our problem with sin anything other than ourselves, we are ultimately saying that God provided us with a situation that had no way out BUT to give in to the sin. We had to sin because God created a situation where I had no option. We are no different than Adam in our ultimate blaming of God when we so often blame others.
Missing the Point
You may have noticed that I have been using kid examples for these first three reactions to sinning. Kids cleaning their rooms. Kids trying to hide. Kids blaming others. When we try to fix our sin, when we try to hide, when we try to blame others, if we are honest with ourselves, that comes from a very immature place in our hearts. We are choosing to act as though we will get away with our sin, in ways that never work in our relationship with God and seldom even have the appearance of working with others. And when it does seem to work, it sadly is because we have become very sophisticated at sinning and the forever game of fixing, hiding, blaming, and repeating the same pattern again and again. That isn’t a solution.
The reason each of these is immature is that we know from God’s word that the solution to sin can’t be fixing, hiding, or blaming.
The problem with trying to fix sin ourselves is that the solution is more than we could offer. Sin against our eternally holy God deserves an eternal punishment. That is what hell is—eternal punishment fitting for all our eternally grievous sins. Short of that, we have nothing to offer to God nor ourselves to “fix” our sins.
For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(Romans 6:23 ESV)
By God’s grace, Jesus was able to take our sins and still offer us his righteous life. He was able to save us and raise himself, an amazing joy that we see at the cross and Jesus’s resurrection. Short of faith in Jesus, there is no real fix for our sins other than receiving the punishment we are due.
The problem with hiding is that no sin is ever hidden. I know this is a hard statement for many people. God has forgiven us of our sins, but we will still need to acknowledge those sins and receive that forgiveness before God’s judgment.
For nothing is hidden that will not be made manifest, nor is anything secret that will not be known and come to light.
(Luke 8:17 ESV)
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.
(2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV)
At the great throne of judgement at the end of this world, we will all stand in judgement before God for all that we have done, good and bad (Revelation 20:12). But for those of us in Jesus we don’t need to fear that moment because Jesus will lovingly look at each of us and say to us that he has taken that penalty for us. That he came exactly for us—sinners—who put our faith in him:
The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost.
(1 Timothy 1:15 ESV)
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.
(1 John 1:9–10 ESV)
The question isn’t IF we will confess our sins—we will either confess them fully here to God and those who need to know, or we will confess them at the judgement. We can stand assured either way, but they won’t be hidden.
The problem with blaming others is that it only adds to our sin and hypocrisy. Our sin is there, but now we have also offended and sinned against our brother or sister.
“Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”
(Matthew 7:3–5 ESV)
Friends, fixing, hiding, and blaming do not deal with our sin. In fact, all of these deny the gospel that we so desperately say we love. We ALL are sinners. We all have offended a holy God and his image bearers. And there is only one solution for that problem!
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.
(John 3:16–18 ESV)
This may be an odd thought for you, but this side of heaven, one of the ways we proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ is in how we handle our sins. If we truly believe the gospel of Jesus Christ, we don’t have to be afraid of our sins. Yes, our sins will still have consequences here on this Earth, but they no longer carry any eternal consequences for us. Already, we are seen as loved ones and sons and daughters of the most high God in Jesus, and we are back in relationship with God again through faith in Jesus. Because of this, we don’t need to try to fix sin ourselves—we can’t. We don’t need to hide—God sees us and will show our sins. We don’t blame others—that only adds to our problem.
Accepting? (Partially)
Yet even as we begin to see how futile these ways of reacting to sin are, we still run a risk. A risk of only partially accepting our sin. The older I get, the more I find this the easiest place to stop. Sure, I can quickly accept that many people think I made a mistake. I find it easier and easier not to hide many sins, but rather just get the sin out there because I have seen too many times how often the sin is revealed anyway. And I know the problem is first and, usually, mostly my fault anyway, so why not own it? But I don’t know that I really want to own it all the way. Notice what Eve says to God:
Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
That is a true statement. The serpent did deceive Eve. Eve did eat of the tree. But notice what she doesn’t say. She doesn’t mention that she wanted the fruit, saw it was something to be desired, and wanted her own wisdom. Eve is willing to admit to the external truths of what happened, to the facts of the moment. But Eve does not want to go to her heart. She doesn’t want to admit what was really going on with her desires and thoughts.
That is the problem with partial acceptance—it never really gets to the heart issue.
Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
(Matthew 23:27–28 ESV)
We can do a lot of work to do the right actions, confess and admit our sins, not hide them, or try to fix them, or blame others, but we can still miss the work of truly acknowledging our hearts and our heart issues. And as Jesus says, this leaves us like the Pharisees. Whitewashed tombs, an image that came from the Jewish practice of painting lime and other chemicals on the outside of tombs to make them look white and pretty and smell good, while still hiding inside death and rot. Eve appears to accept her sin without really accepting it.
I have a feeling that for most of us, this is where a majority of our lives will be spent working on our sins before God. This is where we will be challenged, again and again, to trust the gospel of Jesus while we still live this side of glory and struggle with our indwelling sin. I pray that God would be gracious to each of us so that we could get to the place where, even in our sin, we could say quickly with Paul:
So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
(Romans 7:21–25 ESV)
Even in our sin, we can acknowledge the reality of this world where you and I are still not made perfect—not yet—and are fighting sin both from without AND from within. And even when we desire to do right, sin and evil are close by and often wage war with our desire to do good. And sin wins sometimes. Until Jesus resurrects us to a body that can no longer sin, we will find this to be our struggle. And, like Paul, we can use that as a moment to not only lament our sin, to confess and seek forgiveness, but to point to the only solution we have:
Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!
Silence
I want to give a quick thought on silence. For most of us, silence is part of trying to hide from our sin, but for some, silence carries a unique problem. Note who is silent in this portion of the account. It is Satan. He says nothing. That’s because there is nothing for him to say. He did what he did, and he is not repentant in any way. In fact, this was the goal. He knows he is going down literally to hell in judgment, and his goal is to drag as many of God’s image bearers with him in the process.
Sadly, when we are silent, what many people hear in that silence is the same sin as Satan. That we meant to hurt them. That we do dislike and hate them. Silence makes it look like our sin was fully purposeful, and we wanted all that occurred, like Satan, there in the garden. I would encourage you to see that specific pain silence creates. Don’t be silent in your sin. God is a God of words for a reason. Words bring light. Words bring clarity. Words can bring healing. Don’t run to silence in your sin and inadvertently bring more pain into the situation by appearing to truly want and desire the sin you are causing.
Sin – But God!
As we said last week, it is hard to look at our sin. It is also hard to look at our reaction to sin this week. We react like Adam and Eve in many ways and instances, again proving that we would have done the same thing they did had we been in the garden. We may look at them and think sewing fig leaves is a childish way to fix the problem, and how silly they are to think they can hide from God and pretend like this wasn’t their fault (both of them), and instead point, but we do the same things. We continue to sin by only acknowledging the external facts of our sins, without addressing our hearts.
But if you are still struggling today to look at your sin, to look at your reaction to sin, notice our God here in Genesis 3:7-13. We might have expected, and it would even be right, for God to be only angry at Adam and Eve. But that is not what we see. Even though our next section of Genesis 3 is going to include punishments for sin, this entire section is FULL of GRACE.
Look again at Genesis 3:7–13:
Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”
(Genesis 3:7–13 ESV)
Here we see the Son of God, prior to being enjoined in the flesh to humanity, walking with Adam and Eve. The Son of God, the better Adam. In response to sin, he does not pretend that what Adam and Eve are doing is not sin, that nothing has happened, but instead note how he reacts.
First, does God really not know what Adam and Eve have done? Of course, he knew—he is God. In his infinite knowledge, he knows everything that has transpired. God doesn’t need these answers; he is giving Adam and Eve a chance to be known and to find, counter to everything we or they would expect, that God still loves them. Many of you know this is one of my favorite phrases:
Our greatest desire is to be known and loved.
Our greatest fear is to be known and unloved.
This is what is happening with Adam and Eve. God is demonstrating to them that he truly knows them and wants them to see that he still loves them.
God comes to them even knowing they have sinned—that alone is amazing! Even knowing what they have done, God still comes to meet with them. That is the same Jesus you and I know today as well. Our God who, knowing our sin, still came to save sinners in our sin. He still came to us knowing the sins we have committed.
The Son of God talks to Adam and Eve, confronts them gently, and lets them see, as they talk to him, that they did not fix anything, that they did not hide, and that the blame could not be shifted to anyone else. God came and confronted them in their sin, but not in anger, rather in grace. Confronting our sins today is STILL a grace from God, not punishment. We need to see who we really are so we can see the great need we have. The gospel is the gospel BECAUSE God looks at our sin and says, “I have the answer.” And that answer is Jesus.
Friends, if even today you are filled with anxiousness, fear, and worry in looking at your sin or examining your reactions to sin, don’t be. God wants us to look rightly at ourselves because he has already looked rightly at you. He truly knows you. And knowing you, he chose to die for you and your sins and to give you his righteousness. He still loves you in Jesus Christ.
Application
This morning, we can be bold and look at our reaction to sin and notice where we are still not believing in the gospel and God’s love, and seek to see, EVEN IN OUR SIN, that the gospel is true for us today.
What is your typical reaction to sin? Fixing, Hiding, Blaming, Partially Accepting?
Do you see how your reactions to sin reveal aspects of the gospel that you still don’t accept well?
Who could you confess that typical reaction to and find that in God’s grace, he will help you react rightly to your sins?
Do you see God as your God who already knows you, and by grace, loves you in Jesus? Does that make it easier to confess your sins? Why or why not?
Conclusion
I’m convinced we all need to have a much bigger gospel. A gospel that doesn’t stop with just saying a statement about Jesus once. A gospel that trusts something will be better or different in the future, but still tries to fix, hide, or blame others for our sin. A gospel that lets us fully admit and own our sins. A gospel that lets us look at our reactions to sin and to honestly assess them, because we are so certain of God’s goodness to us in Jesus that we no longer fear those sins.
Do you see God smiling on you in Jesus, even when we continue to sin? That truly is the enormity of the gospel! When we see new sins in our lives today, it is a moment for you and me to grow in our understanding of exactly how great God’s love is for us. God already knew all your sins before you lived them and STILL chose to die for them. Sins you still haven’t seen yet. Sins you know nothing about. But God knows. Just like with Adam and Eve, he knows, yet still approaches you, loves you, and cares for you. That is a big gospel. That is a big God. Every day that we see our sin and our reactions to it is simply our opportunity to continue to see just how great God’s love for us in Jesus is. To see how he is a God who truly knows and loves you.
Prayer
Communion
Benediction
“Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.
For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer. Selah
I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah
Therefore let everyone who is godly offer prayer to you at a time when you may be found; surely in the rush of great waters, they shall not reach him. You are a hiding place for me; you preserve me from trouble; you surround me with shouts of deliverance. Selah
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you. Be not like a horse or a mule, without understanding, which must be curbed with bit and bridle, or it will not stay near you.
Many are the sorrows of the wicked, but steadfast love surrounds the one who trusts in the LORD. Be glad in the LORD, and rejoice, O righteous, and shout for joy, all you upright in heart!”
(Psalm 32:1–11 ESV)
