This is the second sermon I preached on the first Sunday in Lent. It was for the 20.00am service which is a different to the early morning one.
This time I have not put in all the bible references but the links over the reference will take you to it so you can read them.
Last year I went for a week stay and rest at Titoki. While I was there I
would do readings and studies and write it all in a journal. One was from The Word for Today Saturday on 3 December 2011.
As I journaled it God gave me a lot more to
it and I felt I was to share it.
So here it is.
It’s titled
Stop Hiding!
Written by Bob & Debby Gass,
'The Lord
God called to the man, "Where are you?"' Genesis 3:9 NIV
The reading
is from
The Fall of Man
1 Now the serpent was more crafty
than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did
God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent,
“We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must
not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must
not touch it, or you will die.’”
4 “You will not surely die,” the serpent said
to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be
opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the
tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining
wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was
with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they
realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings
for themselves.
8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of
the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they
hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called
to the man, “Where are you?”
10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden,
and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”
11 And he said, “Who told you that you were
naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
12 The man said, “The woman you put here with
me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What
is this you have done?”
The woman said, “The serpent deceived me,
and I ate.”
21 The LORD God made garments of skin for
Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the LORD God said, “The man has now
become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach
out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.” 23
So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from
which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east
side[e Or placed in front] of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword
flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
The first
recorded question God ever asked was, '[Adam]...Where are you?' And it's a
question you need to stop and ask yourself today: 'Where am I - really?'
If you don't
know the answer, or you do but you don't like it, then today's sermon is for
you.
When God
asked Adam, 'Where are you?' he responded by saying, 'I heard you in the
garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid' (Genesis 3:10 NIV).
It's amazing
the lengths we will go to in order to hide.
We'll bury
ourselves in work or get obsessed with a sport, a television programme,
constantly go out maybe drinking or avoiding being on our own, building wrong
relationships, getting involved in an affair or building a wall around our hearts
- anything but face the truth.
God wasn't
trying to find Adam; God knew where Adam was. He knew what he looked like. He
knew everything about Adam.
God knows
all things but He wanted Adam to come to a place of admitting the truth and
discovering ‘himself’.
Until you do
that, you're truly lost. And the problem is, when you hide you become a phoney.
Have you any idea how much emotional energy it requires to keep up a charade
for others? Only two things are worse: being a phoney with yourself and being a
phoney with God. Furthermore, you'll find it difficult to be honest with others
or look them in the eye. Why? Because you'll be afraid they might look into
your heart and see the real you.
God just
wanted Adam to find himself.
We hear so
often in the New Age of people escaping to ‘find themselves”.
This is fine
as long as we escape to God and find who we are in Christ.
God knows-
he wants us to know.
To know the
truth – not only of where we are at but how He sees us.
We look at
the faults so easily in ourselves and others; what has been out ‘lot’ in life.
But God knows us intimately.
He doesn’t
make trash or mistakes, so what you may see as faults are His design, the way
He has ordained your life even the things we do of our own wills, to make us
into the people God wants us to be.
He uses all
circumstances to mold us into His people.
1Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in
all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
28 And we know that in all things God works
for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his
purpose. 29 For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the
likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.
He is a God
of love. He loved us so much He allowed His son, Jesus to die for us to pay for
our sins and set us free.
Free to be
who He has made us to be.
1Peter 3:18 For Christ died for
sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He
was put to death in the body but made alive by the Spirit
If you are
not happy at what you see about yourself, it is the sin you see – not the child
God made you to be
Deal with
the sin; confess it, repent of it and be free from it.
Too much
energy is wasted in trying to hide from it.
To much
energy is used to be a phoney. Its living a lie; the devil does that, he lies
and deceives us. That is what we do when we try to hide it. Hiding or lying
requires a lot of energy. To be a liar you must have an extremely great memory
or you will trip over yourself.
Is that what
you want?
Don’t tempt
the devil by entertaining this flee from it.
11 But you, man of God, flee from all this,
and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. 12
Fight the good fight of the faith. Take hold of the eternal life to which you
were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many
witnesses.
Today is the
first Sunday in Lent.
Lent is a
forty-day period before Easter beginning on Ash Wednesday. We skip Sundays when
we count the forty days, because Sundays commemorate the Resurrection and is a
time of joy and praise. By observing the
forty days of Lent, the individual Christian relives the major events in Jesus’
life in real time and imitates Jesus’
withdrawal into the wilderness for forty days.
Lent originated
in the very earliest days of the Church as a time of preparation for Easter,
when the faithful rededicated themselves and when converts were instructed in
the faith and prepared for baptism.
Lent is a
season of soul-searching and repentance.
It is a
season for reflection and taking stock.
The readings
set for today talk about the covenant - the promise God made for His people.
These are from the story of Noah...
God grieved
and was in pain at what was happening to what he created. (v11 Now the earth was corrupt in God’s sight and was full of
violence.) So he decided he would destroy all except Noah, his family and
two of every kind of living animal - because Noah had found favour in the eyes
of God.
Don’t we all
long for that?
After the
flood God made a covenant that “never again will there be a flood to destroy
the earth.”
A covenant
is a solemn agreement or written promise to engage in or refrain from a specified
action. It is commonly found in religious contexts, where it refers to sacred
agreements between God and human beings.
The rainbow
is a sign of that first covenant and God is always faithful to it as we
sometimes see when it has rained. Do you realise that? All these thousands of
years and his promise is still the same. It never changes.
God makes a
new covenant with us through Jesus. He will take away all the wrong things we
have done. So we can become God’s friends and gain eternal life. But remember the
covenant is a promise between two or more. God and us. So we have to stand by
our agreement. So where are you hiding? What are you hiding behind?
16 “No one lights a lamp and hides it in a
jar or puts it under a bed. Instead, he puts it on a stand, so that those who
come in can see the light. 17 For there is nothing hidden that will not be
disclosed, and nothing concealed that will not be known or brought out into the
open.
We are the
candle, the Holy Spirit is the light – the flame.
If we hide
under a jar the flame goes out. We – the candle are still there but we are in
darkness. But when we come out and don’t hide away in our sin we can receive the
Holy Spirits’ flame again to be a light or beacon for others to be drawn on and
so too be lit by that flame.
Luke 8:18 Therefore consider carefully how
you listen. Whoever has will be given more; whoever does not have, even what he
thinks he has will be taken from him.”
Is that
where you are today? Afraid to look into your own heart? The good news is, Genesis
3:21 The LORD God made garments
of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Adam was
naked but God clothed him; he was guilty but God cleansed him; he was anxious
but God comforted him. And if you come to Him today God will cleanse you,
clothe you and comfort you. He's just waiting for the opportunity to do it!
Make time in the rush of the
world to ask God
“What am I hiding from? What is
separating me from You? You know all about me – even when I sin I want to be
free from it. I do not want to hide or separate myself from You, God…
I confess………………….
Clothe me with your
Righteousness and help me to not pick ‘it’ up again so as to hide/separate
myself from you. Help me to [James 4:7] Submit myself [yourselves], then, to
God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from me [you.]
Come out of your hiding place
and let the glory of God – His light in your life shine so that others will be
drawn to it.
