I’ve encountered a lot of resistance to the Gospel message over the years. I used to resist it myself before Jesus was really introduced to me. And in mostly every instance, it boils down to one single thing… the unwillingness of the person to let Jesus restore them. And I’m choosing my words very carefully here. You see, there usually is no argument that a restoration needs to happen… most people accept that, but where they have difficulty (and where I also had difficulty myself) was in recognizing who the active agent of that restoration actually is. Again, most people are not willing to simply let Jesus restore them, they usually want to be restored by some other means or method – usually themselves.
This is nothing new however, it has been going on since the beginning in the Garden of Eden; and a lot of people are stuck in the spiritual mud with this mentality that they must achieve restoration some other way before presenting themselves to God. The reasons for this are sometimes fear, and sometimes pride.
The prideful ones want to try and impress God: They want to have a Tada! Moment where they can say to God something along the lines of “Here I am, all nice and clean for you! Aren’t you proud of what I did?”
And the fearful ones are too afraid to approach God at all because they know that they are dirty and are afraid of His reaction.
Both of these are mentioned in scripture, and I have personally lived on both sides of the aisle myself as well. What I want to share with you today is how to truly handle both of these situations, and find real peace with God, not through your own efforts, but by letting Jesus truly restore you.
Now as I mentioned, there are two main reasons that people generally do not allow Jesus to restore them: one is fear, the other is pride. And I perfect example of this can be found in Genesis chapter 3. Take a look at verses 7 and 8 to start with:
“And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.
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 among the trees of the garden.”
This is immediately following Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Notice that verse 7 says that the eyes of both of them were opened – but their eyes were opened to a very specific fact… that they were “naked”.
Now, this is not the same nakedness mentioned at the end of Genesis 2 – this is actually an important point. You see, Genesis 2:25, it says this:
“And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.”
And there is what appears to be a subtle difference in Hebrew… the word for naked in Genesis 2:25 is עָרוֹם, pronounced “arom”
while the word for naked in Genesis 3:7 is עֵירֹם, pronounced “erom”.
This may not be a big difference in pronunciation, but it is a rather large difference in overall meaning. One is associated with virtue and divine glory, and one is associated with shame. And this is the point that I want to share with you here… after the fall, their eyes were opened, not so much to their physical nakedness as we tend to think of it, but to their shame.
And as we look at verse 8 of Genesis 3, we see what the result of that is:
“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 among the trees of the garden.”
Now, with this new kind of shameful awareness, they ran and hid from the LORD.
Stop here, and consider a few things… we typically behave with this very same mindset – we shouldn’t, but we do.
Our natural reaction is to run away from God, whenever we are made aware of something about ourselves that we find shameful. If we commit a sinful act, our natural instinct tells us to do exactly what Adam and Eve did here, and withdraw from God. I wonder where this “natural instinct” came from!
You see, we have been trained and taught by the same fallen nature of Adam and Eve, and it’s the wrong kind of training! They obtained the Knowledge of Good and Evil, because they wanted to be like God, and instead they lost the divine glory they already had (the “arom” from above, where they were not ashamed), and the next thing you know, they hear the voice of God and go run and hide.
Now modern church-ianity tells us that God hates sin and can’t dwell with sin… that part is true, but what we typically infer from it is not. You see, as a young boy, I heard two main things from church every week “God hates sin” and “you are a sinner” – now I admit, I wasn’t the brightest bulb in the lamp, but I knew that two-plus-two equals four, so if I was a sinner and God hated sin, then the natural conclusion that I came up with was that God hated me and didn’t want anything to do with me!
That is the wrong conclusion, but I can tell you that there are millions of people out there in the world today that still think the same way that I used to. They still think that God hates them and that they are sinners and God doesn’t want anything to do with them… and they get reminded of those lies, and have those lies reinforced and pounded deeper into them every single week from pastors who don’t know any better and it needs to stop!
Look at verse 9:
“And the LORD God called to Adam, and said to him, Where are you?”
Very interesting! So a simple question: which of the two parties has withdrawn from the relationship here? Is God the one who pulled-back? Is God the one who said, I don’t think we should fellowship any longer? No! It was Adam and Eve who hid! Not God! God didn’t say “Ugh! I can’t stand to look at you now! I can’t stomach being around you!” No! Not at all! But it was Adam and Eve’s own shame that caused them to run and hide!
God here is calling to them, asking Adam where he is, not because God doesn’t already know – of course He does! But if you remember all of the studies that we have done on relationship and identity, we know that there are indeed two places for us to be in… sin, and righteousness. God, through His amazing question here is pointing out the fact that Adam’s position has changed, he was no longer where he should be. This is not a question so much about physical location, as it is about a spiritual location.
Notice that it was Adam and Eve in verse 7 who made coverings for themselves as they suddenly had their eyes open to their shame… so not only were they in shame and guilt due to the Knowledge of Good and Evil (which they were never meant to have), but they were trying to solve the problem themselves… and that didn’t work either so they ran and hid.
And as I stated in the opening, there are many people traveling this same exact road today. It is a deadly trail because it cuts off the one avenue to life, and that is God Himself. Jesus is the Way (John 14:6) but if you are feeling so guilty and ashamed and self-determined to clean yourself that you hide yourself from God, you are actually cutting off your only avenue of escape.
Do you see? It’s a viscous circle. It’s like quicksand… the more you struggle, the deeper you sink. The only way out is through another external influence… and in this case the Way again is Jesus.
In verse 21, God made coats of skin and clothed both Adam and Eve. Their own efforts to clothe themselves was not sufficient. This is the other part that we need to understand… we cannot undo the damage ourselves. We cannot clean ourselves up.
Typical human pride wants to say “Yeah, maybe I did wrong, but I can fix it by doing right! I can offset the cost of my wrong by doing better!” And you have missed the point of it all. It’s like trying to re-clothe yourself just as Adam and Eve tried to do – and we see the results of that.
Trying to fix yourself, is not only futile, but as mentioned earlier, it is deadly! It will place you on a never-ending treadmill… and the one thing about treadmills, is that it’s a lot of effort, but you never actually get anywhere!
I have known people who spent their entire lives, trying to clean themselves, only to realize at the end, that it was still never enough… that’s why it is deadly! Because you will be so busy trying to fix yourself, you never go to the One who can actually fix you: Jesus! He is the one who restores you.
I want to close the study today, by showing you an awesome picture of Jesus’ restoration of what was lost in the Garden of Eden… Turn over to Luke 24:30-31:
“And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and broke, and gave to them.
And their eyes were opened, and they knew him; and he vanished out of their sight.”
Here we see Jesus breaking bread, in a fashion very similar to communion, with two people that He met on the Emmaus road. And as He gave them the bread, notice verse 31: their eyes were opened… however this time, their eyes were not opened to their own shame – no – their eyes were opened, and they knew Him! Oh, my friend, do you see the beauty of this?
Jesus is your restoration! Jesus is your redemption! Jesus is the Way! He is the Tree of Life!
I encourage you today, get off of the treadmill! Stop trying to clean yourself! Stop trying to fix yourself! Stop trying to restore yourself!
Simply let Jesus restore you. And you will have what you have been searching for… peace with God, and a fully restored, unhindered relationship. One where you don’t need to be ashamed, or run and hide, but you can have unbroken fellowship with God, the way it was always meant to be.
Be blessed.