I want to finish a series I've been doing, talking about Fig Leaves and other kinds of coverings people put up. How many found that there's been some fig leaves around, you've discovered in the last couple of weeks? That's right, we suddenly find we're covering up all kinds of stuff. The Holy Ghost of course, is a sign to uncover everything; but let's just go back and pick up where we were, and then I'll just draw this to closure today. In Genesis 3 Verses 7 to 10, and it says: then the eyes of both of them were opened. They knew they were naked, and now they made a choice at that point. They had done wrong, they felt guilt and shame, and they were aware their condition was not what God intended. They'd sinned and fallen short of what God had given to them, in other words they were aware of failure in their life. They were aware of a mess in their life.
Now at that point they had a choice, here's the choice: run to God; run away from God. When something's gone wrong in your life, there's a mess in your life, you have a choice: run to God; or try and control your world, run away from God. It's always the same, it's never been any different. When you're in pain, when you're struggling, when you've got difficulties, pressures, you'll make a choice: run to God, or run way from Him, and try and control your world. We see of course, if they had run to God and asked for mercy, they would have been forgiven, this whole deal wouldn't have happened like it has. Instead they covered up, they covered themselves, and drew back from being true and authentic with one another. They then, when they heard the voice of God, they ran and they hid themselves among the trees. Notice awareness of God caused them to run and hide.
You notice, when you begin to talk about God with people, immediately they go into hiding; or angry reaction, which is another form of hiding? They don't always talk openly about what's going on, and this is a legacy of the fall. We would rather control our life and our world, than surrender and acknowledge our need for God; and this is the core of what this whole thing's about. I've counselled people in these last few weeks, where issues like this are coming up. I've counselled over years. It's always the same. We choose to run to the Lord in our pain, brokenness and need, and discover His way of resolving and working our way out of things; or we try and control the pain, and take control of our own world. It always was down to that, so inevitably when it comes to facing issues in your life, whatever those issues are, the core issue at the bottom of it will be fear and shame, and attempts to control your world.
So God wants us to be authentic. We started off we were looking at the Good Samaritan parable, how the man went and entered the world of others. If we're going to enter the world of people, we need to have some awareness of our own life, and awareness of what God is doing and has done, and we also need to be able to enter and be aware of where other people are at. When you've never let God work in your own life, you don't really have a lot of sensitivity, awareness of people; and notice in Genesis 3 Verse 21, in spite of all that happened God, still made provision for them. It's always in the heart of God to provide for our nakedness, lack, brokenness and pain. This is the heart of God. God wants to help. Whatever you're going through, God wants to help; and not only that, God makes provision, but inherently in God's provision, there is a cost.