God said to Adam and Eve, He called them and said: “where are you?” “I heard your voice in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” Now before Adam and Even fell, you have to understand this: they walked in love and in unity with God, and in love and in unity with one another. That's how it all started - it started with love and connection - God was joined to them. The spirit of God was joined to them, they were clothed in the glory of God. Whatever they did, they enjoyed absolute peace and security, unbroken fellowship with God. What they chose to do was this: they rejected their Father's love. The rejected the love God has; because if we love Him, we'll do what He says.
They rejected God's love; they rejected Him. They sinned against love, and against relationship.
Here's something people don't think. We think of sin: you do something bad. Actually when we sin, we sin against love, we sin against relationship. Someone is always affected by our sin - and so they rejected the Father's love. Now what happened as a consequence of this, they lost a number of things - the Bible says they “fell”. What does that mean, they fell? Here's what they lost: they lost something they walked in.
The first thing is, they lost their relationship with their Father. In other words, they had no relationship with the Father. That left them disconnected from a Father, without identity; without a Father to father them, they had to father themselves - they became spiritual orphans in the world. That's the first thing that happened - they were cut off from the love of God. Now if you're cut off from the love of God, guess what? You've got to find it somewhere else, because you're designed for love. People will always find love, and value, and identity somewhere.
Second thing is, they lost their identity. They're no longer a child of God - He is not owning-up to them, He's no longer their Father. They're separated from their Father. Now they have no identity, and when a person's got no identity, you know what happens? They feel insecure; they feel threatened; they feel defensive; they feel afraid; they feel ashamed.
You know what the question is: who am I? The question people ask everywhere - Who am I? People don't know who they are, because they define their identity out of what's around them, and who they're connected to, rather than what God says we are.
So he lost his identity; and the next thing they lost was the supernatural life of God that kept them alive. So eventually they were going to get sick, they're going to grow old and die. What a tremendous loss - embracing the knowledge of good and evil, but letting go their Father, their relationship with God as Father. Their lives were dramatically transformed; so what happened inside them? A number of things happened...
The first thing you notice is: emotional turmoil - fear, grief, guilt, shame, pain. You notice they were so emotionally-numbed that God actually had to push them out of the garden.
What happened then? What came into the heart of man is: I need to be someone; and if I need to be someone, I'm going to have to do something, to be someone. I want to be someone - you know what - I'll get a lot of money, then I'll be someone. No matter how much money you get, you're still not someone, because you're separated from your source, where you came from.
I know what I'll do, I'll get a lot of possessions, and I'll get cars and boats and houses - and I'll get all these things - so there's an ambition to get more and more things, but people still aren't happy. Why? They still don't know who they are, because you're not defined by your money, and you're not defined by your possessions.