Why Would the Guilty Seek the Judge?

to the book of Genesis. We'll read in chapter 3 of Genesis, verse 8 through 21. Genesis 3, verse 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. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you?

He answered, I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid. And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? The man said, the woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it. And the Lord said to the woman, what is this you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals. crawl on your belly, you will eat dust all the days of your life.

And I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. To the woman, he said, I will greatly increase your pains and childbearing. With pain you will give birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband and he will rule over you. To Adam he said, because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, you must not eat of it.

Cursed is the ground because of you. Through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground. And since from it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you will return."

Adam named his wife Eve because she would become the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 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. So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he'd been taken. After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life. Let's pray. Our Father, we come to you asking for your blessing.

We come to you with confidence that you will hear us and that you will answer our prayers in whatever way is best according to your will. And we trust, Lord, that that will and that way is what's best for us. Whatever that may be, today, tomorrow, or the rest of our lives, We know we can trust in you, Lord, which makes living in this cursed world so much better. Without that knowledge that you've given us, we just would live in a cursed world, being tossed around by the breeze.

But instead, we can understand and know that it is all according to the perfect will and plan of our Father who loves us. What a blessing. We thank you for that, Lord. We thank you for your perfection, for your ultimate power, for your love for us and for our Savior. Bless our time this morning that it would be about Christ, that it would be about Him and what He has done. And we pray that you'll do that for all of your churches and all of your people throughout the world. Bless our souls. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen. So we will stay in Genesis and be preaching from there this morning.

The more I do this, the more I notice there's different ways I come, God brings me to a place where I'm ready to preach a message. Sometimes it's straight from scripture, where I'm reading scripture and it's like, okay, this is it, this is what I'm gonna talk about today. David was a prime example of that the last couple weeks. Other times he puts a concept in my mind and then I kinda go find it. And that's what happened today, or this week.

I was thinking about Arminianism, free will, and how different it is compared to what we believe. Not necessarily a great place to be, as far as your heart is concerned, to just be comparing theological ideas. Not that it's a bad thing, but our focus should be on Christ. But, you know, I hear all these things and see a lot of these things, and we all see it, it's all over the world, about finding God and searching for him and accepting him.

I was just looking through scripture from the very beginning, which is why I was in Genesis, of when sin began, which is exactly what we're looking at here today in Genesis, the very first sin. And what pattern was put in place when it came to sin and redemption? Was there an effort to find God or to accept him from the very first sin? Did the guilty seek the judge? That's what really stuck on me this week. Why would the guilty ever seek the judge? You hear this, I found God, I accepted God, I invited Christ into my heart. And a lot of these phrases are shorthand. People don't even really understand what they're saying half of the time. It's become figures of speech. But they're wrong. figures of speech, shorthand or not.

And instead, we should ask that question, why would, if I am guilty, why would I seek the judge? Why would I want to go find the judge? I mean, put that into a worldly perspective. If you've committed a crime, a serious crime, and you're guilty, and everyone knows it, and all the evidence points to you, and there's no way out of it, but you haven't been caught yet. Are you gonna go to the courtroom and look for the judge?

No, you're gonna do everything you can to avoid it. That is no different when it comes to spiritual life. We are all guilty. from this specific sin that we read about with Adam and Eve to every countless sin that has happened since and continues to happen every second of every day, we are guilty. And there is one judge. Why on earth would the guilty seek the judge? The guilty hide. That's the pattern that we see from the very beginning. Your natural instinct is not to run to the judge, it is to avoid it. It is to hide. Guilt makes you hide. And that is exactly where the Bible begins. The first human beings had just committed the first sin and what did they do?

They certainly didn't go looking for God. They did not run to God asking for mercy. They did not run to God to confess their sins. They did not worship, they hid. And it's interesting, because if you think about it, they know God on a personal level. They would walk with him in the cool of the evening. They know they can't hide from God, but yet they did.

That's what sin does. It makes us hide. Guilt always hides. Sin always separates. We even see that in our own relationships. You have guilt around someone, you avoid that person. You've done something to hurt someone, you avoid that person. Guilt hides, sin separates. Everyone knows this instinct. It's in us from the very beginning. Think about if you're a kid and you break a lamp. in your mom's house, in your six, what do you do?

You try to hide it. Like you're gonna get away with it. Like she's not gonna eventually find out. But you still try to hide it. I may have actually done that. I don't remember. Yeah, okay. But that's in us. Employees at work, you make a mistake, what do you do? Try to cover it up. Hopefully nobody finds out. Criminals hide evidence, and sinners hide from God. The very first response to sin is not seeking. It is not looking. It is hiding.

And then God shows up, and this is incredible. God comes walking into the garden and says, where are you, Adam? Not that he didn't know where Adam was. He's God. He knows everything. But that was the first step towards reconciliation. And who took it? God did. Man was still hiding in the trees. He was initiating redemption. The first movement towards salvation is never man seeking God. Not from the very beginning. It is God seeking his people. The shepherd seeking the lost sheep.

The pattern is throughout the entire Bible. And the other interesting part is you'll notice in Genesis here at verse seven, before God even arrives, you see basically the beginning of the first man-made religion. Adam and Eve attempt to solve their own problem, which is what worldly religion is. Worldly religion is exactly that.

Men trying to solve their own problem, their own situation with God. Trying to find a way on their own to not be under the judgment of God. Adam and Eve did exactly that, what'd they do? They sewed fig leaves together. The very first religion in history is man trying to cover their own shame. Every false religion is built on that exact same principle. Do enough. Get out there. Put some effort in. Become good enough. Fix yourself. Improve yourself. Cover your guilt. Present something more acceptable.

These aren't the moves of someone like an atheist. These are Christians, right? This is Adam and Eve. They know God. It's not that this is an atheist. This is someone that has a connection and a relationship with God that we don't even understand. But yet here he is, diving headfirst into religion the minute sin is introduced. He simply trusted his own covering. But when God comes, God doesn't even mention their own efforts. Doesn't even give it attention. Because man's covering can do nothing.

What can fig leaves do to cover the sin and nakedness of Adam and Eve? I mean, That is how effective our efforts are in covering our sin in front of the immortal and holy God. No better than a fig leaf. You have broken the one and only rule he gave you, immediately realized your sin to the point of realizing what nakedness even is, and what's your attempt? Some leaves. Obviously not effective. but neither is what we offer, no better than leaves to cover the ultimate sin.

So you notice this order, God seeks, God speaks, where are you, Adam? God exposes their sin, then God pronounces judgment, and then in verse 15, God promises a deliverer. Verse 15, and I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. God promises a deliverer before Adam even utters a single word of redemption or prayer, nothing.

He sat there covered in leaves. and God shows up seeking, finding, and providing. This is the gospel. We are hiding and guilty and have nothing to offer. God finds us, opens our eyes, shows us the guilt we have, and then offers the solution, provides the solution, all in one swoop. Adam did nothing. Adam sat there, covered in leaves. There's something pathetic about that picture, and it's meant to be, because we are, in our own efforts, we are covered in leaves.

So God announces redemption, the seed of the woman will crush the serpent even while pronouncing judgment. God is revealing mercy from the very first sin. The gospel begins before Adam even asks for it. Adam hadn't even, the idea of redemption hadn't crossed his mind. Sin was new, pure panic. but grace always begins with God. Not Adam, not me, and not you. And then in verse 21, it talks about how the Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.

Joe used to talk about this, and I loved it every time, because it is such a beautiful picture. So we've talked that God has shown up after the very first sin. He's the one that seeked. He's the one that found. He's the one that provided the answer. And how does he cover their sin? By spilling blood. There must be blood to pay for sin. He spills the blood of an innocent animal so that the guilty can be clothed. Blood is shed and a covering is provided. Who provides it? God. Adam contributed nothing, he doesn't hunt the animal, he doesn't prepare it, he doesn't make the garments, God does everything.

So even here in the opening pages of the entire Bible, from the very first sin that has ever happened, shadows of the cross. Everything points to Christ. We know it, we hear it, we say it, but we see it over and over and over. This is the beginning of sin, which means it's the beginning of redemption. And all of it immediately, and I mean immediately, points to the Savior. The innocent dies so the guilty are clothed.

Already we see God himself provides what his justice requires. Adam would later tell Isaac, God will provide the lamb. John the Baptist would declare, look, when he's looking at Christ, he would say, look, the lamb of God. The shadow of the cross appears already in the Garden of Eden.

So from Genesis onward, God is always the one initiating redemption. Noah doesn't invent salvation, God provides an ark. Abraham doesn't provide the sacrifice, God provides the ram. Israel doesn't invent atonement. God established the sacrifices. And the prophets didn't create hope. God sent the prophets. God sends them. Everywhere you look, God provides. God seeks. The pattern is unmistakable. It's constant from the beginning to the end. Turn to Luke, chapter 15, verses 1 through 7. Very well-known parable. Again, this is Luke 15. Then Jesus told them this parable.

Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors and say, rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep. I tell you that in the same way, there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent. When Jesus tells the story of the lost sheep, he's reminding Israel of something they should already know, something we should know at this point.

The shepherd seeks. There's an emphasis there. The sheep doesn't find the shepherd, The shepherd finds the sheep. The sheep contributes only one thing. It is lost. And sheep can be so dense, they don't even know they're lost. They just walk off eating grass. Everything else belongs to the shepherd.

He's the one that searches. He's the one that finds. He's the one that lifts. He's the one that carries. He doesn't lead the sheep back on its own strength. He literally picks it up and carries it home. And he's the one that rejoices. It's the story of redemption. Lost and did not know it. Found and brought home. Why doesn't the sheep look for the shepherd? Because sheep don't understand how lost they are.

And Paul says this about us in Romans. He says there is, think about this. This does not fit with modern Christianity. Paul says there is no one who seeks God. You will ruffle some feathers saying that. But it's in the scripture. It's true. That statement shocks our pride. We seek all the time. But what we seek is worldly things. We seek happiness. We seek relief. We seek emotions that are more enjoyable than others. That's our daily life.

We don't seek God, we're selfish. People seek happiness, people seek purpose in their life, but fallen humanity will never naturally seek the God of the scriptures because he is the judge. and the guilty do not seek the judge. Adam didn't. Adam hid in the trees, and neither do we.

Turn to Ephesians chapter two. As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air. Paul doesn't merely say we are guilty. He says we're dead. Dead people can't seek. Dead people can't respond. Dead people can't accept. Dead people can't create life.

But then Paul uses an interruption that is quite often some of the best words in the entire scriptures. But God. Changes everything because God acts. God changes things. Not because man improves, but because God makes alive. Think this, grace doesn't reward spiritual life. Grace creates spiritual life. Jesus leaves no room for misunderstanding, and John, he says, all those the Father gives me will come to me. The giving is before the coming. Then he says, no one can come to me unless the Father draws them.

I remember Joe talking about Star Trek, which of course he was talking about Star Trek, but he brought up a tractor beam. You set your sights on something and you just, you pull it in. Quite often, that's not where that object wants to go. You're pulling it against its will and against all of its might.

As dorky as that is, it's pretty accurate. It says, no one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws them. The Father gives, the Father draws, and then the sinner comes. Now, the coming is real. We do look to him, but not on our own accord. Faith is real, but it is not ours.

It says it's a gift from God, which is exactly how we should want it to be because any faith that doesn't come from God is not a faith I'm interested in. It will get you nowhere. If my faith is mine alone and something that came directly from this broken heart, that faith won't last a day. Which is exactly why faith is a gift from God. That faith is real and it is yours, but it's given to you. That's why that faith, no matter from day to day, it might feel strong one day, it might feel weak the next day, it never changes, it never goes away. Your perception of it might, but it doesn't because it belongs to God who never changes. So that faith is real, the coming is real, the repentance is real, but Christ explains why anyone comes, because of God who gives his people to his son and draws them in.

In Eden, an innocent life was taken so guilty people could be covered. That was a picture, obviously. It was a shadow of what was to come. It was not the substance. At Calvary, the true lamb died. Not merely to cover, but to put away sin. Hebrews tells us that Christ offered himself to God. The only offer that took place at Calvary on the cross was from the son to the father. Which is why anytime anybody says that they are accepting anything, there was never anything offered to them. Father's justice was satisfied. That offering was accepted fully. The debt is paid, redemption for all of God's people perfectly accomplished. The good shepherd gathers every one of his sheep for whom he laid down his life. Nothing about salvation begins with us. Everything begins with God.

So now we go back to the garden. Picture Adam hiding. terrified, ashamed, confused. I mean, let's think about how new it had to be. We're all very familiar with the feeling and the guilt of sin. We were born with it. Adam was not. It would be hard to get in his head at that moment, how scary that would be. We have a natural guilt in our hearts knowing the judgment that sin brings from God, but we didn't have, first of all, ever an understanding of perfection, Adam did. We don't have a true understanding of the power and perfection of God like Adam did. So for him to realize that he had ruined everything, that moment had to be terrifying. covered in fig leaves, unable to fix what he had broken, then imagine hearing those footsteps.

If your Adam, your heart, had to sink, here comes the judge. But Adam discovered what every believer, what every one of God's people, will or has discovered. The judge came seeking and the judge came providing. And thousands of years later, the judge stepped into his own creation again.

This time, not merely to clothe sinners, but to become the sacrifice himself. This time, the covering wasn't the skin of an animal, it was the righteousness of his own son. The guilt that caused Adam to hide, that guilt from thousands of years before was laid on Christ at Calvary.

This is why Jesus could say in Luke, for the son of man came to seek and save the lost. He did the seeking and he did the saving and for who? The lost. not the searching, not the ones reaching towards heaven, the ones trying a little harder than others. He came to seek and save the lost, just like that poor, pathetic sheep. Lost, so lost, doesn't even know it. So we go back to the question at the beginning, why would the guilty seek the judge? They wouldn't. Adam didn't. Neither would we.

But here is the glory of the gospel and the glory of Jesus Christ. Those who are in Christ are no longer guilty. There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, it says in Romans 8. Just the most plain sentence and statement that holds a truth that my heart can't contain. We can't seek the judge if we're guilty. So because of Christ, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Him. The guilt has been removed. Now we may approach the Father. The judge has declared us righteous because the guilt was placed on Christ and His righteousness placed on us.

The judge has not changed. The justice has not changed. The requirements have not changed. The wages of sin is death. That has not changed. just as righteous, just as holy God is, just as opposed to sin as He ever was. But what has changed is our standing before Him.

That is why the writer of Hebrews can say, let us approach God's throne of grace with confidence. Adam heard the footsteps of the judge and he hid behind the trees. The believer hears the same judge and can come boldly before the throne. Not because we're better than Adam, not because we're less sinful, not because we finally found God, but because Jesus Christ sought us when we were lost and became the sacrifice God had pictured back in Eden.

He bore the guilt that was ours. He satisfied the justice of the Father. He clothed us in his own righteousness. The judge has not changed. His holiness has not diminished. His justice has not weakened. The only thing that changed is because of Christ, those who were once guilty have been made righteous. The one from whom Adam hid is now the one who welcomes his redeemed children into his presence. This is the wonder and glory of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Never get used to it. Never get over it. The Son of God left heaven to seek those who were running from him. The shepherd searched until he found his lost sheep. The Lamb of God laid down his life for them. The risen Savior now brings them safely before the throne of his Father. Every step of salvation belongs to Christ. Every ounce of glory belongs to Christ.

So that same question, why would the guilty seek the judge? They wouldn't, but praise God, Christ did not leave us guilty. He bore our guilt, He satisfied the judge, He clothed us in His righteousness, and He reconciled us to the Father. Because of Christ, we no longer stand before God as guilty criminals before a judge. Because of Christ, we stand before Him as beloved children welcomed to His presence. not just merely cleared of guilt. The hatred that God has for sin, it's not just that that hatred was removed because the sin was removed, that hatred was replaced with the everlasting love of the Father. That is the power of the blood of Jesus Christ. So today we do seek Him, and we can seek Him, and we can look for Him, and look to Him, and we should at every corner. Not because guilty people seek judges, but because forgiven children long for their Father. This is what Christ has accomplished. He has turned fugitives into children. He's turned rebels into sons and daughters.

To Christ belongs all the glory. That is a very simple and plain statement, but if there is glory of any kind, it belongs to him. He has done all of it. He has done it all. All that is good, all that is pure, all that is loving and kind and merciful belongs to Him. All glory belongs to Him. Your salvation belongs to Him.

Your soul not paying eternally for every sin that you've committed, including Adam's, belongs to him. We are nothing but lost sheep, but we have a perfect and powerful shepherd who seeks and finds every one of his people and takes them home, joyfully, and he rejoices. That is the kind of love that our Savior and our Father has for us, for His people. So yes, the guilty would not seek the judge. But we are no longer guilty. And our Father is no longer a judge. Nothing left to judge. It's all been done already. Our Father, we thank you for loving us and for showing it in your amazing ways. By orchestrating this entire work of salvation through your Son. We are astounded by it and we praise your name. We pray this in Jesus' name, amen.

Why Would the Guilty Seek the Judge?

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Why Would the Guilty Seek the Judge?

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