Part Three

“Where are you?”  That’s the first thing God asks after Adam ate the fruit.  What an odd question for God to ask. As if God lost Adam. As if all of the sudden the all-knowing, all-powerful God could not locate his creation. But it’s a good question. A question mankind has been trying to answer ever since that day.

The first thing that happened in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve “fell” was they lost a sense of who they truly were and where they truly were. Hence, God asked the question, “Where are you?” he wanted them to be honest with themselves. God knew where they were, that wasn’t the problem. Adam and Eve were the ones lost. Not God. God asked them this because before he could move them toward the next part of the journey with him, they had to be honest with themselves.

We inherited this from our original parents.

Where am I?  Well, physically I’m sitting at a coffee shop enjoying my favorite brew of coffee and a baklava. That’s obvious, but is that really where I am?  Or am I in the whirl wind swirling inside my soul, my mind, my spirit. That’s not as obvious. And I am a master at hiding that, even from myself.

It’s a funny thing; being honest with yourself. Why do we try and lie to ourselves anyhow? It’s not like we can outrun the truth. But we try. The smoker keeps smoking saying, “This isn’t hurting me”. The obese keep eating saying “I am just a big person”. The husband and wife keep living separate lives saying, “This is normal, all couples do this.” It is lies. All lies. And those lies lead to death. Sometimes those lies lead to a physical death, and sometimes to the death of a part of our lives.

But truth, the truth sets you free.

If you ever want to move from where you are, you have to first be honest about “where you are”. Most of us think where we are not that bad. We rationalize. We make excuses. We will do anything in the world to keep from accepting where we truly are. The truth of the matter is, however, until we are honest about where we are we are doomed to stay stuck there. You cannot possibly move from where you are to where you want to be without knowing where you really are!

Let’s play pretend. Say someone blindfolds you. Then they put you into a helicopter. You fly for hours and hours. Then you land in the middle of the woods in some wilderness, are taken out of the helicopter, given a map but not told where you are, just topography, and a compass, the blindfold is removed and people who brought you leave you only telling you to meet them back in Atlanta Georgia. What do you do?  You would have a million questions wouldn’t you? But before any of those questions mattered you would have to know one essential thing, “Where am I?” You must know where you are before you know which way to head. Go north? I don’t know! Where am I? Go south? I don’t know where I am? And what if the helicopter just flew in circles for hours and you are only a few miles from Atlanta? Or what if the helicopter flew all the way to New York State? You don’t know so you are LOST!

So where are you?

Probably not where you think you are.  Now, I am going to drop a bomb on you. This is going to take some of you by surprise. Some of you will argue with me, and that’s okay, I am used to it. But before you can move anywhere you have to be honest about this one thing. You are not okay. You are not okay, and you are not ever going to be okay in and of yourself. This is where Adam went wrong. Let us make fig leaf loin cloths. Let us hide behind a tree. We will be okay. But the fig leaf can’t hide our brokenness. And a tree, that God created, couldn’t hide the brokenness that was inside of Adam and now inside of us. 

So why is this essential? Because until you realize you are a sinner you will never need a savior. Charles Spurgeon said, “If your sin is small then your Savior will be small. But if your sin is great then your Savior must be great also.” Honesty. You need honesty. You are not that great. You are not doing okay. You do not have it under control. You are a SINNER! You may answer, “Well at least I am not _________” you fill in the blank, a murderer, prostitute, drug dealer, child molester. . . To that I would say to you, that’s great that you are not those things. However, do you ever tell a lie? Do you ever get jealous? Ever envy anyone? Get angry? Yeah, I thought so. The bible puts those things in the same list as the former. You are not okay.

Now that I have boosted your self-esteem, let’s close this part out with a promise. If you will become honest with yourself about where you are, and if you will come to grips with your sinful human nature, God will do some pretty miraculous stuff in your life. I promise. He’s not going to make you awesome. He’s not going to stop you from sinning, he paid for those anyhow, but what he will do is show you your need of The Savior. This is how we begin that journey of eighteen inches.