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Origins Series – Part 3
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Good day, everyone. My name is Palumi, and I'm one of the site pastors at Kerith Bracknell. Today I want to share with you a profound biblical truth about the origins of our inner brokenness—the origins of anxiety, shame, blame, and fear.
Let me start with a personal question: Have you ever hidden because you broke something, or because you were scared or ashamed?
When I was growing up, I had a knack for taking things apart to see how they worked. That meant I was always breaking things, which got me into plenty of trouble. On one occasion, my parents were taking an afternoon nap, and I was in the living room with a piece of string. I tied a flip-flop covering to the end of it and swung it around like I was David versus Goliath. When I let it go, it flew straight into the ceiling fan and made everything grind to a halt.
I thought, "I'm in for it again." The better option, I figured, was to run away from home. There I was with a stick and a bundle tied to the end of it—the classic image. But after about thirty minutes into the journey, I realized—just like the prodigal son—that I should go back home. The route out there would be fraught with dangers, and I'd definitely be better off at home.
When I got back, my parents were awake. I had even written them a note before leaving, explaining what I had damaged and my plan to run away. When I walked in, the way they looked at me seemed to be my get-out-of-jail-free card. Both they and I were relieved that I was back home.
I don't know if you've had anything quite as dramatic happen to you, but I know we all have times when we feel anxious, ashamed, afraid, or defensive and want to blame others. These emotions are not random. They are a common behavioral trait, part of our DNA that goes all the way back to the very beginning—to Genesis 3, when humanity traded trust for autonomy and intimacy for hiding.
When we look at these four things, they arouse certain questions in our hearts:
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These aren't just emotions—they are spiritual symptoms of a fractured relationship.
Over the past two weeks, we've been exploring God's original design for our identity and worth, and the origins of work and rest. This week, as we look into the roots of our personal brokenness, we turn to Genesis 2 for a recap of life as God intended.
There we can see God's original intention for provision—we could eat freely from the Garden of Eden. There was the blessing of fruitfulness and childbirth, which were supposed to be effortless. But in Genesis 3, human disobedience disrupts that ease. The very areas once marked by blessing become marked by struggle.
Let's begin at the end of Genesis 2:
Adam and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. (Genesis 2:25)
Now, picking up from Genesis 3:
Now the snake was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, "Did God really say you must not eat from any tree in the garden?" The woman said to the snake, "We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden. But God did say, 'You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.'" "You will not certainly die," the snake said to the woman, "for God knows that when you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:1-5)
Look at that first question the serpent asked: "Did God really say?" As he planted that doubt, he was planting a root of anxiety within mankind—a place where they couldn't trust what God had in store. They traded that trust for knowledge.
Let's look again at Genesis 3:5:
For God knows that on the day you eat from it, your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.
The word knowing here is a translation of the Hebrew word yeda, which means to know, to perceive, to realize, to find out, to discern. You might hear similarities in the English phrase "yada yada yada." When someone says that, they're basically saying, "You know what I mean? Fill in the gaps. All the rest of this is just knowledge you don't really need to know."
The problem at the very beginning was a temptation to know what we didn't really need to know, rather than putting our trust in God that he knows the way. Even today, when God tells us to take a step out in faith, we often say, "God, why don't you just tell me the whole story?" But he only gives us light for the next step. We always want to know more than we need to know at any given time. We need to think about trusting in God.
Anxiety is that emotional consequence of believing that I must seize control and define good and evil for myself because God can't be trusted.
The devil said, "You will be like God." But the reality is that right from the beginning, God created us in his image. We were already like God.
Let's look at the origin of shame. In Genesis 2:25, it says they were naked and they felt no shame. After they ate something, their eyes were opened. The thing they did not know before became very apparent to them. They were naked, and hence they became ashamed, and that resulted in them hiding.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they realized that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. (Genesis 3:6-7)
I have another story to share. When I was around twelve—around the same time I ran away from home—I would guard myself in my towel and head from my room to the bathroom. Sometimes I'd realize I needed something else in the house, so I'd go in my towel and walk through the living room. My dad told me specifically, "You shouldn't be walking around the house in your towel. It's not proper." But creature of habit that I was, I kept doing it. One fateful day, I walked through the living room where my mom and my older female cousin were seated, and the unthinkable happened: my towel came undone.
Oh, the shame and embarrassment! I don't know exactly how Adam and Eve felt when they realized they were naked, but that day I got a glimpse into what that might have felt like.
The immediate result of disobedience was shame—a felt emotion. What they did was try to fix the problem. They took fig leaves to cover their nakedness, believing they could cover their deepest flaws with those leaves. But they weren't enough. It wasn't just a revealing of their nakedness in physical form—they had become bare in their hearts, in their spirits.
A sense of worthlessness set in. It shattered their intrinsic worth that was established by the image of God. It replaced it with a conditional, external worth that was just covered with leaves that were temporal and didn't really cover up the problem.
When Adam and Eve heard the sound of God in the garden, another thing set in: fear. Their immediate response was to run away, to hide. And that was the beginning of the human reflex action to run away from the presence of holiness.
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." (Genesis 3:8-10)
God asked them the first question to mankind: "Where are you?" Let's ponder this for a moment. Our God is omniscient—he knows all things. Why would he ask that question if he already knew where they were? The reality is that this wasn't an investigative question. It was pastoral.
We can see that from how Adam responds. He could have just said, "I'm hiding here in a cave. I'm behind these trees." But instead, he talks about where he is in terms of what he now knows. He knows God is present. He knows he's done something wrong. He now knows a fear he never knew before. He was naked, and therefore he was hiding.
God didn't say, "Stay hidden." He said, "Where are you?" The same is true with us. God doesn't want us to hide away from him. He wants us to come close to him because he clearly still loves us. When we mess up, that's not the time to run away like we often do. It's a time for us to draw back to God and come back to his loving arms of mercy.
God knows exactly what we feel inside. There's no point hiding it. He sees our fears. He sees our mistakes. There's no point hiding—he can clearly see them. Let's run back to him.
We see the origin of blame in verses 11 to 13:
And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree from which I commanded you not to eat?" The man said, "The woman you gave me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it." Then the Lord God said to the woman, "What is this you have done?" The woman said, "The snake deceived me, and I ate." (Genesis 3:11-13)
Adam and Eve deflect their responsibility. Adam blames God and blames the woman. He says, "The woman you put here with me, she gave me some fruit." He refuses to take personal responsibility. When God asks Eve, she deflects as well, blaming the serpent.
There is a human issue here: we attempt to transfer guilt rather than taking responsibility for the things we have done. We move that shame onto someone else so that we can preserve our own self-integrity. When we do that, we reject the path that leads to healing. We deny the need for repentance.
So where are we so far? When they disobeyed God, they became broken. They felt anxious, ashamed, scared, and defensive.
The relationship Adam and Eve had with God collapsed into a distant creator-created dynamic. That relationship of intimacy was broken. They no longer walked with him in a father relationship—they ran from him.
As the story of the fall goes, we see in verse 21:
The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)
God took away those garments they had made out of fig leaves and gave them garments of skin. It's not explicitly stated in scripture, but theologians point out that for them to be wearing skins, some animals had to have been killed. There had to be some form of sacrifice, some form of bloodshed.
When God told them that in the day they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would die—they didn't physically die that day, but they began to die spiritually. Some animals most likely had to die in their place. And that was when God began to set in motion his recovery plan to get us back to him.
When we look at the sacrifice and the shedding of blood, it points us to Hebrews 9:22:
In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness. (Hebrews 9:22)
As we look into the New Testament, we can see that the sacrifice of those animals to cover them was a shadow of what was to come. Through the shed blood of Jesus, through his death and resurrection, we have life in him. He restores and deepens our relationships, adopting us as his children.
In fact, God's original intention was to have us as his children, adopted into his family. Look at these passages:
For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you slaves again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children. Now if we are children, then we are heirs—heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ. (Romans 8:14-17)
In Galatians 4, we see that we are no longer slaves but sons and daughters. God sent his son so that we could be adopted.
In Ephesians 1:4-5, adoption was God's plan from the beginning:
For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will. (Ephesians 1:4-5)
We are given the right to become the children of God. That's what he says in John 1:
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. (John 1:12)
And in 1 John 3:
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! (1 John 3:1)
In Hebrews 2:10-11, Jesus is not ashamed to call us brothers and sisters.
You see, he brings us back home into his precious family through Jesus.
Everyone messes up sometimes. When we do, we may want to hide. We might feel ashamed, or we might deflect and blame others. But God doesn't want us to run away. He doesn't run away from us. He comes looking for us. God's love is bigger than all of our mistakes.
So remember this: Even when we mess up, God sees us. He pursues us because he still loves us.
What does this mean to you?
Ask yourself these questions:
Just imagine what it would be like for all of us if instead of running away, we repented and replaced the blame we put upon others. Where vulnerability replaces hiding. Where trust replaces striving. Where we walk with God again and don't run from him.
This is the invitation of the gospel: an invitation not just to forgiveness but to family.
We may know the story of original sin like we've looked at today. But thank God—that's not where the story ends.
For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. (John 3:16)
As you take up that invitation once again today, this is an opportunity for you to accept the love that he gives, to believe in the death that he died in your place, and to confess your wrongdoing.
If you'd like to become a follower of Jesus, I'd love for you to pray this prayer with me:
Dear Lord Jesus, I need you. I need your grace to forgive me and your love to change me. Thank you for dying on the cross for me. Please forgive me for the sin in my life. I accept you as my Lord and Savior. With your help, I will live my life for you. Amen.
If you've prayed that prayer, I want to invite you to let us know. Send an email to [email protected] or send us a message to let us know you made that decision. We'd love to connect with you, pray with you, and point you in the right direction. God bless you.
