The Problem of Nakedness
Genesis 2-3 help us understand why we have a problem with physical and spiritual nakedness and how that problem is solved.
Genesis 2.24-25 tells us that to be naked is to be ‘completely known’ - to have nothing to cover up, nothing to fear (or exposure), nothing you are trying to hide - we we all made to be naked and unashamed. We were whole and pure and perfect. Completely confident and never envious.
Genesis 3.1-12 tells us that all that was shattered when we said to God “we’ll do things our own way, we’ll decide right and wrong, we’ll decide what to do with our bodies, we’ll be our own saviour and Lord.” What happened?
(1) We hid from God behind the trees - cover our spiritual nakedness
(2) We hid from each other by sewing fig leaves together - cover our physical nakedness
(3) We hid from ourselves - by convincing ourselves it wasn’t our fault through the excuses we give - cover their emotional nakedness.
Before we didn’t mind our nakedness. Now we can’t stand it. We’ll do anything to avoid it. We are full of guilt and shame. We can’t stand to be seen by God, each other and ourselves.
Why? These 2 verses tell us why
Habakkuk 1.13 - Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.
Hebrews 4.13 - Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
They knew it. We know it. They felt inadequate, they felt small, they feel we have lost something - and it is their purity and our righteousness. They had lost our acceptability. They felt inadequate. They are full of guilt and shame. They couldn’t stand the gaze of God because his eyes are totally pure and just and holy and righteous.
We will do anything to try and cover up our physical nakedness (Gym, make-up etc). We’ll do anything cover our spiritual nakedness - we’ll run to religion and morality (see Isaiah 64.4) or irreligion and immorality. But it doesn’t work.Past sexual mistakes and present sexual action leave us feeling guilty and ashamed. Leave us wanting to cover up. Leave us fearful of being exposed.
How is the problem solved?
God enters the bombsite and asks us two questions (1) where are you (vs9) and (2) who told you that you were naked (vs11). And he covers our nakedness by shedding blood (vs21). He has already promised to defeat Satan, whatever the cost to himself (vs15) and now he shows that that cost will provide our covering. He is talking about the cross. Jesus is striped naked and looks directly into the pure and holy eyes of God and faces all his wrath so that we can receive a new covering, a new righteousness, a new purity. God deals with our guilt and shame at the cross.
What does that means for us? (1) We need to stop hiding, admit our sin and stop trying to cover ourselves and (2) We need to accept the forgiveness and new clothing God offers us in Christ.
Psalm 51 is where David does these 2 things - here are my headings
- Title: gives the context for the Psalms (read 2 Samuel 10-11) and reminds us that God uses great sin to become a source of great healing for others in the future. A glorious mystery. His grace always triumphs over sin.
- Vs1-2: Forgiveness according to the character of God
- Vs3-6: The truth of his situation
- Notice his sin is primarily against God (not Bathsheba, Uriah or Israel). He has first rejected God’s way of life, spurned his love and broken his laws BEFORE he has sinned horizontally. Our sin offends our maker first and foremost. See 2 Samuel 12.13.
- Notice also sins (falling short of God’s standards) and Transgressions (deliberately crossing God’s boundaries)
- Vs7-8: Whiter than snow, joy and gladness The great gospel message. It is scandalous and amazing.
- Vs10-12: A prayer for transformation (we need new hearts, not more laws). There is no greater way to fight sin than to rejoice in your salvation.
- Vs16-17: No fig leaves….just a humble heart. Pride stops people coming into the kingdom of God.
God says to us all - come out from behind the tree, drop your pitiful fig leaves and give up your excuses.
Reflection and Application - maybe in same sex groups (and see MG leaders handout from Sunday)
(1) From Genesis 2: how did God intend us all to be? How does that make you feel?
(2) From Genesis 3: why did that all go wrong and what were the consequences?
(3) How do we try to deal with the problem of nakedness? In what ways do we today (a) try to hide (b) try to cover up and (c) give excuses when it comes to sexual and relational sin?
(4) How does God deal with the problem of nakedness?
(5) What would it really mean for us to “walk in the light and walk in freedom” as a community?
(6) Am I confessing my sin to an accountability group (who in turn challenge me…and I give them permission to challenge me)
(7) Go through Psalm 51
(a) read it as a group and make sure you understand all the verses quoted above?
(b) Do you agree with them all?
(c) How does it make you feel?
(d) Does your prayer life reflect David’s? Where are you similar? Where do you lack?
(e) Pray through the Psalm as a group - someone read each section out loud (or together) and then pause and let people pray out loud personal prayers (of confession, gratitude etc)
(8) Listen and read the words from Hannah’s Dickinson’s version of the OLD SONG “Nothing but the blood the of Jesus” - http://www.mosaic-church.org.uk/creative_arts/entry/nothing_but_the_blood/ or James Richardson sent me a link of another beautiful song called whiter than snow - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0G2ge-bfKXo. You’ll be able to get a much better sound quality link on Spotify if you can do that.
Through the week
(1) Read Psalm 51 every day and pray through it every day - commit to memory
(2) Meet up with an accountability group and tell them EVERYTHING!
(3) If you are not in a group - pray God will lead you to “a prophet Nathan” - someone you trust
Resources
• Joshua Harris – Sex is not the problem (lust is)
• Tim Chester – Captured by a better vision (living porn free)
• Tim Keller - Counterfeit Gods (when the empty promise of money, love and power let you down)
• Winston Smith - It’s all about me (the problem with masturbation) - a small but brilliant booklet
• Tim Challis – Sexual Detox (a guide for the single/married guy) - free to download from http://www.challies.com/writings/books-e-books
• John White – Eros redeemed
• RT Kendall – Total Forgiveness & Totally forgiving ourselves
• Mark Driscoll – Death by Love (letters from the cross)
• Linda Marshall – Pure (Sex and relationships God’s way)
• Shannon Ethridge – The Sexually confident wife
• Peter Lewis - Sermon on Lust - download from http://www.cornerstoneuk.org.uk/resource/audioseries.php?filter=Seven%20Deadly%20Sins
Comments
Steve Vaughan
Hi Paula,
Thanks for this great and important question.
Here is what I was trying to get at.
Firstly, our efforts to make ourselves “appear better than we are” through gym/make-up/clothes/diets reveals a deep seated insecurity in us all that “we are NOT ok” and it also reveals we fear man. That is what Genesis 3 tells us and our experience confirms.
Secondly, we can either choose to keep trying to cover ourselves (and live insecure, jealous and fake lives) or we can let God cover us (with his righteousness and his approval) and therefore stop hiding and pretending and be ourselves. Not worry about what people will think. Not worry about having the “perfect body” etc.
So, if your motive is “I need a perfect and healthy body to be acceptable, to be worth something, to be valued, to be ‘ok’, so people will like me” then that is wrong.
If you are thinking “I’d like to be fit and healthy so I can love God, love my friends, love my work, love my family and do all I can to the best of my abilities for God and his glory” then that is great. PLUS it can be enjoyable to keep fit (which is a good thing) and provide a great context within which to build relationships (which is good). PLUS God gave us physical bodies and he wanted us to look after them - after all, they are his (1 Corinthians 6.14-21).
Augustine said “prepare your soul as if it will die tomorrow and prepare your body as if it will live forever”
So the motive is everything - if your motive to glorify God and work for his purposes or to please yourself and be acceptable to others?
How do you know if your motive is correct?
- What happens when you do put on 1-2 stones? Does that devastate you or do you just think “I’d like to cut back so I can be healthy again”.
- Does anyone really know the “body/eating” issues you struggle with? Have you told people? Are you trying to work through them? Or would that scare you to death?
- Do you find yourself jealous of others? Or are you content with the body that God gave you (and stage of life you are in - society is desperate to “stay young”).
- Does it consume an inordinate amount of your time and thinking? Especially when you compare that time to time and energy you put into relationships, church, God etc.
Those are 3 types of questions that will reveal your motives.
I hope that helps, do come back to me on it.
God bless
STEVE
Thanks Steve, that is extremely helpful!!
Paula Nice
Steve, can you expand further on the bit about how we try to cover our physical nakedness? Why as a society are we so desperate to have ‘perfect’ bodies? It’s easy to confuse wanting to be healthy and wanting to conform to society’s ideal of how we should look… how can we be sure of our motives?