Why Do We Hide Ourselves?

When we sin we don’t want to be in God’s presence. Instead we hide. Our joy is stolen and replaced with shame. We will even try to cover our own sin by blaming others.

We All Try To Hide Our Sin

But God comes into the messiness of our lives searching for us.

God is a wonderful counselor but often asks us questions that we would rather not answer. He gives us the opportunity to confess our sin, so that He can redeem us.

In the sermon, The Nakedness and Holiness of God, by Tim Keller, Adam proposed that his nakedness was a problem. But Adam had always been naked before God and had never been ashamed before. But now Adam knew he was naked.

According to Tim Keller, nakedness means to be known, to be open to the point that you are vulnerable.

We all desire to be known and loved. But because of the sin in our lives, we think we can only be loved if we remain hidden. If people really knew us…we fear they won’t like us… much less love us.

But the real problem with Adam and Eve in Genesis 3 is not that they are naked, but that they lost their purity and righteousness. There was a great sense of loss!

It is human nature to do what we want. Perhaps these words may have fallen from your lips before….”Don’t tell me what to do!”

So we do what we want….and it doesn’t always work out the way we thought it would.

So we cover our tracks.

Different Ways We Hide Ourselves

Sometimes, we make excuses even about simple things. For example if a friend shows us unannounced at my home. I may feel compelled to explain the messy living room. “I’ve been working such long work hours!”

If I know they are coming over, I probably will spring into a cleaning spree from the moment they called until their car pulls up in the driveway.

Here are some other ways we cover the real “me” from being truly known by others.

Women apply make-up to hide their imperfections. We say we are enhancing our eye color, but we are really hiding our wrinkles or other imperfections.

We wear the color black to make ourselves look thinner. This is another area we constantly try to keep covered!

We may work so hard. And everyone may experience feeling like we can never say no.

We are very private and selective about who we tell what is really bothering us.

We are bitter against the people who we think ruined our lives. Or we spend an enormous amount of time helping the world!

People can even use religion to cover up who they really are.

God Sees All

But no one can run from God’s gaze. The Unseen Seer sees all. We can’t cover ourselves with fancy clothes and pretend to be important.

We can’t cover our flaws up at all before His eyes. Only God can and will cover up our flaws.

In the book of Hosea, God shows us how a husband who finds his wife on a slave block, buys her and covers her.

In the same way, God clothes us in the righteousness of Christ.

The serpent from the garden whispers, “Don’t trust God.”

But God says, “Where are you?” Come out from hiding, turn from your sins, and I will cover your sin with righteousness.

It doesn’t matter what we or anyone else says about us. Only what God says matters.

God doesn’t merely cover up our sin, but he charges Jesus Christ with our sin. This is the only way that we can be truly known and loved.

If we think we need to straighten up our life before seeking God, we are trying to create our own righteousness.

The problems come when we aren’t letting Christ cover us with His righteousness.

We all want to be known and loved, but we only want to show our very best side.

But whatever we use to cover our flaws will eventually fall away. God will see us as we truly are “naked” and only if we rely on Jesus will we be truly “covered.”