Your Covering

Pastor Stan Mons

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Sermon Transcription:

I want to get into the word of God with you before we go into this celebration because we are here today because there’s a future for you. At the end of the day, we are not here to celebrate any accomplishment or anything that was done by man. We are here to celebrate because you have a future. Even though you've loved sin and done sin, and even though you never had anything to bring to God, everything you were ever able to bring in your own strength was sin or flesh. Yet, the Father responds to you by sending His Son. That's why we are all here today. There's no celebration, nothing worth worshiping, and no point in praying unless the Father had responded to you being a sinner and having nothing to offer but sin. Unless the Father had responded to you the way He has, we would not be here.

I want to read to you Genesis 3:6-7: "So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings."

I want to talk to you about your covering. If you've ever done anything wrong in your life at all, if you've ever committed a sin, if you've ever done a wrong towards another person, if you've ever committed a wrong failing to meet God's standard in any way, shape, or form, you've been in Genesis 3:7. You've been there, and they sewed fig leaves together to make themselves coverings. When we do wrong, we are instantly inclined to cover it up. When we do wrong, we are instantly moved to protect that wrong from other people's eyes. Not too many people should see; not everybody needs to know. I want to cover this thing. I want to cover it up.

Genesis 3:7: they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings. You can cover what you've done wrong as long as you want, and your fig leaves may look very impressive. Maybe no one is seeing what is being covered by those spiritual fig leaves in your life, but it's there. It's there; it's deep down there, and there's a lot of shame and guilt that too many people in the body of Christ walk around with, not confident, not sure if they are perfect in the eyes of the Father because of the blood, not sure if God answers them when they pray and there's no one else in the room, not sure if the presence of God will come upon them when they get alone with their Bible to read it and get alone to bless the Lord in their everyday to glorify Him to worship Him when there are things that still have our covering on it. No one may see it, but it's there, and we need to keep it from coming up. We need to keep it covered; we need to cover it up.

That's where God finds Adam and Eve. They feel the need and put in the effort to cover the matter up, and God is going to teach them something. In the story, God is teaching humanity something—that we don't need to worry. You don't have to worry about covering your mistake. That is the story of what God is unfolding from cover to cover in this word. You don't need to worry about covering your mistakes, your willing mistakes, your accidental ones, every single one of your sins. No matter what you've done, no matter how gross, no matter how deep, no matter how long, He's teaching them something because God is ready to worry about covering their sin, about covering your sin. Let me read to you Genesis 3:21: "Also for Adam and his wife, the Lord God made tunics of skin and clothed them."

He takes their covering away. A sacrifice has been made by the hand of the Lord, provided by the Lord, and He takes the skin of that sacrifice and begins to clothe Adam and begins to clothe Eve and begins to cover them. He begins to show them; He begins to show us there will be a sacrifice, and you're going to end up being clothed with this sacrifice. God is speaking through this story to every single one of us: don’t worry. It doesn’t matter what the sin is, it doesn’t matter what the wrong is, it doesn’t matter how long or how deep. God is coming to cover you. That is His heart; that is what He seeks to do in your life.

Let me read to you from Isaiah 61:10-11 and 62:1: "I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for He has clothed me with the garments of salvation, He has covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decks himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels. For as the earth brings forth its bud, as the garden causes the things that are sown in it to spring forth, so the Lord God will cause righteousness and praise to spring forth before all the nations. For Zion's sake I will not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a lamp that burns."

Church, God fights for you to be covered. He seeks to cover you. This is how God responds to the sins of humanity. He says, "I will not rest until their righteousness goes forth; I will not rest until their salvation burns as a lamp for all to see." I want to challenge you in this time of worship: surrender your covering. Whatever it’s covering, surrender your covering and allow the covering of heaven to settle upon your life. All you will have left—the shame will be gone, the guilt will be gone—all you will have left is testimony and glorious proof that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses us from all sins.

If you would stand with me before we go into worship, this is why we’re here today, church. This is why we are gathered together. God has given Jesus Christ as a covering for you, and because God has given you Jesus Christ, you have a future in this place. God has made a future for you because every single thing that was holding on to you, every single thing the enemy could hold over your head, everything you needed to make a covering for and keep hidden from the eyes of people and possibly the eyes of God, everything has been brought to nothing by the cross of Jesus Christ. Will you give Him glory with me? In Jesus' name.

-Pastor Stan Mons