The Weight of Sin
We can grow to be unaware of our sin and become comfortable with it. As believers, the righteousness of Jesus clothes us, making us holy and free from our sins. We must remind ourselves of Christ’s sacrifice when we dwell on the weight of our past sins.
In this episode, Brody speaks on the weight of Adam & Eve’s sin and the first sacrifice in Genesis 3. For us, there was one sacrifice for our sins, and we will never need another. Christ’s sacrifice on the cross was sufficient.
Believer, know the weight of your sin, the One who paid for it, and then walk in faithfulness and obedience to Jesus.
Resources:
- Feeling the Weight of Sin- Article
- Genesis 3
Transcript – The Weight Of Sin
I want to apologize for waiting half a week to drop this episode that’s on me. It’s the time of year where I’m just traveling, moving around and kind of, I don’t know, just I need October, November and some of December as well. So, I appreciate your patience. Those of you that are weekly listeners getting this episode out a little bit late, but we’re going to make it up to make it up to you with some bonus episodes. Today’s episode will also be shorter. I just wanted to get something out midweek, just so that we don’t skip a week and so, thanks for tuning in, today’s will be shorter, but I’m telling you, it is straight meat. It’s going to be very challenging and encouraging. Those of you that were the marriage conference, I’m going to share something that I shared there and give you the source for this and we’ll link it up, because a lot of people ask for this article that I’m going to share. So, thanks for tuning in. Welcome to No Sanity Required.
Welcome to No Sanity Required from the Ministry of Snowbird Wilderness Outfitters, a podcast about the Bible culture and stories from around the globe.
All right gang, so it is, I think we’re getting this out on Wednesday. We normally drop on Monday, I apologize and I’ll be leaving tomorrow. Thursday, I’m flying to Boston with Little my wife and Laylee, my oldest kid that’s still at home, she’s my 18 year old and we’re in the process of the college search right now, but so going to have another one leaving the house in the next few months and dreading that I dread having Laylee not under our roof. I love that kid so much and I’m sure many of you can relate to that having, we got a lot of empty nesters that listen and those of you that have small kids soak it up, eat it up. It is crazy how fast it goes by, just crazy, but we’re going to Boston, me, Little and Laylee, I don’t like to tell on here where I’m going, because inevitably, there will be people in the area that I think sometimes, we’re torn, we’d like to go see and they want to, I’ll get messages, meet us for lunch, swing by the house, let’s grab coffee and I love doing that. I love being on the road and meeting folks and seeing folks, but from time to time, it’s very important to just, have that family time away. So, this is kind of, a we’re going to do a Laylee bigger senior, each of our kids in their senior year, we try to do something cool with them and Laylee and Little are going to go to Uganda to hang out with kill me and Greg, but, this is kind of, the, the precursor to that.
We’re going to do a trip, get away, spend a long weekend, just enjoy being together, enjoy the time together and I’m excited about it, going to get some good food, see some historic sites and then, catch the Virginia Tech, Boston College football game on Saturday and I’m excited going to watch that. I’m hoping Tuck is going to be there, he’s nursing a little bit of a knee injury. I don’t think it’s anything too serious, but he took a little bit of a shot in the game on Saturday. We got whooped by Louisville. They’re good. They’re so good, but anyway, he played great, proud of him, but he got dinged up. So, hopefully he’ll be traveling. If not, then I don’t know. We may not go to the game if he’s not playing. That’s fair weather football fans. I know, if we do that, but might give us a second day to or third day to see the sites. We’re going to be up there Thursday afternoon, all day, Friday then on Saturday. We’re going to catch the game, fly home Sunday. So, I don’t know, we’ll see, well I’m looking forward to that and we’ve just come out of our two weekends of back to back marriage retreat weekends, marriage conference at SWO. The marriage conference at SWO is phenomenal, but I just want to say what an incredible job our food service folks did, Jeremy, Emma.
All of our food service people here at SWO, their team and then, also the hospitality team, led by Tiffany and Rachel, just incredible weekend, those of you that came. You know what I mean? Was awesome, the teaching was so good, at least the other three guys that taught, not speaking about my teaching, but I sat under the other three sessions and enjoyed it so much and was encouraged, just appreciative of the faithfulness of the teachers here. Now, if you want to jump past I’m going to tell some stories in this episode. I want to share just some fun stories from some of that. It may be just you want to get to the meat of it, if you want to get to the meat of it, jump ahead and listen to about the last seven or eight minutes and I think you’ll feel the weight of what I’m trying to say here, jump forward to, 17 minutes in, start listening there and it’ll pick up, but I think a lot of you enjoy these stories that I want to share. I know I’ve enjoyed thinking through, I could tell 100 more, but kind of, landed on two or three here that I think will set this up really well, but one of the things that I shared came out of Genesis 3 and I want to share this with you, maybe some of you have pets that you are particularly fond of. I’m sure a lot of people do. A lot of people have pets that are kind of, they’re here, not there.
Neither here nor there, but some pets that you just really bond with and I know some of you are dog lovers or cat lovers and some of you refer to yourself as daddy or mama to your cat or your dog and I’m not there. I refer to myself with my dogs. I refer to myself as boss man and I refer to Little as boss lady. I have kids and I am a dad, but not to canines, but whatever your thing is, but I know a lot, we have a lot of folks that are dog lovers, cat lovers, pet lovers, whatever, but I think I wanted to share a couple of my favorite animal stories that I’ve shared here before, one that was brought to my attention at the first marriage retreat and it was about a dog named Nola. We had a chocolate lab named Nola. Had her for eight or nine years, I think, eight years and then, she just disappeared I think a lot of times an older dog goes off to die and Nola was the laziest dog we’ve ever had, she just, laid around and labs are supposed to be, water dogs jump off the dock fetch a tennis ball or a stick. Well, Nola, she broke the mold because all she did was lay around and you couldn’t get her to fetch a stick, she hated water. You couldn’t get her to put her feet in the water, she didn’t want to walk across the creek, she was an anomaly, but she was a cool looking Chocolate Lab
I never saw her get worked up over anything like she just stayed so calm, but one day, Juju and Mo, two of my younger children, they were maybe, gosh, they were little, I’m going to say, Mo was two. So, Juju would have been six, four years between them, like two and six and they were in the yard and there was a guy down the road that had these, I think they were boxers. I can’t remember if they were pit bulls or boxers. I think they were boxers, but there were two of them, ugly, stupid dogs. They were so stupid. They just were idiots, like they were the dumbest dogs I’ve ever seen in my life. They were just annoying and they would just bark at you and they would chase cars and just dummies and they came up to my house and I told him, don’t let, keep your dogs. Keep them over here. Don’t let them come up on my place, that’ll be and it’s because I scared, was not anything against these dogs. I just didn’t trust them. I was scared they’d do something, it would pose a threat to one of my kids and so, I was like, keep your dogs hemmed up or locked up or whatever and the tradeoff was, I’ll make sure my dog don’t come down out of your place, but anyway, one day I was out, we were out in the yard and Juju and Mo were playing down in this little field below the house and they’re far enough away from the house that I can’t get to them fast and those dogs come running at them.
Barking and I don’t remember where they came from. I think they were in the house because he lived. We have a little house that we rent and this guy rented from us, but we also didn’t want him to have those dogs in our rental house, so he kept them in this he had, a kennel cage thing and you might be like. Why didn’t you want to have dogs in the house? That’s cruel, you should let them in the house, but no, it’s my house, do what I want to. You know what I mean? Like, I don’t want those. They were big dogs and they met and just, I didn’t want dog hair all over the place and the folks that are in that house now have a small dog in the house and I don’t mind it at all, but these things were big. It was two or three. I think they had three of them total and I didn’t want those dogs in the house and they it was always, they’re taking them in the house and I’d have to say, please don’t have dogs in there and it was just a pain. Well, they get out, they come out of the house or the kennel or whatever, but they come running up the hill and they’re coming after Juju and Mo they’re barking like and I’m running to try to head to get to these dogs. I’m running towards Juju and Mo, the two dogs are running towards Juju and Mo, we’re coming from opposite directions and we’re coming right at them and they’re just.
They’re just kind of, sitting ducks. I think he was, Juju was, trying to protect and guard him or whatever and he’s screaming and I’m not going to make it. I can see I’m not going to make it. I don’t know what these dogs are doing. They got their ears back and they’re growling, barking, coming right at my kids. Well, Nola comes running past me. You all, I had never seen that dog run, she comes right past me and she steamrolled, she weighed about 80 or 90 pounds, she was big, kind of, chubby, poodle, big girl, she was a big girl and she rolled those dogs up and she hit one of them so hard, I think it made him dizzy. Anyway, she saved the day and that was a pretty cool dog story. Had another dog named Ace, he was a big Pyrenees. My favorite dogs that we have are a couple of Pyrenees, Ace and Roxy. We’ve still got Roxy, she’s like, 13 years old, or no, 11 years old, she’s 11 years old and she still, lays out front and guards she don’t want to come in the house, she won’t even come in if you invite her in, lays out there and guards the front, the front of the property, but Ace was her buddy and he would chase cars and I come driving in the driveway. One day, I was getting it coming up my gravel road, gravel drive and I’m flying and he jumped right in front of me and I hit him so hard, pow, rolled him I thought I just killed ace and little was out there, happened right in front of some of the family.
He runs off down in the woods. I was like, oh no and then, it was like this ordeal of trying to find him, we couldn’t find we finally found him down the woods, he wouldn’t let us get close and try to get to him, he would run off like he’s running off to die and we’re about two days later, we’re out there in the yard and he comes walking up the hill just fine, wagging his tail like he like kind of, he went somewhere and was miraculously healed and then, I had this one dog. I tell one more, pet story and I know I’m going to get 1000 texts and messages and comments, which I’m fine with. I love getting you all stuff and hearing from you all, everybody’s going to share their pet story, which is great. I look forward to it, but I had this and I know Steve and Lena Golf are avid listeners. At least Lena is, I know and they live in Laos and I was just thinking as I was telling that story, while I go about those boxers, that they had a couple boxers, Lena had a couple boxers that were so, they were the funniest dogs and Lena could get them to sing, to literally, she would sing to him and then, they would start singing and it was like something out of lady in the tramp I loved that I would every time I’d go over there and be like, get the dogs to sing. I forget that one dog’s name and she would just howl and sing.
Lena’s Dad is one of our board members and real close with that family, but anyway, so I know there’s, a lot of dog stories, let me tell you one more and this is not really one particular story. This is just about a dog, her name was Lacey, she came with the name and I got her because we were before we started Snowbird, me and Little, were working on a farm. It was a camp, but it was kind of, like a dude ranch. We had cows and horses and I needed a good working dog and this dog was like she was an Australian cattle dog, she was a blue healer. I think they’re Australian cattle dogs, but then you get blue or red and so, they’re called Blue healers or red healers, she’s a blue healer and those dogs, most blue healers, are a pain. They’re real mouthy. They’re bad to bite people. They’re good if you want a guard dog, but they’re not good if you’re going to have a lot of folks coming in and out of your property, a lot of guests coming over and stayed with some friends who were also avid listeners. Keith and Betty Park up in Kentucky last week, when we went to that Louisville game and they had a blue healer that was real mouthy and it was like, oh gosh, is this thing going to bite me and Keith is having to constantly hey, call the dog away or whatever and they’re just real mouthy dogs, but they’re great if you want a dog that not going to let anybody come near the house, you know.
So, we had this blue healer and I love that dog, but she had learned how to, sort of, it was like she knew when to bark, when not to bark, when to let folks come up, when not let folks come up and she was one of those, I’ve never had a dog like her and don’t expect to ever will again. I could speak during complete sentences. I could say and we got Lacey when she was, a year and a half old, because these people had Australian shepherds and so, they decided to try healers and she was so high strung and wild and they just got frustrated and so, they got rid of her and I got her for free. They were giving away. I saw it in the classifieds and in the stock paper and so, I got her and at first she was hard headed, but did a little work with her and got her kind of, calmed down and she just turned into the greatest dog we ever had and you could say, hey Lacey, go out there and get in the bed of the truck. I’ll be out in a minute. We’re going to go to town and she’d go outside, she’d push the door open, because we lived in the old cabin, me and Little, with no running water, when we started Snowbird. It was just a rustic old shack in the woods and so, the door, you just push it either way it’s easy to open. Could push it from the inside, but from the outside, it was on a spring, it was easy to pull.
But, she could let herself out or in, because she’d hook her paw into it and she’d kind of, get the spring tension and pull the door open and so, you could let her she, you tell her how you can’t be in the house, go outside, she’d go outside, then you’d call her in, she’d come in. Whatever you told her, she wouldn’t do something different until you told her. So, I could say, Lacey, go get in the back of the truck, she’d go out there and hop in the bed of the truck and then, I could say, it’s cold where it’s raining, go get in the cab of the truck and she go out there, climb up in the bed, go up on the, the toolbox and then, open the little slider window with her nose. I left it unlatched and she’d jump into the, the truck and I’d say you don’t lay on the seat. You get in the floor. You’re muddy and she just knew she would lay in the floor or I could say, All right, I’m going to go in, don’t, I need you to stay in the back of the truck. She’d just stay there. I can stay in the grocery store an hour and she’d stay in the truck. I come to the door, the Ace Hardware and whistle for and she’d look and I’d say, come on, come inside and she’d come and go in the store, everybody at Ace knew her, everybody at Napa knew her heart, all the local stores feeds to everybody knew Lacy and loved her and she was great.
She was such a good dog. I could stick her on somebody and she’d catch Frisbee and I could throw a Frisbee, as far as you could throw one she’d run it down and catch it, she’s just awesome. So, anyway, I’ve rambled for 15 minutes here talking about pets. Why? Because I want to read something to you that is shocking. It is shocking and I’ve been hanging on to this for almost two months, wanting to think, how am I going to share this, how am I going to share this with our listeners and then, I felt like I needed to build an episode around it and I don’t have that. I don’t have it. I could tell another hour of pet stories. We’ve got some cool pet history with our animals. When Lacey died, we raised, we kept one of her puppies and had that dog for about eight years and that dog was awesome, her name was Dolly and she was awesome and she got stitched. I stitched her up one night. I gave her a shot of Ace and which is like a horse sedative and gave her a small dose Ace, knocked her out and stitched her up because she got tore up, saving our kids from some crazy dogs that had come up the road and anyway, go on with those stories, but I want to get to this one thing and it’s something that I read about what happened in Genesis 3 I’m just going to read this and I’m shifting gears here.
But, I want to read it and I want it to just sink in, let this settle over your imagination. Genesis 3 is probably too familiar. Serpent lies, Eve eats. Adam joins. God walks, humans hide and blame God curses and promise. God covers and drives out. I wonder what that covering was like for Adam and for Eve too, but particularly Adam, for a long time, I envisioned the animal skins were simply covering Adam and Eve with something better than their leaves, but that leaves the story pretty flat. There’s no human element to it. The more I began to think about it, the more disturbing the story became. To get those skins, God performed the first sacrifice, he slaughtered his own creation, his good creation, to make those coverings and the clothes shouldn’t be sanitized. They wouldn’t have been nicely tanned leather, contrary to what I’d pictured for so long, with the help of Sunday School Flannel Graph, I imagine God took the skins directly from the animals and draped them over Adam and Eve, heavy, smelly, still dripping a visceral reminder of the cost of their sin that seems more plausible than nicely tanned leather garments. What would that have done to Adam, apart from probably just feeling and smelling gross, I think Adam may have had a deep, guttural emotional reaction.
Forgive the obvious, but chapter 2 happens right before chapter three. Remember what happens in chapter 2? Adam is alone and God says. That’s not good. So, he brings all the animals to Adam to name them, but the purpose wasn’t just to name the animals. That particular scene closes with the revelation that no partner was found for Adam. The next scene opens on Adam asleep and minus a rib when he awakes Eva standing next to him. It’s easy to read the naming episode quickly, maybe envisioning Adam viewing a parade of animals, originality and imagination running low as the 1582nd animal marched past. I have a hard time believing that’s how the naming happened, permit me a little speculation. Okay, a little more speculation in Adam’s un-fallen world, the animals weren’t afraid of people. That doesn’t happen until chapter 9. So, when God brought the animals to Adam, I think we should picture close and intimate contact. How else do you know it’s not suitable as a helper to name them, Adam needed to know them, to know them, he had to spend time with them, Adam named the animals he knew them. They were his animals. Adam didn’t experience wildlife the way we do from a distance with a good pair of binoculars. God brought them to Adam. There was a connection, familiarity, intimacy; he stroked the mane of the lion.
Listened to the song of the robin as it sat on his shoulder, fed the elephant by hand let the skunks, rabbits and raccoons play on him in the meadow, Adam and the animals were part of the same world, in the world together when God draped Adam and Eve with those skins, they would have known exactly who they were wearing. The grace and mercy the cross of Jesus offers us is nearly inexpressible, but that cost is also sometimes very distant. I’m not sure I understand the cost in any tangible way, not like Adam and Eve would have, as they inhaled the scent of their new clothes, literally felt the weight of their covering and realized someone was missing from the garden. That’s by JR hudberg and it’s called feeling the weight of sin I want to share that with you, because I think that we become too familiar with the weight of our sin, or sometimes we’re not familiar enough. I say it that way because I think sometimes we become so familiar that we become comfortable with it and other times, I think we are unaware of it. We don’t pay attention, but just like God clothed Adam and Eve in the skins of those animals, the Bible says that we are clothed in the righteousness of Jesus and today, if you’re feeling like your sin defines you, or you’re under the weight of shame and guilt and you don’t have the freedom that Christ offers because you’re living with that shame and that guilt.
The weight of your sin, then know this, that the righteousness of Jesus clothes you and fills you and covers you and defines you, making you righteous and holy and free. I think that’s so important for us to understand that Jesus’s sacrifice was necessary to cover us and to cleanse us from unrighteousness and we need to be reminded of that when we’re reminded of the weight of our own sin, your past adultery or pornography or addiction or your season of rebellion and backslidden laziness, whatever it is, Jesus is the one that covers you and frees you from that and so, let’s be reminded of that this week. Think about your favorite pet story, your favorite animal, the one that you’ll never forget. Maybe it was a childhood animal. Maybe it was one that, it’s one that you’ve got now, but imagine what it must have been like the familiarity for Adam and Eve to know who they were wearing and to realize the weight of their sin. It had cost sacrificial blood and for us, there was one sacrifice and it was once for all and it’ll never be needed again, because it was sufficient Know the sacrifice of Jesus. Know the weight of your sin; know the one who paid for it. Walk in faithfulness and obedience and in and through his strength and his covering every single day. Thank you all for listening. Hope you have an awesome rest of your week and we’ll check back in next week.