Confession

Confession

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Good morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We are continuing our Abide series. We've got two weeks left. And then we start the Gospel of Matthew.

Get excited. So we're going to be in there for a while. So we are continuing our series in Abiding where we are seeking to grow in abiding in Jesus. That we would use the ancient practices and disciplines that He's given us. We walk through abiding through His Word, through prayer, through feasting, through fasting. Today we're going to be abiding through confession.

So my wife and I, Anna, we were very different students growing up. She made lots of A's and some B's. And I made grades. They got degrees. So we learn differently.

We have different learning styles. My wife, one time, I remember in college, she called me super upset. She was upset. She was crying. She said, I'm going to fail this test. And it's going to be awful.

And, you know, I was like, well, you came the right person. If anyone knows how to fail tests and get through it, it's this guy. But I was like, it's probably fine. You know, you probably made an A or a B. And, of course, she made like a low A. And some of you were like that in school growing up.

There's a term for that. It's called annoying. But she just, she, most of our marriage is the two of us staring at something. She learns very quickly. She picks it up like that. And then I kind of sit in silence.

And then finally like, hmm. And then I figured out like, oh, I've got it. That's just, I'm a little bit slower. It takes me time. I'm in school. I had to study a whole lot.

Whether it was high school or college or seminary. I had to spend a lot of time rehearsing, reciting the same things over and over again. I just, that's how I learn. I'm a little bit slower learner. But I realized the thing a few years back.

My wife and I, we were talking. I was taking some counseling classes in seminary. And I referenced some psychology. My wife was a psych major. So I referenced some basics of psychology, some Freudian psychology, some Skinner.

And she's like, yeah, sure. I'm like, what do you mean, sure? She's like, I just don't, I don't really remember all of that. I was like, you don't remember? You were a psych major. Like, that's what you devoted your time in college to.

And I learned a thing. That she studied to pass the test. That she learns quickly. She aced the test. And that's just, and I, it took a lot longer to learn things. And I do pick up things slower in life.

But y'all, you know, as opposed to learning something quickly and having Freudian psychology is buried deep in your brain. I think I got the upper hand in life. The point is, we all learn differently. That's just a fact. We just, we learn differently. But there is some, there is some wisdom in slowly learning things and spaced repetition.

That's one of the things they've realized in neuroscience. That our brains were hardwired to, if you want to keep things in your memory, to learn it through spaced repetition. That you might be exposed to something over and over again. That it might sink deeply into our memories. And that is by God's design. That we were made to hear truth repeated over and over again.

That it might sink deep into our mind and to our soul. That we were made to slowly chisel truth. Slowly chisel the Bible that it might sink and steep deeply into our souls. That is by God's design. And Christians have understood this over the last 2,000 years. And one of the ways that they have practiced this, that we have practiced this over the last 2,000 years is through confession and creed.

Not that creed. Not the band. That we all, listen, we all love to bang on creed because it's easy. But you know all of us have that Human Clay album. Let's just be honest.

We all listen to some creed. Not that creed. This is confessions and creeds. Which are statements that are formed from the Bible. That help us stand firmly in truth. It's wisdom.

It's the gospel. It's biblical truth. It's formed that we might have a statement. Have a confession. Have a creed that guides us through faithful belief. And that's the goal.

It's the gospel summarized. We verbalize it. We rehearse it. We recite it. And it sinks deeply into our souls. So that is what we're going to take a look at today.

At this idea of confession. Repeated truths that help shape us in our walk with Jesus. And we're going to see three things as we walk through this. We're going to see why we need confessions. Why we need these. Why these are good.

Then we're going to see what confessions are. And what specifically good confessions are. And then lastly we're going to see how we practice confession. And we'll get practical. So let me pray.

And then we will jump in. God thank you so much for your word. That we get to rehearse it. We get to recite it. That we get to use it to confess the gospel. That it would radically change our hearts.

God I pray that you would help us listen today. To what you have to say. In Jesus name. Amen. Alright. So.

We've all got some background in this. Whether you have a lack of background. Or you were like me. Maybe you grew up in high church backgrounds. Where you had liturgy. And confessions.

And creeds. And some of you are like. I didn't even know that kind of church was legal in South Carolina. We just have different backgrounds. Some of you are exposed to it. Some of you enjoyed it.

It's nostalgic to even think that you would read liturgy. That you read confessional statements. Others of you regurgitated it. And you really don't like it. Some of you don't have a background at all. We all bring a little bit of bias to this subject.

So I want as best we can to remove that this morning. And see what confessions are. So. Why we need confessions. 1 John 4.15 Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God. God abides in him.

And he in God. John is highlighting the power of confession. That as we confess. Which is linked to belief. As we confess what we believe. That there is further abiding in Jesus.

That God abides in us. We abide in him. That they are linked. That confession. That belief. Help shape your identity.

And we need to understand that. We need to believe that. Because the reality is. Is that all of us have confessions. All of us have these internal confessional statements. That are within us.

That we've picked up. That have become our own. Sometimes those come from culture. Culture is consistently drilling things into us. And we pick up confessional statements. Culture will say things like.

You need to be your true self. You need to be how you feel that you are. You hear that over and over and over again. Until it becomes your own. You'll hear things like live your truth. Which is ridiculous.

There's no such thing as your truth. There is objective truth. But you'll hear that. Over and over again. Until you start to think the truth is more subjective. You'll hear the American dream.

That comes at us over and over and over again. That you need money. You need material things to be happy. And it slowly starts to become your own internal confession. Maybe it wasn't culture. Maybe it was mothers or fathers or friends who said things to you growing up.

Maybe you heard some form of you're not smart enough. You're dumb. And that has just been a confession in your head that you've heard over and over again. And that's what you think about yourself. Maybe you heard some form of you're not pretty enough. You're not handsome enough.

You're not tough enough. Maybe some version of you're not trying. You're not working hard enough. And that is what you hear over and over again in your head. Sometimes it comes from punk middle school students that said things to you growing up. I asked my wife permission to share this.

Sometimes I don't do this. And I regret it. But I asked specifically on this one. My wife in middle school was chubbier. And she had a middle school boy that came up to her and called her fat. And it took a sweet middle school girl and completely wrecked her.

To the point where she had to go to the doctor for weigh-ins. And would hide coins in her pockets to pass weight. Now, she's gotten past it. But there's this internal confession that is still there. That shows up every now and then. I want to find this punk middle school kid.

I think he still lives in the area. And harm him. Or forgive him. One of the two. But we have these.

We have these internal statements that come. Maybe they're from your fears. Maybe they're from your flesh. Maybe they're from the devil. Maybe you're hearing stuff like, I'm a bad mom. And you hear that over and over again.

That is how you filter your reality when it comes to raising kids. Maybe it's you'll be just like your father. You are just like your father. Maybe it's you'll always be alone. Maybe it's nobody cares about you. But we hear these.

Y'all feeling this? We hear these statements. Different versions of this. Over and over and over again. Until it becomes our own. We rehearse these confessions over and over again in our head.

Until it really becomes our own language. You don't even know where the source is. Years ago when we started. When I started. Decided that we were going to be one church together. And Chet and I started to build a friendship we did not have in college.

Because we've talked about this. We were not friends in college. We didn't like each other. But one of the things that helped bond us. Was a love for really 2000s comedies. Whether it was movies or TV or YouTube or whatever.

We started realizing that we would quote things. And the other one would pick up exactly what we were saying. And that's just something we love doing. But one of the things I've realized is. Because Chet has a much better memory than me. Is I will say things sometimes.

And he'll say oh yeah that's from that movie. Oh yeah that's from that video. And I'll go really? I completely forgot about that. Because that became so much a part of my language. Throughout that decade.

That it's. I don't even know where the source is. It becomes. It became my own language. And that happens. That we rehearse things over and over again.

Until it becomes our own language. And it sinks deep within us. Because. A few weeks ago Chet said that. The things you do. Do things to you.

And that is true. I would qualify that statement. That the things that you say. Say things back to you. And when you say it over. And over.

And over again. It starts to shape who you are. It starts to shape your belief. The Greeks had a term for this. Your ethos. It was your.

Who you are. It's what you believe. It's what drives you. That it shapes you. And let me show you how this works. We have.

Bad. Confessional. Cycles. We have these bad. Confessional cycles. Where the confession is linked to our belief.

It's what we believe. And. Our beliefs affect our actions. We operate out. Out of our beliefs. And those actions have results.

And what happens is. Is those results. Will further inform our beliefs. Into a cycle of crazy. Let me show you. I'm going to be transparent for a moment.

I want to show you one of. Two of my deep idols. And how this plays out in my own life. Two of my deep idols are. Approval. And control.

Those are two. The more I. I wade into this. And I discover more of my sin. The more I see it's linked to these two. Deep idols.

Let me show you how this cycle of crazy. Happens in my life. I have a. Pretty much a confession. That's similar to this. My values come from.

Approval of others. And I need to be in control. That's it. Like if I. At my worst. I'm looking for approval in others.

And I. I like to be in control. And this is how it fleshes. Its way out. I have. This.

This. This striving to be the best. That I want to be the best. Not. For the reason. That I.

I want to. Gain approval from others. That I want. To be in control. That I work hard. That's something that I've inherited from my dad.

My dad. He is a hard worker. He's 76. And he still will work 12 hour days. He works hard. And I've picked that up from him.

But my. Reasons for doing it. Is to gain approval. It's to. It's to. Control.

What I've got right in front of me. That what I. One of the things I'll do. Is I'll control perception. And I'll try to leave the best. Impression.

Impression in people. And it's crazy. Because what. What will happen is. Is I'll have a conversation with somebody. And I'll.

I'll say something. That was off. Or I'll say something. That. I think they took the wrong way. And here's what happens.

Is that I will. Think about it. I'll be like. Man. I should have said that differently. And then I'll invent.

This entire narrative. Over what they thought about it. What they now think of me. Where that leads to. And now how their. Whole opinion has changed of me.

It's crazy. But this is the cycle. The bad confessional cycle. Of crazy. That happens. We have these actions.

There's results from these actions. The reality is. Is that no one can ever be the best. For very long. That I. Will fail at being the best.

That my work. Is never enough. That I will strive. That I will work. That I will go for it. And it's never enough.

I always think about. Did I say the wrong thing. Am I getting the respect. And approval. That I crave. And if I don't stop right there.

If I don't stop right there. And intervene with the gospel. And say no. I have a better confession. That says. That I don't have to.

Work for other people's approval. That I'm approved in Jesus. That I don't stop with the gospel. And say no. God is sovereign. I cannot be in control.

I wasn't made to be in control. Then it will continue. And if I didn't work hard enough. I'll try harder. I'll correct my mistakes. My mistakes.

I'll look at the tape. And I'll fix it. And I'll be better. So that I can be one approved. So that I can control things.

Y'all see this. This is what we do. We have these bad. Confessional statements. That shape us. That shape us in profound ways.

That we never thought possible. If we don't intervene. With a better confession. With the gospel. The reality is. Is that we all have these internal.

Confessional statements. That we rehearse these beliefs. Over and over. And over again. And if you let. Bad views of self.

Bad views of Jesus. And bad theology. Shape you. It will take you to places. That you never thought. That you would go.

We have bad. Confessional statements. We need better ones. So. I want to look at some. Good confessions.

Confessions. And kind of where these. Source from. Where this idea really. Source is from. And the earliest confessions.

We have. The earliest. The earliest. Repeated statements. That we have. In the church.

Show up in the New Testament. I want to show you a few of them. The first one. Is from 1st Corinthians. We read it earlier. 1st Corinthians 15.

The setup is. Paul's writing to the church at Corinth. He says. Now I would remind you. Brothers of the gospel. I preach to you.

Which you received. And which you stand. And by which. You are being saved. If you hold fast to the word. I preach to you.

Unless you believe it in vain. And here it comes. For I delivered you. As of first importance. What I also received. That Christ died for our sins.

In accordance with the scriptures. That he was buried. That he was raised in the third day. In accordance with. The scriptures. That he appeared to Cephas.

Which is Peter. And the twelve. That he appeared to more than 500 brothers. At one time. Most of whom are still alive. Though some have fallen asleep.

Then he appeared to James. Then the apostles. Last of all. As the one untimely born. He appeared to me. Now.

We can look at this. And look at church history. And it. It seems like the early church. Used that statement. Over and over again.

To solidify. The truth of the gospel. To solidify the record. Of what happened. This is the truth. That is in verse one and two.

Says. They stood in. That they received. And believed. And they now stand in. And they needed them.

Because early on. In the church. There were already heresies. False teachings. That were arising. One of them.

Was Gnosticism. Gnosticism. Just generally. Is the idea. That the material world. Is in and of itself.

Bad. Therefore. The way that gets fleshed out. Is that Jesus actually. Wasn't a real person. He was just.

Spirit. And that gets. You play that logic out. And you lose the gospel. And they had statements like this. That said.

No. Jesus died. He was buried. He did reigns. He was a real. Person.

They had other statements. I'll give you one more. From 2nd Timothy. Chapter 2. Verse 11 through 13. Says this.

The saying is trustworthy. For. If we have died with him. We will also live with him. If we endure. We will also reign with him.

If we deny him. He will also deny us. If we are faithless. He remains faithful. It's almost a little bit of call and response there. That they would rehearse.

There are statements like this. Where he says. The saying is trustworthy. That we see in the New Testament. These are statements. That they would have rehearsed.

Over. And over again. They were popular sayings. That the church used. To guide them in faith. And the tradition.

Of creeds. And confessional statements. Was birthed out of the church. One of the most popular. Confessional statements. In the history of the church.

Is the apostles creed. Or the. Niocene creed. It was a creed. That was formed. In the face of one of the most destructive heresies.

In the third and fourth century. Called Arianism. Arianism was the idea. That Jesus was created. And that he was not God. So.

I know. You are like. Man. There is a lot of church history here. This is. This is a little bit nerdy.

It is. But y'all. This almost ripped the church apart. They almost stopped believing. In the trinity. That God is father.

God is son. God is holy spirit. That three in one. They almost stopped believing this. And the church came together and said. No.

We have to have a creed. That we stand in. That we have received. That will guide us. So. I want to read.

From the apostles creed. The song that we sang earlier. This I believe. Is directly based on this. So. So.

The creed says. I believe. In God the father. Maker of heaven and earth. That's. Father.

And in Jesus Christ. His only son. Our Lord. Who is conceived by the Holy Spirit. Born. Born.

Of the Virgin Mary. Suffered. Under Pontius Pilate. Was crucified. Dead. And buried.

Now. I'm ahead. I have to readjust. Because. The. The tradition I grew up in.

Added an extra statement. That wasn't. Very helpful. Y'all remember. The. The ten of you.

That have high church background. Y'all remember. Going to another church. And hearing a different. Confessional statement. A different Lord's Prayer.

And you just sat in judgment. Like. Oh. They do it wrong. Y'all know. Was crucified.

Dead. Then buried. The third day. He rose again from the dead. He descended into heaven. And he sitteth at the right hand of God.

The Father Almighty. From thence he shall come to judge. The quick. And the dead. Quick being living. I believe in the Holy Spirit.

The holy Catholic Church. That's little c. Catholic. Which means universal. The communion of saints. The forgiveness of sins.

The resurrection of the body. And the life everlasting. Amen. Amen. Guys. That statement.

Guided the church. For the next 1700 years. It's settled. This is who we believe in. And it has guided us. In the midst of all.

There have been other. Neo-Aryan type religions. Like Mormonism. And Jehovah's Witness. That have popped up. That deny the deity of Jesus.

And we stand at this. No. Jesus is God. We worship a Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So this was important.

This helped guide the church. I'll give you one more confessional statement. This showed up. In the Protestant Reformation. In the 1500s and 1600s. It is called.

The Westminster Confession of Faith. Or it's also. A shorter version. The Westminster Shorter Catechism. Some of you are like. Catechism.

What? Is that what they bury dead people? No. That's catechomes. This is a catechism. If you're not familiar with them.

They're like. Time tables. For Christians. You know. You learn. Question.

Answer. Question. Answer. My daughter gets a little bit older. We're going to start doing some of these. To help her understand this.

But. The Westminster Confession of Faith. And Shorter Catechism. Helps shape. Not only the church. The Protestant church.

But y'all. It also shapes some of American culture. The first. Question and answer. From the Westminster Shorter Catechism. Is what is the chief end of man?

Is to glorify God. And enjoy him forever. That the glory of God. So fused. Into the Protestant church. And also fused into American culture.

So much so. That you can. I remember back in the day. I watch award shows. And you have. Like a hip hop artist.

Who came up. And the song. That he got the award for. Was absolutely horrible. But he'd say.

To God be the glory. You hear professional athletes. Whose life. Models nothing about Jesus. And they'll say. To God be the glory.

It's so infused into our culture. And this goes back. All the way. The Westminster Confession. That helped guide. The Protestant church.

Some of what we teach. In our own church. We teach about submitting. To the authority. Of scripture. That shows up.

In our membership covenant. That goes back. To the Westminster Confession. Where we get our. Our love for God's grace. Is highlighted.

In the Westminster Confession. Where we get the language. Of Jesus. As prophet. Priest. And king.

Which we've used. In our church. Goes back. To the Westminster Confession. There are confessions. Like this.

Statements. Like this. That the church rehearsed. Over and over again. Over the last 2,000 years. And I know.

I know that five of you. Got really geeked out. About this. And the rest of you. Are like. I don't know if I'm going to go home.

And google confessions. This sounds really cool. What's the point? The point is. The principle. The principle is.

Is that these confessions. Us. Rehearsing truth. Over and over again. That it might sink deep. Within our soul.

That is what guides us. That's what helps guide us. In faith. So we need to grow. In rehearsing. In reciting truth.

That it might sink. Deep within our soul. And one of the ways. We can actually do this. Is through song. Is through music.

That music. Is a type of. Confession. You see. For. Millennium.

Cultures have understood. The power of music. The Greeks. Understood the power of music. How it could influence. Culture.

They had this Greek. Mythological figure. Called Orpheus. Orpheus. Orpheus. Orpheus.

Was like a super musician. So think. As far as super musicians go. Think like. The voice of Freddie Mercury. The guitar ability of Prince.

The stage presence of Springsteen. Which I don't even like. Bruce Springsteen. But. When he plays. Born to run.

Live. It lures you in. This is. Orpheus. And in that story. He would go around.

And he'd play. Before the gods. And before. People. And. They would all be.

Emotionally influenced. He would reel them in. And that shaped. Greek. Western understanding. That music.

Has power. To influence. Now. They tapped into something. That is actually understood. They just didn't get the.

That is understood universally. They didn't understand. The back story. That God. Has given us music. He's given us.

Song. That it might. Take. Truth. And sink it. Deeply.

Into our souls. We see this in the Psalms. That God gave us the Psalms. To sing. That it might sink. The truth of.

God. And his sovereignty. And all the things. That we learn from the Psalms. Deeply. Into our soul.

Into our souls. We see it. In Colossians 3. 16. In the New Testament. It says.

Let the word of Christ. Dwell in you richly. Teaching. And admonishing one another. In all wisdom. Singing Psalms.

And hymns. And spiritual songs. That we see this ancient truth. That music. Helps us. Remember.

The gospel. It helps us. Remember truth. That from King David. All the way to. The Gettys.

And John Martin Millen. And other songwriters. That we have now. We have a long tradition. Of taking the Bible. And using songs.

To help sink. Help chisel truth. Into our souls. So. This is huge. It's huge for us to understand.

So let me address. Kind of the elephant in the room. When it comes to this. How about secular music. There is music. That was written.

Explicitly. To glorify God. God. Some people call that Christian music. And there is other music. That wasn't.

It was written for various reasons. And people will call that secular music. And people will ask. Well if music is so influential. Can you actually listen to music. That was not written.

To glorify God. Let me say. Absolutely. Yes. Secular music. Is not.

In and of itself. Evil. I love some of the music. That comes out. Of people that don't believe in Jesus. Bon Iver.

And Jason Isbell. And Chris Stapleton. Those are my people. I have some. Some. Some.

Their artistry. Is. Is. The way they understand the world. The way they even understand sin. Sometimes it's very helpful.

But we cannot be so foolish to think. That we are just a hundred percent objective. That all. We can listen to anything. And just filter it out. No.

That's not how that works. Some of you have to do the work of. Is there a thing. Are there things that I listen to. That actually don't inspire goodness. That don't inspire.

Anything that resembles good. As the Bible outlines it. There's stuff that when I became a Christian. I finally had to give up. Because it didn't inspire. Anything that was good.

It didn't inspire me to. Have a better understanding of the world. Or of God. It was just. Pagan. It was outside of.

Christianity. All together. There's other stuff that I've listened to. That's good in some seasons. And it's just. It's not in others.

That doesn't inspire goodness in certain seasons. So. We have to do the work of that. And deciding what we can and cannot listen to. This is something that made. Becoming a Christian.

In the 2000s. So. Painful. Because in the 2000s. When I became a Christian. I was like.

I guess I have to listen to Christian music now. So I went on the internet. And found the top 10. Christian songs on Christian radio. And I burned it. Right off LimeWire.

Because I wasn't yet convinced. That LimeWire was stealing music. But I listened to it. And I was like. Man. This is something.

It is cheesy. And painful. And y'all. Some of it is not family friendly. I don't care what Caleb says. Some of it is bad theology.

I would not let my kids listen to it. I do not want them to have that understanding of God. Some of it is deeply painful. So it. It took over the last decade plus. Of understanding a few things.

The first thing I understood. And when it comes to Christian music. Is that hymns. Are a gift. To the church. They are a gift.

I mean. If you just. Take some of the music aside. Just read hymns. Read it as well with our soul. Read some of these hymns.

And just look at the truth. That comes out of them. There is so much depth. And beauty. Such a profound understanding. Of the gospel.

That we see in these songs. And when they are done. For our purposes. And they are arranged. Helpfully. And beautifully.

And are true to the original version. Which. I won't get on that tangent. There are some hymns. That have been poorly redone. But the ones that we have redone.

The ones that we sing so often. In our church. I started to understand. Man. These are good. These help guide me.

In understanding. In this. Understanding of confession. Rehearsing these truths. Over and over again. So hymns.

Are a gift. That we have been given. The second thing happened. Really over the last. 10-15 years. Christian songwriters.

Have gotten better. Man. There are some really good songs. That have come out. The last 10-15 years. If you are a recent Christian.

You are blessed. Man. Songs like Death in His Grave. Songs like Made Alive. Death Was Arrested. Wonders Cross.

Like these songs. Are powerful. They are profound. They teach deep truths. And they are done. Well.

So right now. This moment. In the Western American church. We are blessed. Because we have the hymns. That some of us have rediscovered.

And modern songs. That help. Sink these truths. Deeper into our soul. That we would chisel these truths. Through music.

Through actually. Singing. So there is a different. A few different styles of confession. Saying it. Singing it.

So how do we. Make the shift. Practically as a church. How do we practice. Confession. We practice it.

Through a few different ways. The first category is personal. Confession. Personal confession. We need to go to work. On the.

First. First part. Internal. Personal confessions. That we have. Because we need better.

Internal. Confessions. We say. Often times. Confess your sin. And confess your.

Savior. Part of that. For us. Is. Understanding. That we have.

Bad. Confessional. Statements. They are not. Of the gospel. They are not.

Of Jesus. They are sinful. And we have given them. Power. So I want to walk through.

Some of this. Some of the bad confessions. That we have been carrying. How many of you. Have. Really some negative.

Image statements. That you rehearse. Over and over again. To yourself. How many of you say. I am.

I am a failure. All I do. Is. Fail. Or. Alongside that.

I am. I am a. I am a loser. How many of you. Are rehearsing. Some form of.

I am ugly. I am not beautiful. How many of you. Are rehearsing. Some form of. I am unloved.

That nobody really. Loves me. Or some version of. I am gross. Who could ever possibly. Want me.

We rehearse these. Over and over again. And we have to stop. They are not. Rooted in truth. They are not.

Rooted in the gospel. The gospel. Gives us a different. Confession. You are not a failure. In Christ.

You stand. Victoriously. You are not. Ugly. Because. Beauty is not.

Bound up. In the material. It is bound up. In the perfection. Of beauty. And God.

That we get to. Bear his fruit. That is where true. Beauty is found. That you are not. Unloved.

The God of the universe. Loved you so much. That he sent his son. To be. Slain for you. That's how much.

He loves you. That you are not. Gross. You do not bear. Shame. That shame.

Was put on. Jesus at the cross. We have to. Replace. These negative. Confession.

Statements. With a better one. We have to replace it. With the gospel. How many of you. Are believing lies.

Lies. That you hear. Over and over again. In your head. Lies. That we.

As we talk about. Deep idols. Lies. Like I need to be in control. Like I need to be. The person.

In power. The man. Or the woman. In power. That I need to be approved. By others.

To be okay. That the good life. Is found to being. Comfortable. In the comforts. Of this world.

How many of us. Are believing lies. They have to be. Replaced. With. Truth.

Y'all. And we got to rehearse this. That Jesus. Is the sovereign king. He's the one in control. He's the one in power.

That God has approval. In us. Because of what Jesus. Has done. That the comfort. That we should find.

Is not in this world. But in. Jesus. How many of us. Are believing lies. How many of us.

Are. Hearing these prophecies. Of failure. That circulate. In our head. Over and over again.

It's just projecting. Failure. You'll never get over. Your porn addiction. Now. No matter how hard.

You try. You're never going to get past it. You're always going to be. An anxious. Person. Always.

That you can't control. Your anger. You're always going to be. Angry. You're always going to push. People away.

How many of us. Are hearing these. Prophecies. Of failure. We have to step. In with.

The gospel. And preach. A better. Message. To ourselves. That we have.

Victory. Over. Sin. Because of Jesus. That we have. The hope.

Of. The gospel. That gives us. Freedom. That we're not. Slaves.

Y'all. This is what. When I counsel people. This is a lot of. What I'm trying to get at. I'm trying to get at.

These internal. Confessional statements. So much so. That I want people. To say them out loud. And oftentimes.

What I will hear is. I know this is going to sound stupid. This is going to sound silly. This is going to sound. Crazy. And I'm like.

Yes. It is. Bring it out. It is crazy. It is silly. Because it is not true.

And I know that we've. Rehearsed it so often. In our head. That we think. It is true. Because it sounds like us.

It is not of us. We've got to get it out. In the open. That we might be able to. Expose. Light to it.

And live. In a better confession. That's what we're actually going to do. In groups this week. Is we're going to get some of these. Bad confessions out.

And we're going to replace them. With the gospel. We've got to go to work. On our personal. Internal confessions. And replace them with better ones.

We also need a better. Personal. External. Confession. That we are literally. Out loud.

Rehearsing things. Over and over again. We talked about this. In the. Abiding in the bible. That we need to be growing.

In memorizing scripture. And we should do this. Out loud. That transition slide. That shows up before and after. Is still going to be there.

We're going to grow in this. As a church. That we will. Rehearse the gospel. Rehearse scripture. Out loud.

We. Need this. We need to. Grow in this. We also need to grow. In confessing Jesus.

Through evangelism. There's a lot of. Good that happens. In evangelism. In reaching the lost. But one thing that happens.

Is. Is the more that you actually. Share. Jesus. He goes to work. On your own soul.

And the gospel. Becomes more true. And it sinks. Deeper. Within you. Need a better.

Personal. Internal confession. A better. Better. Personal. External.

Confession. We also need. To grow. In corporate. Confession. For centuries.

The church. Has read. Scripture. Has read. Credal statements. Have done this.

Together. And if you grew up. Like me. In churches. That did this. Sometimes.

It was really boring. Going through. Confirmation class. With an awkward priest. Or a. Reverend.

Man. And learn. It. It was hard. So. It took years.

Down the road. Of following Jesus. To finally be a part of a church. That actually. Practice. Liturgy.

That practice. Corporate confession. That practice this. Beautifully. That did it. Worshipfully.

So that. As we try this. In our own church. As we are. Doing this. That when you see it.

On the screen. Scripture. That is meant to be read together. That we wouldn't just. Kind of. Go through the motions.

We see this. As a means. To helping us. Cement. This. Into our heart.

That we do this. Worshipfully. Proclaiming truth. Together. That we need to grow in this. In corporate confession.

And we also need to grow in this. Through song. That the people of God. Have sung songs. For. Thousands.

Of years. To help. Sink. And chisel truth. Deeply. Into us.

We need this. We need this. There is this. Theologian. From the 20th century. One of the biggest theologians.

From the 20th century. He. Was once doing. A question and answer session. And someone asked him. They said.

What was the most profound. What's the most profound. Doctrine or theology. That you've ever. Understood. And he paused for a minute.

And he said. Jesus loves me. This I know. For the Bible. Tells me so. And it's just like.

Man that. You learned that. We sing that. With our own kids. So that you.

If you. Had a Christian home. That you got to. Sing that as a kid. And it. Sinks.

Deep. Within us. We need this. We need to sing truth. Deeply. Into our souls.

That it might guide us. In faith. There's a song. That. Shane and Shane. They did.

An adaption of Psalm 34. And in this adaption. They. They took Psalm 34. And some of it's verbatim. Taken from.

Psalm 34. Some of it is. Is summarized. But there are moments. Where I can't. And in.

Seasons of difficulty. I can't really. Picture. The scripture that I need to hear. That I can't. Dwell on the truth.

But there's. Moments. When I can hear it sung. And when I. A few years back. Heard.

This version of Psalm 34. There are moments. When I can't think of Psalm 34. I can't quote it. But I can.

Hear it. Taste. And see. That the Lord. Is good. Oh blessed.

Is he. That hides. In him. Oh fear the Lord. Oh you saints. He'll give you everything.

He'll give you everything. That I can. Hear that. And it is a comfort. And that is because. We sing truth.

Deep into our soul. So we need to actually sing. That men. We need to actually. Sing on. Sunday.

And I know some of you are like. But I don't sing well. Listen. Take it from me. From somebody. Who does not sing well.

At all. The people who sit in front of me. Usually can attest to that. That's okay. We all. We have people that show up here.

Early on Sunday morning. And they do sound. And they do music. And what they do. Is they make sure that the music. Is loud enough.

To where your individual voice. Can't be heard. But quiet enough. To where the collective voice. Can be heard together. Y'all we need to sing.

Sing boldly. Sing joyously. That the truth of the gospel. Would. Grow deeper in us. That we would abide further in Jesus.

Through this. We need to grow in confession. And we need to replace the bad ones. Whether it's through saying it. To ourselves. Whether it's saying it out loud.

Whether it's singing it. Or saying it corporately. We've got to grow. In having a better confession. Because we have. A better savior.

And we remember that.

Generation Faith, Generational Sin

Generational Faith, Generational Sin

Spencer Cary

Transcript

Morning. My name is Spencer. I'm one of the pastors here. We are in Genesis 26. We are continuing our journey through Genesis following this storyline of this family. We are following Isaac still.

And we're in Genesis 26, which will be on page 12 in a blue Bible near you. If you don't have a Bible at home, please take that. We want you to have a Bible that you can read at home. I would encourage you. There's not going to be a lot of Scripture on the screen. We are going to be walking through this story.

So please do grab a Bible. We'll walk through this together. Growing up, my stepdad had some quirks. They were quite humorous. My brother and I used to watch movies in our living room. And we wanted to be kind of like a theater.

So we would turn off the lights, watch the movie. And my stepdad would get home and he would see that we're watching a movie in the dark. And the first thing that would come out of his mouth was losers sit in the dark. That's just what, every time he'd come through the door, losers sit in the dark. And he'd come on and he'd turn on one light. That was one of his quirks.

Because in our family, you just didn't watch movies in the dark. It was just a thing. Like you had to have at least one light on. And it drove me crazy that this is one of his quirks. Fast forward. Anna and I, we got married.

We got an apartment. She gets a movie. We're watching it. Getting ready to watch it. She starts turning out the lights. I started getting fidgety.

I'm like, baby, let's put one light on. And she's like, no, this is a completely normal thing. Like, turn off the lights. We're going to watch the movie. I said, no, just, I mean, I get it. Like all the lights, we can turn off at one.

We'll just keep one light on. And she was like, why? And it came out. Because losers sit in the dark. She looked at me. What did you just say?

And I had to explain the history. That in my family, we all have one light on when we watch movies. It's just a thing. And to this day, we do not watch movies in the dark. We always have one light on. It's just this quirk that I picked up from my stepdad.

This happens. Like we pick up things from our parents. We pick up behaviors. We inherit things from our parents. We inherit both things that like are the kind of inheritance of traits. Like there are things about our parents that we inherit that are in us.

And then we also inherit behaviors. Just being around, absorbing some of the behaviors, some of the patterns from our parents. And they just kind of become ours. And we're going to see that a little bit in this story today. That Isaac follows in the same footsteps of his father Abraham. Doing almost the exact same thing.

Because he, like us, inherits patterns that have been passed down to him. And we see this show up in three distinct ways. We see that Isaac inherits obedience. And we're going to see as we walk through this that he inherits sin. And then ultimately we're going to see that he inherits grace. And as we walk through the story and we see these three things that he inherits, I want us to do this a little bit reflectively.

Thinking about the things that we inherit from our parents. Some of the behaviors that show up in us. But also for those of us that have kids, what we pass down. Because it matters. So I'm going to pray.

And then we're going to jump in. And Father, thank you so much for your word. That it is accurate. That it is good. That it instructs us in righteousness. And shows us your gospel.

God, I pray this morning that you would open our hearts. That we would hear it and receive it. In Jesus' name, amen. Alright, so it starts off in verse 1. Now there was a famine in the land.

Besides the former famine that was in the days of Abraham. Alright, so that phrase, now there was a famine in the land. And it's supposed to take you back to Genesis 12. This is supposed to help you clue in to the story of Abraham. Because Moses uses the exact same phrase in Genesis 12. So it's cluing you in.

This story is a little bit like Abraham. And then as we continue to read this, we're going to see even more so how this shows up. How this is a repeating of history from Isaac and Abraham. It says, And Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech, king of the Philistines. And the Lord appeared to him and said, Do not go down to Egypt. Dwell in the land of which I shall tell you.

Sojourn in this land. So now this is starting to sound even more like Abraham. It's starting to sound like Genesis 20. If you think back in the fall when we went through this story, Abraham took his family to the land of Gerar. God doesn't want them in Egypt. That's coming down the line at the end of Genesis.

But for now he wants them to settle in Gerar amongst the Philistines. And guess who the king is? Abimelech. Now, this could be the exact same Abimelech. There's a long gap between when Abraham was living amongst Abimelech in Genesis 20 and this time period. It's a huge gap.

So it's possible that Abimelech was very young at the time being a king. And now he's very, very old. It's also possible that this is the son of Abimelech who bears the same name. But regardless, they would have been very familiar with this family. This family has history in this land. And they would have remembered it when they came to settle amongst them.

So he says, verse 3, Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and will bless you. For to you and to your offspring I will give all these lands. And I will establish the oath that I swore to your father Abraham. And then God continues. He says, I will multiply your offspring as the stars of the heaven. And will give to your offspring all these lands.

And in your offspring all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my charge, my commandments, my statutes, and my laws. So Isaac settled in Gerar. So he tells Isaac, trust me. Obey me like your father Abraham did. Like he trusted me in settling where I told him to.

Trust me. Obey my commands. Obey my statutes like your father Abraham. And you'll get this promise. This promised land. This blessing of a great nation.

That is for you. Just trust me. And what's important here is it says, So Isaac settled in Gerar. That Isaac, he trusts God. He listens to his word. He trusts him.

And he settles in the land. And that is huge. Isaac inherits obedience from his father Abraham. And this happens with us. We pick up patterns of behavior. We pick up patterns of good patterns.

Obedience from our parents that shows up in our lives. I think to my parents, one of the values they instilled in me was generosity. It's just something that they taught me at a young age. I have vivid memories of my mom. And we would be at church on Sunday. And she would be writing a check.

And she's explaining to me, this is what we do. We give to the church. And I remember the moments, not just giving with the church, but also there were situations growing up where there's someone that either worked for my stepdad or was a family member or someone we knew that they would cut checks, they would cover bills, they would help pay for things. That generosity was a rhythm. It was a natural thing for our household. And it's something that's shown up in my own life that I've been able to practice in our own family.

And sometimes that stuff is taught. Like I remember specifically my mom teaching me some of this stuff. But oftentimes a lot of this is caught. You absorb it over time. It becomes some of your behavior. And we see this as an intense example with Abraham and Isaac.

Because if you go back to Genesis 22, you look at the story of Abraham taking Isaac to the Mount of Moriah to sacrifice his son. Isaac was front and center for that. He got to see how Abraham was obedient to what God had called him to, so much so that he was in the center of it. But that Abraham ultimately trusted that the blessing was going to come through Isaac, that God was going to make this blessing happen. He just had to trust God. And he got to see this, that he trusted God, and there was blessing that came out of it.

And he got to inherit this obedience, and it was passed down from Abraham. And ultimately this is passed down to the nation of Israel. This love for God, that the heart of the Old Testament law is love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, that you would be wholly devoted in love to God, and in your devotion and love to God, that might show up in your kids. That you might teach that to your children, that they also might love God wholeheartedly, with their whole self. Proverbs 22, 6 says, Train up a child in the way he should go. Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.

And that's the hope, is that you would train up a child, which sometimes is intentional teaching. Sometimes it's opening up the Bible, it's showing how to pray, it's intentional moments of training, but a lot of times, it's just stuff that is caught. It's them seeing your love for God, so much so, that it shows up in their own lives, that they might never depart from it. And this is something, that we have been trying to focus on as a church. That we've realized, we have a lot of families here, and as a gospel-centered family, we want to help families do this, and we've made some shifts. Like Kid City, I don't know if you have seen this, have gotten to see this, they've been crushing it lately.

We've made some shifts over the past year, and it's been awesome. My daughter came home a month ago, and she was learning about Romans 6, 23, and she was learning about, for the wages of sin is death, and she's explaining to me, the connections of sin and death, and I was blown away. I was so thankful. And we want to continue to press into that, but we also want to see this happen, outside of Kid City, because you, parents, have the most opportunity for impact, with your kids. You do. You have the most opportunity for influence.

My mentor, for over a decade now, he's a pastor in Houston. He used to be a youth pastor, and I interned under him. When he first showed up at the church, that I was interning at, this kid got busted, this high school kid got busted at a party. And his parents came to the church, and said, where were you? Well, my kid got busted at a party. You guys are failing.

And he said, okay. He realized, this is kind of the culture of this church. It's really the culture of down south. You take your kids to school, that's where they get their education. You take your kids to sports team, that's where they get their athletics. You take your kids to the church, that's where they get their spiritual growth.

That was kind of the mindset. So he got all the parents together, in one room. And he had one small jar, and one giant jar. And he had a bucket of ping pong balls. And he said, he took out a ball, and he said, this ball represents one hour of influence, that I get with your kids every week. Sometimes it's one, he put it in the small jar.

Sometimes it's two, he put another one. Sometimes it's three. For some of your kids, I might even get four hours, with your kids a week. And he took the bucket to the big jar, and he dumped it in. He said, this is the amount of time, that you get with your kids. 30, 40, 50, 60 plus hours a week.

And he said, tell me, who has the most opportunity for impact? Who has the most opportunity, for influence with your kids? It's you. And that is how God has designed this. That we might influence our kids, we might train them to love the Lord, with their whole self, that they might never depart from it. And some of that is intentional, it's going to be, in the future, we're going to be making shifts, to make sure that we're encouraging, time in the word at home, and time in prayer.

And we want to encourage, some of those intentional moments, but a lot of times, it's just going to be caught. It's going to be caught, and it's going to show up in your lives. We were talking about this, in our teaching team this week. And Bianca, who serves in music, and she also serves on our teaching team, and helping write sermons. And she said that she remembers, that her mom, not necessarily her teaching her, how to read the Bible, how to study the Bible. But what she does remember, is she would come home, or she would come downstairs, every morning, and she'd see her mom, with her Bible, reading.

And that has had a lasting impact, on her, to where she values, the word of God, like her mother does. I think of a friend, one of my friends from seminary, he had a daughter, and we didn't have kids yet, so I was just learning, and observing. And they had this culture, of forgiveness, and repentance, in their household. That when him and his wife, would mess up, and they would sin against their daughter, they would go to her, and say, will you forgive me? I'm so sorry. And they had this, this rhythm of repentance, and forgiveness, and love, that I hadn't seen before.

I was like, man, that is awesome, that one day, that's all she's going to know, is a culture, of repentance, and forgiveness, and love, and not one of pride. that she might never depart from that. This shows up, in the everyday moments, of crisis, and chaos. Your kids will remember, our children will remember, how we respond. Will we go to the things, of this world? Or will we go, to the Lord in prayer, seeking his wisdom, and his care, and his provision? Now some of you, may be thinking, that's great, for those of people, that grew up, in a Christian household.

That was not mine. We picked up, all kinds of different patterns, but not that. So how in the world, am I supposed to, if God gives me children, or if I have children, how in the world, am I supposed to, to teach them this kind of stuff? That sounds great. How? Well, you have a, gospel centered family, that you're surrounded with.

We are figuring this out together. Ask. Learn. Ask how some, we have older parents here. Ask how, they have done it. Because we are figuring this out together.

And you might be thinking, some of you are like, wow, this is really good. You've spent quite a bit of time, in the first six verses, talking about, how to raise kids. I don't have kids, and I don't think I'm ever going to have kids. How does this apply to me? You are a part, of a gospel centered family. We get to do this together.

We need you. You get to join in with us. You get to help raise our kids, that they might love the Lord, and never depart from it. That's a beautiful thing, that you get to be invited into, in community groups, not just in Kid City. That you get to help raise our kids. So ask, how you can help.

And parents, receive it. Ask how they can, how you can pitch in. How you can help. Maybe it's babysitting, where parents can go on a date night, at least once a month. Maybe it's, intentional, moments of conversation, that you get to share the gospel, with kids in your group. Be a third wheel parent.

We are asking you to join in, that we might partner together, that we might be a village, that raises gospel centered families, that kids might depart from, might not never depart, from the love of God. This is what we are moving towards, this is what we want to embody, as we obey the scriptures, and as we love our families. And we all have opportunities, to pass on this obedience, this love of Jesus. But at times, this gets difficult. And one of the reasons, this gets difficult, is because we, inherit sin. We inherit a sinful nature, and this shows up front and center, starting off in verse 6.

He says, So Isaac settled in Gerar. Alright, so they're settled. Verse 7. When the men of this place, asked him about his wife, he said, She is my sister. For he feared to say, my wife, thinking, lest the men of this place, should kill me because of Rebekah, because she was attractive in appearance. When he had been there a long time, Abimelech, king of the Philistines, looked out of a window, and saw Isaac laughing, with Rebekah, his wife.

So Abimelech called Isaac, and said, Behold, she is your wife. How then could you say, she is my sister? Isaac said to him, Because I thought lest I die, because of her. Abimelech said, What is this you have done to us? One of the people, might have easily lain with your wife, and you would have brought guilt upon us. So Abimelech warned all the people, saying, Whoever touches this man, or his wife, shall surely be put to death.

Now, doesn't that sound familiar? This is Abraham Abimelech, the remix. I mean, this is happening in almost the exact same fashion. And Isaac doesn't have the weird kind of half-truth, this is my half-sister kind of thing. This is a straight-up lie. He fears man.

After God just gave him this promise again, he said, This is the promise. You are going to have this blessing. You are going to have these lands. You are going to have all these things. And he goes, Well, my wife is a stunner. She is good-looking.

They might kill me. He fears man. And out of that fear, he lies. And it wasn't a small lie. This thing carried on for a while. It says in verse 8, that a long time had passed before Abimelech started to figure this out.

So Abimelech, he sees them, and they are laughing. Now, this isn't just laughter. This is flirtatious laughter. That's what the Hebrew is getting at in this text. They're flirting. So he sees them, and they're all starry-eyed, and laughing, and cutting up, and they maybe got a little bit physical.

And Abimelech's like, Wait a second. Y'all, this is not brother-sister love. You guys are married, and I like to think that everything just clicked. That he just, that this is OG Abimelech from back in the day, or this is his son. Regardless, it just clicks. This is what this family does.

They show up. They pass their wives off as their sister. What have you done? Which, by the way, is such a weird thing to be known for. It's like, What? You could have gotten us all killed again.

He operates out of fear. He doesn't trust God. He fears man, and eventually this scheme gets exposed. And it's because we inherit sinful patterns. Not just by absorbing them through observing bad behavior. We inherit this.

There's a philosopher named John Locke. He's one of the most influential philosophers on America. He's a British philosopher from the 17th century, but he influenced much of the founding fathers in our Constitution. Stuff like property rights, taxation without representation. That's all him. And one of the things he also, one of his philosophies was something called blank slate theory.

Blank slate theory was the idea that every child is born morally neutral. So they come into this world with a blank slate. And it's up to us, as families or as society, to shape virtue in children. They come in morally neutral, and if you could raise them in a moral vacuum, they would never have any type of evil. We could educate them to be good citizens, to be good, virtuous people. And that's one of the reasons why academics put such a high value on education to fix morality.

You may have picked up on this, that the way you solve racism is education. The way that you solve systematic injustice is education, which has not worked in any society ever, because education is not the problem. Children do not come in with a blank slate. There is one fatal flaw in this theory. It's children. Have you ever seen a two-year-old?

Have you ever? My daughter is so sweet. She's also a little schemer. She's schemey. And she, like, at a very young age, would scheme and would lie. And I didn't teach her that.

I don't spend most of the time with her during the day. That's my wife. But my wife isn't schemey. It took everything she could to throw me a surprise birthday party last year. She's just, she's not. And I didn't teach her.

No one else has taught her. It's natural. It's something that she inherited from me, because when I was a kid, I was very schemey. She inherits this naturally from me. Isaac, he certainly probably picked up some fear of man patterns from Abraham. But he wasn't even alive when Abraham and Abimelech were doing this dance in Genesis 20.

He never got to see this front and center. We inherit generational sin. Romans 5 teaches, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, so death spread to all men, because all sinned. That's the formation for the basis of original sin. That from Adam, sin spreads to all of humanity. That we inherit this sinful nature, it is passed down all the way back to Adam.

In 1 Peter 1.18 it says, Knowing that you are ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers. That we naturally inherit sinful patterns from our forefathers. Sinful, futile ways. The Old Testament law teaches that we inherit sin from the second, third, and fourth generation. It's passed down. Now psychologists look at this, formation of behavior, and they kind of fall in between two camps.

On the one side you've got nature, and the far end of nature versus nurture, you have, basically when conception happens, genetics are formed, and therefore it's all decided from there. That's the far end of the nature side of the bait. Once your genetics form, that's who you are. On the other end of the extreme, is nurture. The idea that education, that how you are raised, is what forms you and shapes behavior. This is where clean slate theory has some of its merits in this argument.

That it would be education that would form you. That you would, through experiences, through upbringing, this is kind of what forms you. Most people fall between the two of these and see that both of them have value. That what you, there's something about you, inherit to you, that helps form your behavior. Also, there are things that shape you, and mold you. And as Christians, we look at this and go, yep, that makes sense.

You inherit a sinful nature, that matters. You also inherit, patterns of obedience and disobedience, that form and shape you. Let me give you a few examples. Take alcoholism or addiction. People look and they say, how is it that a father, or a son, and his father, and his grandfather, and his great grandfather, that all of them, are alcoholics? That all of them struggle, with addiction.

How is that? On the nature side, there are people who will say, well, it's genetics. That has to be what shapes you. And they've done a ton of studies. They haven't isolated the one gene, that causes this. They may have found some factors, into this.

But we as Christians, can look at this and go, yeah, that makes sense, that you would inherit, the sinful nature, that sin causes physical changes. The reason we know that, is because sin causes death. That yes, on this level, down to your very traits, you would be corrupt. It also makes sense, that the only way, you ever saw your father, deal with stress, or with burdens, is with a bottle. If the only time, you watched your parents celebrate, was them, stumbling through the door, killed over a toilet. If you saw, if this is who, you come from, and this is what you see, it makes sense, that's generational sin.

This happens in, in anger. People look at families, and go, there tends to be, a pattern between, all the people in this family, that are angry, especially some of the men, cousins, dads, brothers, they're all angry, and violent. It's like they have, an extra Y chromosome. There's something going on here, that they're just, angry, and violent. Every time, they face, opposition, they use their fists. Yes, you inherit a sinful nature.

Also, if the only time, you ever see your family, deal with opposition, is with their fists, are getting violent, or getting verbally abusive, those are the only patterns, you would ever know. This happens with any, I'll give you one more, this happens with anxiety. People look at families, and go, how is it, that anxiety, plagues this family so bad, that mothers, and sisters, that even brothers, uncles, there's just, it's so stressful, in this house. And it was the same, for their parents. There's all these, burdens and stress, and it was just so tense. Well, there's something going on there.

There's a fallenness, that is inherited, that shows up. Also, if you never actually, get to see, families that go to the Lord, in prayer, that fight, that trust, fight to trust the promises of God, to make through. Both of those matter. When you have inherited sin, and you have observable, bad patterns, of response, of behavior, and you put them together, that is generational sin. This is what we inherit. We inherit, we inherit generational sin.

And when you think about that, when you think about all of the fallenness, all of the brokenness, that you have inherited, is all the way down, to the core of who you are, that feels a little bit depressing. But when you also think, that you, this is what you are passing on, to your kids, that feels even more depressing. But the good news of the gospel, is that's not the only thing, that we get to inherit. That we also get to inherit, grace. And that shows up, in the rest of the story. Verse 12.

And Isaac sowed in the land, and reaped in the same year, a hundredfold. The Lord blessed him, and the man became rich, and gained more and more, until he became very wealthy. He had possessions of flocks, and herds, and many servants. So the Philistines envied him. So just off the heels, of him running this lie, running this scheme, God blesses Isaac.

He gives him a harvest, that's a hundredfold, which in an arid culture, is an absurd amount of crops. He gives him animals, he builds this family, they get blessing, upon blessing, upon blessing, and the Philistines, start to get envious. And it continues. Now the Philistines had stopped, and filled with earth, all the wells, that his father's servants, had dug in the days of Abraham, his father. And Abimelech said to Isaac, go away from us, for you are much mightier than we. So the hospitality starts to end.

They're like, you guys have gotten way too big, y'all need to get out of Gerard, go to the valley, and then from this point forward, the rest of the story, which we don't have time to watch, walk through, they just start filling up wells with dirt. Which you might think, oh that's petty. That's like you kicking down your neighbor's mailbox. I guess, it's more than petty. That's almost an act of war. Because in an arid culture, where water is life, it's how you feed your animals, it's how you feed your family, water sustains you, you start filling up wells, you start ending opportunities to live, to prosper, to grow.

And they go, the rest of the story, from place, to place, to place, to place, digging wells, taking care of the wells that Abraham dug. And they get filled up, and filled up, and filled up. And Isaac is starting to feel this, as they have to go from place to place, not ever having peace. And there had to be some part of them that wondered, oh, is this blessing going to end? What's happening here? And then God comes to him in verse 23, and makes it clear.

From there he went to Beersheba, and the Lord appeared to him the same night, and said, I am the God of Abraham, your father, fear not. For I am with you, and will bless you, and multiply your offspring, for my servant Abraham's sake. So he built an altar there, and called upon the name of the Lord, and pitched his tent there, and there Isaac's servants dug a well. That in the midst of this uncertainty, God makes it abundantly clear. This blessing is yours. This blessing is yours.

You are going to be taken care of. You are still inheriting the promise. You still are going to have a nation that is as numerous as the stars in the sky. I am going to take care of you. It doesn't matter how he acted before Bimelech. It doesn't matter the schemes and the lives that he lived in.

He gets grace. Continued grace. And the story ends with, we don't have time to look at this, but in your community group this week, you can look at it. The story ends with Bimelech and his posse showing up, and it's like, is this going to be a war? Are they going to fight? And they end up striking a deal.

In the most politically schemey fashion, you can look at Bimelech and laugh at how he just lashed through his teeth. They strike a deal. And peace is made. And Isaac's family is sustained. They are sustained. They are preserved with this promise.

And because Isaac was preserved, the bloodline eventually gets to Jesus. And therefore, we get grace. Grace is unmerited favor, unearned favor, which I like. That lacks a little spice and flavor. It seems a little bit overly technical. They say it like that.

Someone came up with an acronym, I don't know who, for grace. It's God's riches at Christ's expense, which I love. That in Christ, not by any good works of our own, we get the riches of God. That in Christ, we get brought into the same blessing that Isaac had. We get brought into the same fellowship that he had with God. That, y'all, we get access to the God who created everything.

We can come to him in prayer. We get fellowship in part in this life, more fully realized in the next. We get fellowship with God. We get the perfect love of Christ. That's one of the most amazing God's riches of God, that we get the eternal love of Jesus. That no matter what, for those of us who are in Christ, God's love captures us, it seals us, it never lets us go.

We get to experience his goodness, and his joy, and his hope, and his love. That one day, one of the riches we get, is we get to dwell with God, in the city of God, which Psalm 50 calls, the perfection of beauty. The perfection of beauty. We get to dwell in a land like that with God. We get excited about shiplap, and some farm tables. We don't even know beauty.

That we get to dwell with God, in the new Jerusalem. That he will be in the center. That we get to gaze upon his goodness, and his glory fully. We get riches upon riches. We get the perfect record of Christ, that stands for us. We don't have our own sin, it's replaced by the righteousness of Jesus.

You could go on, and on, and on, and fill your days, with writing out, the blessings of God. We wouldn't even come close, to scratching the surface, because those are just the ones, that we have written down in the scriptures. And they're not the ones, that through faith in Jesus, that we will get to fully realize, one day, we get God's riches, at Christ's expense. That the God of the universe, stepped into our timeline, humbling himself. He went to the cross, having his blood poured out, suffering for our sin, and having the full cup of wrath, poured out on him, so that he can make a way, for us to have life, and experience those riches.

That is the kind of grace, that we inherit, through faith in Jesus. We are just like Isaac, in one minute, scheming and lying, and the next minute, experiencing the goodness, and the glory of God, not by our own merit, but by God's. So for those of us, who are in Christ, for those of you, that grew up, in a Christian family, that got to hear this, I want you to think, through this for a moment. That you got to observe, the gospel. You got to be in a house, that filled the house, with the word of God, with prayer. You got to see this, over and over again.

And you know what, that didn't turn into? That didn't turn into legalism. That didn't turn into, false belief. By grace, you believed. You inherited grace. For those of you, that didn't grow up, in a Christian household, you inherited grace.

Because somebody, shared the gospel with you, and you believed. And someone shared the gospel, with that person, and before that person, before that person, you inherited grace. We all, through Christ, believing in Him, get to inherit this blessing, get to inherit grace. So parents, as we parent, may your homes, may our homes, be so infused, with the grace of our God, that in our obedience, that we hope to pass down, we can ultimately point that back, to the goodness of our God, working through us. That it's not, anything of ourselves, it is the goodness of the God, goodness of our God, and the gospel, working through us, that they might see, the Lord of grace.

That in your sin, and in our sin, and our fallenness, our kids may see repentance, they may see forgiveness, they may see us point back, to the gospel. May we be so, saturated with grace, that we would display this, the next generation of this church, might never depart from it.

Adam & Eve

Adam & Eve

Matt Freeman

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Transcript

We're really excited about this new series. I'm Matt. I'm one of the pastors of Mill City Church. And so I hope you enjoyed the video. If you came in late and you weren't able to see the whole thing, we will be putting it up on Facebook and we'll send it out through Twitter so that you can view that. And you've got the handout, so you want to keep that handy.

You can stick it in your Bible. Or again, we've got the paper copies for you over there on that table. For most of us, we grew up with some type of familiarity with the main stories of the Bible, right? So whether you grew up in church or you didn't, these stories are not even unfamiliar to our culture. So even in our culture, there's TV shows, there's movies that are made, there are even musicals.

So an example of that would be Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. If you've seen that, I'm sorry. If you haven't, don't Google it. It's interesting. And then they just made a movie about Noah starring Russell Crowe, who was the main actor in Gladiator, which I've heard that's an amazing movie, but about the only thing it has in common with the story of the Bible is that there's a guy named Noah. There's a flood and a boat.

And then we're all kind of familiar with the story of David and Goliath, which I love that story because I played defensive line in college, and I'm kind of short. And so I was always going up against guys who were like 6'4", 6'5", and so it was always like, I've got a channel on my inner David, and I can take all of these guys down. But that's what we're going to be covering in this series are some of the main stories of the Bible. And most of you know this, but I grew up as a part of a church, and so I heard these stories all the time. I heard them in different places. One of the places I heard them was in Sunday school.

Some of you might have grown up in Sunday school, which is the worst name ever. Like, kids don't like going to Monday through Friday school. I don't know how Sunday school is going to make it any better. And then you had the week-long adventure during the summer called Vacation Bible School. Again, words mean things, so I don't know who got to come up with all of these names. But one of my favorite places to study the Bible and to learn Bible stories was on Wednesday night, and this group met in the gym, and it was called the RAs.

Oh, some of you are nodding your head. Yes, the RAs. That stands for Royal Ambassadors. Fancy, I know. No, for real, we had a pledge. You look at me like this isn't fancy.

As a royal ambassador, I will do my part to help old ladies with liberty and justice for all. See, I even remember the pledge from when I was in the RAs. So I heard these Bible stories in all kinds of different places, and I don't think this is going to surprise any of you, but growing up, I was referred to as a husky child. And so there was always some kind of incentive to pay attention when the teacher was talking. And in fourth grade, I had a Sunday school teacher that had this big brown bag full of flavored Tootsie Rolls. Let's just say I learned a lot in that class, got a lot of questions right, and my fourth grade picture tells the tale.

I mean, it's just... And even in RAs, the best one in RAs was, if you guys will listen for 10 minutes, we'll go outside and we'll play football. Deal. I'll listen for 10 minutes if we get to go outside and play football. And most of the time, we were studying the main stories from the Bible. So basically, the teacher would begin.

He would tell the story, or we'd read the story from the scripture. And then he would ask us questions, and the aim of the questions was to take us towards some kind of moral application. So you may be familiar with the story of Job and all the terrible things to happen to Job. Well, the moral of the story in Job is that we just have to have patience and wait on God no matter what's going on. Or maybe you've heard the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. These three guys were thrown into a fire because they refused to bow down to a statue.

And they walk around in the fire, and they aren't hurt by it, and they come out. And so, of course, the moral of that story is you need to keep your faith in God no matter who picks on you. That's kind of the moral application. And then the one you're probably most familiar with is Jonah and the whale. And so the moral of that story is if God calls you to do something, you better do it or you can get swallowed by a fish. And nobody wants to get swallowed by a fish.

And so I grew up hearing these stories, and here's how I was taught to process them. What's the story? What's the application? And so I get in conversations with people sometimes, and they ask me, How am I supposed to read the Bible? Am I supposed to glean some kind of moral truth from it? Or am I just supposed to be kind of learning the facts?

Am I supposed to insert myself into the story? Or am I supposed to kind of like step out and be a third person and just learn stuff? How am I supposed to read the Bible? And the aim of all of those questions is what leads us to what we'll be addressing in this series, which is how do we properly read and understand the Bible, especially when it comes to some of these big stories. So we're going to be beginning, if you want to grab a Bible, we're going to be beginning in Genesis chapter 3, which is on page 2 in the Bibles that we have for you on the seats.

But before we do, I just want to pray that God would speak to us during our time. Let's pray together. God, thank you that we don't have to wing this, that our faith is not dependent on our ability to somehow figure out who you are, but you've actually chosen to reveal yourself to us through your word. And God, we praise you for that, and we thank you for that. And what we ask for this morning is that your Holy Spirit would open us up to understanding who you are and how we relate to you as it comes from the story of Adam and Eve. We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen. So again, our story is going to be in Genesis chapter 3, which is on page 2. But since we're at the beginning of the Bible, I want to give you a quick back story of chapters 1 and 2 to kind of get us to the main story that we'll be talking about today. So you can kind of follow along in your Bible if you want to. But what we see in Genesis chapter 1 is that God speaks and things begin to happen.

God says, let there be light. The God of the universe speaks and creation begins to happen so that light separates from darkness and land separates from water and he creates plants and animals and ultimately humanity. And he does it over the course of six days. And at the end of six days, he says that it's very good. And then on the seventh day, God rested. And as it moves into chapter 2, what we get is just a zoomed-in picture of part of God's creation.

So in chapter 1, we see that God speaks creation into existence. But when it comes to humanity, we get a much different picture. As you can kind of see in verse 7, it says that God with his hands takes dust and he forms man and he breathes the breath of life into him. And I want you to get that because it's really cool. God speaks creation into existence except for humanity. God sets the stage for the intimate relationship he desires with humanity, even in creation.

It's just a really cool picture. And Adam exists in relationship with God. And God takes Adam and he puts him in the midst of a paradise in a garden called Eden. And Adam gets to live in relationship with God. God gives him things to do. He has dominion over creation and he's to work in the garden.

There's even parameters to how he relates to God and the things that he does within the garden. God says you can eat the fruit of any tree in the garden except for one, just the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Don't eat that or you'll die. And Adam's like, that's a sweet deal. I can do that. I can handle that.

And in relating to God, God wants to find a helper suitable for Adam. He doesn't want Adam to be alone. It's not good for Adam to be alone. And so God gives Adam the responsibility of naming all of the animals. I mean, you got to picture that for a second. The Adam gets the responsibility of naming all the Adam.

So go with me there for a second. First animal. Adam's ready. Okay. First animal comes in. Rhinoceros.

Sweet. Got it. Nailed it. Next one. Keep them coming. Flamingo.

Next one. What in the duck-billed platypus? We'll call this one. And I guess Adam got bored after a while. There's so many. It's just kind of like cat.

Next. Dog. Next. How many of these things are there, really? I mean, how many animals? And obviously, Adam was speaking English.

Duh. So that's what he called those things. So just erase all of that from your memory. Because obviously, he wasn't speaking English. But at the end of naming all of the animals, there's not a helper found suitable for Adam.

No helper is found among the animals that's suitable for Adam. And so what we see in 21, if you've got your Bibles, it's the same page that you're on. So we might as well read it. Starting in verse 21. It says this. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man.

And while he slept, took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. Then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife. And they shall become one flesh.

And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. So what happens is that God puts Adam to sleep, takes the rib, with it creates a woman. And he brings the woman to Adam. And in the original language, Adam sings. That's what that is. Adam is so pumped up about the creation that God had just brought to him that he, homeboy, sings.

He's so excited. And it says that they became one flesh together and they existed in this garden. And I love that God paints the picture from creation of what biblical marriage gets to look like. One man and one woman joined together in covenant relationship with God and with each other. And it was perfect. In the midst of a paradise, there's Adam and Eve enjoying each other, enjoying God's creation.

And they were naked and not ashamed. Amen. Let's pray. I think that's the end, right? That's where we want the story to stop. It's like, oh, don't go further.

But the problem is we actually have to go further because the Bible does. So while we want to stay in paradise where everything's good, we're going to move on to chapter 3. So now I want you to go ahead and grab your Bible. The verses are not going to be on the screen. So I want you to have it in your hands.

It's looking at Genesis chapter 3, verse 1. I'll give you a second to flip there. Verse number 1. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman. All right, it's already getting weird.

We've got talking snakes. Hang on to that. We're coming back to it. He said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die.

But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Now, we don't get this right off the bat. We don't, but we should have known something was up when Eve starts talking to a snake. And what we find out from context is that this is Satan in the form of a snake. And what we see in scripture is that Satan was a created being who rebelled against God.

And it's going to use descriptors like the father of lies, deception, schemes, tricks. And so we shouldn't be surprised that when Satan shows up in the garden, he does so in the form of a disguise to talk to Eve. And he comes to Eve and he says, did God say that you couldn't eat of any tree that's in the garden? And Eve responds, no, just not the one that's in the middle, because if we eat of that one, we'll die. And Satan deceptively says, you won't surely die. At least not immediately.

And the reason that God doesn't want you to eat of the fruit is because you'll be like God. You'll be like God. And God doesn't want that. He doesn't want you to be like him. So, so yeah, yeah. It's just the knowledge of good and evil.

He just wants you to be like him. It's really not that big a deal. It seems like Eve takes the bait. Okay. Verse six. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate.

And she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And see, now you understand the reason why I wanted to stop at the end of chapter two, because humanity made it two chapters and then blew it. That's what we see in this story is that Eve falls for the deception of Satan and takes the fruit and she eats. And then she gives some to her husband who is standing passively by while she's talking to a snake. That's another sermon for another day.

And he eats of it. And it says immediately their eyes were opened to the fact that they were naked and ashamed. Have you ever had that dream where everything's going good? And then all of a sudden you look down, you're no longer wearing clothes and you're in front of all your friends and families. You ever had some of you are squirming in your seat like, no, that's the worst dream ever. However, they feel that shame for the first time.

And here's why. Because when they, God had commanded Adam, don't eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So that when he ate, he knew the difference between good and evil. And for the first time, humanity felt the weight of rebellion against God. Adam and Eve knew that they had sinned. It wasn't just that they were naked and ashamed.

They knew the depth of their depravity at that moment because they had rebelled against God. And so they made loincloths for themselves. Pick it up in verse 8. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you?

And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit. She gave me fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done?

The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. So God shows up again. He walks in perfect relationship with his creation and God's looking for his creation. And he calls out to them. And Adam says that he's hiding because he was afraid because he was naked. And God says, who told you?

Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to? And Adam just dodges the question. In fact, Adam has the audacity to say, the woman that you, the woman that you put here to be with me, she gave me the fruit. So Adam actually blames God and he blames the woman.

And then God turns to the woman and he says, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate. And what we're going to look at in the rest of this story is that because there has been sin, because there was disobedience to what God commanded, there's ultimately discipline and punishment. And so what we're going to see in successive order is the punishment that's handed down to the serpent, that's handed down to Satan, that's handed to Eve, and then it's handed to Adam. Jump back with me to verse 14. The Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field.

On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.

And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it you were taken, for you are dust and to dust you shall return.

So there is punishment. Because there is disobedience to God's word, there is punishment. And the punishment for the serpent is that it would be the lowest of all creation. And we see that with Satan. That he is cast away from God. The furthest from God.

The woman would have pain in childbearing. Yes, ladies, you get to thank Eve for that. That she would have pain in childbearing. And ultimately there would be struggle within the marriage relationship. Where the man would abdicate his God-given role of leading in the family. And the woman would fight him for it.

There would be struggle within the marriage relationship. And for men the curse is that he would work his entire life toiling, struggling by the sweat of his face. And very little would be yielded from it. And what we see in the rest of the story is that God makes clothing for Adam and Eve. And he walks them out of the garden. And that's the end of the story.

Now, I want us to time out for a second. And just zoom out. Take a breath. Because the room got heavy. Because we feel the weight of the story. I want you to take a breath for a second.

Remember, the point of this series is to figure out, What am I supposed to take away from this story? So growing up, again, the way that I began to read the Bible was this. What's the story? And what's the moral application? And more often than not, whether it be in Sunday school or RAs or even hearing it preached, This is the way I was taught this passage. Here's the moral application.

The first part is this. The way that we exist in relationship with God is by our actions. The things that we do. That's how we relate. Our actions. The second part is the actions that we can choose.

So we can, God has rules. The second part is we can either choose to obey those rules or rebel against those rules. And the third part is this. If you accept God's commands and you follow his rules, you'll be blessed. And if you rebel against his commands, you will be punished. So let me break it down just a little bit shorter.

God has rules. We obey them. Or there are consequences. And so in the story of Adam and Eve, what we see is that God has rules. They disobeyed God. And so there were consequences.

Everything was going good until they screwed up. And then after they sinned, it was never the same again. And so the application for me was that God has rules. And I have to do good. And I have to be good to exist in relationship with God. Because it's on me to do what I have to do to be in relationship with God.

That's what I got from the story. And so I grew up scared. Scared that I was going, that not if, but when. When was I going to screw up? Scared that I had to earn God's favor or to face his punishment. That in the end, God actually cared more about my behavior than he did about me.

So I started looking at life like it was all a series of tests. Tests to see that if I would honor God. And so that if I was doing well, if I was doing the things that I was supposed to do as a Christian, that God would be blessing me and that I would have an overall good life. But when I screwed up, when I messed up, there would be punishment. And life as I know it would begin to diminish more and more each time. That in the end, I was going to let God down.

And some of us feel that. Some of you, that's the way you understand Christianity to be. So that you feel this burden that you'll never be able to achieve what God has set forth for you. That you're going to screw up. You're going to mess up. You think that the way that you relate to God can only be through your actions.

And if you sin and you're disobedient, that ultimately, you're just going to be punished and cast out. And the truth is, if we read the Bible like it's about us, that's what we'll get out of it. But here's something that's absolutely beautiful about the Bible that we get to see this morning. The Bible is ultimately to reveal God to us. So that the aim of Scripture is ultimately to point us towards Jesus.

The truth that can set us free this morning is that the Bible is about Jesus, not about us. And so from the very first story in the Bible, God's going to set the stage for how we understand Him. And understand how we relate to Him. And I know you're thinking, yeah, but what we just saw was that it's based off of our action. That's how we relate to God, right? So if we're doing good, we're in good stead with God.

If we're doing bad, we're not. I want us to jump back into the story and see the good news that's actually here. So grab your Bibles again. We're going back to the story, to verse 14 and verse 15. Now what we're about to look at is referred to by theologians.

This actually has a name. It's called the Proto-Evangelion. All right, I know, big word. Proto meaning first, like prototype. Evangelion meaning good news. So theologians, guys that study the Bible refer to this as the first good news.

And I know you're already looking at it going, wait, wait, wait. This is the curse of Satan. This is the curse to the serpent. How in the world is this good news for us? How does this teach us about how we relate to God? Jump back there with me.

Verse 14, the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. So again, this is the curse of the serpent.

It starts off, it says you're going to be cursed. You're going to crawl around on your belly. Dust you're going to eat all the days of your life. So in comparison to Satan, the lowest of all creation. And then in verse 15, it begins to take a turn. Look at it again.

It says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers. So it says enmity. Enmity between you and the woman, between the serpent and the woman. Enmity, another word for that would be hostility. Yeah, we would agree with that. We would agree that there's hostility between us and Satan, the offspring of Eve.

But it seems, if you keep reading, that it's being a little more specific here. Look at the last little bit. It says, he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. Who's he? I thought we were talking about the serpent and Eve. But now all of a sudden, there's this he.

And if you jump back in the verse, it says that there's going to be enmity between you and the woman. Okay? Between your offspring and hers. And what we begin to realize is that it's not just talking about any offspring of Eve. It's actually pointing towards a very specific descendant of Eve. And if you think about this, what it's saying, it says, you will bruise his heel, but he will bruise your head.

And if you think about it, if a snake were to strike at the heel of a man, it could hurt. But the heel of a man to the head of a serpent would kill it. And what we see is that this very specific descendant of Eve is going to do this thing. And here's what's cool about the Bible. It works together. It connects.

And what we see in Luke's gospel in chapter 3, he's given us a little family history of Jesus. And he's tracing Jesus' line back and back and back. And this is how it finishes. Son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God. So it traces Jesus' lineage all the way back to being a descendant of Adam and Eve.

A very specific descendant of Adam and Eve. And what we see in Isaiah chapter 53 is this. When Isaiah is writing about what he sees, what is to come with the Messiah, the one who would save, the one who would redeem, it says this, he would be bruised for our iniquities. It says he would be bruised for our sins. And as we begin to put the story together, it's like, wait, no, no, this isn't just a curse. God is setting the stage for what he's ultimately going to do.

That Jesus would go to the cross carrying our sin and carrying our shame. And Satan thought he had won when Jesus went to the cross. He thought he had killed him. But Jesus would walk out of the grave three days later conquering sin, death, hell, and Satan stomping the head of the serpent. And what we see is from the very beginning, from the first rebellion of man, that God is setting the stage for what he is ultimately going to do. That this story is not ultimately about the fact that we're going to screw up, that we're going to mess up, we're going to be punished and cast out.

It is ultimately pointing us towards what's true about what Jesus is going to do. This story tells us that it's not about our action. It's not ultimately about our action. It's ultimately about what Jesus would do on our behalf. And it sets the stage for the whole scope of the Bible to be able to point us towards what's true about Jesus and the gospel. And since that's true, that becomes the lens by which we read the entire Old Testament.

It's not what is this story, where do I find myself in the story? It is what does this story ultimately teach me about Jesus and the gospel. It's not how do I need to act, behave, respond, work it out on my own to earn God's favor. It is how do I grow in understanding what Jesus has already accomplished for me and how does that impact the rest of my life as I live with him. Because if we read the Bible without Jesus as the main character, we'll miss the point. And as Christians, we get the benefit of knowing the end of the story before we ever start reading the beginning of it.

And that's a little bit of what we're starting to see in this story. I want you to think for a moment about the movie Titanic. Okay? We all know about the story from history, and you've probably all seen the movie before. You cannot watch the movie Titanic without knowing that the ship at the end is going to sink. Think about it.

So you're watching Jack in one of the opening scenes. Jack's sitting there. He's playing cards. He's playing cards, and they're all throwing in their bets and stuff. And then two White Star Line tickets hit the table. And you're watching.

You're going, oh, no. Uh-uh. That's not good. Jack wins, snatches the tickets, throws everything into a bag, and heads out the door. And you're like, oh, man. Oh, no.

No, that's ain't good. Maybe he'll trip. I don't know. Maybe he'll get hit by a car. Oh, maybe he won't make it to the ship. Maybe the ship will pull away.

Ship, go. Go, Titanic. Go. Oh, he's on the ship. Okay. Great.

Because we know the end of the story. And all along the way, as Jack saves Rose, as Jack and Rose fall in love, as there's betrayal, as the ship strikes the iceberg, all along the way, you know the end of the story. And it informs how you watch the beginning of it. And you know that ultimately, Jack and Rose are going to end up in the water. And Rose is going to say, I'll never let go, even though she does let go. And really, Rose was super selfish.

Because if you watch the movie, there was room for both of them on the door. It's absolutely ridiculous. A little selfish. Right, Rose? I mean, maybe both of you could have made it. But you can't.

You can't watch that movie without knowing the end of the story. The same thing is true of the movie The Sixth Sense. When you've watched the movie The Sixth Sense, you realize that the character that Bruce Willis was playing the entire time was dead. He was dead the whole time. And if you've never seen The Sixth Sense, I'm sorry. I just blew that for you.

But you can't watch it the same again. And the same thing is true for us as Christians. And I want you, let that seep in for a minute. You cannot read the Old Testament without knowing ultimately what Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And we get a picture of it, even in this story. A story where we think that it's all about our action and what we've done in condemnation.

And we get this beautiful picture of ultimately what Jesus is going to accomplish on our behalf. And so as we flip the moral on its head, what we see is this story isn't. This story isn't about the fact that God has rules. And that Adam and Eve sinned. Therefore, they had to be punished. And even though there was this vague forgiveness type thing, that life was never the same.

Chapter 3, verse 15 tells us that the ultimate idea of Scripture is this. In the end, Jesus is the hero. Jesus steps in and through his life and death and resurrection forgives us of our sins. Takes away the debt of our sin and offers us a way back into relationship with God. In fact, it's his perfect relationship that's applied to our account. Paul's going to pick up on this in the New Testament.

When he's writing to the church in Corinth and to the church in Rome, he's going to draw this comparison between Adam and Christ. This comparison between Adam and Jesus. And he's going to say that through one man came sin. Through Jesus came grace. Through one man came death. Through Jesus came life.

So much so that when you begin to think about it, you begin to understand that Adam's disobedience in the garden led to sin entering the world through a tree. And that Jesus ultimately would accept his father's will in the garden and would take our sins with him to a tree. And there he would pay for them. And what we begin to see is that the grand narrative of scripture is to point us towards God's redemptive act that he accomplishes through Jesus. Raz and Josh and Bianca are going to come back up and we're going to spend some time responding and thinking about what we've heard this morning. If your understanding of Christianity has been that it's about your action, that the way that you relate to God is through your action, whether good or bad.

So whether that's you doing really good things, really moral things to earn God's favor, or sinning and rebelling against God, therefore facing his punishment. My encouragement to you this morning is to let the truth of what we've talked about set you free from that. Realize that the story of Adam and Eve isn't ultimately about our behavior and God's punishment. It's about the fact that though we are sinful and rebel, Jesus steps in and saves us. And it's not about our ability to do good things or to act right. And so my invitation to you this morning is to surrender.

To stop. To realize that you have a God that loves you so much that he would send Jesus to take your sin to a cross to die for you so that that could be the way that you get to relate to God. So the invitation this morning is to realize that you get to place your faith in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and for salvation. And so I'm going to pray for us and we're going to stand and sing and respond. Let's pray together.

God, thank you that that's true. Thank you that ultimately it's not about us. God, knowing, you knowing that we were going to rebel, that we wouldn't be able to follow your commandments, you step in and save the day. And so that when we stand before you, we're not pleading our case, we're not pleading our morality or our ability to do things well, we're not condemned because of our actions. But this morning we get to stand and we get to place our faith in you for the forgiveness of our sins and for salvation.

God, and I know in this room people come with all kinds of different backgrounds and experience. And so God, while we may know that the gospel is true, that Jesus saves, that even we live our lives in a way where we don't believe that to be true, where we still think we've got to earn it, or when we mess up we feel condemned. But God, ultimately, we are brought into relationship with you by Jesus. And we thank you. And it's in his name we pray. Amen.

Amen.