WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.339 Genesis chapter 1, and we're going to start reading at verse 26. I'm going to read two 00:00:05.339 --> 00:00:13.859 sections from chapters 1 and 2. So Genesis chapter 1, verse 26. Then God said, let us make man in our 00:00:13.859 --> 00:00:19.740 image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the 00:00:19.740 --> 00:00:25.699 livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created 00:00:25.699 --> 00:00:31.980 man in his own image. In the image of God, he created him. Male and female, he created them. 00:00:32.979 --> 00:00:38.140 God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. 00:00:38.259 --> 00:00:44.120 Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, and over every living creature that moves on 00:00:44.120 --> 00:00:50.420 the ground. Then God said, I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth, 00:00:50.420 --> 00:00:56.620 and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. There will be years for food, and to all the beasts 00:00:56.620 --> 00:01:00.820 of the earth, and all the birds of the air, and all the creatures that move on the ground, 00:01:01.460 --> 00:01:08.020 everything that has the breath of life in it, I give every green plant for food. And it was so. 00:01:08.920 --> 00:01:14.939 God saw that all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning, 00:01:14.939 --> 00:01:21.840 the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed, and all their vast array. By the seventh 00:01:21.840 --> 00:01:28.120 day, God had finished the work he had been doing. So on the seventh day, he rested from all his work, 00:01:28.359 --> 00:01:35.379 and God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating 00:01:35.379 --> 00:01:43.640 that he had done. And so if you jump forward with me to chapter 2, verse 15. 00:01:44.939 --> 00:01:51.980 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. And the 00:01:51.980 --> 00:01:58.480 Lord God commanded the man, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat 00:01:58.480 --> 00:02:04.459 from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat of it, you will surely die. The Lord 00:02:04.459 --> 00:02:11.520 God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him. Now the Lord God 00:02:11.520 --> 00:02:16.500 had formed out of the ground all the beasts of the field and all the birds of the air. He brought 00:02:16.500 --> 00:02:22.260 them to the man to see what he would name them, and whatever the man called each living creature, 00:02:22.500 --> 00:02:29.660 that was its name. So the man gave names to all the livestock, the birds of the air, and all the 00:02:29.660 --> 00:02:36.340 beasts of the field. But for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:42.099 a deep sleep. And while he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with 00:02:42.099 --> 00:02:48.520 flesh. Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:55.099 the man. The man said, this is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman, 00:02:55.759 --> 00:03:02.039 for she was taken out of man. For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to 00:03:02.039 --> 00:03:08.500 his wife, and they will become one flesh. The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame. 00:03:09.959 --> 00:03:12.079 Okay, may God bless that word. 00:03:13.219 --> 00:03:22.899 I don't know how people feel about opera. I was chatting with a friend about music of various 00:03:22.899 --> 00:03:29.239 kinds, and the subject of opera came up. For me, it's something that's too big. It's kind of intense. 00:03:29.240 --> 00:03:35.520 Not really any clue what's happening. It always seems distant and remote, something I wasn't 00:03:35.520 --> 00:03:41.200 particularly interested in. But this friend I was chatting with, he has another friend who is an opera 00:03:41.200 --> 00:03:47.400 composer. So he's been to the opera with this guy who knows opera inside out, and now all of a sudden 00:03:47.400 --> 00:03:54.500 he's got these themes to look out for. It's like he's got these keys that give him a way into 00:03:54.500 --> 00:04:03.000 the world of opera. Now for some people, their thoughts on the Old Testament might be similar 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:09.639 to my thoughts about the opera. It seems rather big. It's hard to get into. Some bits of it are 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:16.819 really intense. Some bits feel really remote from us culturally, historically. It can be hard sometimes 00:04:16.819 --> 00:04:27.159 to get a handle on what's going on. And so one helpful way for us to get our bearings when it 00:04:27.159 --> 00:04:32.180 comes to the Old Testament is to look at some of the big themes that we find running throughout them. 00:04:32.519 --> 00:04:38.199 And that's what takes us to the theme of covenant. It's one of these mega themes that you see from the 00:04:38.199 --> 00:04:43.100 beginning all the way through the New Testament as well, actually. So hopefully as we spend some time 00:04:43.100 --> 00:04:49.120 thinking about the covenants that God makes with various people, it'll help us to have a big picture 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:58.580 view of the Old Testament. So let's begin at the very beginning with the question, what is a covenant? 00:04:59.540 --> 00:05:06.640 We can begin with a simple definition. A covenant is a binding agreement or a relationship between two 00:05:06.639 --> 00:05:14.039 parties. Some human examples. Marriage would be one. When people get married, there are promises that 00:05:14.039 --> 00:05:21.779 are made. There is oaths that are taken. There is a sign of a wedding ring that is exchanged. Or we can 00:05:21.779 --> 00:05:27.719 think of a mortgage agreement as another kind of a covenant. There's an agreement that's signed, 00:05:27.800 --> 00:05:34.379 the terms are laid out, and of course there is a penalty for failure to comply. 00:05:34.379 --> 00:05:41.259 So the Bible talks about a variety of different covenants, sometimes between friends, sometimes 00:05:41.259 --> 00:05:47.459 human covenants. But here we're thinking about the covenants that God enters into with his people. 00:05:48.219 --> 00:05:53.079 And so you look through the Old Testament, you find there are a number of representatives that God 00:05:53.079 --> 00:05:59.620 makes covenants with. So we have Adam, and then we have Noah, we have Abraham, Moses, and David, and then we 00:05:59.620 --> 00:06:07.920 come in the later prophets to the new covenant. O'Pammer Robertson, an Old Testament scholar, he defines 00:06:07.920 --> 00:06:17.600 covenant this way. He says, a covenant is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. So it's a bond. 00:06:17.840 --> 00:06:25.699 It's an oath that binds two parties together. It's in blood. There is that sense of a life or death, 00:06:25.699 --> 00:06:32.000 a commitment within the covenant. It was always understood in the Old Testament that life was 00:06:32.000 --> 00:06:39.959 contained within the blood. And so you'll find when you read about ceremonies to do with the covenant, 00:06:40.120 --> 00:06:49.419 that there'll be covenant cutting. We can think maybe of Abraham in Genesis 15. God comes and commits 00:06:49.419 --> 00:06:55.099 himself to establishing Abraham's family. And then there's that covenant cutting ceremony where Abraham 00:06:55.100 --> 00:07:00.660 is told to bring some animals, slaughter them, and cut them in half and to make a path through them. 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:08.360 And that was quite common as a way to seal a covenant. The parties would walk through as if to 00:07:08.360 --> 00:07:14.100 say, if I break my side of the covenant, let what happened to these slaughtered animals happen also 00:07:14.100 --> 00:07:21.340 to me. And that, in a sense, helps us to understand what's going on when Jesus dies on the cross. 00:07:21.339 --> 00:07:31.319 Jesus goes to the cross, going under, taking on himself the covenant curse for our law-breaking. 00:07:31.579 --> 00:07:39.279 He stands as our substitute, taking the punishment for us having a broken faith with God. So a covenant 00:07:39.279 --> 00:07:46.799 is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. It's administered by a king. And when we think of the 00:07:46.800 --> 00:07:53.139 covenants that God makes, they're not a covenant between equals, we are not equal parties with God. 00:07:53.300 --> 00:08:00.720 God defines the terms, and his people must obey. The covenants come as an act of God's grace 00:08:00.720 --> 00:08:09.319 to his people. And we'll see these elements repeating through the various covenants that we find in the 00:08:09.319 --> 00:08:19.939 Old Testament. But one important overarching theme that Robertson reminds us of is the Emmanuel principle. 00:08:20.779 --> 00:08:26.620 Remember one of the names of Jesus? He'll be called Emmanuel, which means God with us. Well, within the 00:08:26.620 --> 00:08:34.039 covenants, there's this idea that God would be the God of his people, and that his people would belong 00:08:34.039 --> 00:08:40.279 to him. I will be with you. I will be your God, and you will be my people. And we'll see this Emmanuel 00:08:40.279 --> 00:08:49.860 principle coming up a number of times. There's a pastor down in the UK, in Oxford, I think, called 00:08:49.860 --> 00:08:58.339 Vaughn Roberts, who tries to define it this way. Covenant is about God's people being in God's place 00:08:58.340 --> 00:09:04.860 under God's rule and enjoying his blessing. And again, these are the things that we'll see all 00:09:04.860 --> 00:09:11.360 the way from the Garden of Eden, all the way to the new covenant. And both our present and our future 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:20.320 hope is that we would be God's people living under his good and loving rule with the hope of the new 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:27.480 heaven and the new earth to come. So that's a covenant, a bond in blood sovereignly administered. 00:09:27.480 --> 00:09:33.580 But the question might come, well, why talk about covenant in Genesis 1 and 2? So Andrew read for us 00:09:33.580 --> 00:09:39.800 two sections from those chapters, and the vocabulary of covenant never came up. And you can read the 00:09:39.800 --> 00:09:45.720 whole of those two chapters, and you won't find the word covenant there. But the essential elements 00:09:45.720 --> 00:09:53.800 of the covenant are all there. So let me very briefly show you five elements of the covenant that we find 00:09:53.799 --> 00:10:00.759 in Genesis 1 and 2. First of all, a covenant always involves two parties. And we see that our two 00:10:00.759 --> 00:10:08.519 parties clearly identified. First, there is God, and he is unique as the creator. Chapter 1, verse 1, 00:10:08.620 --> 00:10:14.620 in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. So we have God, the king, the creator, 00:10:14.620 --> 00:10:23.940 enters into covenant with people who are unique as image bearers. It's significant if we read again, 00:10:24.039 --> 00:10:34.279 verse 26 of chapter 1, then God said, let us make man in our image, in our likeness. And compare that, 00:10:34.360 --> 00:10:40.299 for example, with verse 25, God made the wild animals according to their kinds, the livestock according 00:10:40.299 --> 00:10:45.120 to their kinds, all the creatures that move along the ground according to their kinds. There's something 00:10:45.120 --> 00:10:53.559 deliberately being drawn attention to here, and it's the uniqueness of human beings as God's image 00:10:53.559 --> 00:11:01.120 bearers. So we've got the two parties within the covenant. We've also got blessings that are a feature 00:11:01.120 --> 00:11:07.779 of covenants. What are the first words that Adam hears when he is created? Verse 28, 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:15.820 God blessed them. Adam and Eve, God speaks to them. God blessed them and said to them, 00:11:15.860 --> 00:11:24.179 be fruitful, increase in number, fill the earth, subdue it, and rule. So the first words that the first 00:11:24.179 --> 00:11:30.799 people hear are words of blessing. They are brought into covenant relationship from the very 00:11:30.799 --> 00:11:37.139 beginning of their existence. They're given these commands. You notice they're all commands, 00:11:38.079 --> 00:11:44.099 be fruitful, fill the earth, rule, but those commands will bring blessing both to themselves 00:11:44.099 --> 00:11:50.219 and the world as they live in obedience to God. So a covenant has the promise of blessing. We see that 00:11:50.219 --> 00:11:58.799 here. Covenants also come with conditions, and we see that here too. Chapter 2 and verse 17, 00:11:58.799 --> 00:12:06.299 what's the condition? You are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the 00:12:06.299 --> 00:12:13.699 tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So for people, they must submit themselves to God's word. 00:12:14.419 --> 00:12:21.959 They must trust him. They must trust that avoiding this tree is for their good. Another element of the 00:12:21.959 --> 00:12:27.179 covenant is that there is penalty for disobedience, and the penalty is clearly laid out in verse 17, 00:12:27.179 --> 00:12:34.359 for when you eat of it, you will surely die. Covenant breaking will bring death. 00:12:35.679 --> 00:12:44.459 And there's also the sign of the covenant. There is another tree at the center of the garden, chapter 2 00:12:44.459 --> 00:12:51.859 and verse 9, in the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good 00:12:51.860 --> 00:12:57.200 and evil. So there is the tree of life, and there is this promise. There's this sign that walking in 00:12:57.200 --> 00:13:03.820 obedience for Adam and Eve would bring them access to God's blessing. It would give them life that would 00:13:03.820 --> 00:13:12.460 never end. A sign of God's blessing. And it's significant that that tree of life reappears in 00:13:12.460 --> 00:13:20.139 Revelation 22 when we are given this vision of the new heaven and the new earth. And there is the tree 00:13:20.139 --> 00:13:29.740 of life with its leaves for the healing of the nations. So what we see when we look at Genesis 1 and 2 is 00:13:29.740 --> 00:13:38.379 that from the beginning, mankind, humanity, we were made for a special relationship with God. 00:13:38.379 --> 00:13:49.159 We were made for friendship with God. I was reading a journal this week, and there's an author who 00:13:49.159 --> 00:13:55.820 works in Oak Hill down in London, a guy called Dan Strange. He was writing a review of a movie called 00:13:55.820 --> 00:14:04.879 Free Solo. And that movie charts the feats of a free climber by the name of Alex Honnold. To free climb 00:14:04.879 --> 00:14:12.159 is to climb without ropes. So he completed a 3,000-foot climb up a ridge in Yosemite National 00:14:12.159 --> 00:14:20.159 Park called El Capitan, something that had never been done before. And so the movie was chronicling 00:14:20.159 --> 00:14:26.000 this achievement. And so Dan Strange, as he was reviewing it, was pointing to two things. Like, 00:14:26.100 --> 00:14:33.539 there is triumph within the movie. Here is perfection of body and mind working together to accomplish 00:14:33.539 --> 00:14:41.000 accomplish something remarkable. But as his story progressed, Dan Strange was saying there was 00:14:41.000 --> 00:14:48.539 also a clear evidence of tragedy. Not the tragedy of him falling to his death, but the tragedy of a man 00:14:48.539 --> 00:14:56.139 choosing a climb, choosing a quest over relationships with God and over relationships with other people. 00:14:56.139 --> 00:15:05.699 He was choosing in his life to be solo. Parents, girlfriend, friends were all secondary, 00:15:06.039 --> 00:15:15.860 very much secondary, to accomplishing, claiming feats. And that is tragedy. Because the story of the Bible 00:15:15.860 --> 00:15:22.919 from the very beginning was that we were made to know and enjoy God. And we have the commitment of God 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:28.599 to show love to us. And we see that from the beginning with Adam and Eve and all that they 00:15:28.599 --> 00:15:35.379 enjoyed. And we see it, the commitment of God to love us as Jesus enters into the world that he 00:15:35.379 --> 00:15:42.819 created and he sacrifices himself to establish the new covenant. And so the story of the Bible is the 00:15:42.819 --> 00:15:50.159 story of God's mercy and grace so that we might know him, that we might enjoy him, that one day we might 00:15:50.159 --> 00:16:01.539 live with him forever. Now, how were Adam and Eve to live in this covenant with God? So we need to 00:16:01.539 --> 00:16:08.019 recognize that there is something unique about Adam and Eve's life. They were the only people who have 00:16:08.019 --> 00:16:15.860 lived in a world before there was sin and death. We also recognize from the Bible that Adam stands as a 00:16:15.860 --> 00:16:23.100 representative for all humanity. So in the New Testament, authors like Paul will say, we are all 00:16:23.100 --> 00:16:31.440 under either Adam as our heads or Christ as our head. One of them is the representative for all of us. 00:16:32.620 --> 00:16:40.560 We'll talk about Adam and his sin leading humanity into death, whereas Jesus being the one who brings 00:16:40.559 --> 00:16:47.719 forgiveness and life and grace to many who trust in him. So there's something unique about Adam and Eve. 00:16:47.819 --> 00:16:55.739 But there are things that we can learn for ourselves from Genesis 1 and 2, because here is God's ideal 00:16:55.739 --> 00:17:05.460 for how we are made to live as people. So let me just very briefly draw attention to two big principles 00:17:05.460 --> 00:17:12.360 that we find in these chapters. First of all, we are called to live, recognizing that all of life 00:17:12.360 --> 00:17:22.059 matters to God. And as people, we are called to live by trusting in God and his word. So let me show you 00:17:22.059 --> 00:17:32.299 that from this text. First of all, to live by recognizing all of life matters to God. Sometimes we pair Adam and 00:17:32.299 --> 00:17:39.980 leaves life down so that we think it's simply about them avoiding eating the tree. But their life of 00:17:39.980 --> 00:17:47.019 obedience was more than just not eating the fruit from that particular tree. It was also about certain 00:17:47.019 --> 00:17:54.440 realities. It was about them observing the Sabbath to the glory of God, working to the glory of God, 00:17:54.680 --> 00:18:00.740 having a marriage that would be for the glory of God. So let's think about those three things, 00:18:00.740 --> 00:18:09.200 Sabbath work and marriage. First of all, Sabbath. Chapter 2 and verse 3, we are told God blessed the 00:18:09.200 --> 00:18:18.380 seventh day and made it holy because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done. 00:18:18.839 --> 00:18:26.480 So God's creation pattern, six days of work, one day of rest, and he gives that to people as our pattern. 00:18:26.480 --> 00:18:34.360 And the Sabbath, we clearly see from Genesis, is significant. It is blessed by God and it's for 00:18:34.360 --> 00:18:41.519 our good. As Jesus said, Sabbath was made for man, not man, for the Sabbath. 00:18:43.980 --> 00:18:53.339 Sabbath in the Old Testament was on the first level about resting, enjoying the gift of God's rest. 00:18:53.339 --> 00:18:58.019 It was about trusting. It was about trusting. It was about trusting that God would provide. 00:18:58.699 --> 00:19:04.359 Because not only did they rest one day out of seven, they and the fields also rested one year 00:19:04.359 --> 00:19:10.079 out of seven. And then there was the Jubilee year where everybody enjoyed a year of rest and return 00:19:10.079 --> 00:19:16.000 of slaves and all those kind of in the 50th year. And so while they were resting from work, 00:19:16.000 --> 00:19:22.380 they were having to trust that on day six and year six, God would provide sufficient to keep them 00:19:22.380 --> 00:19:29.619 on day seven, on year seven. So Sabbath is about resting. It's about trusting. And then as we see 00:19:29.619 --> 00:19:37.359 after the Exodus, it also becomes about remembering God's act of redemption and salvation. So in Deuteronomy 00:19:37.359 --> 00:19:44.740 chapter 5, when Moses gives the Ten Commandments, there they're told to keep the Sabbath because 00:19:44.740 --> 00:19:54.959 they had been slaves and God had redeemed them. So Sabbath is significant for Adam and Eve and for 00:19:54.959 --> 00:20:02.479 the people of God. But there is also work. Chapter 2 and verse 15, the Lord God took the man 00:20:02.480 --> 00:20:08.759 and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it. Now they've already been told 00:20:08.759 --> 00:20:14.579 that they are to subdue the earth. They are to rule over the earth for God. And now it becomes clear 00:20:14.579 --> 00:20:21.099 that they're to enjoy creation by working in it. That work is a gift. It comes before the fall. 00:20:21.660 --> 00:20:29.799 It's something that is a blessing. And so when we think about these chapters for ourselves, we then 00:20:29.799 --> 00:20:35.759 understand practically the importance of having this balance of work and rest. It's good for us 00:20:35.759 --> 00:20:43.519 spiritually. It's good for us physically as well. And we need to see both our working and our resting 00:20:43.519 --> 00:20:54.139 as a duty before God and also a blessing that God gave. Both our work and our rest and our trust and 00:20:54.140 --> 00:21:00.840 our worship are ways to bring glory to God. And it might be helpful for us to think about how we view 00:21:00.840 --> 00:21:08.960 our work or how we view Sunday. Do we see them as a duty that we have to go through? Do we see them 00:21:08.960 --> 00:21:16.940 as a blessing? Do we overwork? Do we underwork? Do we tend towards laziness or workaholism? And we need 00:21:16.940 --> 00:21:22.740 to think through these things because they matter to God because all of life matters to God. We see that too 00:21:22.740 --> 00:21:33.920 in this first marriage. In chapter 2 and in verse 18, we discover that from the beginning, we were made 00:21:33.920 --> 00:21:42.240 for community and friendship. So the Lord God said, it's not good for the man to be alone. I will make a 00:21:42.240 --> 00:21:52.259 helper suitable for him. And there was no suitable helper from the animals. So it became clear that God would 00:21:52.259 --> 00:22:02.839 need to do something else. And what we see is God working to create Eve. In verse, second part of 00:22:02.839 --> 00:22:09.440 verse 20, for Adam, no suitable helper was found. So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep. 00:22:10.099 --> 00:22:17.319 While he was sleeping, he took one of the man's ribs and closed up the place with flesh. Marriage is sacred. 00:22:17.319 --> 00:22:24.139 It's instituted by God. It's instituted by God. It's necessary for Adam to have Eve as a suitable helper so 00:22:24.139 --> 00:22:30.500 they can carry out their creation mandate of filling, of subduing, of ruling, of working. 00:22:31.539 --> 00:22:39.679 And we see in verse 21 that Eve is made from part of Adam, establishing that principle of marriage, 00:22:39.779 --> 00:22:44.039 making a one flesh union. So in chapter 2 and verse 24, 00:22:44.039 --> 00:22:50.700 for this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife and they'll become 00:22:50.700 --> 00:23:02.379 one flesh. And so again, God's design for marriage is clear from creation. That's something that's 00:23:02.379 --> 00:23:11.019 confirmed by Jesus in the New Testament. You can look at Mark chapter 10, verses 6 to 8. And so for us 00:23:11.019 --> 00:23:20.400 as a church, it's got to be the Bible and not culture that defines how we view marriage. 00:23:21.180 --> 00:23:27.980 It also reminds us that our families matter to God, whether we're married or not, we're part of a family 00:23:27.980 --> 00:23:35.319 unit. And those family relationships are a place where we can exercise faith, 00:23:35.319 --> 00:23:44.240 where we can seek to witness to those who aren't following Jesus and they become a place to pass 00:23:44.240 --> 00:23:51.759 faith on. So there's one of the big principles we find within the covenant that we are to live by 00:23:51.759 --> 00:23:59.099 recognizing that all of life matters to God. But then specifically, Adam and Eve and us, 00:23:59.099 --> 00:24:06.480 we're called to live by trusting in God and his word. So there was no general responsibility of 00:24:06.480 --> 00:24:14.399 Sabbath, work, marriage, but they also had one specific responsibility, one test that they are 00:24:14.399 --> 00:24:22.159 given. Chapter 2, verse 16 again, you are free to eat from any tree in the garden, but you must not eat 00:24:22.159 --> 00:24:26.599 from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. For when you eat of it, you will surely die. 00:24:26.599 --> 00:24:37.980 They enjoyed as a gift of God's generosity, a garden of yes. And there was just this one tree of no. 00:24:38.899 --> 00:24:47.819 Why? This tree is reminding them that God is the sovereign king, that his rule is not to be challenged 00:24:47.819 --> 00:24:55.039 by his subjects. They needed to learn to trust and submit to his word. 00:24:55.039 --> 00:25:02.779 Graham Goldsworthy puts it this way. The perfect relationship between creator and creature, 00:25:03.519 --> 00:25:11.720 between ruler and ruled, cannot exist if the creature seeks to usurp the role of creator 00:25:11.720 --> 00:25:21.619 by rejecting his rule. And we can see the outworkings of that if we think about a family. 00:25:21.619 --> 00:25:31.959 There is that authority established for parents over children. And if that was to be turned upside down, 00:25:32.659 --> 00:25:39.179 you would have chaos. Things would not be good. The relationship would not be right. And so for 00:25:39.179 --> 00:25:46.759 Adam and Eve, the test then is, would they submit to the word of God? Would they accept that blessing 00:25:46.759 --> 00:25:57.480 comes in trusting God's word? Sadly, we'll think about this next week. They failed to trust. 00:25:58.680 --> 00:26:07.240 They failed to listen to God's word and chose instead the words of Satan, the serpent, and sin and death 00:26:07.240 --> 00:26:21.099 came. Likewise, we are called to live out our days trusting God and his word also. But just like Adam and Eve, 00:26:21.180 --> 00:26:30.200 we too are tempted to go our own way. We too are tempted to set our own priorities and values. 00:26:30.200 --> 00:26:43.680 We too are tempted to say no to God's word and to say yes to another word. Like Adam and Eve, we too fail in this test. 00:26:45.360 --> 00:26:55.480 And that's where the life of Jesus becomes such good news for us as the people of God. The Bible tells us 00:26:55.480 --> 00:27:03.599 he comes as the second Adam and he comes in order to pass the test. Adam, in the first place, failed. 00:27:04.380 --> 00:27:12.019 Because when we look at the life of Jesus, we meet someone who every moment of his life was lived in 00:27:12.019 --> 00:27:21.579 willing submission and in complete obedience to his father's will. Both in his life and his death, 00:27:21.579 --> 00:27:30.319 he trusted and submitted to his father's word. Taking him to the cross, where as we said, he 00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:40.179 goes under the covenant curse for his people so that by faith in him, we can live knowing God's covenant 00:27:40.179 --> 00:27:49.899 blessing. We are saved by grace through the work of Jesus, not our own. 00:27:51.579 --> 00:28:02.439 And so the life of Jesus, the death and resurrection of Jesus become the hope beyond the failure of the 00:28:02.439 --> 00:28:12.939 first Adam. So as we gather together as the people of God, and as we gather to share the Lord's Supper, 00:28:12.940 --> 00:28:24.720 we are being reminded very visibly of the cost to Jesus and to establish the new covenant in his body and his 00:28:24.720 --> 00:28:32.220 blood so that we might be brought in, so that we might be free to live under God's loving rule, 00:28:32.620 --> 00:28:37.019 knowing his blessing now and forever. 00:28:37.019 --> 00:28:47.680 that the bread and the wine serve as covenant signs for us, reminding us of God's unfailing commitment to his 00:28:47.680 --> 00:28:51.339 people of his great love for us.