Hey, good morning. If you've got a Bible, go ahead
and get that open to Genesis chapter 3.
We are only looking at one verse this morning and we're only
going to do that for one Sunday. I almost, I got to be honest
with you, I almost turned the singular verse into two sermons.
But then I was like, man, not everybody's like me.
Some people have lives. So we're going to try and do it
all. We're trying to do it all in
this one morning. As you're turning there, Just
just a question for you. What are we doing here?
Why, why, why are you here this morning?
And the answer to that question this morning is the answer to
that question every Sunday morning.
We're here this morning, we're singing this morning, we're
praying together, we're taking communion together, we're
preaching this morning all for the same singular reason.
And that is to remind one another of the love of God and
Jesus Christ for all of us. And the reason why I'm front
loading with that is because I got a got a lot of content here
this morning. I'm going to cover, I think a
lot of ground. I've got a lot of things that I
want to teach. We're going to talk.
We're going to teach on offspring.
We're going to teach on seeds. We're going to look at Calvin
and Luther's view of this text. I'm going to talk about Arnold
Schwarzenegger. Probably I'll talk about
Sylvester Stallone. I'd like to quote some of the
ancient church fathers if we get around do it.
So it should be when it's all said and done, honestly, a
pretty average cold Ike sermon, but we've got a lot to get
through. And so all of the all those all
those details, right, that all the explanation, all the
illustration, all of it, it's all aimed at the singular goal.
And, and that singular goal is to remind you that Jesus loves
you. OK?
So like no matter what you hear this morning, no matter what
unhinged things I'm probably going to say a little bit here
and there, no matter how much I go off the rails over here or
what strikes the heart, just remember that Jesus loves you
and he loves you a lot. So let me pray and then we'll
jump into this text. Heavenly Father, I confess that
this morning my heart just feels kind of dull.
I don't think for any particular reason, nothing that I can
discern. It's been a relatively good
week. It's just kind of dull.
And so I pray that you would protect our church from a
preacher who is bored with the gospel.
Don't let me be bored with the Gospel, cut away the extra fat
from my heart and just help me experience the life in Christ
that you've given me. And the one thing Lord, that
really got to me this morning was I felt really dull.
And until the liturgy, I just legitimately think that the
liturgy preached my entire sermon probably more effectively
than I then I will. And so I'm just going to re pray
this for us because it's all in here.
So oh Lord our God, you are Christ the victor, King of
heaven, champion of all creation.
You rule in the midst of your enemies.
You are the destroyer of death, God the serpent stomper, the
curse crusher. You are Christ the victor,
worthy to receive glory and honor and power.
For you have hurled down our accuser, that great dragon that
leads the world astray. So where, O death, is your
victory? Where serpent is your sting?
Our enemy has been evicted, the serpent put to open shame.
No longer are we slaves to sin, but servants to the triumphant
King. So LOL, lead on Christ our
victor, King of Heaven, champion of all creation.
Lord, help us believe that you don't just save us from sin.
You do. You don't just cover us in
righteousness. You do.
You also defeat, overthrow, and crush the enemy.
And so I pray that we would rejoice in in the victor that we
have in Jesus Christ. So it's in his precious and
powerful name that all God's people pray.
Amen. If you're able, let's go ahead
and stand. OK, so last week we if you if
you missed last week, we literally preached chapter 3
verses 14 all the way through 19.
God administers righteous curses to the earth and to the serpent,
and we see the consequences of sin.
But if you were here last Sunday, you know that I skipped
probably the most important verse in there on purpose so
that I could isolate this morning and then preach on it
and dig as deep as as I can. And and that verses verse 15.
Nerdy theologians refer to this as the proto evangelium.
I'll explain that in a second. Here's the actual text.
God, he's speaking to the serpent and he says, I will put
enmity an enemy. I'll put an enemy between you,
the serpent and the woman. And here's where it gets
weirder. This enemy is going to stand
between your offspring, but the serpent has offspring, your
offspring and her offspring. And here's how it's going to go
down. He shall bruise your head, and
you shall bruise his heel. Believe it or not, we got a lot
to talk about this morning, so you can go ahead and have a
seat. So I'm going to start with that
big word. I mentioned it kind of in
passing there really quickly. I've got it on the screen for
you. Proto evangelium.
There's some debate over the pronunciation.
Some people drop the second O and say prot evangelism.
Some people explain it really fancy and and call it the proto
you angelion. I like proto evangelium.
I think it's great. But that's the reason why that's
an important word is because that's the word that Christian
theologians use to refer to this one singular verse.
This verse stands out so much. It's so important.
It's so foundation to the entire story and narrative of the
scripture that it gets its own made-up word.
That's how important it is. And that word, even though it's
a handful of of syllables, it's it's pretty fancy, but the
meaning is really simple if you break it down.
Proto means first evangelium gospel, and so this is called
the first gospel, the proto evangelium.
It's the first time in the entire biblical narrative that
the gospel is preached out loud. Now, if you've been with us for
the last 20 weeks of Genesis, you know that we've preached 20
sermons on Genesis, and everyone has had the gospel.
And so already throughout Genesis, the gospel has been
hinted at and it's been clued at in a lot of different ways, but
nobody yet has preached it out loud until right now.
And we see the first character preach it out loud for the first
time. Who's the character who preaches
it? It's God before it's ever us,
before it's ever Adam, before it's ever Eve.
God preaches the gospel out loud, and essentially the
gospel, the proto evangelium that God preaches is this.
God says to the serpent, there's going to be a war, it's going to
be a perpetual war, and it's going to be between two massive
figures throughout all human history, the serpent and the
woman. And then it gets, it gets
weirder. It's the same way of saying it,
but a little bit differently. The serpent seed or offspring
and the woman seed or offspring. So glue in really quickly on the
first part of 15. Just look at that really, really
closely. I'm just going to take that
first bit. We'll call it 15 A God says I'll
put an enemy, I'll put enmity between you and the woman.
OK, so there's going to be a war between the serpent and the
woman, and between your her offspring and her offspring.
Pause. What's what's going on here?
The the war between the woman and the serpent is fairly
obvious, but what's less obvious and more hotly disputed is the
war between the woman's offspring and the serpent's
offspring. Who are who are these children
of the serpent? How, how does a serpent have
offspring that can go to war? Well, we've, we've got 2 basic
options we can look at right here.
We'll look at both of them. The first view is that these are
moral offspring. And so when Genesis 315 is
talking about the offspring of the serpent, these are moral
offspring of the serpent. This is the view of John Calvin,
Martin Luther, 500 years ago, the Reformed view of what's
going on right here. The offspring of the serpent
here, their offspring by what influence?
Offspring by influence. Essentially the serpent will
bigot children, bigot a family who will belong to Satan by
allegiance and loyalty and lifestyle.
So those who embrace a life of celebrating sin, our children of
the serpent, I think this is a pretty strong view.
It's been probably the, I think probably the dominant position
throughout Christian history for interpreting offspring of the
serpent right here. But I think what's more is that
it's supported by the rest of the book of Genesis.
Almost immediately after chapter 3, when we turn to chapter 4,
what do we see? We see a family war of Cain
versus Abel. These are human characters who
either act like a serpent or God.
Later on, we meet another human character named Jacob.
Isn't he interesting? Jacob is really interesting,
especially in light of this verse right here.
Jacob is a liar and a deceiver. Does that sound like anybody to
you? Deceiver.
Exactly like the serpent. And you know how Jacob was born?
He came out of the womb with his twin brother grabbing what his
brothers heal. Hold on, hold on.
You mean like almost like a character bruising or biting the
heel of another character? And yet Jacob wrestles with God
and gets a new name and identity.
Essentially Jacob's the story of someone who was transferred from
the Kingdom of the serpent, who acts and lives like a serpent
into the Kingdom of God and then begins to act and live like God.
I think this view that they are moral offspring is supported by
Jesus. Jesus calls hypocritical
religious people sons of the devil and a brood of Vipers.
That's the Pharisees. Isn't that interesting?
That for me that's, that's the, that's the tough thing about the
serpent and Satan and the dragon and the devil is it's when you
look at when you look at the serpent, when you look at the
devil biblically, he's not, he's not irreligious.
Ever notice that? Like he's not, he's not anti
religion like Satan. And he knows the Bible, he
quotes it to Jesus. He's he's religiously
pluralistic. He's probably got one of those
coexist bumper stickers on the back.
He's willing to work. He's willing to work literally
with anybody of any religion so long as their hearts reject
Jesus. And so he shows up in the
morality of human hearts, which is an important note.
And the reason why that's an important note is because a lot,
a lot of times, a lot of times when we think about the
influence of Satan, Christians will look anywhere like under
any Bush, under any rug, right? It's, it's the ACDC records.
We got to burn the ACDC records or it's, it's MTV or it's
Monster Energy drinks. They'll look for Satan anywhere
besides in their own hearts. And so we're just, we're just
blind to this. That's the mistake that the
Pharisees made. The devil's out there.
He's on the other team. And Jesus said, no, you're sons
of the devil. And so this all points to the
fact, Oh my, we're I'm already behind on time.
Time is a valuable thing. Watch it by as the pendulum
swings. This all points to the fact that
the serpent begets offspring by influence and allegiance with
human beings. So this is a strong view, but I
want to get a little bit weirder.
And here's the part where the teacher probably loses the
classroom. That's the first view.
I think it's strong. Here's the second view, when
Genesis 315 is talking about the offspring of the serpent.
The second view is that it's talking about literal offspring.
This is the view of Doctor Michael Heizer, a relatively
modern biblical academic and scholar.
I think he's a smart guy, even though I don't agree with
everything that he writes. But he essentially argues that
the offspring of the serpent here, our offspring by, wait for
it, literal seed or biological offspring.
Where would he get this interpretation from?
Well, this interpretation is supported by a literal reading
of the word offspring. Do you see it there?
It's right there in verse 15. It's like the second, it comes
right after the comma, right between off your offspring, her
offspring. That word, if you circle it,
that word literally just means seed.
And it's also supported by some strange things that some future
preacher frontier will have to do with in the book of Genesis.
I hope it's me. I'm not afraid of it, right?
We, we deal with some strange things later on in Genesis.
For instance, in Genesis 6, which is a parallel, parallel
literary text to Genesis 3, we see this crazy story of
rebellious angelic beings taking the daughters of man and
populating the world with these creatures called Nephilim or the
giants of old. That seems to strongly suggest
that the serpent knows clearly what God's plan is to win the
war through the seed of the woman, the offspring of the
woman. And so Satan, strategically, he
tries to win the war. How?
By subverting the offspring of the women.
And so yes, this is hard to wrap your modern mind around, and it
will make you deal with some hard questions throughout the
rest of the Bible, like Joshua's conquest against giant clans.
Where did these giants come from?
Even the famous story of David and Goliath, Where did Goliath
come from? Where did these giants come
from? Even in the New Testament Jesus
war against demons, where did all of these demons come with?
It'll make you deal with some difficult historical questions
that quite frankly, I don't really care how you answer them.
I just think they should be dealt with.
Like, what do we do with the fact that virtually every
ancient culture up until modernism has literature,
evidence and stories about giants?
Those are all questions for a future preacher to deal with.
Not me this morning, at least. But I think this is actually
important to reckon with because it reminds us that though we
need to take personal responsibility for our hearts
and not align ourselves with the evil one, we need to remember
that Satan doesn't just want to rule in the human heart.
There's also a heavenly realm outside of us that is densely
populated with spiritual beings, and not all of them are good.
We see demons on cling spirits were evil and want to bring
chaos to God's good order. And that all begs the question,
who's right which, which position is the correct
position? Should we take a kind of a more
meta metaphorical reading and it's moral offspring or a more
literal reading and say it's biological offspring?
You can disagree with me on this, it's totally cool.
But my answer is simple. I actually think that both are
biblically valid and I think they both play a role in our
biblical theology. I I was, I came home from work
the other day and and I walked into my house and favorite.
This is one of my favorite things entrances ever.
I walked into the house and immediately when the door knob
turned, I hear Jack's little voice go Daddy's home, Daddy's
here, mommy, Daddy's here and he runs over and we exchange a few,
you know, maybe a hug or just a high and he goes, Daddy.
He said Daddy came to Jack's house.
I was like, that's debatable. Your mom and I pay for it.
How's you in it? Stock it?
And so I didn't say that to him. What I did say was, yeah, yes,
it's also Daddy's home. And he said no.
And he pointed this direction and said the church is Daddy's
home now. I actually think my relationship
with work is pretty healthy now. So I don't, you know, I early
days of church planting were 50-60 regular hour.
We're not, I'm pretty close to pretty standard 40.
So I didn't feel I didn't feel rebuked by it, but I was like,
no, daddy doesn't have two different home addresses.
I got after you go to bed. I don't like sneak over here and
go to sleep here. Like this is daddy's home.
I only have one home address. Satan has two home addresses and
sometimes denominations. Sometimes Christians don't
really understand that, or we emphasize one at the expense of
of other. Take for instance, our our
charismatic brothers and sisters in in the Lord.
What our charismatic friends get right about the influence of
Satan is that he's out there. He's in the spiritual realm and
demons are real and unclean spirits are real and spiritual
warfare is real. But sometimes it gets under
emphasized that we also have a personal responsibility to cast
Satan out and his influence out from our hearts.
And So what ends up happening is everything comes becomes about
spiritual warfare and you look for demons under every Bush and
refuse to take responsibility for your sin.
Now I'm, I'm reformed in in my theology and I like being
reformed in my theology. Our reformed brothers and
sisters, and I would also lump our our Roman Catholic brothers
and sisters into that. They do a really good job of
remembering that Satan also wants to rule and reign over the
human heart. And so they do a really good job
emphasizing repenting of personal sin, making sure that
your heart is right with God, acting morally upright.
And that is good. Sometimes I sometimes we under
emphasize the fact that also spiritual warfare is real and I
think an appropriate reading of Genesis 315 includes both of
these things. I think they both have a ton of
biblical support and I think as a literature nerd I think
Genesis 315 is probably a double in tundra that purposefully
works at both levels. Whatever you think, you can
disagree with me on this, just don't miss the clear meaning
which is you were born into a war.
You might be ignorant of it, you might be dull to it, but you
were born into a war. Life is war, and your allegiance
is everything. In Genesis 3, what we see is
that the world splits into two, those who belong to the
serpent's family and those who belong to God's family through
the seed of the woman. There are two trenches.
Is there a middle in the trenches?
Ben? Ain't no middle in the trenches.
No middle in the trenches. Family of the serpent, the
family of God. And there's going to be a
massive lifetime war, and there's going to be one son, one
seed, who ultimately determines who wins, Who wins.
Look at the second part, 15-B, we'll call it.
He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
Huh. The hero the Sun's heel gonna
get bruised. What's?
What could that possibly mean? Well, friends, there's levels to
this game, so let's go through all of them.
Why? Why the heel?
Why does the heel of the hero get bruised?
Well, first and foremost, the serpent will bruise the sun's
heel because this is actually just realistic serpent imagery,
right? In the ancient world, you are
afraid of snakes, you're afraid of serpents.
If you were walk around in tall grass and a serpent bit you, it
would probably bite you in the heel.
It would come from the grass and boom.
So it's just realistic serpent imagery is really just one
reason why that's there. And chapter 3, verse 15, but
also the serpent will bruise the sun's heel because this is
actually dirty. It's dirty imagery.
This is not the kind of the type of combat that you would expect
from an honorable person. Honorable people, They fight
face to face. The serpent's deceptive,
cowardly. This is a cheap shot.
Evil always comes from below, like a serpent striking from the
ground and never comes from above.
Even among when humans act Serpentine, it always comes from
below. Gossip, slander, anonymous
blogging, talking behind your back, It's always a striking
from a place of lowness and so it's just a metaphorically tight
and loaded phrase as well. But most importantly, thirdly,
why the heel? Why the heel?
The Serpent will bruise the sun's heel because a heel strike
is non fatal. We're not going to kill, destroy
the hero, the head, now that's a fatal bruise.
The heel is not a fatal bruise. What does this teach us?
This teaches us that the Serpent can wound, but he cannot win.
Evil darkness can wound, but it cannot win.
Look at the other part of verse 15.
He takes a heel strike, but the seed, the sun will bruise the
serpent's what head crush the serpent's head.
That's a fatal strike. And so here's here's the point
of the the way that this battle is described in Genesis 315,
this lifelong war, there's going to be an exchange of supposed
victories. And what's going to happen is
that the serpent will wound, but the sun will ultimately win.
The hero will ultimately take a heel strike willingly for the
head crushing victory. There's an exchange of pain, but
the good guy wins. Does that sound familiar to you?
A bruise on the heel to crush the head?
A wound for a win? That sound familiar?
You can tell, by the way, which stories are the truest by
thinking about which stories are etched more deeply into the
human heart. And you can tell which stories
are etched more deeply into the human heart by thinking about
which stories are more common across all cultures throughout
time. Have you ever noticed then, if
this story is true, have you ever noticed how the story of
the bad guy striking the heel so that the hero can strike the
enemy's head? This exchange of pain, if you
ever notice how this is everywhere in culture, it's at
like it's, it's everywhere. I'm going to go off for a second
and I'm not just going off to entertain myself here because
I'll probably be the only person entertained by it.
I'm going to go off here because I want to show you how
frequently, how often the gospel echoes into pop culture.
It tries to weave itself in and recycle itself in literally
every good story or every good movie you've ever watched.
It is everywhere. For instance, the original
Predator from 1987. Have you seen this?
Kids? Don't watch it until your dad is
ready to watch it with you. I will say I read an article
that didn't seem like it came from a reputable source that
said that the original Predator and watching it can raise your
testosterone by 400%. I didn't have any science
backing, but I thought it sounded good.
So essentially what happens is how how does you got
Schwarzenegger? You've got some of the best
quotes in cinema history, guys. Right.
Get to the chopper. If it bleeds, we can kill it.
I'm I'm totally freaking to the wrong crowd.
I don't have any. Yeah, I don't have any
references from the chosen, so my bad.
I like, I actually like the chosen.
That wasn't like a a rib. But how does Schwarzenegger
defeat the Predator? It's this epic scene, right?
Schwartz? It's an exchange of blows.
Schwarzenegger, he literally sheds all of his weapons and he
sheds his weapons. He lowers his defenses and he
presents himself as bait to the Predator and he allows Predator
to beat him up. There's he even allows the
Predator to grab him by the neck and hold him against the tree.
Why? Because he's trying to trick him
into a trap. There's even a point where
Schwarzenegger says out loud to the Predator from a distance,
come on, kill me right here, kill me.
And he gets the Predator to take like two or three more steps and
what happens? Boom, Predator trips the
trigger. Bam, there's the fatal
destruction of Predator. What is that?
That's a trading of wounds for a win.
Symbolically, it's the exchange of the heroes bruised heel.
I'll let you beat me up to destroy the enemy.
I'll destroy you with my trap. Does that sound familiar or?
I hate to be that guy? No, I don't.
Rocky Three. Easily the most underrated movie
in the entire Rocky series. Not the best, but easily the
most underrated. What Rocky's got to do, he's got
to go up against this imposing, intimidating figure.
It's actually Mr. T, so you know it's good cinema.
Surprising it didn't win an Oscar, but that's not a chip on
my shoulder. So he's going up against Mr. T.
His whole strategy in the fight is to let Clubber Lang or Mr. T
repeatedly hit him over and over and over again.
He literally says to him, is that all you got?
Hit me harder, hit me harder. And what happens?
Mr. T exhausts himself, and then Rocky knocks him out with the
left hook of his own. It's a trading of wounds for the
win. It's symbolically the exchange
of the hero's bruise heel to bruise the enemy's head.
Does this sound familiar? OK comic book people, The Dark
Knight Batman literally allows himself to be captured by the
Joker so that he can defeat the Joker's plan from the inside
out. It's an exchange of the heroes
bruised heel to bruise the enemy's head.
Sound familiar? I can go on and on and on and I
can tell in your eyes you'd like me to spare you.
But I could talk about Godzilla 2000, Jaws, Rambo, First Blood
Part 2, and most action movies. But here's the point.
All of culture, all of creation, longs just long for a hero who
comes to save the day by allowing himself to be wounded
so that he can crush the enemy's head.
For it to be a truly great story, the hero's heel must be
bruised. The enemy's head must be
crushed. Does that sound familiar?
Not just too bad 80s action movies, but also a certain book.
Let's keep talking about bruised heels.
Are you guys with me? Let's keep talking about bruised
heels. This is going to sound off topic
for a couple minutes and then we'll bring it back.
But the ancient Romans, they didn't actually invent the
crucifixion. What they did is they picked it
up and then they absolutely perfected the crucifixion to
make it maximally painful and embarrassing and humiliating.
And what's interesting is that in the last couple decades,
historians actually discovered the corpse of a 1st century man.
So around the time of Jesus, who was crucified.
And do you know where this corpse was crucified?
Jerusalem. And why is that important?
Because that means that we would be observing the same local
strategies that we would expect to find in the dead body of
Jesus after he had been crucified, had his body remain
dead, of course. And what's interesting about
this corpse that they found that was crucified in the 1st century
in Jerusalem? So fascinating is when they were
exploring the nail wounds in the corpses feet, they noted that
the nails were driven in at a mathematically precise angle,
which we would expect. And the reason why we would
expect that is because Roman soldiers were competently
trained expert killing machines. And so the nail in this corpse
was driven mathematically through the foot at an angle so
that the purpose of holding the body weight up better, it was
driven at an angle actually upwards so that the nail was
driven through the any gas, the heel piercing through the heel
bone. Why?
Well, first, certainly because it increased pain.
Secondly, because it held the body weight up more securely,
preventing the foot from slicing into.
But third, it also prevented the victims from pushing upwards and
breathing better for momentary relief.
To crucify someone well, the heel bone must be pierced.
That's why from the vantage point of the Romans, why did he
have to be crucified that way, from the vantage point of the
sovereign plan of God, so that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of
Genesis 315 perfectly. That's why the cross, friends,
is the ultimate fulfillment of the proto evangelium.
It is the finish line of this story that begins in Genesis
315. Jesus on the cross is Genesis
315 with flesh on, Genesis 315 with arms and legs, Genesis 315
with lungs so that he can breathe.
The great action hero, Jesus Christ himself allowed the
serpent to bruise his heel literally when the nail went
through. Of course there would be blood,
but there would also be a literal bruising of the heel.
Christ literally and of course, metaphorically, had his heel
bruised by the serpent, just like Genesis 315 says.
Make no mistake about it, Jesus is the truer and better
Schwarzenegger. He baited Predator into the
trap. Jesus is the truer and better
Rocky. He allowed Kleberlang to exhaust
himself with punches before throwing the death blow.
He's the truer and better Batman.
He willingly allowed the Joker to capture him, to destroy him
from the inside out. And by letting the enemy bruise
his heel, he crushed the enemy's head.
Make no mistake, Christ took the cross cross into his own hands.
He's not a victim on the cross. Get that?
He's a victor victim. We don't worship victims.
We support them, we care for them, and we show them sympathy.
But Jesus doesn't want sympathy. You want your worship.
So Jesus willingly took the cross into his own hands and did
what with it? He wielded the very cross itself
like a sword. And just like David, after
defeating Goliath, Jesus chopped the serpent's head off with the
enemy's own weapon. Just like David beheads Goliath
with Goliath's own sword. It's the same story recycled and
brought to ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.
And I know this is gruesome language, but it's not.
It's not locker room talk. It's actually very theologically
precise, right? David cutting Goliath's head
off, Jesus crushing the head of the serpent.
It's very violent imagery, but it's very theologically and
experientially precise. The serpent's been decapitated.
You can look that. Have you ever, anybody in here
ever run a snake over with a lawn mower?
Yeah. What happens for a short time
afterwards? What do they do?
They keep on wiggling and moving.
You can look it up on YouTube. Maybe don't.
I did. When you look it up on YouTube,
when you chop a snake's hat off, it has a strange way of still
remaining alive for a short amount of time.
There's even a video, there's even videos of snakes having
their heads chopped off and then attacking and biting their own
body. But what's happening there?
Those are mere, they're mere death rattles.
And as Christians, this is exactly the period in human
history that we live in. It's precisely the period of
human history we live in. We live precisely between the
serpent's defeat on the cross and his eventual annihilation in
the resurrection. Satan has been beheaded, but he
continues to wiggle around. He does have real rage and real
influence, but it is short and it is momentary, like a snake
that's been run over by a lawn mower until on the last day he
will be fully and finally destroyed and disposed of in the
crucifixion of Jesus. For those who believe, Jesus
takes away all of your sin. That's all that the accuser has
to hurl at you. His accusations, it's gone.
He's been disarmed. He takes away all your sin and
he comforts you with all of his righteousness.
And it's not just about a personal relationship with you
and Jesus. You get that through the Gospel.
What's more than that is that Jesus also destroys and defeats
the devil, and then he graphs us sinners, imperfect slobs into
the family of God. That's how you become the
offspring of God by the gospel. By believing Jesus through faith
alone and the crucifixion of Jesus, we are made into the
offspring of God and we are placed on the winning team.
Amen. Even though you didn't do it
right. Like imagine yourself on a team.
Imagine. I'm not.
Let me do a sport. I'm not.
I don't like basketball. Obviously that was never in the
cards for me. I've got a chip on my shoulder.
Suppose you're you're on the bench and the hero on the court.
Last second buzzer beater drains A3 to win the game.
Everybody goes crazy. Here's my question.
Who gets those points, you or him?
Answer is both of you. He scored them, but you get them
because you're on the team. You get the victory.
That's what the gospel of Jesus is like.
Jesus defeated the enemy. He was perfect, He was holy, he
was righteous. By virtue of faith and faith
alone, you are grafted into his team and you get his points.
It's so massive to understand. This is why the Bible talks
about how how salvation is apart from works of the law, but by
faith alone, because only faith alone grafts you into the team
of Jesus. And what does this mean for you?
It means you are born into a war between two different teams and
there are two trenches and there is no middle in the trenches.
And So what does this mean for you?
It means that you should put your faith in Jesus.
You should pronounce the devil, and you should give your
allegiance to the son of the woman, Jesus Christ.
You have to understand that Christianity, Christianity is
like, it's like sports betting. I'm not pastoring you.
I'm not telling you to go download DraftKings.
We're not supported by DraftKings.
I'm saying it's, it's like that, right?
I'm trying to, I'm trying to make a point here.
But unlike sports betting, God actually celebrates inside
betting. You get in trouble for that and
sports betting, God actually celebrates it.
If you have the Bible, you are an inside better.
You know how the game is going to end.
You know who's going to win the fight, You know who's going to
win the war. Like like what?
What would you do if you knew for a fact?
Like we're talking about sport? You imagine you're a Sinner and
you bet on sports. I'm, I'm kidding, I don't bet on
sports, but I, I, it's fine, man, I wish I could walk that
back. OK, but imagine you are betting
on the big game, right? That and imagine that you know
for certain which team is going to win.
I'm not talking like 99%, I'm talking 100%.
Imagine you know for certain 100% what team is going to win.
What's the responsible amount of money to bet on that game?
All of it, all of it. Push all your chips in if we're
at 100%. Put them all in.
And so it's no wonder why Christianity demands all of our
lives, right? Every, everything.
Faith. That's what faith is.
It's a betting on Jesus as the witting team, a giving of all
your heart, all your mind, all your life to Jesus.
Faith is a confident allegiance of everything you have being
placed on Christ because you know that Jesus is going to win
and crush the head of the serpent.
That's what faith is. So my encouragement to use to
get off the fence with Jesus and push all your chips in today.
Faith is the willingness to assume that everything that
happens to you, whether you you win or lose in life, whether you
get the promotion or lose the job, whether you get the girl or
lose the girl, whether you get the horrible diagnosis or have
the results come back negative. It's it's the confident belief.
Faith is the willingness to assume that if you were on
Jesus's team, you are on the winning team.
No matter what, no matter what befalls you, no matter what
happens to you, no matter how hard it gets, if you are in
Christ, you are Romans more than a conqueror on the winning team.
That's what it means for you. What's that mean for you?
Well, it means that if you have the Holy Spirit, you will spend
the rest of your lifetime on earth at war for the rest of
your lifetime. So do not make peace with the
serpent, Fight against him. Renounce his ways.
Do not make peace with falsehood.
Know the truth. Don't make peace with sin.
Fight against the flesh. Don't make peace with cowardice.
Be strong and courageous. Do not make peace with lukewarm
spirituality. Fight for spiritual vigilance.
Don't make peace with cynicism. Fight for hope, living hope.
Take every impulse within you, even the violent ones, the anger
and the rage, and commit to never using it against other
people or neighbors or loved ones.
Use every ounce of that to fight a war against sin, Satan, and
even death itself, the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Throw it off. Throw it all off Worship Jesus
Christ. He's the living God.
He's the living God and he alone will conquer the evil, the evil
1 And if you are in Christ, you are more than a conqueror.
If you're in Christ, you are on the winning team.
He will be at war for you and he will give you peace.
He's good stuff, Heavenly Father.
It's just there's so much. The right word that comes from
this is peace. There's so much peace and
knowing that you were at war for us, that you are like David
going before our army and doing the hard work for us and
defeating and overthrowing Goliath.
You are the seed of the woman who crushes the head of the
serpent. We we know how this ends.
I was just thinking about the great irony of not knowing how
my own life is going to end, but knowing how all of human history
is going to end. And so no matter how my life
ends, whether I am peaking at 95 or limping with Parkinson's or
taking early, whatever happens to me, whatever happens to us in
these short momentary lives, we know how human history ends.
It all culminates with the Son of God throwing the evil 1 into
a lake of fire and us living with God in perfect bliss and
pleasure forever. And so Lord you are.
You are Christ the victor. You are the destroyer of death,
Serpent Stomper the curse Crusher.
Jump into his arms right now. Embrace him with every ounce of
faith you have in you, and be of war against the flesh.
Amen.