Good morning church, it's good to see you.
I'm going to make it really easy for you today.
Turn to Page 1 in your Bible, Genesis chapter one, page one in
your Bible. Just as you are working
feverishly to find page one, I want to welcome a new member to
our Forward Church family. So would you join me in
welcoming Sally Martin into membership here at Forward?
And again, if Forward is your church home, but you're not yet
a member, I want to invite you and encourage you to take that
step of making a covenant to be in relationship and membership
here at the Forward Church family.
Just text the Word member and that will get you started today.
Well, you know, the one thing that no person can escape you
and I cannot escape is the reality that our lives are
forever interconnected and shaped by the lives of other
people. But who are the people that have
forever shaped your life? Want you to think about that for
better or for worse? Who are some of the people that
have forever impacted and influenced and shaped your life?
For me, I would not be probably standing here today if it
weren't for two men who were mentors and like a father figure
for me during my teen years. These guys entered into my life
in a really difficult season in my life and they believed in me
and they invested in me and they poured into me.
I am forever grateful for their influence and impact on my life.
Like you, I can think about parents, I can think about
teachers, I can think about friends, I can think about
pastors. All kinds of different names
come to mind when we think about people who have forever impacted
our lives. Even on the negative side, there
are names that come to your mind right now, people who have hurt
you or harmed you in some way. There are people who have
forever enriched your life. And there may also be people
who, through their actions, have hurt you and those actions still
have a hold on your life. I want you to hold on to that
thought. We're going to come back to it
in a couple of minutes. Last week we talked about how
the whole Bible, including the Old Testament, is a witness to
who Jesus is and the truth that you can only find life in him.
Now, most people don't tend to go to the Old Testament, say
where do I see Jesus in the Old Testament?
How does it point us towards Jesus?
But it does. So between now and Easter, we're
going to continue to dive a little bit deeper into the Old
Testament and see how exactly it directs our attention, our focus
points us towards Jesus. And one of the ways it does that
is through what is called types and shadows.
The whole Old Testament has several people who are called
types of Jesus in them. They're not Jesus, they're not
the only begotten Son of God, but there's something about
their character, there's something about their actions,
something about their quality that points us towards Jesus.
There's something about these individuals that foreshadow the
life, the work, the nature of Jesus himself.
And today we're going to look at one person that the Bible calls
a type of Christ in the first human being that was ever
created, Adam. In Romans chapter 5, verse 14,
the Bible explicitly says this Adam is a type of the coming
one. The Bible says to us Adam is a
type of Jesus, and in the primary way that we see Adam
being a type of Jesus is in the scale of impact that his life
had. The big idea of what the Bible
teaches us in the grand story of Scripture is this.
Every single human being is going to have their life defined
by Adam or by Jesus. That the influence and the
impact of these two men is unmatched by any other person in
all of human history. Nobody has had the historic
multi generational impact on every corner of the world like
these two men have had. Your life, my life, the life of
every human being who has ever lived on this planet is going to
be defined by one of these two men.
Even when you think about the people who have impacted your
life, for better or for worse, they have had an impact, but
it's still a relatively small impact that they've had on the
world. They've shaped your life, but
they have not shaped every life on the planet.
We live in a world where people aspire to be influencers.
There's millions of people who who make their living trying to
be influencers in our world. There are parents who look to
influence their children. There's teachers who look to
influence their their students. And what we see is that
companies look to influence the world in a way that's going to
lead people to buy their products, too.
But all those attempts that influence are minor compared to
the influence of Adam and Jesus. From God's perspective, these
are the two men who have had the greatest influence and the
greatest impact on human history.
And to understand that and just how deep that runs for us, we
have to go all the way back to the beginning of the story in
Genesis and understand just the kind of influence that Adam has
had on the human race. And the first thing that Genesis
tells us is that Adam was made to multiply everything that a
human was created to be. Look at Genesis chapter one,
verse 27 says so God created man in his own image.
He created him in the image of God.
He created them male and female. This idea of being made in the
image of God is something we've talked a lot about as a church
family. Theologian Mark Cortez describes
it this way. He says God intended to create
human persons to be the physical means through which he would
manifest his own divine presence in the world.
That you and I, we are not God, but we are made by God.
Adam was made by God to be in such close relationship with God
and such close intimacy with God that his whole life would
reflect to the rest of creation a glimpse, a taste of what God
himself is like. And part of being human and we
see in in verse 27 is being made male and female.
There's something about being made male and female that is
good and great. And in a variety of ways, men
and women together, each of us reflect the image of God.
We each give creation a little taste of what God is like.
Now, one of the things I am positive of is that you can put
20 people in a room and you can ask them what does it mean to be
human being? What does it mean to be human?
And you're going to get 20 slightly different answers to
that question. So I want to suggest to us that
since God is the creator of all humanity, God should be the one
who gets to define what it means to be human.
God should be the one who gets to define what it means to be
people made in his image and what is good about being human.
And in verse 28, God begins to unpack this a little bit more.
He says God bless them and God said to them, be fruitful,
multiply, fill the earth and subdue it, rule the fish of the
sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on
the earth. God creates humanity to multiply
everything of what it means to be made in the image of God.
What the Bible is telling us here all the way back in Genesis
chapter 1 is that as the first human, Adam is the
representative head of all of humanity, that every action that
Adam was going to take was going to have a direct impact and
influence on the life of every human who would ever live in the
future. He was created to multiply out
what it means to be an image bearer of God.
Then as we move into Genesis chapter 2, we begin to get a
picture of how God designed humans to live out His image.
I'm not going to take the time to read all of these, but I'll
refer to some verses. You can look at them as I walk
through it. In verse 15 God says to Adam
that he is supposed to go and to work the garden.
That Adam was made as a man to work and be productive.
That for all of us who think work is part of the fall of sin
in the world, it's not. Work was good before sin ever
came into the world. We were made as people to be
workers. We were made as people to be
productive with our lives. Verse 15 carries on and says
that Adam also had a responsibility to watch over the
garden, which carries this idea that God made Adam to be a
protector. The word watch carries the, the
thought of there's some kind of danger that is lurking that you
have to be on guard for, that you have to be watching for.
And God made Adam to be a protector to watch for the
danger that was existing in the garden.
And then we get into verse 16 and verse 17 and we get this
amazing picture of how God gives to humanity this immense freedom
to create and cultivate and, and use their imaginations.
But he put boundaries on it that God says, hey, you are so free
to go and do so many things, but there's boundaries, there's
limits to it because if you cross this boundary, it is going
to hurt you. And it's this picture of we are
free as human beings, yes, but we are not free to do whatever
we want. That there are boundaries and
there is a God that we were always made to live our lives in
submission to. And then we get into verse 18.
We see this picture that says that we are made for
relationship and connection with other people, that it was not
good for Adam to be alone, that humans were made for partnership
in work and in life. That the Bible paints this
picture. It says God made Eve as a helper
frit firm, which is every woman's favorite verse and word
in the entire Bible. So let me just like settle this
issue. Helper is not a demeaning term
in this passage. Helper is saying it's actually a
demeaning term against the guy. It's saying the guy needed help.
That's really what it means, that there was something
incomplete about the man and that God made woman to come
alongside that. Together as male and female,
they were going to work in unity and in partnership with each
other to accomplish the task that God had created humanity to
accomplish. And then we get into verse 24
and 25 and we have this picture of marriage beginning to unfold
for us that that we're made for relationship.
And one of the most beautiful ways that that relationship is
expressed is in marriage. That God creates us to have
perfect oneness between a husband and a wife, a man and a
woman in a relationship that we are to be 1 emotionally and
physically and spiritually completely naked before God and
each other. Right in the very beginning, God
is setting Adam up to be the start of something remarkable
that was meant to impact humanity for all time.
But then the story takes a sad turn and we see this that Adam's
failure to live out his identity also became the failure of every
human. Chapter 3 tells us the story of
a serpent who shows up to tempt Eve to do the one thing that God
said not to do, eat the fruit of the tree in the middle of the
garden. Let's read beginning at verse 1
of chapter 3. Now the serpent was the most
cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made.
He said to the woman, did God really say you can't eat from
any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the
serpent, We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden,
but about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God
said, you must not eat it or touch it or you will die.
No, you're not going to die, The serpent said to the woman, In
fact, God knows that when you eat it, your eyes are going to
be opened and you're going to be like God, knowing good and evil.
The woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to
look at, and that it was desirable for obtaining wisdom.
So she took some of its fruit and ate it.
She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he
ate it. These verses in Genesis chapter
3 tell the story of a moment that you and I still experience
the consequences of today. Adam is made to walk in such
close relationship and fellowship with God.
He's made to reflect what God is like.
He's made to be a worker and a protector from danger.
He was made to trust God with his whole life and he fails.
Adam fails to love God. He he doesn't trust him.
He takes his happiness into his own hands.
He says God's holding out on me. I'm going to take my happiness
into my own hands. And Adam failed to protect, He
failed to protect his wife. The Bible says that Eve is
tempted and she takes the fruit of the tree and she gives it to
Adam who was with her. But he sat and watched his wife
get tempted and he said nothing. God called him to be a protector
of the danger that was lurking in the garden, and he failed to
protect his wife. And what's clear to us in these
6 verses is that sin can be both an action and an inaction.
Like we think sin is the obvious things like lying or cheating or
getting angry or stealing or whatever.
But Adam, sin was not doing what he was supposed to do.
He was supposed to protect. I think passivity is the least
recognized sin amongst us. So many Christians are walking
around. I love Jesus, I love Jesus so
much. I love to sing the songs, I love
to read my Bible. I love to pray.
I love to do all the things that that that just feed my soul.
But I'm good with just sitting and not serving anybody.
I'm good with just consuming. When I come to church, I'm good
just just taking it all in. I want to go and sit, but not
really show any hospitality or kindness to anybody.
That'd be putting me outside my comfort zone.
Passivity. That's passivity in marriages.
I've had so many people who will say to me, I'm a faithful
spouse. I'm not cheating on my spouse,
but God would say that if you are being passive as a husband
or a wife, if you are not being the husband or wife God created
you to be, you're not really being faithful in your marriage.
That's passivity. And because of what happens in
this moment in Genesis chapter 3, every human being for all of
history is a Sinner. Romans chapter 5 verse 19 says
it this way. Through one man's disobedience,
the many are made sinners. Theologically, this is what's
called original sin. That because of Adam's sin,
every human being enters the world as a Sinner.
Now for some of us, our immediate responses, well,
that's not right. Like, I choose to believe that
all human beings are inherently good and we choose to make bad
choices, but we're not all sinners.
We are inherently good as people.
And if you believe that, I want to let you know that we have
opportunities for you to serve in our nursery and preschool
ministry. You know what?
You never have to teach a 2 year old.
You never have to teach a 2 year old to disobey.
They just know how to do it. You never have to teach a 2 year
old to say no. Somehow it just comes naturally.
Like when you tell a child don't touch, what's the first thing
they're going to do? Touch.
And so we come to this reality that even people who seem like
good people still fall short in being the people God wants them
to be. Think about how this plays out
even in the Bible. Abraham.
Abraham's a great guy. Love God.
God promised to make him into a great nation.
Terrible husband. Like twice.
He lies and tells people that his wife is his sister just so
he could save his life. Yet David, a guy who's called a
man after God's own heart, but a guy who also uses his power to
take advantage of a woman, has her husband killed and, yeah,
has a highly dysfunctional family on top of that.
Over and over again, the Bible shows us that no matter how good
of a person someone is, sin is still part of their story.
Now, you might go, but that's not fair, Kirk.
I wasn't fair in the garden. I would have told Eve not to eat
the fruit of the tree or I would never have taken that fruit.
Sure you would have. Like you go, I wasn't there to
screw things up. Now, maybe you weren't there to
screw things up. How many of you have ever found
yourselves picking up a bad habit from your parents?
Anybody. Come on.
Nobody's ever caught themselves doing something where you go.
Oops. I had the other night, I was
making fun of my son because he was pouting over losing in a
game that he was playing. And he looked at me and he says,
where do you think I learned that, dad?
Because I was the guy that would just like when I'd be losing
video games with my kids, I would just turn off the video
game because I was so upset with the thing, right?
We all learn things and have things passed down to us.
Psychologists call this social learning theory that from birth
your brain is shaped by your environment.
The behaviors that you witnessed are encoded in your brain and
are considered to be a normal way of life.
And so Adam's approach in this situation, in the garden, as
Adam sins, it gets passed down to his kids.
And that gets passed down to their kids and their kids.
And over the course of all of human history and the billions
of people that have lived on this planet, every possible
twist and turn of what sin looks like has been passed down from
one generation to the next, to the next, to the next.
We are all sinners because of what started with Adam and
because we live so much further from the garden today, so much
sin has become normalized. We don't even recognize any more
the hundreds of ways that we sin every day.
It's just life. And the challenge is not only
that we're sinners, it's what comes out of that sin too.
Adam's actions became our actions, and Adam's curse became
our curse. His sin has consequences.
Chapter 3 Beginning at verse 7 all the way through to the end
of the chapter, this series of consequences unfold.
Instead of freedom and intimacy with God and each other as human
beings, now Adam and Eve experience shame and they start
to hide. They start to keep secrets.
They're hiding from each other. They're hiding from God.
Instead of perfect oneness in relationship, people are
experiencing brokenness in their relationships.
Instead of living to protect, Adam and Eve live to protect
themselves. Like God goes to Adam and says,
Adam, where are you? And Adam's answer is, it's the
woman's fault. You gave her to me.
It's her fault. So then God goes to Eve and
says, is that true? And she says the serpent tempted
me, blame shifting all the way around, trying to protect
themselves from getting into trouble, living for themselves
instead of living in union with God and each other and instead
of working together. Now there is a power struggle
that starts to happen in their relationship.
God says down in verse 16, He says your desire will be for
your husband and He will rule over you.
That word desire is not a good positive word.
The word desire means your desire for control over your
husband will be real and he's going to want to have power over
you. Now instead of living in unity
with each other, now they are living in a power struggle with
each other. And then Genesis 3 continues to
unpack that all of life and work is going to be hard and
difficult instead of natural and easy.
Childbirth is going to be hard, working in your job is going to
be hard, and ultimately our bodies will fall apart and they
will die. Romans 518 tells us this through
1 trespass. There is condemnation for
everyone. Theologically, this is called
imputation. It's the status and consequences
of Adam's sin are credited to you and me.
Do any of those consequences sound familiar at all to you?
Like, do we have any power struggles and relationships
today? Men who are dominating women,
women who want power and control for themselves, Wars and
conflicts all over the place. I think about the sheer volume
of people I know who are just exhausted from their work, worn
down by their jobs, worn down by their financial struggles.
I think about the blame shifting that happens all over the place.
The problems that I'm experiencing in life.
It's it's not my fault because my parents didn't do this right.
My boss screwed this up. My church failed here.
My, my husband, my wife, they're not doing their part.
We blame shift all the time. We're still living in the
reality of the curse of sin on the world, our health.
Every single time you stand up or sit down and you have to
groan, that is a reminder that you are living in a fallen,
broken world because of Adam. You can say thanks, Adam every
time you stand up or sit down like that.
And then there's the ultimate reality of death that we're
reminded of all the time because someone we know has passed away.
And then ultimately it's our relationship with God, People
still hiding from God instead of enjoying fellowship with him.
The kind of relationship and intimacy we were made to have
with God. We just can't seem to find it.
The consequences of sin are the normal human condition.
Your life, my life, the life of your neighbors, your coworkers,
your family, your friends. Every human who has ever lived
profoundly impacted by the sin of Adam.
Now, if you're like me, you look at this and go, man, that had
them really screwed things up for the rest of us, didn't he?
Maybe you have a few words you want to share with Adam, but the
truth is, Adam started it and you and I have just perpetuated
it. We, we carried that brokenness
forward and we keep passing it along from one generation to the
next generation. But the good news for us today
is that Adam does not need to define anyone.
Even while God is giving out the consequences for Adam's sin, God
also steps in and shows mercy and grace.
Look at verse 15 of Genesis chapter 3.
God says, I'm going to put hostility between you and the
woman and between your offspring and her offspring.
He will strike your head and you will strike His heel right right
in the middle of God telling Adam and Eve what the
consequences are of their sin, God shows up and gives good news
that there's another defining moment that is still yet to
come. The very the very first hints of
the work of Jesus show up in Genesis chapter 3, verse 15,
that this serpent did everything possible to turn the human race
against God. And God says, I am not going to
allow that to be the final word. Instead, what I'm going to do is
I'm going to do something that's going to turn the human race
against the serpent. God's promising here that Adam's
condition and Eve's condition as a result of their sin does not
need to be the end of the story. Salvation is possible, but then
he makes one more promise. One day there's going to be
another human who's born. And he says to the serpent,
you're going to try to put that person down.
But in your effort to put that person down, it's going to be
like you just bruise them a little bit and they'll recover
from it. But what that person's going to
do to you, that person is going to crush your head.
Don't. Don't skip past that word.
It's one of the most powerful explicit images here in the Book
of Genesis. Imagine a pop can.
That is what this person would do to the serpent.
Crush him. All the way back in the story of
creation, God is making a promise that redemption and
victory is possible, that humanity does not need to be
defined by the sin of Adam, because Jesus is the better
Adam. He's the difference between life
and death. Jesus is everything that Adam
failed to be. And even better than that, Adam
was a son of God. He, he had no earthly father.
Jesus was always the Son of God who had no beginning.
He always existed. Adam was made in the image of
God. Jesus was the image of God.
He said if you've seen me, you've seen the Father as a
human. Jesus was everything a human was
created to be. Adam was tempted and he failed
to trust God and obey God. Jesus was tempted and he chose
to maintain his trust and confidence in God.
Adam failed to protect his wife. Jesus gives his life for his
bride to the church. Adam lived for his own comfort.
Jesus gives up his comfort so people can have life.
Adam couldn't honor God in a perfect world.
Jesus honored God in a world that was under the curse of sin.
The serpent walked all over Adam.
But through his death on the cross, Jesus crushed the head of
a serpent. Here's what the rest of Romans
518 says. So then, as through 1 trespass
there is condemnation for everyone, so also through 1
righteous act there is justification leading to life
for everyone. Two men whose lives have
impacted every single human being on the planet, whether we
know it or not. And I know that in this room and
watching online today, there are people whose lives are still
defined by Adam because that's the condition every human starts
in. You're born a Sinner.
But I want you to know today that God is gracious and
merciful. Right at the very end of chapter
3, we see another picture of how gracious and merciful God is.
In verse 21 it says the Lord God made clothing from skins for the
for the man and his wife, and he clothed them.
Adam and Eve had been completely exposed before God, their sin
laid bare. There's shame out in the open,
but God goes and makes clothing from the skins of an animal to
cover them and protect them. You know what would have had to
happen for this? For this to take place, the
shedding of blood had to happen. An innocent animal dies so Adam
and Eve could have their shame covered, and thousands of years
later, Jesus would die on a cross and shed his blood so that
the shame over your life for the sin that you've committed can be
removed. You know, you might think it's
unfair to say that you're a Sinner because of Adam's sin.
Here's what's really unfair That the only perfect human, whoever
lived, would die a cruel death so that you could live.
That's unfair. It's unfair that because of
Jesus, you and I can be considered completely righteous
and holy before God without ever having to prove ourselves first.
That's unfair. But it's also the good news of
what Jesus came to give us. It's the most remarkable
exchange in human history that our sins are laid on Christ.
Your sins are laid on Jesus, and his righteousness is laid on
you. And if you're still an Adam here
today, you can receive this same gift by placing your faith in
Jesus Christ. But it's so important for us to
know that Jesus defining your life is not meant exclusively
for something that happens after death.
It's about right now, too. One of the most amazing,
beautiful, powerful things that's happening in our church
right now are the movement of people who are done being
defined by Adam. They're hungry to be defined by
Jesus. If you were here last Sunday,
you saw a video of some of our youth and young adults talking
about what God's doing in their life right now.
You know what they're saying. I'm done being defined by Adam.
I want to be defined by Jesus. I want to be defined by the only
one who can give me life instead of the one who came to bring me
death. I hear it from so many stories.
I almost every week I meet someone who's come back to
church for the first time in years and when I talk to them
they always say the same thing. I'm just done.
I'm done with all the other stuff that has just robbing me
of life. I'm done.
I need to get back to Jesus. I see it in our Alpha ministry
as people explore what it means to be defined by Jesus in
Freedom session where people are going.
I've got stuff that's happened to me in life and I'm done
allowing the death of Adam through those things to impact
my life anymore. I want the freedom in Christ.
I see it happening in conversations and in
discipleship groups and equipped classes.
And I want to tell you this can be the story for every single
one of us here today. Some of you, you've grown up in
some really tough places and environments.
You've experienced some of those painful sins possible committed
against you and the consequences of the sin of others has a hold
on your life and they're holding you back from the true life and
freedom. I believe with all my heart
Jesus came because he know what he does not want your life to be
defined by that kind of death that comes from the sin of Adam.
Jesus came as a healer. Many of us, we're here today and
we know all this story, but our issue is that we we keep
perpetuating the exact same things of Genesis 3, and we keep
creating more of the same consequences in our families, in
our workplaces, and in the world around us.
There's so many of us that we're running and we're hiding from
God. Oh, yeah, you're here, which is
great, but you know, on the rest of the week you're doing
everything possible to hide from God.
You're too busy in marriages, man.
There are so many marriages where the relational fallout of
Genesis 3 still exists, for men are still being passive instead
of being men who love and honor and cherish their wife.
And there are so many women who are also living for power and
control in their relationships who are saying that my husband,
he's always wrong and I'm the one who's always right.
And vice versa happens. There are so many men that are
living as control freaks in their marriage.
Guys, if these words ever come out of your mouth, catch
yourself before they happen. Don't ever say to your wife it's
your job to submit. To me, that's a sign of a
control freak. There's so many guys who are
living in that reality of trying to control relationships, and
there's so many women who are sitting back passively saying, I
guess this is just what I have to take.
God made us to be one in our marriages, working together in
unity as husband and wife. There's so many of us who are
still blaming everyone else without looking in the mirror at
our own sins, who are pursuing our own comfort and desires even
if it means other people have to pay a price.
I could go on and on, but there's this question that keeps
lingering for me this week. When you look at your life, is
the impact of your life the same as Adam?
Or is it more like Jesus who is defining your life?
It will be one of those two men. Many of us have carried Adam's
story long enough, and it's time.
It's time to step into a new life.
It's time to step into a new chapter.
It's time to step into trusting our life to Jesus.
And the normal human reaction to this is, hey, OK, I'm going to
suck it up and I'm going to try harder.
But the real answer is not to suck it up and try harder.
The real answer is to humble yourself and surrender to Jesus.
Jesus is a better Adam. Jesus came to bring you life.
Adam's way is just going to lead to not only your death, but the
trickle down effect of consequences of death to
everybody else around you. Jesus came to forgive you of
your sin. Jesus came to redefine your life
so that you don't need to be defined by Adam anymore.
I'm going to ask you to close your eyes
if you're here today and you go I, I'm done with allowing my
life to be defined by Adam. I do not want to be that person
who's defined by death and sin. I don't want to be that person
whose impact carries that forward.
I want to be the person who's defined by Jesus instead.
Like I'm done. I'm done being defined by Adam.
I want to be defined by Jesus. I want to surrender my life, my
heart, my journey as a human being to Jesus.
I'm just going to ask you just to do something.
Nobody's going to see this, but this is kind of a moment for you
before God. Would you just raise a hand?
It's like an act of surrender to God to just lift a hand.
Say God, I'm done being defined by Adam.
I want to be defined by Jesus. Father, all over this room and
even those who are watching online, you see hands that are
lifted high and surrender. Thank you.
Thank you for your mercy and your grace.
That is enough for us, not only in this moment, but in every day
of our life. God, I pray for my friends, I
pray for my brothers and my sisters in Christ as we
surrender our lives to Jesus that day by day and moment by
moment, you would shed away any of the lingering effects of Adam
in our lives. And you would help us, God, to
have our lives forever defined by the one who came to bring us
life. I pray this in your mighty,
powerful, matchless name. Jesus, You are our.
You are our hope in life and death.
Amen. Amen.
Let's stand together in response to our King.