SERMON: An Adamic Advent

Thank you for subscribing to the Shepherds Church podcast. This is our Lord's Day Sermon We pray that as we declare the

Word of God that you would be encouraged Strengthened in your faith and that you would catch a greater vision of who

Christ is May you be blessed in the hearing of God's Word and may the Lord be with you every year we look at Christmas a little bit differently.

I We've decided to do things like Christmas in Revelation Which was

I think a very fascinating Christmas series. We've done Christmas in Isaiah Christmas in Genesis We've done the songs of Christmas the children the births the miraculous births of Christmas this year

We're looking at Christmas through a covenantal lens We're looking back at the covenants and seeing how do they point us forward to the hope of Christmas?

Because this season that we call Advent begins this week And it begins in a place where our culture has forgotten to go

Back into the darkness every December America and I think there's something spiritual involved in this

Drowns the night in a million gratuitous watts of fake or cheap tacky lights houses blazed with Italian twinkle lights

Storefronts glitter with freshly strung constellations of warm white hued bulbs trees hum beneath cloaks of shimmering incandescent neighborhoods glow with a kind of artificial noon as if December were by its very nature a

Season of light but December is not that December is at a time of year when death is upon us

The leaves have fallen the plants have died the grass is dying December by its very nature.

It's a time of death and darkness But it's also a time that we celebrate with great anticipation

That the light has come that the light has invaded that darkness that the light

Shines in the midst of darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it But we do forget that before that day arrives

We often forget that the world lay shrouded in the deepest darkness And that's precisely why in the

Christian calendar in a world that's catechized by materialism and illusions We dare to tell the truth about the world that the

Christmas season is not Just the season that introduces the light into the world

It is the season where we reflect upon the fact that without Christ this world is entirely cloaked in darkness and That remembrance every year going back into that place is so spiritually significant for us

If you remember last week We talked about how the Christian year ends with the glory and spectacle of a saved world under the lordship of Jesus Christ We glimpsed together through the promises of God that our future is

Christ's total reign and rule in every tribe tongue and nation

Where his throne and his power emanate to the ends of the earth? Which is pretty joyful Last week we stood symbolically in a kind of theological

Rockefeller Center With the great tree of light behind us Actually proposed to my wife in the

Rockefeller Center. Oh It was a good story But this week this week we're back in the year -long

March of Redemption and we're back in the darkness The calendar has reset

The brightest day in human history and the eschaton now returns to the deepest darkness today We get plunged back into a world that is before Bethlehem a world before the first Noel before the heralding angels saying

Against the midnight sky before anyone had told the good news upon the mountains We return to a world where hope was not even yet a spark but a little ember barely burning

We return to a world where the people of God are groaning for the Savior whose arrival they could not predict and yet they desperately longed for and the church throughout history has used this season to return to the darkness and To remember what life is like without Christ That's why

I say that it's spiritual that the world fills this season with so much light

Because the world hates thinking about the darkness the world hates thinking about the fact that they are

Desperately Lost in the darkness of their sin and the only light that can save them is

Jesus. So what do they do? They flood the world with two cent lights to try to assuage their conscience that they are not as lost and hopeless as they as They know that they are in their hearts

Romans 1 says that they know Deep down in their hearts that they are far from God So they invade it with this kind of cheap light

We do this because it's profoundly countercultural we do this because it's spiritually necessary for us to remember that we do it

So that we can appreciate The light that much more because when we understand the darkness we actually have a greater affection for the light so today

I want us to instead of thinking about Advent as mistletoes and mugs of cheer or Cyber Mondays and Black Fridays or Christmas spirits and ho -ho -hos.

I want us to think about a world That was plunged into darkness and the only way that we can understand where that actually

Happened is if we go all the way back to the beginning to the Garden of Eden where darkness first took over the world and to do that We're gonna look at the

Adamic covenant Be careful as you say that the Adamic covenant that means the covenant

God made with Adam We're gonna look at that covenant and we're gonna see how that covenant prepares us for Christmas and for the coming of Christ Now if you're not familiar with the term covenant

I'll give you a crash course very quickly and we'll give you a little bit more information in just a moment but that term just means how

God enters into relationship with a sinful people a Covenant is the mechanism by which

God carves out a sacred and purified space where his holiness will not overwhelm and destroy

Those things that are unholy Which means that? Far from leaving

Adam and Eve in the entire race of man and sin The covenants of Scripture not only provide to us the backbone of Scripture the table of contents of Scripture But they also show to us that God has not left us in our darkness that he has pursued us that he is

Working to save us that he is going to Save this world and his people from their sins and bring them into his marvelous light and a less poetic way we want to see that the coming of Christ and the incarnation that we celebrate at Christmas is the point of Every single covenant and today we're going to be looking at the very first covenant and that's the covenant with Adam So if you will

Actually, I'm gonna do something differently today. I'm a creature of habit Don't turn with me. I'm gonna read several passages to you

That will show you what the Adamic Covenant is and then we'll describe it and we'll celebrate Christ in it

I'm gonna read first from Genesis 2 15 through 17 This is the covenant terms of the

Adamic Covenant and the Lord God took the man and put him into the Garden of Eden to dress it and keep it and The Lord God commanded the man saying of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die second passage

I want to read to you as Genesis 3 1 through 7 Which is the transgressions of the covenant the sins of the covenant by the way in Christmas.

I feel especially poetic So we're reading from the King James. I hope you're okay with that Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the

Lord God had made and he said unto the woman yea hath God said Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden and the woman said unto the serpent

We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden God has said ye shall not eat of it

Neither shall you touch it lest you die and the serpent said unto the woman ye shall not surely die

For God doth know that in the day that you eat thereof then your eyes shall be open and ye shall be as God's knowing good and evil and When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that was pleasant to the eyes and a tree to be desired to make one wise she took of the fruit thereof and did eat and Gave also into her husband with her and he did eat and the eyes of them both were open

They knew that they were naked and they sewed together fig so fig leaves together made themselves aprons

The third verse I'd like to read for you is the covenant promise in the midst of their covenant breaking and lawlessness and and and And sin and iniquity

God makes a very powerful in particular promise. This is what we call the proto Evangelium proto

Evangelion in some pronunciations. Those are great words that you should tuck away for trivia night just means first gospel

This is what it says and the Lord God said unto the serpent because thou hast done this thou art cursed above all creation

And above every beast of the field upon thy belly shalt thou go and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life

And I will put enmity between thee and the woman in between thy seed in her seed It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise his heel and then the final verse

I'd like to read is how the Adamic Covenant is fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

I'm going to show you the connection up front Romans 5 12 and then 17 through 19

Wherefore as by one man's sin entered into the world and death by sin and so death passed upon all men for all have sinned for 17 for if by one man's offense death reigned by the one much more

They which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by the one

Jesus Christ Therefore as by the offense one of the one judgment came upon all men to condemnation even so by the righteousness of the one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life for For as by one man's disobedience many were made sinners

But so by the obedience of the one many shall be made righteous.

Let's pray Lord help us as we dive into a very heavy and weighty topic

Covenant theology The Adamic Covenant is the one that begins the covenants

Lord help this To be helpful Lord help this understanding of the covenants to actually showcase the glory

That you had prepared before even the world was created in the coming of your

Son Lord help us as we understand and dive deeply into the covenants in this series that Lord It would actually help us understand our

Bibles better that we would see the overarching theme of Scripture that we would know how you enter into relationship with sinners and how all of the covenants crescendo in Christ Lord help us to remember the covenant that we are in and The blessings that are bestowed because of the faithfulness of another it's in Jesus name we pray.

Amen All right, because I'm a nerd and because I hope that you are too We're gonna do a little bit of a dive into covenant theology because you can't talk about Christmas in the covenants

If you're not clear on what a covenant is seems like unassailable logic

So before we step into Eden, we need to know what a covenant is and more important than you would ever guess

Covenants actually frame the entire biblical story They are like I said earlier the chapters the table of contents if you don't understand the covenants

I'm gonna make a bold claim and I think I'm right if you don't understand the covenants You really cannot understand the totality of what the

Bible is saying You will miss so much glorious and beautiful detail. This is a topic that seems daunting

This is a topic that seems like it should only be for the ivory tower Professors and the theologians and the seminarians and it is a topic that is not preached because pastors are

Afraid to go deep lest they lose their people and they're afraid to preach a sermon that borders on 60 minutes

I'm already priming you Listen listen, there's a lot of improvement.

We started this church with 75 minute sermons The fact that it's 45 to 50 now

You're welcome, you can't understand the biblical revelation you can't understand redemption you can't understand

Anything as far as hope in God really not truly if you don't understand the covenants

Without understanding the covenants scripture looks like it was arranged by your great aunt

Becky who threw her scrap paper scrapbook pages together recklessly with no rhyme or reason

But when you understand the covenants a kind of order and a kind of unity and a kind of singularity of themes begins to emerge from the disparate sections of the

Bible to showcase what God is doing throughout the midst of it and That is a covenant relationship with sinful man a

Covenant is a relational contract from God to man It is his sovereign bond and pledge.

It is his royal oath and promise It is his sacred commitment that he will not trespass or violate or break that he intends to live with sinful humans and not to let them be plunged into the depths of their despair that they deserve a covenant is

A sacred space where God can manifest his glory in a way that sinners can appreciate without being destroyed and This way covenants are legal they're binding their agreements, but they're also deeply relational and familial

They have the same kind of orderliness of a contract but with the warmth of a marriage vow

The covenants are God's saying to you and I even though you continue to choose the darkness.

I Am graciously refusing to leave you there and I will find a way

For you and I don't live together in my awesome light That's what covenants are and it's this amazing feature of covenant theology that points out our desperate neediness

Because we're sinners And if you gave us a million years, we would never choose

God after Eden after sin after Adam and Eve are Plunged out of the

Garden of Eden There is never a moment where they would have found themselves back into relationship with God if God did not pursue

Because men love darkness men hate the light that is our nature We don't like that.

That's it that that's our nature, but it is without God pursuing us in covenant We would not know

God and in our sin The light would be as devastating to us as Men trying to walk upon the face of the

Sun the concentration of his pure perfection Would so overwhelm you by the power of his unbridled excellencies that you would be no more

He would not Only be destroying you in his wrath of your sin, but it would be his goodness that damned you

It would be his goodness that ripped you apart It would be the purity of his holiness

That ripped every atom of you apart to you are no more

But in covenant God finds a way to protect awful sinners from himself

So that he can give himself So that he can share his awful presence with awful sinners

And in covenant God is drawing a very unique a very special a very sacred bubble a kind of circle of safety a

Medium in a space where inside of it rebels can become sons where exiles can become family members where orphans can become children outside of that circle called covenant is

Nothing, but curse and exile and eternal death Which means that if you want to know

God you must be in covenant relationship with him another way to describe this is this a

Contract is something that you draw up in order to protect your assets a covenant while sharing many elements of a contract is

God's unique Covenant drawing up to protect those things that he's calls his his assets us

And because all of us want to be inside of that circle and because none of us would ever say yes father destroy me

Cast me out into the bitter darkness where there's weeping and gnashing of teeth. No one would say that And because of that all of us want to be in covenant with God It stands to reason that we should know what these covenants are and every covenant has a framework every covenant has a structure every covenant has different elements that when you look at them

You can see a similar a similitude a unity between the covenants and I'll tell you what those Aspects are there's seven of them number one.

Every covenant has a covenant head Which is a human man who

God appoints as a representative of a human people to represent them in covenant

Relationship and it's because that God deals intimately with humans. He does so with a representative he chooses one man in every single one of the covenants to stand for the many to Represent the many for one man to be the one who carries forth these promises to his progeny and generations and in this way a

Covenant head stands for his people and if he stands his people stands and if he falls everyone after him falls in him

That's the first aspect of a covenant is every one of them have a head Every one of them have a representative second

Every one of them have Stipulations and commands. There's not a covenant in the Bible. That doesn't have some you shall do this and you shall not do that and those

Stipulations those requirements those commandments are so that you can stay in a right relationship with God these conditions and these commands are not

Arbitrary whims from a from an angry deity. They are the oxygen that actually keeps you alive

They're the gravity that keeps you from drifting from God And so long as the covenant head stays in covenant fidelity with God you

The recipients of that headship remain in right standing with him That's the second thing.

The third thing is that every covenant has blessings Blessings that are meant to bring life to God's people and in this way the blessings are not random rewards

Like a child who gets a dump truck worth of gifts every Christmas, even though they're naughty and don't deserve it

Which by the way is all of us These blessings are not rewards for faithfulness

They are blessings dispensed by God's love and care for his people in their foretaste of what the world ought to be

Covenant blessings show you a world that is in its perfection a world before Adam sin

Covenant blessings bring peace to those who are near to him. They bring life to those who deserve death and they ask you to imitate this

God in Spreading his dominion in life to the ends of the earth in this way covenant blessings are not just rewards.

They're appetizers of eternity They are a taste of what the world should be when it is ruled by God and they are given to those who are in relationship to a faithful federal head

Number four the covenant curses every covenant has a list of curses Because disobedience brings curses when the covenant head rebels curses enter in like a winter storm

They choke out the faithfulness of your labor pain grabs a hold and pierces your life

Fellowship with God is replaced by exile and loneliness and if the covenant breaking is severe enough

Life is exchanged with death health is exchanged for diseases Laughter is given over to weeping

Landship ownership is given over to slavery and chains If you don't believe me read Deuteronomy 28 and Leviticus 26 where the curses of the

Mosaic Covenant. They are astonishing breathtaking and horrifying

Covenant curses are the consequences for disobeying a holy God and They are where goodness truth beauty and peace flee from you like the plague

Curses are simply what happens to a branch that is cut off It lies on the ground and it withers and it dies.

That is what curses are Number five the fifth element of every covenant is covenant signs

Every covenant includes a sign because why God loves us Every covenant has a sign because God cares for us and he knows that we're forgetful people

He knows that we need images. He knows that we need reminders He knows that we need symbols and signs to help us and show us the things of God These signs are physical reminders that God loves us that he's with us that he will never leave us and forsake us

Signs are God's gracious gift to sinners so that we can look back and we can be reminded of his

Faithfulness and do not trust in our faithfulness to trust in his pledge of allegiance to us

Not our pledge of allegiance to him as Americans. We see this all wrong We think about we are gonna pledge an allegiance to God.

No You can't Your only hope is resting in the fact that God has pledged allegiance to you

And if he were to ever turn from you You would be no more

For instance think about this This is the argument that convinced me of infant baptism

So by the way, if you are still struggling with that, here you go side bonus Adam in the garden did not plant the tree of life and say

God, I love you so much. I want to offer my life to you. Here's the tree of life God gave the tree of life to Adam because he loved

Adam Think about Noah Noah didn't climb a really tall ladder and hang a rainbow in the sky because he wanted to prove to God his loyalty

God hung the rainbow in the sky God promised to Noah. I will not flood the earth again and you can believe me because of the sign in the sky

Think about Abraham. This is my favorite one. There is not a single man on earth who would have invented that Hey God, I Have a great idea of how

I'm going to show you how faithful I am. I do that It was

God's gift to Abraham and his offspring That he's faithful in the most intimate areas of life

Mosaic covenant the circumcision. I mean the the Sabbath no one would have invented that they wanted to work seven days a week

They hated resting every single one of the covenants and especially when you get to baptism where we say

Baptism is my sign to God that I love him. Baptism is my sign of loyalty Baptism is my sign that now

I'm ready to walk with God. I have decided to follow Jesus, right? Well, that's not how signs work

If Noah didn't hang the rainbow in the sky your baptism is not your offering to God your baptism is

God's offering to you that he loves you and that he's washed you and that Promise is for you and your children just like every other sign in every other covenant.

That's what convinced me number six every covenant has a covenant meal and Every one of those meals are on mountains, which is a fascinating thing.

We can't get into Every covenant has a meal for instance The Adamic Covenant has the tree of life God gave

Adam the tree of life for him to feast upon it and that meal was a Remembrance that through God alone you get your nourishment and eternal life

You remember Noah Noah was the first backyard barbecue in the Bible It remember it was

Noah who God told thank God for this one. You now may eat of the flesh of animals praise

God And when God smelled the aroma of that sweet ribeye

Creeping its way up to heaven God said that he would never drown the world again that meal given on that day was the first Smoked meat in the

Bible and it was a sign to Noah That God had given him the fat portions of grace

The Abrahamic Covenant has a meal with God. You remember Abraham who got to eat face -to -face with God and two angels

That's a big day That that doesn't happen every day It happens only like a couple times in the

Bible where we see God in such resplendent glory and form Before he comes in his incarnation at that meal

Abraham dines with God God dines at Abraham's table Which by the way is a wonderful and perfect illusion of what communion is

Because we who were wilderness wanderers Have been welcomed to the table of God The Abrahamic meal is a great picture of the communion meal that we will eat in a moment

The Mosaic meal is one of the coolest It says that after the the terms of the

Covenant were given to the people the elders go up to the mountain and it says that They ate with God at the on top of the mountain and it says that they were standing on a floor like blue sapphire

Which is amazing. I Don't even know what that is But it's incredible You think about the

Davidic Meal, I love this one It said that David had a weekly

Meal in his at his royal table every week and I love this one so much because of who got invited

You remember Saul? the king who tried to kill David over and over and over again the guy who fell on his own sword because he was a coward and he didn't want to face his consequences the guy who

Hired a medium to pull up Samuel from the dead the guy who at every turn became wretched and awful

Well one of his family members named the Phibosheth a man who was paralyzed in his feet a man who

David could have sent a Twelve -year -old boy to kill because that was the tradition in those days, right?

When you're a king and you take over a country you kill the former regime you kill all of them Why so you don't have a coup that happens later

What does David do to the pitiful? Pathetic even my Phibosheth he invites him to his table and he feeds him all the days of his life

What a better picture is there for us? People who are paralyzed in our sin

But the greater King David welcomes us to his table to eat and banquet with him forever the new covenant

Meal the Lord's Supper is that where we've been welcomed to the table with God So every covenant has a meal every covenant also is generational

Every covenant has some mechanism by which to pass along the blessings or the curses to the people who follow after the covenant head

Because God from the very beginning was about the work of saving a people not just a person

Nations not just families, but yes families and not merely saving a smattering of individuals but a church in our

American individualism, we've lost some of the Corporatality, I don't even know if that's a word of the

Bible These are the seven features of a covenant This is the DNA of how

God enters into relationship with his people now I want to take these seven aspects and I want to enter into Eden and show you

This in the Adamic Covenant and I want to show you how this points to Christ a little bit of a nerdy sermon

I admit but aren't you jazzed up right now? I am

Before Adam broke the world with his sin He lived in covenant with God Which again is a sacred agreement between God and man between the maximum God and the minimal man

Between the infinite God and the finite man God enters into this covenant with Adam to show

Adam the riches of his glory This is the foundational covenant of the Bible because it's the first one every covenant

Noahic Abrahamic Mosaic Davidic just fancy words for their names are all

Reliant upon this covenant, but all of them even the New Covenant are echoing back to this original

Covenant and it is here in the quiet light of Eden with God walking with Adam in the garden pursuing him in covenant

Love where we see the hope of Advent truly begin This means that the Christmas story does not erupt first and foremost out of the stables in Bethlehem But it erupts in the

Garden of Eden the God who brings his light to his people Christmas and that way is

God completing what he began in the garden Christmas is the first chapter of a story that God refused to abandon

Christmas is the continuation of the covenant that he himself initiated with man Christmas is the rescue of a world that fell into Slavery that he decided that he would not leave in their squalor

But he would fill it full of his glory, which is why we have to examine this covenant in particular

Every covenant has a head. We said that first who is the head of the Adamic Covenant?

Adam Because God did not make a hippie gardenist gardener in a paradisal garden

He made a king priest over his first cosmic temple and I can't get into this but Ezekiel 28 13 through 14 describes

Eden as a temple and Adam is a priest the word that's given to Adam to work it and keep it

We're in the King James to dress it and keep it those words Abad and Shamar are priest words

Those are words that apply to the Levitical priest The Levitical priest in the tabernacle and in the temple in Jerusalem were to work and keep it just like Adam is to work and keep the garden because Adam is a kingly priest and In addition to the religious headship of Eden in its temple

Adam was given headship and dominion over all the creatures as described in Genesis 128

That means Adam was made head over all creation. He was made a true vice regent

Do you know what that word means? It means not equal with the king but Subservient to the king and ruling alongside of the king

The king is God Adam was made his servant king on earth and no one was over Adam but God and in that way

Adam stands at the intersection between heaven and earth as God's appointed federal representative over all of creation, that's why

Adam's role was to protect the world to expand the kingdom to mediate the grace of God to govern over the things that were broken

That's why Adam's role was to rule over all of creation to the glory of God because he was God's representative on earth

That means that Adam was not just the first man and not just the first human representative

But he was also uniquely I might add a Christ patterned man

You'll remember that it was God who knelt down in The garden and fashioned man in his own image.

I Ask you of the members of the Trinity Which one of them walks which one of them has hands which one of them fashions which one of them breathes out of his own breath

But Jesus Jesus God incarnate formed Adam after his own image in the garden and gave him life by his very breath and Every later covenant head that came after Adam was patterned after him

Noah Abraham Moses David All of them were built upon the pattern of Adam Which makes his fall and His brokenness the most consequential of them all it makes it the most catastrophic

But before we get into that I want you to understand that he was the covenant head he was the one who took the covenant terms the beautiful stipulations the generous requirements and he's the one who was

Responsible for doing them which brings us to the terms and conditions. The Adamic Covenant has amazing conditions

We think about rules as things that take away from us These things are rules that were giving to Adam a blessing to Adam you think about the fact the first command

Listen to Genesis 128 is be fruitful and multiply. That's amazing He was commanded to have a beautiful and naked wife

Sorry, that was his command what a blessing He was commanded to be fruitful and multiply with her

He was commanded to enjoy her and she him all the days of their life. That was a requirement

That would be like telling a child. I'm gonna require you to eat ice cream That would be like telling them

I'm gonna put our little tent I'm gonna put our little house in the middle of a theme park. Guess what?

Enjoy. I don't miss the point my humor

Every one of these blessings were part of the covenant structure of God loving Adam God giving to Adam the requirements were for his good

You think about Adam was called to rule and subdue over all of the earth He was called to make the earth

Look like and obey the will of God he was commanded to expand

Eden's borders He was commanded to fill Eden's population until the zip code was so full

They needed to expand in the new territory and then again and then again and then again until the entire world was filled with Adams family

Until the entire world was in covenant with God that is the Purpose for which

God made the world is that a whole world would be worshiping him with no Unbelievers.

So why is it that we believe that when Jesus is the true and better Adam that he won't also have a whole world

That eventually is filled with believers He will regain what Adam lost He will regain what

Adam lost The third thing that he's commanded to do is to work and not work like we work

Not work that's filled with futility Not work that we show up to and hate.

I don't hate my job. I love my job But there are there are jobs that really take from you the last job that I had before I was a pastor was a prison guard or a guard in a jail.

That's a really depressing job Every day you go and you interact with people in cages.

That's a depressing job But Adams work wasn't filled with that kind of futility

Adams work always bore results everything. He put his hand to was fruitful. Imagine that men

You could go to your job and everything you touch like Midas turns to gold Would that be amazing you'd come home with a bounce in your step.

You're like had the best day ever again. I Thought you had the best day ever yesterday again,

I had it again today everything I touched turns to gold amazing Adam was commanded if we're tracking so far to be the leader over everything to have the best job in the world that he loved

And was utterly successful at that. He had a wife who loved and adored him and was naked all the time What a life

You'd be lying. If you didn't say that'd be amazing And then in addition to that he had the greatest food conceivable food that wasn't tainted by sin food

That wasn't corrupted by the fall food that was fresh and ripe and delicious and tasty all of the days of his life and I have to believe as your resident theologian

That in those days food did not cause fat cells whoa You tell me he could feast and he could eat and he could enjoy the good gifts of God without the muffin top later

Amazing The only thing that Adam was commanded not to do was to avoid a single tree and to not eat from it

Which is crazy Because you think about all of the blessings that he was given all the things that God had just endowed him with and poured upon him all of those things in light of a single tree you can have all of this

Adam, but don't have this and Look at how persnickety and pernicious the human spirit is with everything that he had he traded it in for a single tree and fortunately for us

We don't have to guess what happened because we live in the world that bears his consequences.

But again, we'll get to that in a moment Adam had blessings for his obedience He didn't he didn't just have survival

Adam had this thing that theologians call the eschatological advancement Eschatological advancement is what theologians always do they make up $5 words when they could say something really simply

Eschatological advancement means that if Adam would have obeyed God then he and Eve would have been fruitful and multiplied and their children would have been fruitful and multiplied and their children's children would have been fruitful and multiplied and you would have had a world filled with believers

Had he been faithful Had he not been denied access to the tree of life He would have lived permanently in the presence of God and the whole world would have come under the knowledge and glory of God This tree was the sacramental consummated picture of the covenant life

Eden was supposed to expand into the entire world The garden was meant to grow into a global sanctuary

The glory of God was always meant to fill the world With his glory like the water covers the sea the world was always designed by intentional

Purpose from God to be a world filled with a chorus of worshippers Holy offspring who praise his holy name and in that world

Creation would rise not grown. There would be life and not death. There would be vitality and not decay

There would be growth and not thorns and there would be no advent candles needed in other words

Adam was offered what Christ now brings and Christmas is the restoration of Adams lost blessing

Which leads us to the curses? The curses that were promised to Adam are sobering and the day you eat of it, that's the one tree

When the day you eat of it you shall surely die and it's important to remember what is being promised here is not just biological death

There's all kinds of death that's being promised here spiritual death Adam immediately would be separated from God There's relational death

Adam would turn on his wife and begin hurling shame and guilt and finger pointing on her

There would be Vocational death where work would not be fruitful anymore, but futile there would be

Creational death where the ground would even rebel against him where the floodwaters would come against him where the rains would come against him there would be the earth in creation in subjection to the futility that Adam caused and Then on top of all of that there be eventual

Bodily death where man returns back into the dust from which he was made But the most severe consequence of them all

Was the exile that came? Adam and Eve and all of their progeny were cast out of the sacred space.

They were cast out of the presence of God they were cast out of being in the light of God's holy and Glorious presence and that is the curse the benediction of the

Bible is God make his face shine upon you Therefore the malediction the curse of the

Bible is that you would live in darkness a darkness that is eternal a darkness that you cannot overcome

Because of his sin food became polluted the ground became contaminated health became degenerated sex became perverted gender became convoluted masculinity became obfuscated femininity became confused and confounded and children either became

The victims of abuse or the bewildering perpetrators of abuse on their parents all because Adam embraced the curse instead of the blessing and In that sense, all of us are exiled with him because remember he is our federal head

He's the one who represents us. You might not think it's fair, but he does he represents us in the

Covenant So therefore if Adam falls we fall if Adam sins we sin in the same way that you pay

If you're from Massachusetts Pocahontas to go to the Senate and Vote on our behalf and she is not a good head in the same way

Adam represented us our own little Pocahontas Who left us in squalor because of his decisions and his representation exile

Is what we get because of Adam's sin we are born into it. We are conceived in it

Exile is the anti nativity It is the God Abandoning us it is the

God condemning us. It is the God damning us to hell

Because of Adam's sin and yet We haven't come to the full weight of the fall yet We still have a couple other aspects of this to look at Adam had a sign of the

Covenant the tree of life Which was meant to feed him and nourish him with everlasting communion in the presence of God The tree stood in the center of the garden, which is kind of like a centralized health care

Way better than Obamacare and the promise was if you walk with me,

I will bring you into this unbreakable and unshakable life The sign was meant to be enjoyed.

It was meant to be loved it was not meant to be forbidden, but it was meant to be enjoyed the sign was a proof of God's intentions and The meal that came from it was an allusion even to the supper that seals believers in their union with Christ This is why

Revelation at the end of the Bible, isn't it funny if you haven't seen the symmetry yet I want you to see it the

Bible begins with the tree of life that has one kind of fruit The Bible in the final chapter ends with the tree of life and yet now it has 12 kinds of fruit

Because in Christ faithful guardianship as the faithful gardener

He has expanded the fruitfulness of the tree so much that now it will actually conquer the world and nourish the world at his table in his presence and I love this because Christmas really is about a tree just not the one that you chop down and that's

Sheds in your living room Christmas is about two trees.

In fact It's about the tree of testing that Adam fell at that Jesus was nailed to and it's about the tree of life that Adam lost that Christ regained and now feeds us from every week and That since Christmas is the fulfillment of what was lost in Adam not a

Christmas tree But the tree of life and there was a generational structure to this covenant as well

Because covenants always include generations. The Adamic Covenant was Meant to represent all humanity.

It's the only covenant that represents everyone ever The Noahic Covenant represents everyone after the flood the

Adamic Covenant represents everyone ever So that when what

Adam does we do Adam is the root and we are the branches Adam is the fountain and we're the ones that drink the water

Adam is the representative and his choices become our inheritance this is why when

Adam sinned we sin when he fell we fell because he bequeathed to us as our representative his disobedience in his death, which is why

Christmas and Advent are so important to our year and It's why that we can trust that these things are true because Christ came as a new kind of human

He came as a new Adam to make a new people a new creation so that we can no longer be

Under the headship of the tyrant Adam, but us and Adam together could bow under his lordship

Paul says In Romans 5 19 by one man's disobedience many were made sinners

Paul does not mean many as in some were excluded Paul means Everyone was made sinners for the wages of sin or death

All of us have fallen short of the glory of God. All of us in our sin have become worthless Paul says

We weren't just made Sinners, we were born sinners. We weren't just people who make mistakes

We were people who were conceived in iniquity We were constituted as sinners from the moment that the sperm cell met the egg

And in that sense federal headship tells us That we are all inheritors of Adam's curse and the curse in the

Bible travels down by the seed of man This is really important The curse does not travel by the seed of woman the curse travels by the seed of man

It travels from the headship of the man and what I mean by that is our covenant identity and our covenant standing come downstream of The federal head who represents us so that if we are in Adam all of his sin and all of his curse and all of his

Rebellion and all of the death that he deserves comes to us Raise your hand if you were born without a father.

I mean biologically speaking Then all of you are inheritors of the curse

Because the curse travels through the father And there's so several reasons for this first God holds

Adam uniquely responsible even though Eve sinned first Scripture says through one man sin entered the world

Romans 5 12 and Adam all died first Corinthians 15 22. God is not

Giving the blame to Eve there He's given the blame to Adam because Adam was supposed to represent her Adam was supposed to protect her

Adam was supposed to care for Her so that when she reached for the tree Adam should have taken the first little garden knife that he that he whittled together and cut the head of the serpent off Adam left her exposed and therefore

Adam is responsible Adam is the one who is is Dealing with the consequences for that sin secondly lineage travels through the man in the

Bible not through the woman Israel is numbered numbers 118 by their father's houses

Exodus 28 1 says that that the priesthood and the kingship passed from the father to the son a child's tribe and a child's name are determined by their father not their mother

Ezra 259 and Here's the most important reason

Because the virgin birth proves that we actually can have hope

Here's the point that I want you to see most clearly if the curse follows through man and Every one of us have a male

Biological Agent that is responsible for our creation then we are without hope unless a new kind of man is born and That is why

Jesus was born of a virgin Listen, the virgin birth is not God just showing off his power.

He's not like hey y 'all Look at this It's not his

Criss Angel moment, it's not his Houdini trick the virgin birth is Theologically consequential because remember

Adam Was born or not at all that followed after Adam were born of his legacy in his line but Jesus was born without what a human father and Because Jesus was born without a human father.

He didn't inherit Adam's guilt and Because he didn't inherit Adam's guilt. He was born sinless

He was born in a state of innocence He was born with the possibility to sin

But in 33 years of life did not sin and therefore attained righteousness

For all who are in him the scripture teaches that Adam lost the entire race of man in the entire world and Jesus through his virgin birth gained it back.

This is why we call Genesis 315 the first gospel When God says and I will put enmity between thee and the woman between thy seed and her seed and It shall bruise thy head and thou shalt bruise its heel.

Do you see what God is promising there? It's not Abundantly clear but what

God is promising to the woman is one day you will have a son without the help of man and that son

Will be the deliverer who crushes the serpent's head and that son will be the one who is crushed in doing it and Who else could that be but the virgin born

Jesus who in his death was crushed? but who in his death crushed the head of the serpent and In that we see the hope of Christmas Because we see that a child is promised the child is coming.

We see that that child is going to be human We see that that child is not going to inherit the guilt of Adam We see that that child is not going to be infected by the curse that he's gonna enter into the world blessed that he's gonna come to wage war upon the serpent that he's gonna win

That war and he's gonna bring into himself a new kind of people who are reborn Why do you think the

Bible says that we must be born again? Because you're born under the lineage of Adam and you have to be reborn under the lineage of Christ And if you're not born like him by the

Spirit You have no hope isn't it interesting that Christ was born of woman's seed and spirit and in your rebirth

You retain the woman's seed, but you inherit the Spirit's birth you get the birth of Christ in the

Salvation that Christ has given you that's why you were reborn and we learn about it all the way back in the

Adamic Covenant All of these things we see all of these types and these shadows we see as far back as humanity's first moments

We saw how Adam's disobedience made condemnation hereditary We saw how Jesus's obedience gives us the right to adoption

We see how Adams children inherit death, but Christ's children inherit life We see

Adam condemns his people to ruin we see how Jesus saves his people and restores them by his blood.

This is Christmas This is the Adamic Covenant in its fulfillment through Christ This is why

Jesus had a crown of thorns placed on his head because from Adam the thorns came from the ground

This is why in in the original creation the plant broke out of the earth on the third day

That's why Jesus broke out of the earth on the third day That's why on the first day of the week it says in the scriptures that Jesus rose it was on the third day

But he rose on the first day of the week. Why because the old week the old creation is gone in Jesus there's a new creation.

That's why the number eight is always representative of new creation That's why men were circumcised on the eighth day because they were participating in the shadow and the symbol of new creation that's why many throughout church history have baptized their babies on the eighth day because they're participating in the symbol of new creation and What this tells us is that?

Christmas is nothing short of a head shift Adam decapitated and Christ had ship established and the only hope that we have is that we be in Christ and And there's several things that we should learn from this number one,

I think we should long for Christ as the world's only hope We should recognize that in Adam you and I had no possibility of salvation, but in Christ and Christ alone we have hope

Consumerism will not save you Christmas Sentimentality will not heal you a better budget a better schedule a better family plan a new watch a new car a new house a new dog

Will not give you meaning purpose and hope no Xander we're not getting a new dog

Only the Christ child can save you Which is why Advent is not Christmas season is not an escape from reality

But it's actually the glasses that help you see what the world really is and Who Christ really is so long for Christ in this

Advent season fill your heart with the love of Christ and not the love of stuff That's the first thing next.

I would tell you to wait with holy expectation let Advent quiet your heart let Advent let your

Intensify your longings for Christ because we like Adam live in a similar world where we wait on the

Christ To extinguish all the darkness so wait with holy expectancy and wait as People who have hope teach your children how to wait

Instead of catechizing your children into the modern secular mythology

There's nothing wrong with stories and I tell my children every year that good old st Nick punched

Arius in the face and it is a great time Read the story. It's amazing Arius the heretic got cold cocked by a saint.

It's amazing But I want you to instead of focusing entirely on that focus and teach your children on who

Christ is and why we wait on him and why we celebrate him and why he's the only hope that the world has and I Would tell you to live as people who know the story

Because an advantage that you have over Adam an advantage that you have over Eve an advantage you have over Abraham Isaac Jacob and all of Them is that you know with clarity how the story ends

You know that at the middle of human history Christ came and rescued you that he's brought you into his kingdom and now as soldiers

Of that kingdom you are called and commanded to go out and claim the world for Christ You have more light than they did.

You have more knowledge than they did. So do not despair like they did and in conclusion

I would tell us That we live in a world where the light has not fully come

But I want you to participate in the light coming as we read earlier. You are a lamp stand Do not

Sacrifice that sacred duty for cheap thrills and plastic stuff

Stand and let the light of Christ shine brightly through you and in our lifetimes

Let us be a people who pushes back the darkness and let us be a people that tell the world of the true and better Adam that has come that nothing

Nothing can stop Let's pray Lord there's so much that we learn from the

Christmas story Lord, I pray that as we see it in the covenant of Adam that we would be reminded of who we are in Christ.

I Pray that we would see why You are the great crusher of the serpent and how we now being exchanged into service to you now have a better head and Lord I pray that we would see in your headship that you never earn the curses because you always are obedient Which means you always earn the blessings and because you are our head you share your blessings with us

Just as Adam shared his devastation with us. You share your blessings with us now and eternally forever

Lord help us to have the confidence of Giants Help us to have the resilience of a thousand men

Help us to have the vigor and our hearts that would cause us never to despair But always and forever always moving forward because Christ the light has come