Reformed Theology Pt 10 | Intro to The Davidic Covenant | Incarnation | The Purpose of Resurrection

Let's pray. Father, thank you again for Jesus, for your spirit, for you being our God. Lord, at this moment we pray that you speak to us through your word. I pray that the time that I spent preparing this message, Lord, is the work of your hand and not mine.

Lord, I lean to you. I look to you, the only true God who has revealed himself to us in the person of Christ. Amen. And the angel said to her, do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.

And behold, you will conceive in the womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. And he will be great and be called the son of the most high. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and his kingdom will never end.

The book of genealogy of Jesus Christ to the son of David, the son of Abraham. And all the people were amazed and said, can this be the son of David? Behold, a Canaanite woman from the region came out crying, have mercy on me, Lord, son of David.

And the crowd went before him, and they followed him shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna to the house of David. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. And he rebuked them, telling them to be silent.

But they cried out all the more, son of David, have mercy on me. And as Jesus taught in the temple, he said, how can the scribes say that the Christ is the son of David? Has not the scripture said that the Christ comes from the offspring of David and comes from Bethlehem in the village where David was?

Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, who was a descendant from David according to the flesh and was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness, by the righteous, by the resurrection of the dead, our Lord Jesus Christ.

Remember Jesus Christ risen from the dead, the offspring of David as preached in my gospel. And one of the elders said to me, weak no more. Behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered so that he can open the scroll in the seven seals, Luke chapter one, 30, 33, Matthew one, one, Matthew 12, 23, Matthew 15, 22, Matthew 21, nine, Mark 10, 48, Mark 12, 35, John seven, 42, Romans one, one through four, second Timothy two, eight, and revelation five, five.

These texts make it clear that Jesus is the son of David, son of God. I would like to title this message for the purpose of resurrection. This is part 10 of our series concerning reformed theology, concerning covenant theology, more specifically, the covenant of works.

Our outline has been the Adamic covenant, the Abrahamic covenant, the Mosaic covenant, and the Davidic covenant. And as we transition today, we will go through this outline as an introduction to the Davidic covenant.

Now today will be a 10 ,000 foot view. Now I know we've done a 10 ,000 foot view before, but this is going to be from a different facet of the diamond, a different angle with more information. So our first point, the Adamic covenant.

The Adamic covenant starts in Genesis chapter one, verses chapter one, verse 27 and 28. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God, he created him, male and female, he created them and God blessed them.

And God said to them, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heaven and over every living thing that moves on the earth.

God gave to them dominion, the Greek word hypotasso, to take possession of. And in chapter two, verses 15 through 17, the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden and to work it and to keep it.

This is how they are to have dominion, they are to work it and keep it. The Lord commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree in the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat for the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

And we know what happened. Eve listened to the voice of the serpent. Adam listened to the voice of his wife and they ate of the fruit. And this one sin, this one sin, this eating of a fruit has transitioned to every person, every child, every newborn born into sin deserving death.

You say, how bad is my sin? One bite of a fruit has transitioned to what we have before us. One bite. A lie may not seem much if I lie to my dog, but if I lie to my wife, I might be sleeping on the couch.

But if I lie to a cop or if I lie to a judge, that one sin can, the punishment, the bearing of that punishment can be worse of who it is that I'm lying to. This one bite of fruit has caused the whole world, you and I, to be cursed.

The earth was cursed. Every child born is cursed, born into sin, under sin. And we prove it how? By sinning. Jesus, I mean, well, you know, it's Jesus, but God speaking to the serpent, pronounces a curse.

He tells him that he is going to put enmity between him and the woman, between his offspring and her offspring. And he shall bruise your head while only bruising his eel. As we transition, this text includes two distinct offsprings, the offspring of the woman and the offspring of the serpent.

Point number two, the Abrahamic covenant. In the Abrahamic covenant, God chose among the descendants of Adam, a pagan by the name of Abram, whom God names Abraham. From Abraham, God will make a kingdom people.

Also from Abraham will come the offspring of the woman, will come the offspring of Abraham. Genesis chapter 12 gives us this story. I will only read chapter 12. I will read verses one through four, then we'll skip to verse seven for the sake of time.

Genesis chapter 12, one through four, then verse seven. Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to a land that I will show you and I will make you a great nation and I will bless you and I will make your name great so that you will be a blessing.

And I will bless those who bless you and him who dishonors you, I will curse. And then you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. Let's go ahead and go to verse seven. And the Lord appeared to Abram and said to your offspring, I will give this land.

Verse seven, as we've already discovered in previous sermons is, is, is the gospel promise. We read in Galatians that, that this is the gospel promise that, that God came to Abraham here and he separated them here, promised him a land at that time.

Why? Because he foresaw the Gentiles coming to faith in Christ. Why did God come to Abraham? Because he foresaw the Gentiles coming to Christ. Genesis chapter three. I mean, Galatians chapter three, excuse me.

This is the gospel promise that he was going to give him a land, a nation, and that through him, through this offspring, all the world will be blessed. And as we transition this kingdom people, this kingdom offspring people were not born under the Edimic covenant.

No, but they were born under the Abrahamic covenant. Here, separating the two offsprings, the offspring of the woman slash the Abrahamic covenant slash the Jews versus the offspring of the woman slash the Edimic covenant slash Gentiles.

I know that's a lot to take in. This is what we have to go through to understand covenant theology. At this time, at this time, the marker, at this marker in time, the offspring of the woman passed through Abraham, which equals the Jews.

While the offspring of the serpent passed through Adam, which equals the Gentiles. God came to separate, to set up a kingdom people, a kingdom nation through which this offspring of the woman would go through.

First John chapter three, verse eight, whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason why the son of God, the reason why the son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil.

Now having this in mind, having this knowledge, we can understand why it is that the Jewish church did not want to welcome the Gentile church. That's what the book of first John is all about. We're talking about John rebuking them for walking in darkness because they're, they're, they're hating their brother.

They would not receive the Gentile believers into the faith. Why? Because they believe that this is the offspring of the serpent. The Jews were the offspring of Abraham. They were the ones following God, not the Gentiles.

They did not want to welcome in sinners to the faith. That's why, where it talks about, we looked at it in Sunday school, where it talks about the sin that doesn't come to death, that would be hating your brother.

But the one that, the sins that result in death is denying that Jesus is the Christ. They, the Jews wanted to make Gentiles into Jews before they can become Christians in the letter to the Galatian church.

The Jews did not want to welcome Gentiles because of this belief, this, that they were this, this offspring of the serpent. And now we enter into the Mosaic covenant. We have the fall of Adam, the sin of Adam was so destructive that it did not keep the descendants of Abraham from sinning.

So although they were a separated people, the fall, the, the, the, the fall of Abraham, I mean, the fall of Adam did not, the fall of Adam was so destructive, them being in a different kingdom people, it did not keep them from falling into sin.

And so God gave a law, the two tablets of stone, the Decalogue, the moral law. And from this moral law comes the ceremonial laws and the judicial law. But because they could not keep themselves, God gave them a law, they still cannot keep themselves from sinning.

We see in John, gospel of John chapter eight, verse 34, Jesus speaking to the Jews says this to them, you would think he was speaking to a Gentile. Truly, truly, I say to you, every one of you, you talking to the Jews, practice sin is a slave to sin.

Verse 44, you are of your father, the devil. That although they're not under the edict covenant, this fall, this one fruit was so great. It was so massive. Even though they had this law, the seed, the offspring of the serpent was creeping into the offspring.

This separated nation that was put on earth for one purpose, and it was to bring about the offspring of the woman. Now I spent the last four weeks laboring over how we are not under the Mosaic covenant.

That Jesus has come, he was born of a woman, born under the law, he fulfilled the rules, the regulations, we rest in him, he is who we look to. If you want to keep, if you want to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, with all your strength, you believe in the name of the son, Jesus Christ.

And those that are in Christ are able to love their neighbors as their self, because he has put his law in our heart. But these statutes and rules came from the law were earthly blessings as well as earthly curses.

For them, the Jews, if they kept them, they would live in the land to be blessed, but if they broke them, they would be removed from the land and be cursed. Now as we transition from the mouth of Moses, would come one to where a transition would be made from the law to him and it would take place.

If you just look at Deuteronomy chapter 18, we'll just read one verse, Deuteronomy 18. You can find it from verses 15 through 19, but we'll just read the verse 15. The Lord your God will raise, this is God speaking to Moses, the Lord your God will raise up a prophet like you from among the people.

So Moses is speaking to the people, speaking what the Lord is telling him. The Lord your God will raise up a prophet like me, like Moses from among you, the Jews, from your brothers. It is to him you shall listen to.

This is in the context of the law being given. You just start in verse 16, it's speaking about rejecting the voice of God, wanting God to speak to Moses and Moses to speak to them because they're terrified of the voice of God.

And he is saying it is to him, it is to him, you, the Jews, you shall listen. So it is to him, the Jews, that you should listen. Moses is saying when he comes, turn from me and listen to him, right? With the mountain of transfiguration, you have Jesus taken with him, John, Peter, and James, they go up to the mountain with Jesus.

Jesus transfigures and with Jesus is Moses and Elijah representing the prophets and the law and the prophets and they offer to build tents to them and then a cloud overshadows and then a voice comes from the cloud and says, behold, this is my son in who I am well pleased.

What does he say? Listen to him. They fall on their face and whenever Jesus raises them up, they only see him. They don't see Moses and they don't see the prophets. They are to follow the voice of Christ.

Point number four, the Davidic covenant. With this point, I have two sub points. First sub point is the earthly kingdom people. I mean an earthly kingdom people needed an earthly king and the second sub point is a heavenly kingdom people needed a heavenly king.

So an earthly kingdom people needed an earthly king. Point number two, a heavenly kingdom people needed a heavenly king. So the first sub point, an earthly kingdom people, I need y 'all to get this in your head, an earthly kingdom people needed an earthly king.

First Samuel. First Samuel chapter eight. Just give you the, we're going to look at verse seven, but just to give you the context of it, we have the Jewish people, they come to Samuel and they wanted a king to rule over them.

They said, Samuel, you're getting old and your sons, they're not walking in your ways. They're not walking in your ways. And we need a king to rule over us as the other nations have kings. We need a king to rule over us.

And this displeases Samuel. This, this hurts them and this grieves Samuel. And this is what we'll pick up in verse seven. And the Lord said to Samuel, obey the voice of the people and all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me as being king over them.

They rejected God as their king. And so we have the appointed king became Saul, who is a Benjamite. And when you trace back the offspring of the woman, we don't see the ruler's staff being given to Benjamin.

If you will look with me, Genesis chapter 49, you just keep your finger in the place where we were. 49 verse 27. This tells you what Jacob says about Benjamin. Benjamin is a ravenous wolf and the morning devouring the prey and that evening dividing the spoil.

Now go back to first Samuel, first Samuel, beginning in verse 10. So Samuel towed all the words of the Lord to the people who were asking for from him a king, were asking for a king from him, excuse me.

And he said, this, these will be the ways of the king who will reign over you. He will take your sons and appoint them to his chariots and to his horsemen's and to run before his chariots. And he will appoint for himself himself's commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties and some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest and to make employments of war and equipment for chariots.

He will take your daughters to be performers and cooks and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and your vineyards and all of your olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will take a tenth of your grain and your, and of your vineyards and give them to his officers and his, and to his servants.

He will take your male servants and your, and female servants and the best of your young man and your donkeys and put them to his work. And he will take a tenth of your flock, your flocks, and you shall be his slaves.

And in that day, you will cry out because of your king, whom you have chosen for yourself. But the Lord will not answer you in that day. He is a ravenous wolf, this Benjamite, this king that they chose.

They rejected God as being their king, but we do see the ruler's staff given to Judah. Turn back to Genesis 49. This time we'll look at verses 8 through 10, focusing on the blessing given to Judah. Verse 8, Judah, your brothers shall praise you.

Your hand shall be on the neck of your enemies. Your father's son shall bow down before you. Judah is a lion's cub from the prey, my son, you have gone up. He stooped down and crouches as a lion, as a lion is who dares rouse him.

The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff between his feet, until Shiloh comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the people. And to tribute, this is the word Shiloh, Shiloh means a biblical city.

Until someone comes who leads this nation rightly, it shall not part from Judah. So we come to a man by the name of David. David, the son of Jesse, the Bethlehemite, who is from the tribe of Judah. Bethlehem is in the region of Judah, and at this time of the appointed king Saul, there arose the anointed king, David.

Let me just turn to 1 Samuel chapter 16. So just to give some context, God tells Saul to go to the house of Jesse, that one of Jesse's sons is going to be anointed the king of Israel. So Samuel does what the Lord asked of him, and he goes to the house of Jesse, and Jesse presents before him his sons, but all the ones that he presents before him, God did not choose.

God did not choose. And so Jesse asking, is there another? Is there another son? He heard from God that is going to be one of the sons of Jesse. Jesse sets before him his sons, but God did not choose any of them.

And so Samuel said to Jesse, are all of your sons here? And he said, there remains yet the younger, the youngest. But behold, he is a keeper of sheep. And Samuel said to Jesse, send and get him, for we will not sit down until he comes.

And he sent and brought him in. He was rudy and he had beautiful eyes and was handsome. And the Lord said, arise, anoint him, for this is he. And Samuel took the horn of his oil and he anointed him in the midst of his brothers.

And the spirit of the Lord rushed upon David from that day forward. And Samuel rose up and went to Ram. Now, as we transition, David was the earthly king over the earthly kingdom. Now, next week and maybe some weeks afterwards, we will dive in deep, more in depth to David and what's taken place.

But right now, we're going to move to our second subpoint. A heavenly kingdom people needed a heavenly king. A heavenly kingdom people needed a heavenly king. The heavenly kingdom people are those who are under the new covenant.

Now, we will not be diving too deep into the new covenant until we get to the covenant of grace. But again, this is a 10 ,000 foot view from a different angle. We're looking at a different facet of the diamond, the diamond being covenant theology.

This king of the kingdom who can be traced back from David to Abraham. Remember, the offspring of the woman jumps to Abraham. So, we have the offspring of the woman. It started out as a curse promised to the serpent that an offspring was going to come from her.

But he says that he's going to put enmity between her offspring and his offspring. So, that the devil has an offspring on the earth growing like wheat and tares together. And he's going to put enmity between them.

And that this offspring that would come from the woman would bruise his head while only him bruising his heel. And we see that this offspring of the woman has transitioned to Abraham. And from Abraham, it's passed through Isaac.

From Isaac to Jacob. From Jacob to Judah. From Judah to David. From Judah to David. This king of the kingdom, this king of the heavenly kingdom came to give his life for the people of the kingdom. I mentioned earlier that I wanted to title this sermon, The Purpose of Resurrection.

The purpose of the Davidic covenant is the purpose of resurrection. I know you're thinking, but Jeff, this is Christmas. This is an Easter, right? This is an Easter. It's Christmas. Ladies and gentlemen, if you mention the birth without the death and without the resurrection, you celebrate nothing.

You celebrate nothing. And as a matter of fact, we being reformed every Lord's Day, it's Christmas and Easter, right? Hallelujah, Hallebach. Every Lord's Day, it's Christmas and Easter. We celebrate the incarnation and the death, burial, resurrection, ascension, him being at the right hand of the father, making intercession and prayer for those that draw near to him by faith every week.

Revelation chapter five, again, verse five. And one of the elders said to me, weep no more. Imagine in heaven, there's weeping. One of the elders had said to him, weep no more. Behold the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David has conquered.

It says that the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David. Remember, Judah is a lion's cub. He is the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David. He has conquered. Jesus Christ has conquered. Now the question is, is how has this been done?

And again, I read it earlier. Romans chapter one, Romans chapter one, beginning in verse one, Paul writes, Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures concerning his son, who is a descendant from David, according to the flesh.

He was declared to be the son of God in power, according to the spirit of holiness by the resurrection of the dead. Jesus Christ. If you turn to Acts chapter two, Acts chapter two, Peter speaking in verse 22, says, man of Israel, hear these words, Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst.

As you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God. You crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up, loosening the pains of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it.

For David says concerning him, concerning him, I saw the Lord always before me, for he is at my right hand that I may not be shaken. Therefore, my heart was glad and my tongue rejoiced. My flesh also dwelled in hope.

For you have not abandoned my soul to Hades or let your holy one see corruption. You have made known to me the path of life. You will make known, you will make me full of gladness in your presence. Brothers, back to Paul, I mean Peter.

Brothers, I may say with confidence about our patriarch David that he is both dead and was buried and that his tomb is with us to this day. That this prophecy, that when David was speaking, this was a prophecy pointing to his son.

Being therefore a prophet and knowing that God has sworn to an oath with him, to him that he would set one of his descendants on the throne, he foresaw and spoke about the resurrection of Christ, the Davidic covenant.

Jesus fulfills the Davidic covenant by being raised from the dead. Ladies and gentlemen, the throne of David is not on earth. The throne of David is in heaven. It's at the right hand of the father. That is where our Lord sits right now, ruling and reigning, putting all enemies under his feet.

He sits on the throne of David. He is the fulfillment of the Davidic covenant. Here's what was prophesied. We have the Adam eating of this fruit, curses all men and all the earth. Jesus comes and he is uncursing the earth.

Joy to the world, right? As far as the curse is found through this gospel message, through this message preached about Jesus Christ, all the earth is being uncursed. He is removing the bite. He is removing that.

When Adam took that bite into that fruit, he is removing it. One day this will not affect humanity. Why? Because Jesus Christ came, he died, he was buried and he rose again. He is undoing the curse. That this is the gospel of God, that he sent his son, a descendant of David, according to the flesh.

The Lord Jesus Christ, the only son begotten from the father before our ages. God from God, life from life, true God of true God, begotten, not made of the same essence as the father. Speaking of the Holy Trinity, that there's only one God, one God in three persons.

This is what R .C. Sproul called the one what and the three who's. The one God, the one being of God who represents the three persons, father, son and the Holy Spirit. And through him, Jesus, the second person of the Trinity, that all things were made.

Everything. 1 John 1, Colossians 1, Hebrews 1 and 1 John tells us that he created all things, that he was in the beginning. And that for us, he came down from heaven and that he became incarnated by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and was made.

Man, this is the hypostatic union. Ladies and gentlemen, this is Christmas. The hypostatic union is Christmas. And I know you hear me say it all the time, but just think about it. The infinite God became finite.

The one who created all things entered creation, took on flesh. The hypostatic union, the one who holds all things in his hand was being held in the hands of his mother. The one that's in control of everything became where someone could just crush him.

But they did not have that power. Herod tried. This is the message of Christmas, that the Lord Jesus Christ entered creation. The second person of the Trinity entered creation, that God looks down from his throne and he says that no one seeks him.

So what does he do? He steps down from the throne. He takes off his royal robe. He takes off the crown. He takes off the signet ring and he puts on flesh. And he lived the life that we could not live.

And he died the death that we should die. He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate. He suffered and was buried. On the third day, he rose again according to the scriptures. And he is sitting at the right hand of the Father.

He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead. And his kingdom will never end. Ladies and gentlemen, when he came in what I believe to be 3 BC, that's the birth of Christ. His kingdom came with him.

And he has been on the earth ever since. And it will not ever end. It will not ever end. This is an everlasting kingdom. We do not need another king. We do not need for heaven to open up and to send us a different champion.

We do not need nothing else from heaven. It has said to us it's king, Jesus Christ. And the question is, are you a kingdom people? Are you a part of the heavenly kingdom? That is the question that befalls all of us.

We spoke today in Sunday school. I don't know how many of you were able to make it. We spoke about the Sabbath day and how Jesus is our Sabbath. Now, you want to know what salvation looks like? It's trusting in the finished work of Christ.

It's resting in the fact that he has accomplished everything. When he was on that cross, he said, it is finished. Tell us, Di, what is finished? Everything that it takes to accomplish salvation is completed.

It's finished. And what salvation looks like, it's trusting in what he has said. Because of Adam, every one of us that are born, the Bible speaks about us being clothed. If you can imagine a garment, that I'm clothed in a garment.

The Bible calls it in 1 Corinthians, it's a garment of dust. You're clothed in the garment of dust representing Adam. Adam was created from the dust. Then there's another garment called from the man of heaven, which represents Christ.

We're all born clothed in dust because we represent the man of dust, Adam. We're born in the Adamic covenant. Now, in order to have the garment of the man of heaven, being clothed in a man of heaven, what you do is you believe.

You trust. You have faith in what he has done for you. That's why the call for salvation has always been faith and repentance, that you turn from your self-righteousness and you turn to trust in God.

Well, how do you trust in God? By putting your faith in Jesus Christ. You stop trusting in yourself and you trust in God by putting your faith in Jesus Christ. That's the Reformed Christian message that has always been the Christian message.

As a matter of fact, it has always been the message. Abraham believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness. He believed what God said and he was counted as righteousness. Ladies and gentlemen, you and I, when we believe God, we are counted as righteous.

Now, what does that look like? That Jesus Christ lived the life we could not live and that Jesus Christ died the death that we should die. And we have to enter that Sabbath by believing that, by trusting that, saying, you know what, I cannot live this life.

How hard is it for us Christians to say, you know what, man, I'm so imperfect. I'm a liar. I'm a thief. I'm an adulterer at heart. I see people with things and I wish that they didn't have it and I did.

And by so, I break the 10th commandment, I covet. We're all written with sin. It's all over us. Listen, if you don't think that you sin, look at me. I mean, it's all over us and there's nothing good in me and there's nothing good in you.

And the only way that anyone, especially me, could ever reach salvation is that I need a righteousness of another. And that righteousness comes through Christ. And so in order to enter the, y 'all heard me say this last week, in order to enter the earthly kingdom, you had to be born a Jew.

Because if you're born and you're not a Jew, you're under the endemic covenant, which every one of us, okay, we're under the endemic covenant, right? In order to be born again, you have to believe in Jesus Christ.

Faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of Christ. And as the message of Christ being preached, God gives to you faith. And if you did not have faith when this started, I pray you have it now. Jesus Christ is Lord.

To the glory of God, the Father. I'm available to anyone who wants to talk. Pastor Cal and also our new deacon, Josh. Let's pray. Father, thank you. Thank you for loving us. Thank you for mercy. Lord, we do not want justice.

We want mercy. All of us have sinned. We have fallen short of your glory. And the last thing that is that we want is justice. We do not want to pay for the crimes that we've committed, but we want to trust in the one who has paid the debt, who has paid the fine for the crime that we have committed.

And that is your son, Jesus. Lord, I pray right now as the people prepare their hearts to partake in the Lord's supper. Or that you bless them. And that you bless this supper, Lord. And as we partake in it, you will help us to understand that we are proclaiming the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ until he comes.

Amen.