He Shall Bruise You On The Head

So as David's already said, we are starting Advent. And he told us that Advent means the coming. And so the next five weeks we're going to be talking about Jesus' coming. His first coming and we're going to get to his second coming toward the end. So we've got a five-week sermon series on the coming of Jesus Christ. And then before we jump into our text this morning, I want to ask you a question to sort of give you some context for what... it's like to live in the time between Jesus' first coming and his second coming. How many of you have done a home improvement project at your house and lived there? You haven't done that, Levi. Not yet. We still have a small group there. We'll break something and then you can live in the middle of it.

So a number of us have lived through home improvement projects. It could just be as simple as painting a room and you can do it for a day. Or it could be something more involved, a bathroom remodel or putting down new floors. We're going to put an addition on, new windows, new roofs, something like that. Is this an easy time to live? Why not? Well, because the house isn't as it should be. The house isn't done yet. There's dust and there's grime and there's dirt and things aren't where they belong. yet. And what I've watched when people either do home improvement projects as I've been a part of them, or if I watch people building a house, always people come to the point where they stop caring. And what they say is, I just want it done. I don't care about the color. I don't care about the details. I just want it done. I just want to live in my house and I will take care of it later.

And the reason I bring this up now at the beginning of Advent is to say we live in a season of construction. That's what it means to live between Jesus' first coming and his second coming. Thank you. Things are not as they should be yet. They're in process. They're getting there, but not at the rate that we would like and sometimes not in the way that we would like, if we're honest. And so we have to recognize that... Living in this interim season between Jesus' first coming when he started the work of reconciling all things to himself and his second coming when he finally completes it, we're living in a construction zone. We're living in a time of spiritual dust and dirt and grime and things not being as they are or as they should be, though they are getting there. And our work is to, first, not to despise.

that work going on. In the same way that when I work with people who are building houses and doing stuff, they just need a lot of encouragement to persevere. It will end. It will be done. At some point it will be done. And at the end of it, you're going to have a house. And it's going to be sweet. We've got to finish the work first. The same thing is true with Advent. And I think that it's a time that... This sort of construction, this sort of work, this sort of putting things in their place where God's designed them to be is something that just gets swallowed up by other stuff that surround Christmas, that surround the remembrance of Jesus' birth. And so our purpose this next month or so is to help bring back to the forefront of our minds things that probably you already know, things you've already learned about.

but also things you've set aside. The people who build houses need to be told, you know, your bathroom's going to get done. At some point, it'll get done. And Levi, at some point, you're going to be able to move into your house, and we'll be able to have small group there, and it'll be sweet. It will get there. And that encouragement's very helpful. Bringing the end back to our mind strengthens us to persevere, to do the work. And so that's the goal of the sermon series. But we're going to start this morning sort of setting the stage for why Jesus had to come. Because there was a need. We had a need. The house needed to be remodeled. It needed to be fixed. It was broken. So we're going to look at this morning at how it got broken. Would you please stand now for the reading of God's word from Luke, or I'm sorry, not Luke, Genesis chapter 3.

Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Indeed, has God said you shall not eat from any tree of the garden? The woman said to the serpent, From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat, but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said you shall not eat from it or touch it or you will die. The serpent said to the woman, You surely will not die. For God knows that in the day that you eat from it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was delightful to the eyes and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate. And she gave also to her husband with her and he ate. Then the eyes of both of them were opened and they knew that they were naked.

and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Then the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? He said, I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked. So I hid myself. And he said, Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? The man said, The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me from the tree, and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. The Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you more than all cattle and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you will go.

and dust you will eat all the days of your life. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your pain and childbirth. In pain you will bring forth children, yet your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you. Then to Adam he said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree about which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat from it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you will eat bread, till you return to the ground, because from it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.

Now the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all the living. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. Then the Lord God said, Behold, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil. And now he might stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat and live forever. Therefore the Lord God sent him out of the garden of Eden to cultivate the ground from which he was taken. So he drove the man out. And at the east of the garden of Eden, he stationed a cherubim and a flaming sword, which turned in every direction to guard the way to the tree of life. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. So if you ever wonder, as I do, what's wrong with the world? Why are things the way they are? Whether it's big picture, you know, the world, the country, the state, whatever.

Or you're just wondering about a particular circumstance in your own life. What's wrong? This chapter of Scripture tells us where what's wrong got its start. The Lord God created Adam and Eve. He created the heavens and the earth and everything that's in them, and he put them into the garden. And he gave Adam work to do of cultivating, of growing, of building and subduing the world. And he gave him instructions, some of which... were to be fruitful and multiply. Others were to rule over the animals and to cultivate the land. And then there's this one prohibitive, this one thing, and don't do this. And it was don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. So Adam and Eve were about their work, living there in the garden, doing what they should have been doing, enjoying fellowship with God. He came and he dwelt with them. We read in this passage that he came in the cool of the day, walking amongst the garden, calling out to his people. And so we understand that they enjoyed something.

That we never have. They walked with God. They saw God. They communed with him. Without any veil or distance or mediator, it was them with the Lord God. And he delighted in them. And yet in the garden there was also a serpent, Satan, a tempter. And he comes to Eve and he tempts her. Now this is a familiar passage to most of us. Eve's there. Adam's nearby. And Satan comes to her and he speaks to her of the tree. And he says, that tree, what did God say about it? And he says, he told us not to eat from it because we'll die. And Satan yells back, you surely will not die. You know, in an argument or a debate, if you're trying to convince somebody of something, telling them they're a liar and they're wrong is not actually an argument. What it is, is intimidating.

And it ends up kind of being convincing. You know, if someone yells, all of a sudden you're like, oh, they must be serious. They must know something. They must be convinced. So Satan doesn't debate. He just says, you won't die. Now, if you were in Adam and Eve's shoes and you were told, you can eat anything you want except this tree. Don't eat from this tree. Because if you do, you're going to die. And someone came to you and said, you won't die. Wouldn't that pique your interest? And then Satan, having gotten their attention, he then says, I can tell you why God doesn't want you to eat from this tree. And he accuses God, he essentially accuses God of being selfish and oppressive. God is this way. He knows good and evil. He knows everything.

He doesn't want you to eat of that tree because if you eat of that tree, then you'll become like him and he doesn't want you to be like him. He wants to hold you down. He wants to keep you down. So what does Satan do? Well, he entices Eve with knowledge, with power. He gets at her desire. And Satan's way in the garden is Satan's way to this day. Satan works on our desires. There's a difference that I want to get into about the difference between Eve's desires and our desires. But I want you to know from the very beginning that that is how Satan works. He gets at your heart. He wants your heart. He wants your affection. He wants your commitment. Each of us may look differently in each of our lives, but that's where he works. And what we have is...

When we're speaking of our hearts and our desires, what we have are our actions. They're what tell us what we want. And they're very good indicators of what we want. So what did Eve want? Well, she wanted to be like God. Is that a bad thing? Are we not to be like God? You're all kind of like, oh, I don't know. I think the answer, I know what she did was bad, but you're kind of saying that we should. And the answer is, yeah, you should want to be like God. You're made in his image. But there's a world of difference from wanting to be like God and wanting to be God. The men who built the Tower of Babel, they didn't want to be like God. They wanted to displace him. They wanted to take him off his throne and place themselves there. That's what it meant when they built a tower. We're going to build a tower up to heaven. Otherwise, we're going to be scattered and we'll have no influence. So Satan comes to Eve at the point of her desire and tempts her.

You will not die. There won't be consequences for your actions. How many times have you been burned? Have you seen your children burned, sometimes literally, from not believing that there are consequences for their actions? And yet God's made a world of order, and there are consequences for our actions. Oftentimes, we get the things we want. It's not always a good thing, is it? It's not in my life. There are many times I want things, pursue things, deserve things, however you want to describe it. And it's not a good thing that I'm wanting. And you know I get it. So Eve's desire was to be like God, knowing good and evil. But Satan lied to her. He's a deceiver and the father of lies. And so what did he say? You'll become like God, knowing good and evil. But their essence, their consequence of that knowledge changed them. Is God good or is God evil? Or is he both? Well, we say God is good and nothing else.

And I say, you're right. So what were Adam and Eve before they fell? They were good. And what did the knowledge of evil do to them? It corrupted them. It made them evil. They were no longer good. And so Satan lied to them, saying, you'll become like God. They were like God already. And as they went into sin, they went away from being like God. They fell. They were no longer good, but now evil. And it was too late to change it. They didn't get a do-over. They didn't get a redo. So Satan comes at us at our desires. The desires that Eve had, that Adam had, were latent, meaning that they were kind of, they were in there. It was possible for Adam and Eve to sin, obviously, though they weren't sinners like us. It was in there, the possibility, but it wasn't being acted upon. It wasn't activated yet. And so their desires laid.

Silent. Until Satan came along and watered them and cultivated them. Our desires are different. Because we're not in a season or state of innocence like Adam and Eve were. We are guilty. We are already sinful. And we, from the point of our conception, are sinful because of what they did. In our lives, we don't start in the same place that Adam and Eve started. They started good. We start evil. And we start evil because of Adam. And so our desires don't lay latent or dormant within us. They're already activated. They're already turned on. Another way of saying this is to say we are more susceptible and more likely, more apt.

to go into sin than they were. To imagine what life was like for them before they sinned is something that we cannot wrap our minds around because it was something we have never experienced. The happiest, most joyful, perfect thing you've ever had in your life happened in an entirely fallen and broken world. That wasn't the case for Adam and Eve. Our desires to sin are built into us now. We're constantly pursuing them. They have become, through Adam's sin, through this, they have become a part of our nature and the defining feature of our nature. So Satan tempts Eve. She goes along and she eats. She gives to her husband and he eats. And then the scripture tells us in verse 7 that their eyes were opened. And we think, well, blindness is bad. But you need to understand their eyes being opened right now in terms of innocence. You would protect your children's innocence, right?

You don't want them exposed to corrupting influences. That's what happened. When their eyes were opened, they were exposed now to corrupting influence. Both of their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings. Now, why? We have to ask why. Why did they do that? Why did they cover their nakedness? It's because they felt shame at what they had done. And they took the most vulnerable parts of themselves and they sought to cover them, to protect themselves, to hide. And how often in our lives do our desires lead us to shame, to being ashamed, to not wanting people to know what we did, what we thought. We couldn't bear the idea that someone would know because we're ashamed of it. And so we work like Adam and Eve.

to hide, to cover who we are and what we've done. And we don't just seek to do that with one another, though here's another difference between Adam and Eve. They were the only two people. They were seeking on a very much smaller scale than us to hide it from one another. But we have a whole world full of people to hide our sin from. It's hard to get away from it, to get away from people. But they weren't primarily hiding their sin from one another. They were trying to hide their sin from God. When the Lord God came into the garden and he walked and said, where are you? They hid themselves. And what a foolish thing to hide yourself from God or to think that you can. You see, when little kids do this, I always use little kids because they're such good pictures of us. Because they are not sophisticated enough yet to think that what, to try to get away with it well.

And so there are times in my house you can hear what's going on down the hall, around the corner, and in the room. And you don't say anything. I don't say anything a lot of times. I've already told them what I want them to be doing or what they should be doing or what have you. And I just walk down the hall and I walk quietly so they don't hear me. And I just reach around the corner and flip the light switch on and then walk in and just stand there and look at them. And they all get this look on their face like, oh, we've been caught.

And they want to quick hide it, but it's too late. But what we learn from little children is how we are. We're always aware that what we're doing, whether it's right or wrong, whether it's pleasing or whether it's the sort of thing that would get us in trouble, we know that. Every one of us knows that. Our kids know that. Kids don't even have to be two years old. They haul off and whack somebody with a toy in the head, and they look. Is that okay to do? Why do they look? Is that okay to do? They're looking to see if they can get... Am I going to get in trouble for doing that? Because I don't think I should have done that. That's what's going on in the little 18-month-old's mind. Was that okay? No, it wasn't okay. Am I going to get in trouble for that thing I did that wasn't okay? So that's what Adam and Eve did. This is where our kids learned it. This is where we learned it. It's a natural reaction to sin is to try to hide it and try to cover it.

My work as a pastor, I've seen people hide sin for long periods of time, years. Everything's fine. It's all quiet. It's all hidden. It's all taken care of already. And then for some reason, somehow, something brings it out. Either they get caught or they come under conviction or something. And all of a sudden it comes out. And you're left wondering, how in the world did you... Think you would get away with hiding that. Why did you want to hide that? And you think, well, because it's so miserable to talk about it and to expose it. And I'll tell you, that's a lie. The people who confess their sins and who are honest and who are finally like, okay, I'm done trying to present. I'm done trying to hide. I'm just going to tell you. They are relieved. They are relieved. Because they don't have to hide anymore. They can just be, here I am.

And it's a sweet thing. And they're very thankful for it. And yet we're wired in such a way that we're forever, even if we've experienced that in our own lives, we still want to go back to the hiding. That's what Adam and Eve were doing. They were hiding. As if they could hide from God. I often tell people in counseling or in conversations where they're struggling to get the difficulty out, and I say, the Lord already knows what you've done. I don't. I'm here to help. to be his hands and feet and to help you in the situation. But he already knows what's happened. And if you don't tell me, if you hide it from me, you can do that. But you can't hide it from the Lord. Adam and Eve couldn't hide from the Lord. They wanted to, but they couldn't. It was foolish for them to think that they could. So the Lord enters and he says, where are you at? Adam replies, having been found. I heard the sound of you in the garden. I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid myself.

And he's justifying. He's explaining. Let me explain where I was, Lord. Here's what happened. Adam did not want God to see him in his current state, and so he tried to explain himself. First, Adam was ashamed of his sin, so he made his own fig leaves. And then when the Lord came, he got scared. And so he ran and he hid. So are shame and fear appropriate or good responses to sin? Should people... be ashamed of their sin? Should we be ashamed of our sin? Should we be afraid to be confronted with it? Yes. Yes, it should. And isn't it interesting that these are the two things that we are told are absolutely inappropriate with regard to our sin and how we should process it. You should never be afraid of the consequences of your sin. And you should never feel shame for what you've done. You shouldn't feel bad.

Some of my kids are more sensitive to shame than others. And whenever I see them feel ashamed, they get this look on their face like, oh no, they literally look like he's going to implode on himself. He's so bollocked up. And everything in me wants to go to him and say, honey, it's okay. But you know, that's not the first thing I say to him. I don't tell him it's going to be okay because I don't want him to lose. His shame. It doesn't mean I want him to live a life of shame. That's not what I'm trying to cultivate in him. What I'm trying to keep intact is the process of repentance. And shame is a part of it. It was right for Adam and Eve to feel shame. And it was right for them to be afraid when the Lord came. And we want, in the people that we love and that we care for our children and our families and those that we minister to, we want to protect that process.

You can't take the engine out of the car and drive it down the road. Shame, grief, some level of guilt over what you've done is appropriate. It's not the end, but it's a necessary component of getting to the end, getting to repentance. So the Lord questions them. Where are you? And Adam explains himself. We're hiding. And the Lord replies, who told you you were naked? Did you eat the... Stuff I told you not to. Did you disobey? And what should Adam have said? Wow, that's profound. You know how hard it is to get people to say that? Just as hard as it was for Adam. Did you do what I told you not to? Talk and talk and talk and never just say yes. So what did Adam do? It was the woman. She gave it to me. Is that true? Yes, it's true. She gave him the fruit.

So the Lord turns to the woman and says, what have you done? And what'd she do? The same thing Adam did. It was the serpent. And you see in the process here, we go from shame to fear. What? Yes, well, we're going from shame to fear. And then to try to avoid the pain of what we're afraid of, we start blaming. And the reality is Adam and Eve didn't lie about what happened. did give the fruit to Adam, and the serpent did deceive Eve. That is exactly what happened. The part that's missing is their responsibility. They won't take responsibility for what they did. Adam says, it wasn't my fault. Eve says, it wasn't my fault. And do you know that this is, it's like, when I read this passage, I'm left thinking, okay, which is worse? Because right now, I've got the fact that Eve was deceived. She was misled in a way that Adam wasn't. And really bad things happened, and it's kind of nasty to say that sort of thing about a woman. Because we don't want to say she was deceived and she shouldn't have been. And Scripture is clear in saying, and Paul says to Timothy, that this is the reason that women shouldn't teach or have authority, because they're more easily deceived. Well, that's kind of awkward to say.

And it's not culturally appropriate to say she sinned according to her design, the way she was made. She's weaker. Then on the other side, you've got saying, if only she had eaten and Adam had not eaten, would we be where we're at today? The answer is no, we wouldn't. Because Romans tells us that sin entered the world through one man, Adam, not through Eve. So he left going, which one's more offensive? To say that the woman was deceived or to say that if Adam hadn't followed her, she wouldn't have had the influence that he did. They're both very offensive things to say in our culture because it's not nice. So clearly then women are less valuable and they're just stupid. No? Is what Eve did stupid?

Isaiah knows. Isaiah's going, yeah, it was. It was really dumb for her. He's shaking his head very intently. Yeah, it was very dumb for her to do what she did. Was it dumb for Adam to do what he did? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. So neither one of them will take responsibility for what they've done for their own part. And you notice that after they reply, there's not a dialogue about what happened. What does God do? Immediately, the Lord God enters into judgment. And he starts with the serpent. And have you ever thought that the serpent was there while all of this was happening, watching it, delighting in it, delighting in them hiding, delighting that he'd corrupted the whole race of man? He was happy. He was there watching them squirm with their fig leaves before the Lord God. Then the Lord said to the serpent, he enters into judgment. Then the Lord says to the serpent, because you've done this, cursed are you more than all the cattle and every beast of the field. On your belly you'll go, you'll eat dust.

And he curses him. And that's similar, that portion, the first half of his curse is similar in structure to the curse that Eve receives and the curse that Adam receives. It's very practical. Here's what life is going to be like for you now. But that's not the end of his curse. The Lord goes on to promise Satan destruction in the form of a curse. And in the same way that Satan was there when Adam and Eve were going into sin, they're there to hear what is said to Satan. And that's important for you to realize, and you'll understand why in a little bit. The Lord promises that in time, he will destroy Satan. That's what the promise means. Now, why can I say that? Well, because we are thousands and thousands of years downstream.

of this. And we have all of scripture and Jesus first coming to inform and to give shape and definition to what was being said here. But I don't want you to think that Adam and Eve didn't know what was being said here. They understood. When the Lord said, I will put enmity, hatred, strife, conflict. That's what enmity is. When I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your seed and her seed. And he shall bruise you on the head and you shall bruise him on the heel. Some of the translations say he will crush you, your head. When God promised to Satan that he would destroy him, he was in that moment, in the fall, in judgment, declaring his plan to send his son into this world to save his people from their sins. It was a long way off. It was very veiled at that point.

But they understood that there was a promise from God who was righteously angry with them. And you realize he went through with their curses. Her pain was multiplied. The ground grew thorns and thistles, and they were removed from the garden, never to return again, lest they could come to the tree of life and live forever. It was not a threat. God actually did curse them, and we still in our own bodies live out that curse. You might wonder, How did Adam and Eve understand what was being said? And I'll just ask a simple question. Do you know what they did after this? Don't look. Do you know what Scripture records as the very next thing that happened? Does anyone know? You know, you know, you know. What is it? No. No, after that. After the judgment's over, yes, Adam had relations with his wife, and they had a child.

Why? Because of the promise. Because they understood that their seed was to destroy the works of the devil. So they got about the business of producing seed. Genesis 4.1, which is the next verse after everything we just read, says, Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain. And she said, I have gotten a man-child with the help of the Lord. And she conceived again and had Abel, and they had other children. And Cain wasn't the one. We understand, from our perspective, Cain wasn't the one that the promise was going to come through. He was wicked. But they understood, and they were comforted by God's promise of destroying Satan. They anticipated it such that they went and started having their children because they wanted to see God's plan of redemption, of salvation, accomplished. So what does that mean for us?

Well, we're in a season of remembering. And as I was preparing for this sermon series, I told David, I said, Advent's the hardest time of the year for me to preach. I'd even go almost as far as to say, I don't like to preach during Advent. Because it's not because I don't care about Jesus' birth or any of that. It's because it feels like such a meditation to me. That all we're doing is going through the motions of remembering what happened and saying, that was nice. It's like a walk through the museum. And that's frustrating to me because I'm a practical man. And so it's hard for me to say, I'm going to take a month out of every year and not be practical, not be able to be helpful. Because what's frustrating to me particularly is I don't know what I should do. What am I supposed to do to remember Jesus and his birth? What's that look like for me? Well, it didn't look like for Adam and Eve, well, that'll be nice.

We can't wait until that happens. It looked like immediate action for them. They understood that the one who was going to crush Satan's head was going to be one of their children, and so they got to having children. They got to action. And I can relate to that. I can identify with that. Let's do something. Now you know that they had to wait and wait and wait and wait thousands of years until Jesus was born. And even then, This is just sort of a projection out into the next couple of weeks. After Adam and Eve, after this promise was initially given, there's a lot of waiting and a lot of suffering and a lot of hardship. But the promise was never nullified. It was never done away with. God was working in his own way toward his plan being accomplished, being revealed. And his people had to wait and wait and wait for Jesus to come.

And one of the sweetest passages of Scripture is Simeon in the temple when they bring Jesus in. And he says, now I can die in peace because I've seen the salvation of God. How can you say that if you haven't been waiting and looking forward to and anticipating the Savior? One of the other reasons Advent is hard is because we say, well, that's all happened in the past and we're not waiting. It doesn't seem like we're waiting. And I say, no, we are waiting. And we're to wait in hope and anticipation and obedience. Just like the Israelites waited for Jesus to come, we wait for him to return. And we're not to wait doing nothing. We're to wait in joyful hope and expectation of the fulfillment, the consummation, the ending of the work that God's been doing.

Since this time. It's not something simply for us to remember. There's a story here. A storyline that's being revealed. It's been written. It's now being revealed. And we're a part of it. Right now. Here. We're a part of it. So what part of it are you? Where do you fit? Say, I don't know where I fit. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. Say, okay. Well, let's turn to Scripture. Let's turn to God's Word and let's see where we fit. Let's see what our place is in it. And we could go on and on about how we fit and what we're to do. But if I can get you to see that we're to do, not simply to know, you'll be helped. Because then you'll go, well, what am I supposed to do? And I say, okay, generally, we're here in this season between Jesus' first coming and his second coming.

To build the house. What house? The church. That's what we're here for. That's what we're here for. That's what the Great Commission is being, that's what Jesus is telling his disciples in the Great Commission to do. You are to build my church on earth. That's your work. That's your place. That's what it means to make disciples. That's what it means to build God's kingdom, is to build his church. Not bricks and mortar, unless by bricks and mortar you mean you and me. We're the bricks. We're the mortar. That's our place and that's our work. And that's something we should be excited to talk about. And sadly, it's something that I haven't done well in. To the extent that I do well in things, I want you to do what I do. When I fail at things and I'm not good at things, I don't want you to follow me in that. If you anticipate Jesus coming, his return, and the consummation of all things, then love your neighbor. Bear with those sinners.

Speak God's truth into their life by faith. Be productive where God's planted you, where he's placed you. That's your work. If you're married, be faithful to your spouse. Don't do only what's required of you. Don't be a husband that lives his life in such a way as to hide behind the tree when accountability comes, like Adam did. Be like the faithful slave who, when his master returns, can say, here, look, this is what I've produced while you were away. If your parents love your children, disciple them, what a shame it would be for your children not to come up in the fear and admonition of the Lord. You don't have more important work than this. This is your work. Get home for dinner at night. Read the Bible with your family and pray and sing with them. Your children.

Listen to your parents. Obey your parents in the Lord for this is right. That's your work. Do your schoolwork. Train your mind so that you'll be useful to God. So you'll have something to say when you're presented with an opportunity to speak. Open your homes and invite in the lost, the weak, the neighbors, the downcast. Be Jesus Christ to them. Seek to make them disciples. If you were in Sunday school, we talked about Saul and how wicked of a man he was. How if grace is free, there is no reason that that man would have been chosen if you had to earn salvation or if you could in any way. Saul was the perfect example of that not being possible, that that not being how God works. And so don't let your mind be constrained.

into thinking there are good people and bad people and people worth spending your time on and people who are going to become Christians and people who really, really aren't. You plant and you water. And God will cause the growth in his time and where he chooses. Because that's his will. That's his gig. But you're a part of this story. And when you leave out of this place, you're going into the world that God made. And he's about the business of redeeming it right now. And so we need to be about the business of redeeming it right now. And so this should be a sweet time of year for us. Once I figured out what I was going to preach on for the sermon series, I got excited. It was encouraging to me. I was happy. And so I'm happy over the next couple of weeks to focus on God's plan of redemption and how he's working, has worked in the past, and is still working to save this world. Each one of us is a part of it. From the young to the old, married, single, men, women.

Every one of us is a part of it. If you're here, you have work to do. And so my exhortation to you is to work to define that work. Discern it. Figure it out. See what shape it is and then do it. And you'll grow in your love for Jesus Christ. And this season will become sweet to you. And you'll be like Simeon if you'll do the work. You'll have joy. And you won't be materialists and you won't love. All the stuff that's drowning out what actually we're celebrating this time of year. You want to fight against materialism? You want to fight against all of the stuff that crowds out the reason for the season? Love Jesus Christ and build his kingdom. It's the best anecdote. That's our work. That's our privilege. So let's be about it. Let's pray. Father in heaven, we thank you that you did not leave Adam and Eve to die.

without any hope of your mercy and your kindness to them. Father, we, like them, have sinned against you and are unworthy of the least of your mercies. And yet, by your design, we are not dead. And through faith in your Son, we can have life. And we ask that you would bless us with joy and faith and boldness to love our neighbors as ourselves. welcome them, to invite them, to proclaim to them the tender mercies of loving your son and serving him. We pray, Father, that you would give us success in this work for your glory. We ask, Father, that you would give us joy and zeal for this work. We ask, Father, that you would glorify yourself in us and through us, that you'd build your kingdom.

And that you would strengthen us to be strong, fruitful branches. We ask these things in Jesus' name. Amen.