Sermons

God’s covenant with Adam in the garden was conditional.  To the obedient man the tree of life and all its blessings were his and his descendants.  By this, Adam became the representative, the federal head, of humanity.  Therefore, when Adam sinned, the effect was disastrous, a sin nature inherited by all his descendants and evident in their ongoing sin and death that resulted.   Only another federal head who was sinless could fulfill the covenant,  rescue man from his predicament, and restore him to fellowship with his covenant Father.  

When God placed the first man in the garden, He created a unilateral agreement with him which granted much freedom and one restriction.  God’s duty was to continue to supply an abundance of food.  The man’s duty was to enjoy those foods with an abundant life as a consequence, and to avoid the restricted one on penalty of death.  One name we give this agreement is the Covenant of Works, the first of several covenants that define man’s relationship with God.  We now know that the man didn’t keep his part.  The result was tragic, for himself and for the whole human race that descended from him. 

When God placed Adam in the garden, He gave him dominion over it to manage and cultivate.  But in this text, God goes on to issue a higher calling to guard it as a place of worship.  By this, Adam assumes the role of priest over the garden.  But this first priest would not be the last in redemptive history, as our scriptures report.

The beautiful garden in Eden which God created for our first parents was complete, perfect.  In it and through it He gave them everything they needed including a vocation, that noble work to tend it.  When they thought they knew better than God what they needed, they lost it all, including the beauty and fulfillment of their calling.  Consequently, their work, and that of their descendants, became more difficult.  God still calls all to their vocations, but His followers can only work with hope because their Savior fulfilled His calling and is preparing a new home for them.  

What is God’s glory worth to us?  Do we as individuals or congregation desire His glory so much we are willing to pray for it.  When we pray “Hallowed be Your name” we express our desire for God’s name to be held in high honor, as reflected by our lives.  To that end we seek to delight in His glory, to display His glory, and to declare His glory.

To know what we were made for, we must know where and what we came from. Our text describes God’s creation of man as living being, both body and spirit. In our sin, we neglect one or the other or both, and die. Only Christ whose body and spirit were uncorrupted by sin can be our salvation.

After creation of the Earth and its inhabitants in six days, God rested on the seventh.   In so doing, He a set a precedent for the life pattern of humankind.  We often say we don’t have time to be still, meditate on scripture, pray, or visit the lonely and sick.  But God has given us one seventh of our days to rest in Him through these very things, all to our benefit and his glory.

After God created the cosmos, the earth, and every living thing on the earth, He created man uniquely—in the image of God.  To us He gave the noble purpose of tending to the earth and it’s inhabitants by filling the earth with other images of God and subduing it for their well being to the glory of God.  But when we rebelled by our sin, our image and our purpose was corrupted.  Our only hope was, and is, to be redeemed, to have our image and our good works restored by the One who is Himself the perfect image of God.

In this installment of our series we see the third, or relational aspect of being made in the image of God.    Friendships, exclusively those among humans, reflect the image of God.  These include marriage, close relationships among singles, families, and communities.  The Genesis command to be fruitful includes the pursuit and nurture of relationships, and the effort to guard against the enemies of friendship.

This sermon continues our exploration of what it means to be made in the image of God.   One aspect of our image is the creation of the human body by God, a deliberate act of God which gives rise to the body’s intrinsic value.   We live in a culture that rejects the biblical account of it’s origin and it’s Creator.  The result is devaluation of the body with disastrous consequences.   We may cite examples of careless or cruel disregard for the body by many in our world, but are we not also guilty of blindness to those around us whose value we do ignore or suppress?  (partial recording)

The strivings of mankind so often end in little or nothing worthwhile.  The life of King Solomon, the “Preacher” of the book of Ecclesiastes, serves as a comprehensive example of these futile pursuits.   He had, and took, every opportunity to pursue knowledge, wisdom, pleasure, and toil, and in the end declared all his efforts to be vanity.   What does that tell us about the purposes we adopt as our own?  Do we choose the purpose given to Adam when he was created, or do we, as Adam did when he listened to Satan, think we know better?  God has so much for those who embrace the purposes he has given us to seek His glory. 

What does it mean to be created in God’s image?  In this week’s sermon, we return to our Genesis series, this time at the moment when human life is created.  As created, man is made to be a mirror of God, testifying to His existence, reflecting His glory, made with an Intrinsic capacity to glorify Him by acting on His behalf. This is countercultural in a world that considers humans no more significant than other living things, that is, without high calling or purpose.  Do we desire to reflect God’s glory?  Or do we settle for something less?

Jesus, our Savior King, is coming again.  In this series we have followed the biblical trail of ever-greater revelation of a perfect king for a fallen human race from description, to promise of an earthly King David, to the promise of a perfect king to David and to the prophets, to the birth of that king, and to Paul’s confirmation of the Son of David as Son of God.  In this text, we hear from the king Himself, a descendant of David, announcing that He is coming again to judge our faith and gather His own to Himself.  Are we living as for a great king?  Is each of us ready with repentant hearts at any moment for His coming?

In this series, we have heard from various sources in both Old Testament and New, identifying Jesus as the Son of David.  Now in his letter to the Romans,  the Apostle Paul weighs in on the theme to show that Jesus, the Son of David is the Messiah, the Son of God, born with a high purpose and reigning even now to give us a high purpose as well.

After centuries of rebellion against God, and life ruled by unworthy judges and kings, the nation of Israel could hardly expect a future. Yet even amidst His judgments on them God continued to deliver promises of a future king even greater than David. In this text, Mary, a humble Jewish girl is the one blessed to receive God’s final climactic gospel announcement of a king named Jesus, whose reign would never end. This One, a son miraculously born to her, would bring salvation, not only to her people, but to all humanity.

As we continue to search the scriptures for the “Son of David”, we must consider the gospel message of Isaiah. In this text, the Prophet Isaiah has just broken the bad news of coming judgment for Israel and a warning to Judah. Both have been trusting in the power of foreign kings instead of Yahweh. But he doesn’t leave them, or us, without ultimate hope.  He reveals God’s promise of a king and a kingdom to come like no other.