There seems to be a great interest in genealogy these days. People wonder where their roots began. It is said that THE LONGEST FAMILY TREE IN THE WORLD IS THAT OF THE CHINESE PHILOSOPHER AND EDUCATOR CONFUCIUS. THE TREE SPANS MORE THAN 80 GENERATIONS, AND INCLUDES MORE THAN 2 MILLION MEMBERS.
My daughter-in-law has done searches in her family background that revealed when her ancestors came to this country. She tried to follow my son’s but our family must have some dark secrets that we are keeping hid. She couldn’t find much past a few generations. These discoveries are based on marriage certificates, birth certificates, death certificates, property purchases, arrest records, and so on. It was probably the arrest records that brought our search to an end.
Now they can test your DNA to determine your nation of origin. You just send them some spit. And, since 99% of all DNA is shared among all humans, it is that 1% that separates us as individuals. And, since all humans share 99% of all DNA, I believe it suggests that we have one common ancestor that connects us all together. That one common ancestor is Adam.
Luke begins to show the genealogy of Jesus in chapter 3 of his letter. Let’s look at Luke 3:23 “Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his public ministry. Jesus was known as the son of Joseph. Joseph was the son of Heli. Luke will continue to list the ancestors of Jesus until he reaches the beginning of the family tree.
Luke 3:38 “Kenan was the son of Enosh. Enosh was the son of Seth. Seth was the son of Adam. Adam was the son of God.”
Don’t let that statement throw you. Adam was not the Son of God in the same sense as Jesus but rather the son of God because he was created by God and had no earthly father.
REMEMBER CONFUCIUS? THIS FAMILY TREE SPANS EVERY HUMAN GENERATION SINCE THE BEGINNING OF CREATION. IT CAN BE TRACED BACK
CHRONOLOGICALLY THROUGH THE BIBLE TO AROUND 6,000 YEARS AGO, AND EVERY HUMAN BEING THAT HAS EVER BEEN BORN ON THIS PLANET, INCLUDING YOU AND ME, BELONGS TO THIS ANCESTRY.
Our DNA began with Adam and links us all together as family. It is DNA that links us with all of those who have ever lived, who are living, and with Jesus himself. We are relatives to the first Adam and to Jesus who is called in 1 Corinthians the second Adam.
So I thought over the next few Sundays we would take a look at our family tree. As in any family tree we will find some godly people, some shady characters, and some who went through life without leaving a legacy. So we begin with Adam.
God had created the world. There was sunlight and nighttime. There was dry land and waters. There were plants and animals. Genesis 2:7 “Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.” God did not actually call him “Adam”. Adam is the Hebrew word for man.
God made a special place for Adam. He planted a garden in Eden and placed him there to care for it. God made trees that were beautiful and that produced delicious fruit to grow there. In the middle of the garden he placed the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
God told Adam “You can eat all the fruit you want of every tree in the garden—except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you will die.”
God sensed that something was missing for Adam. He realized that Adam needed companionship. So He brought before Adam every animal that was created in the garden for Adam to name. After this chore ended, Adam did not find any animal that could fulfill his desire for a companion.
So God caused Adam to fall into a coma. While Adam slept, God took out one of Adam’s ribs and closed up the opening. Then God made a woman from the rib, and he woke Adam up. Immediately Adam knew he had found his companion. He called her “woman” because she was created through him. They were both nude but were not ashamed because of it.
One day Adam and the woman were in the center of the garden where the tree of knowledge of good and evil stood. He listened as a serpent engaged in a conversation with the woman.
“Did God really say you must not eat the fruit from any of the trees in the garden?” the serpent asked.
“Of course we may eat fruit from the trees in the garden,” the woman replied. “It’s only the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden that we are not allowed to eat. God said, ‘You must not eat it or even touch it; if you do, you will die.’”
Actually God had told Adam that, not the woman. But Adam said nothing.
“You won’t die!” the serpent replied to the woman. “God knows that your eyes will be opened as soon as you eat it, and you will be like God, knowing both good and evil.”
He convinced the woman to eat the fruit and she did. She in turn convinced Adam to eat the fruit and he did. Suddenly they knew the difference between good and evil. And suddenly they knew that nudity was not good. So they covered themselves with fig leaves. Adam had disobeyed the one commandment that God had given him. Now sin had entered the world.
Later that day God came to walk with them but they were hiding from him. When confronted Adam admitted to eating the fruit. He blamed God and the woman. The woman blamed the serpent. In the end that all received a curse. For Adam it would be work until you die.
“Since you listened to your wife and ate from the tree
whose fruit I commanded you not to eat, the ground is cursed because of you. All your life you will struggle to scratch a living from it.
It will grow thorns and thistles for you, though you will eat of its grains.
By the sweat of your brow will you have food to eat
until you return to the ground from which you were made. For you were made from dust, and to dust you will return.”
Death entered the world that day also. Innocent animal lives were taken to cover the nudity of Adam and the woman. The woman was given a name. Her name was Eve. Her name meant the source of life. It would be through her that all future generations would come. Then Adam and Eve were banished from the garden that God had prepared for Adam. They were to exist in the world created outside of the beauty and security that the garden had provided.
Adam and Eve began to have children. Cain was the first born. And although only Able and Seth are mentioned, we must not assume that they only had the three boys.
Let’s read Genesis 5:3 “When Adam was 130 years old, he became the father of a son who was just like him—in his very image. He named his son Seth. After the birth of Seth, Adam lived another 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Adam lived 930 years, and then he died.”
Seth was special. What made him special above his other two brothers mentioned, Cain and Abel, was it was through his lineage that Jesus would come.
Adam lived 930 years. He could have fathered many children. As taboo as it is today, incest was not unheard of in the early history of man. I venture to guess that Eve was not the only female that fathered children by Adam.
Let’s take a break from the history of Adam and let me tell you a modern parable.
Two hunters were out hunting and looking for permission to hunt on some private land. They came upon what appeared at first as an abandoned farm. The barn was sagging, the house was in disrepair, and there were junk cars and car parts lying around. The only thing that made it a working farm was a few chickens pecking away and a goat wandering around.
As they entered the yard, they came across an old well. Wanting a drink of water, one asked the other, "Wonder how deep it is."
The other said, "We'll have to drop something down and listen for the splash."
They look around for something to drop down the well, but the only thing close by was an old transmission. They both hauled it over to the well and dropped it in. They counted and waited a long time for the splash. It was deep, deep one all right.
They turned to look for a rope and bucket but saw the goat was charging at them, head down, horns headed straight for them. At the last moment they jumped aside, and the goat went right past them and straight over the side and down the well. They looked at each other in amazement.
As they started to leave, the owner of the farm came up.
They chatted for a moment and got permission to hunt on his land. The farmer asked, "Have you seen my goat?"
Not wanting to tell the farmer of his goat’s demise, they lied. “No, sorry but we haven’t.”
The farmer, scratching his head replied, "I don’t understand it. I thought I had him tied up to an old transmission."
The lesson from the parable is “You follow what you're tied to.”
We are tied to Adam in more than our DNA. We are tied to him in our judgments and attitudes. God created Adam. He didn’t manufacture him. You can manufacture a car and not sustain it. God sustains his creation, from Adam to us. Colossians 1:17 “He existed before anything else, and he holds all creation together.” You can manufacture a car and not provide for it. God provides for his creation. Acts 17:25-26
“and human hands can’t serve his needs—for he has no needs. He himself gives life and breath to everything, and he satisfies every need. From one man he created all the nations throughout the whole earth. He decided beforehand when they should rise and fall, and he determined their boundaries.” You can manufacture a car and not nourish it. God nourishes his creation. Acts 14:17 “but he never left them without evidence of himself and his goodness. For instance, he sends you rain and good crops and gives you food and joyful hearts.”
God’s commands are for our benefit. Adam had one command. Do not eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. God’s desire was to keep him safe from making choices, most of them bad ones. The serpent twisted the truth and made it sound as if God wanted to keep him from having all the knowledge that God had, thus denying them of some unknown enjoyment.
Satan still tells that lie. He leads us to believe that God wants to deny us of earthly pleasures. God wants to rob us of all the fun things and good times that surround us. As long as Adam was obedient to God’s command, he enjoyed fellowship with God. Hebrews 5:8 “Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered.” We are God’s children. Should we do any less than suffer by denying ourselves of worldly pleasures to be obedient to God?
So here are five quick lessons we can learn from Adam.
Life gets tougher when you don’t do what is right.
Adam had it made in the garden. All of his needs were met. He had fellowship with God. He made a conscience decision to go against the wishes of God. That one decision changed his life forever. We must guard ourselves against making the mistake Adam made. When it comes to sin, all of us are one decision away of making a life altering choice.
Just because it looks good doesn’t mean you should have it.
Let’s not put the woman on the hot seat here. Adam was the one in charge. Adam was the one God told not to eat from the tree. Adam is standing right there while the serpent talks to the woman. When the serpent asked “Did God really say---?” Adam should have intervened. Instead, he stood there desiring the fruit also.
There are many things in this world that looks beautiful and delicious. Things that promises us joy and fulfillment. We must heed the Holy Spirit that warns us to turn from harmful things no matter how beautiful they are.
Don’t hide your sins from God or blame others.
When Adam messed up he first wanted to cover his tracks with fig leaves. Then he thought he could just hide his mess from God by staying somewhere unseen. Then when he was found, he blamed the woman for tempting him and God for sending her.
When we mess up, we might as well go find God and deal with it. We can’t cover our tracks. We hide, thinking He did not witness our failure. We can’t blame the others around us as if they led us to sin. Step up and confess. And when we do. 1 John 1:9 “But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”
If you dance to the music, you will pay the piper.
God told Adam he would die if he ate from the Tree of Knowledge. Adam chose to dance so he paid. His fellowship with God on a personal level died. His easygoing lifestyle died. He would be ejected out into the world. He would lose two sons, one to death, the other to banishment. He would work all of his days to feed himself and his family.
Galatians 6:7-8 “Don’t be misled—you cannot mock the justice of God. You will always harvest what you plant. Those who live only to satisfy their own sinful nature will harvest decay and death from that sinful nature. But those who live to please the Spirit will harvest everlasting life from the Spirit.”
Like Adam, God gives us a choice. Dance with our desires and we will pay with spiritual decay and death. Dance with our spirits and we will enjoy a life filled with joy and fellowship with God.
When you become aware of your sins seek some covering
As soon as Adam knew he had sinned, he attempted to cover up his sin. The covering he sought was inefficient. The covering offered to us is more than efficient.
Galatians 3:27 “And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes.”
If you are a Christian, you have put on a permanent covering for your sins. It is the sacrificial blood of Christ. God covered Adam the first time with the skin of innocent animals. I doubt that the first covering lasted him all 930 years of his life. Adam probably had to re-cover himself many times.
The same is true with Christ. The putting on of Christ like new clothes is a constant re-covering. The reason being is we are constantly messing up. So when you mess up; confess, repent, and re-clothe.
So we have begun tracing the family tree of Jesus. As we do so there will be a lot more stories, surprises, and teaching examples.
