Theme: Christ the second Adam who won back the world to God
Text: Gen. 9:8-17; 1 Pet. 3:18-22; Mark 1:9-15
A happy life is a life of faith filled with gratitude and thankfulness to God. We have enough reasons to be thankful, but unfortunately, instead of being thankful we take our blessings for granted. Sometimes we are even ungrateful for those blessings and think that it is our right and that we deserve what God gives us. If someone pushed you out of the way of an oncoming car and saved your life what would be your reaction? Would you think you deserved to be saved and so just walk away, or would you just say thank you and forget what had happened? Or would you be indebted to that person for life? How do we feel toward Jesus Christ who saved us from certain death? Do we just walk off not even being aware of the danger we were in or just say thank you to Him and forget what happened or do we feel indebted to Him for saving our lives? What should be our response to the One who saved us from a destiny of eternal suffering in hell and gave us eternal life in Heaven? Our response should be one of gratitude and thankfulness. Our response should be demonstrated by living a life that is focused on Christ and bears witness to what He had done for us. Should we not want everyone to know how Christ took a terrible sinner like us and washed us clean with His Blood? Should we not want everyone to know that Christ has made us righteous in the eyes of God? Should we not want everyone to know by the way we live what Christ has done for us? Through a righteous way of life we confirm that Jesus Christ the second Adam has won the world back to God.
Man was created for dominion for in Genesis God declared “Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of he sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth”. The Psalmist in Psalm 8 declares, “What is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you visit him. For you made him a little lower than the angels, and you have crowned him with glory and honour. You have made him to have dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under his feet.” Man was given the right to rule - have dominion - over all of Creation. Adam and Eve had authority over every living creature and that included serpents. The only power that Satan had was the power of influence. All he could do was to seek to influence their behaviour through lies and deception. And in a very cunning and subtle way, he planted seeds of doubt in Eve’s heart about God’s love, honesty and authority. He finally got her to believe that he was right and that God’s word was wrong. As a result she and Adam chose to eat of the tree of knowledge instead of the tree of life.
Satan often works among men and women by turning them from the truth and inciting them to believe a lie. This is the way he builds strongholds in their minds to blind them and prevent the light of the gospel from shining in. One very effective stronghold Satan is constantly building is the stronghold of unbelief – not believing the truth of God or doubting the truth of God. This was what Satan used in the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve. Adam and Eve were allowed to eat the fruit of every tree in the garden except one. Satan denied the truth of God that Adam and Eve would surely die if they ate of the forbidden fruit thereby calling God a liar. By making them doubt the word of God Satan was able to convince Adam and Eve that eating the forbidden fruit, would rather be beneficial to them. Satan still seeks to use man’s curiosity and ego to forsake God’s truth. Satan not only focused Adam and Eve’s attention on this forbidden tree, but also on the “knowledge” which he promised it held for them. We know that this “knowledge” was not the good thing Satan represented it to be. We can now see why God forbade it. God knew that we could only relate to Him in faith and he gave man every opportunity to relate to Him in such a way. Through deceit they chose to relate to God through knowledge and this was not the way God wanted it to be. It was their pursuit of knowledge that got all of mankind into trouble. The same kind of activity goes on today with Satan making use of man’s ego and curiosity. God has given us the truth in Christ. Satan seeks to turn our attention away from the truth and away from Christ, by enticing us to seek a knowledge that is not only beyond Christ, but which is beyond the revelation of Scripture. Over and over again in Scripture Christians are warned against the pursuit of this forbidden knowledge. A minister once talked about how he was tempted in this area. A ‘so called’ minister of God told him that he had access to the truth that would enable him to walk on water as Jesus did. His reply was simply that he had not yet finished learning how to walk on the earth and he did not see the reason why he should want to walk on water. When man fell, God did not change His mind about His plan to fill the earth with sons and daughters whose lives would reflect the beauty of their God and who would relate to Him in faith. He immediately set in motion His plan of redemption. God’s Son, as the Son of man, would regain for redeemed man the authority to govern again.
Satan not only deceived others, but also was himself under a deception. He believed he had won a victory over both God and man. But there was an aspect of God’s nature he knew nothing about and that is the grace of God. God’s grace is based on an unselfish love that seeks to redeem that which was lost. One redeems or buys back only things that are of value and God sought to redeem man, no matter the cost. In the case of man’s life, the price would be the death of another man, a perfect man – a man without sin, a second Adam.
When Jesus Christ came to be baptized to “fulfil all righteousness,” He received a special blessing from God, the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, a bird of beauty and of peace. This was symbolic of the peaceful nature of Christ’s ministry and Kingdom. But, it was also the symbol of sacrifice for the dove was the acceptable sacrifice of the poor; those who could neither afford a lamb or a calf. It was after His baptism that Jesus heard the Father’s voice approving what He had done. Baptism symbolizes a death and a burial. Jesus, by His baptism, was declaring His willingness to go through all the suffering He would endure to complete His mission. At the very beginning of His ministry, He foreshadows the end of it. He had no sins of His own for which to repent of and no sins to confess. He died for the sins of others. A bad habit that many believers’ have is that of taking God’s Word lightly. We need to take our baptism seriously. In baptism, we are buried with Christ, united with Him in His death, and share in His resurrection. Jesus died for all that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him. We live for Him when we die to ourselves, seeking to please Him and leading others to the knowledge of Christ, who died to give us life. Jesus died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring us to God.
The first sermon that Jesus preached was ‘the Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!” This Kingdom is a kingdom of righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. It is the Kingdom of eternal life and the entrance into it is through repentance and faith. Repentance is the first response to the gospel that God demands. Nothing else can come before it and nothing else can take its place. Repentance means to change one’s mind and is a decision and not an emotion. It is an inner change of mind resulting in an outward turning back, or turning around, to face or to move in a completely new direction. Repentance is more than being sorry for past sins. It is a determined and purposeful turning away from a sinful past and a full-hearted turning to God. It is starting to live a new life. Without true repentance there can never be true faith. Without repentance faith alone is a mere empty profession. This is one reason why the experience of many Christians today is so unstable and insecure. They are professing faith but they have never practiced true repentance. As a result, the faith that they profess procures for them neither the favour of God nor the respect of the world.
Jesus lived a life of faith. He depended on the Word and will of God. He knew the suffering that He would endure, both physically and emotionally. Can you imagine a righteous, perfect person who had never sinned before taking on the sin of the whole world – sin from the beginning of time to the end of time? As Christians when we sin, we feel terrible and hate ourselves for giving in to sin. If we feel this way with sin as former sinners, how would Jesus feel taking on all the sin ever committed in the world since creation? Jesus felt physical pain, but this was nothing compared to the pain that He endured when His Father looked away from Him as He hang on the cross. The Father turned His face away because as a righteous God He could not look upon sin and Jesus bore the sin of the whole world. When Jesus was hanging on the cross it became dark and He cried out "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" This had to be the greatest pain of all and we caused it with our sins. This proves how very much He loves us and wants us to have eternal life with Him in Heaven. We all crave to be loved unconditionally by our parents, spouse, children and friends. Jesus has that love for us and He laid down His life and took it up again so that we could have eternal life.
The cross is at the centre of all Christianity. It was while our Lord Jesus Christ hung on the cross that our sins were forgiven. This wasn’t an easy task for Him, but He did it willingly, because He loves us and it was the will of His father. The Lamb of God, who knew no sin, had to take on all the sins of the world. Even as a youth, Jesus lived in the shadow of the cross. He knew He was born to die for all mankind to be saved. We need to believe in His sacrifice on the cross. We need to walk in faith if we are to benefit from the sacrifice of Christ. Faith rises up and resists the devil, but unbelief gives up and accepts the lies of the devil. We all know the story of the eagle that grew up with chickens and ended up behaving like one of them. One day it was released from its cage and given the opportunity to fly away but it just hoped back to be with the other chickens. He was really free to fly away into the heavens like an eagle but it did not know this. Unfortunately many of us often behave in a similar manner, even though we say we are believers. We have the truth that at Calvary Jesus Christ defeated the devil and stripped him of his power. We have the truth that we were set free from his dominion and given a place of authority in the royal family of God. Many of us, however, are so used to living in fear, doubt and defeat that we cannot accept the freedom that is rightfully ours. We allow the one Jesus destroyed to destroy us. We need to rise up and take our rightful position. The heavens are watching in wonder and amazement and wondering why we are submitting to something we have the power to resist. Why do so many believers have difficulty living the abundant life and growing to spiritual maturity? It is because we have been deceived by the devil. He has distorted our true identity in Christ. He often does this be convincing us that we are evil. As Christians we may have done some evil things, but that does not mean we are evil. If we believed we were evil we would be letting Satan’s accusations of our behaviour influence our perception of our identity instead of letting our identity, as children of God in Christ, influence our behaviour. When we fail, we would see ourselves as failures, which only causes us to fail more. When we sin, we would see ourselves as sinners, which only causes us to sin more. We’ve been tricked into believing that what we do makes us what we are. And that false belief leads us into hopelessness and defeat. We, however, should not be deceived. We are not a product of what we do or do not do. We are a product of who we are in Christ and His work on the cross. We are not saved by how we behave but by how we believe. God’s Word assures us, "Beloved, now we are children of God. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure". Jesus Christ died to give us eternal life. He died to restore to us what Adam lost. His blood paid the penalty for all our sin and made it possible for us to be reconciled to God and to live a life of victory. We do not have to give in or give way to the lies of the devil. In Christ Jesus we have the power and authority to stand firm and resist the attacks of the devil in our minds. Jesus has come to set us free, and he whom the Son sets free is free indeed. Amen!
