Faithbase

Good morning. We are thinking about the Bible. I want to touch on something that really spans, I guess you could say, the whole of Scripture, and I want to read to you from the account in Exodus 19. Actually, I just changed my mind at the last second here. I was going to read to you from Genesis 12, but I think I want to illustrate the point that I'm making here from Exodus, and this is when the children of Israel were taken out of Egypt, and after they had left Egypt and they're at Mount Sinai, and when you look in verses, I guess it would be 6, actually go down to 4, excuse me, 19, 4. You've seen what I did to the Egyptians. You know how I carried you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself. Now if you will obey me and keep my covenant, you will be my own special treasure from among all the peoples on earth, for all the earth belongs to me, and you'll be my kingdom of priests, my holy nation. This is the message you must give to the children of Israel. Now, we've talked about covenant before, and one thing that's interesting is that God's covenant has the five points we discussed, but the characteristic of the covenant is that God's grace precedes any obedience on our part, but our obedience is a requirement for experiencing the full benefits of that gracious election. That was true with Adam and Eve. God's grace brought them into being. They didn't, you know, somehow say, hey, we want to be created. By grace they were created, just as by grace we are a new creation, you see, and so by grace Adam and Eve were created, and to experience the blessings of that gracious creation, they had laws they were supposed to obey. Now, they weren't saved. Their relationship with God was damaged, there's no question about that because of their disobedience, but I think it's clear that they continued to have a relationship with God. It was altered, but it was still there, and it was looking forward to, of course, the ultimate, I guess you could say, salvation in Jesus Christ. Indeed, it was, it is the ultimate salvation in Jesus Christ, where again, we are saved by grace, we are made a new creation, and we are then expected to live according to a particular ethic, work hard to show the results of your salvation, and we've talked about this. Titus, same thing, we've talked about that a couple days ago, and so forth, but what's interesting, keeping that in mind, you have Adam, who failed, you have Abraham, who essentially he failed too, he didn't do everything perfect by any means, you have the corporate entity of Israel, who was called my son by Scripture, according to God's word, he was called, Israel was called my son, the Son of God, and then of course you have Jesus. Now, in the New Testament, Jesus is called the Eschaton Adam, the last Adam, and I've taught that Adam was the first Adam, Abraham was the second Adam, Israel is the third Adam, and Jesus is the last Adam. Now, I suppose you could add some other people in there, say King David, or someone else, and others, but those are the primary players, if you will, in God's story of salvation, Adam, Abraham, of course, where we are counted as heirs to Abraham and Jesus Christ, the children of Israel, which were the embodiment, you might say, of the Adamic and the Abrahamic covenant, and I want to say Adamic, I mean, just the idea of being brought into this gracious relationship, and Abraham was too, and then, of course, Jesus, as Matthew does, is equated with Israel, he is the true son of David, the true son of Abraham, and as Luke wanted to emphasize, he is the true son of Adam as well, and the Son of God. So we have this long line of covenant attempts, I guess you say, adherence to the covenant, which was foreshadowed, the failure was foreshadowed by the covenant that was made with Abraham. As you recall, we've talked about this, how there was two theophanies that passed between the animals at the making of the covenant with Abraham, then called Abram, and those two, the smoky pot and the blazing torch, represented the presence of God, but Abraham or Abram did not pass between the animals, so the whole point was that there would come a day when God himself would secure the blessings of the covenant by his own sacrifice, and that, of course, is Jesus the Christ, the eternal Son made flesh. So what I would like you to think about today, go back to Exodus, you'll find this throughout the whole of the scripture, Exodus, of course, Genesis, Abraham's call, Abram's call, and in Genesis 12, throughout the scripture you see again and again that God makes this choice of people, not based on merit, but based upon his grace, and then those people, or person, they are expected to live according to a particular ethic, and if they don't, they don't experience the full blessings of that choice, doesn't mean the choice goes away, but they don't experience the full blessings of that choice, and that's really been the history of God's people, still is, unfortunately. I know so many Christians who do not experience the fullness of joy, do not experience the peace and the happiness, the relationship that they should have with God and Jesus Christ, and that's because they fail to be transformed by the renewing of their mind so that they could show God's good and perfect will, they fail to work hard to show the results of their salvation, they fail to recognize that they're saved by grace, but they're saved as God's special, magnificent creation to perform the good works that he had planned from all eternity. So think about that today, how wonderful it is to be brought into this relationship, the blessings of relationship with God, and how magnificent it is to have this opportunity to express our love for our Savior, his gracious salvation, and we have opportunity to show him our love through our obedience. So God bless you, and I pray along with you that God will give you the desire and the ability to do his goodwill.