Object Lessons – Redemption – Sermon

I suspect that if I were taking a poll of folks on the street at random, I think most of them would know about the story of Adam and Eve and how they failed to listen to God’s one command:

“You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden…”

We know that Satan came and tempted the woman and then she encouraged Adam to also disobey God and eat the fruit.

We know the results were tragic – Adam and Eve were driven from the perfect place of God’s provision and protection and thrust out into a harsh world where death immediately became a reality.

Humans had known only life, now they were sentenced to death.

This is what is referred to as “the fall.”

They fell short of the glory of God and they fell from the grace of God.

He had allowed them a perfect life in a perfect place, and they failed to live up to His one requirement of them.

What was at the essence of their sin? Was it simply eating the wrong thing?

No, it was not believing God. It was doubting His word, His perfect love and provision for them.

And if you consider the absolutely perfect existence they were living, what could they possible have to  doubt?

Would he provide enough wisdom?

(Didn’t they need to know good from evil?).

Would he provide enough food

(What if only this tree had fruit at the time?)

Would he provide enough safety?

(Would they not surely die anyway?)

Would God provide enough personal satisfaction?

(It looked good to their eye.)

When Adam and Eve were tested, they failed. They doubted the word of God and disobeyed the command of God. So mankind received a failing grade on the first test.

Now fast-forward to the passage in Matthew where Jesus was “led by the Spirit” into the desert to be tempted by the devil.

Read Matthew 4: 1-11

Did you ever think this was a strange thing for the Spirit to do?

I think one of things we are meant to learn here is that God does not want us to be able to follow Him only when there is no temptation or opportunity to do otherwise.

We live in this fallen world now and the Adversary is always walking about seeking whom he can separate from God.

Have you heard the saying:

Opportunity may knock only once, but temptation leans on the doorbell.

– Unknown

Jesus was sent to reclaim the territory that Adam and Eve lost for the human race.

Jesus faced the devil’s words of doubt and chose instead to believe God’s word.

Every time Satan said “If you are the son of God…” and tried to place doubt there, Jesus replied with a statement of fact directly from the mouth of God….

We must live by the word of God,(v4)
not put God to the test (v7)
and worship and serve God only.(v10)

Yes, the devil was quoting scripture passages too, but they were out of context and meant to trick Jesus into doing something that was contrary to God’s crystal-clear commands.

So, in stark contrast to Adam, Jesus believed the word of God and obeyed the commands of God.

The second test for humankind was passed perfectly by the God-man. On our behalf, Jesus reclaimed that territory that Adam and Eve had lost together.

At the end of a school semester – after the tests that we would take thought the year, there’s often a final exam to be passed….

Paul, in a passage from his letter to the Romans, continues the thought for us and wraps it all up.

Read – Romans 5:12-19

Our connection with Adam is physical. We are born into the human family involuntarily and because of sin, we inherit death.

What Paul points out here is that even though God had not given the law (the Ten Commandments) until the time of Moses, the people who lived between the time of Adam and Moses still died. They committed sinful actions even though no law existed to accuse them… their lifestyle separated them from relationship with God. They were under the curse of Adam. So, death reigned over them.

“As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.”

— 1 Corinthians 15:22

God is most concerned with BELIEF, not sin.

God knows there is a cure for sin – the bloodshed and skin of God’s lamb covers that.

But unbelief is unpardonable.

John 3:18 says,

“Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.”

Think about that.

Just as we cannot be justified by keeping the law, we are also not condemned by disobeying it!

Hebrews 11:6

“And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.”

Our connection with Jesus Christ is spiritual. We are born again into God’s family voluntarily by faith and because of that, we inherit eternal life.

Judgment follows one act of trespass in Adam. – Sin and Separation

God sends his Son to redeem us – to restore our relationship

And so, where Judgment follows one act of trespass in Adam, grace follows one act of righteousness in Christ.

In Jesus Christ relationship is restored….

I love the way Paul uses the term “much more” to show the supremacy of grace.

One commentator said this:

“The power of God’s grace operating through the work of Christ means there is a “how much more” in the quality of what Christ accomplishes in comparison with what Adam has done.

Jesus more than cancels the effects of Adam’s sin – and not only that but He enables those who believe to not just experience life but to “reign in life”.

Church, here me now…. it is not God’s will that any should perish, but that all should come to the knowledge of Jesus because that knowledge is saving grace…to understand that we will always sin and miss the mark of perfection. By ourselves, we will fail and fall when trying to reach God for redemption.…

But the love and grace of God seeks us and God, in Jesus and the cross bridged the gap between us to bring us to full redemption.

We lost the Garden of Eden, but we gain the paved streets of gold in heaven…. for eternity. Isn’t that indeed much more!