From Curse to Christ
Download MP3If you have a bible, I invite you to turn to Genesis chapter 3, or it's there in your worship guide as well. In Genesis 3. And as you're turning there, let me tell you about next week. As you know, next week is our 9 lessons in carol service at the Lyric, so don't come here. Alright?
Joel Brooks:It's next week, it's at the Lyric. If for some reason, you were not able to get ticket, a ticket for that, and I apologize if you cannot get tickets, we we sold out within, like, 2 hours. And, we moved it to the Lyric so we could try to accommodate as many people as possible, but I know that some of you could not get tickets. I'm sorry about that. If you want, I'm going to be here next Sunday morning, from about 9 to noon or so.
Joel Brooks:I'm gonna be here just in the welcome room and just swing by, we'll have coffee together. I mean, if you want to do something, come meet with me and we could talk about whatever, you know, Genesis and dinosaurs or whatever you wanna talk about, we'll do that. But I will be here in the welcome room next Sunday from about 9 to 12, and would love to have whoever wants to come and visit. Our sermon this evening is gonna be on Genesis 3, but I'm gonna wait to read that till later, so we're actually gonna start our time together with prayer. So if you would, pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Father God, I ask that through your Spirit, you would open up our hearts in this moment because we need to hear what you have to say. Your words are life. Just as you spoke everything into creation, you speak into our hearts and you create new things. You make us a new person, and so we ask that you would speak. I pray that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and not be remembered anymore, But Lord, may your words remain and may they change us.
Joel Brooks:We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. So this is our 3rd week of Advent, and, which means it's the week in which we light the candle of joy, which we did earlier. If you remember, the 1st week is the candle of hope, the 2nd week is the candle of peace, and then this week was joy. And so it would make sense for me to actually preach a Christmas sermon on joy.
Joel Brooks:And keeping in the same theme as we've had the last couple of weeks, I should probably pick a Christmas carol. So joy to the world would have been appropriate. But I've decided not to preach on joy this evening. And the reason, the reason comes down to what I would call homiletical analytics, alright? Which is just a fancy way of saying I've studied, I've studied the sermons over the last few years.
Joel Brooks:And what I've learned is joy does not sell, alright? If joy is in the sermon title, nobody listens to it. And I actually have evidence, proof that backs this up. I could go back and listen to, or look at the data from all of the podcasts over the last 10 years, and you can look at this and you can see what are the sermons that people have listened to a whole lot, and what are the sermons that nobody listens to, and I can tell you right now that if joy is in the sermon title, it's a podcast killer. Nobody listens to it.
Joel Brooks:And it's not just joy, there's other certain words too that if you put it in the title, nobody's gonna listen to it. Words like peace, or words like glory, or if the word savior is in there, nobody wants to listen to glory or peace or savior. And so so you have to avoid those terms. Interestingly, as I was looking through this, I started thinking, well what do people listen to? You know, what are the, the podcasts that people really like to listen to?
Joel Brooks:And actually there are certain words that if you put these in the sermon titles, it's pretty much guarantees that you will listen to them. I mean, there I mean there's the obvious, sex. Okay. You put sex in a sermon title, you're all gonna download it and listen to it, you know. So I did a series on marriage, singleness and sex and everybody downloaded that one.
Joel Brooks:But besides that, these are the words. Loneliness, anxiety, depression, darkness. You put those words in the title and guaranteed people will listen to them. Not because the sermons are good. I've preached some of those sermons and they're verifiably bad.
Joel Brooks:I mean, there's a few of them that are just they're just bad, but didn't matter. You put those words in the title and people are gonna listen to them. It's pretty revealing, isn't it? I mean it's revealing. It's it's not surprising, but it's revealing.
Joel Brooks:We are a people that struggle with anxiety, struggle with depression. We struggle with loneliness and so it makes sense that we would want to listen to a sermon that deals with those topics. You've all seen the statistics that have been popping up all over the place in the last year or so about America's struggle with depression, and how you can see that in the last 15 years, the people who struggle with loneliness or depression, that has grown exponentially. A matter of fact, the the Cigna group just released a study. It was one of the last ones released in which they surveyed 20,000 Americans, and in this study they found that 2 out of every 5 people, so 40%, 2 out of every 5 people feel that they lack companionship.
Joel Brooks:That their relationships are not meaningful and that they are not close to a single person. 2 out of 5. Yesterday in USA Today, I don't know if you caught the article that was on depression, but it said that one out of every 6 adults has struggled with major depression. And so it's no surprise that if those words depression or loneliness or anxiety are in a sermon title, we're gonna listen to it. But what is surprising is this, people apparently think that words like glory, or peace, or joy, or savior has absolutely nothing to do with their anxiety or their depression or their loneliness.
Joel Brooks:That was surprising to me. And so what happens is we hear a sermon, about the glory of God and the and the pastor is just exalting in the glory of God and we hear that and this is what we think. I hear you and I agree with everything you said. There's nothing that I would say is wrong about that, but what does that have to do with the fact I hate my job? What does that have the fact of anything to do with my life and my loneliness?
Joel Brooks:Or we hear a a sermon about Jesus as our savior. We we think once again, I I agree with all of that. I mean there's there was nothing that was factually wrong about that. I even accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior as a child, but I'm grown up now. And what does that have to do with my current anxiety?
Joel Brooks:And so we see this disconnect. And what this means for us is this Christmas, we've got a problem. We've got a problem because what are the themes of Christmas? What are they? Peace, joy.
Joel Brooks:You know, peace on earth, goodwill to men. Joy to the world, Gloria. You know, glory. You know, we're gonna sing it, Gloria. For unto you is born to say in the city of David a savior.
Joel Brooks:These are all the themes of Christmas and yet we think they have nothing to do with our current state of anxiety and loneliness and depression. So we get no more hope out of looking at baby Jesus as we would, looking at any other baby. Honestly, you know, you you visit a friend who has a baby and and you feel joy and you're happy for that moment, and then you go away and your life is largely unaffected, and for many of us that's how we view baby Jesus. It's a temporary little high and then we go on with our life unaffected. But Christmas has everything to do with the anxiety we feel at work, with the bills that we have to pay, with how we struggle with our own rebellious children, and why every single day we seem to say, why does everything have to be so hard?
Joel Brooks:Christmas has everything to do with this. And so, what I want us to do is look at the very beginning. I want us to go back to where the very first promise or prophecy of Christmas is mentioned in the Bible. And there we will see how Jesus has everything to do with the state of affairs we are in. Now I know that Genesis is not typically where you go to preach an Advent message, but you also know I don't preach normally.
Joel Brooks:So, we're gonna go back to Genesis, Genesis 3, and let's begin reading in verse 8. And they, and that's Adam and Eve here, and they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you garden, and I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.
Joel Brooks:And he said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate it. Then the Lord God said to the woman, what is this that you have done? The woman said, the serpent deceived me and I ate.
Joel Brooks:And the Lord God said to the serpent, because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing.
Joel Brooks:And pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life.
Joel Brooks:Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face, you shall eat bread till you return to the ground. For out of it, you were taken. For you are dust and to dust, you shall return. As we read through the first couple of chapters of the bible, we quickly realize that we no longer live in the world that God created.
Joel Brooks:We no longer live in that world that was described in Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 because when you read through Genesis 1 and Genesis 2, you find this poetic rhythm there. You you read, and God created this, and God created this, and God created this, and it was good. And then, and God created this, and God created this, and God created this, and it was good. And you find this rhythm happening over and over throughout until finally everything is created and God steps back and he says, he says, and it is very good. All of creation he looks at it and he he calls it very good and and really what we're looking at there is the biblical word shalom.
Joel Brooks:Peace. The world was at peace. It was fruitful. It was prosperous. It was healthy.
Joel Brooks:We might say it was whole. The world was perfect, And then God placed Adam and Eve, man and woman in this perfect world, and they enjoyed shalom in their relationship. They fully knew one another and they fully loved one another. They were always at peace with one another. But then we know how the story goes, don't we?
Joel Brooks:That didn't last for very long. In the midst of paradise there, God, he gave them one rule. He set up this one tree and he says you are free to eat from the fruit of all the other trees here. Just stay away from this one tree. Don't eat this fruit.
Joel Brooks:And so they had 1,000 upon thousands of other trees and fruits they could eat from. Literally, they had the entire world at their disposal to eat from. All they had to do was not eat from this one tree. It's not like that was hard to do. It wasn't a bacon tree or something like that.
Joel Brooks:It's just a fruit tree. But it's not the fruit. That's that's not what was appealing about this. I mean, he God set this up. It was actually an act of grace of him to set up this tree because he was saying, I want, you know, I want you to trust me just to trust me.
Joel Brooks:I want you to just realize that if you obey me there's life. I want you to take me out my word. And so so he gives them that that one tree to stay away from, yet they fail this test. And Eve reaches out and she takes from this tree and she eats. She gives some to her husband.
Joel Brooks:Then everything fell to pieces. Their relationship fell to pieces. The world fell to pieces. The fall was so great, it's actually what we call this. The fall.
Joel Brooks:It's the fall. And there are many effects of the fall, but we see 3 immediate ones right here. We see relationships are fractured. We see pain is amplified. And then we see that work becomes exhausting.
Joel Brooks:So first is relationships are fractured. Immediately after eating from the tree, Adam and Eve, they hid from one another. They did this by putting on clothes. You know, they dressed themselves up in fig leaves and then they tried to hide from God. But what was happening in their relationship is they no longer felt safe with one another.
Joel Brooks:They no longer felt comfortable with one another. But they felt like they needed to protect themselves. All of a sudden they felt vulnerable in another human's presence and also before God. God calls out to Adam. He pursues Adam.
Joel Brooks:He asked, where are you? What have you done? Notice how quickly Adam is to throw his wife under the bus. I mean, it happens instantly. It's like, Adam, did you do anything?
Joel Brooks:He's like, I mean, he just instantly points, and he's like, the woman the woman who you gave me, so he's already pointing at the woman, then he's pointing at God, gave me fruit and well, you know, I kinda ate it. The relationship is fractured and it's at this point in relationships that blame shifting comes in. Distrust, conflict, feeling like you always have to be on guard, feeling the need to protect your heart. It's here that anxiety forever becomes a part of human existence. Loneliness comes in because you're no longer fully known.
Joel Brooks:You have to hide who you are. Depression comes in here, and these things become a regular part of every relationship. And then, of course, the most important relationship of all is fractured, and that's our relationship with God. God says you can no longer be in my presence and he removes Adam and Eve from the garden. The second effect we see of the fall is that pain is amplified And we see this most easily or immediately in what God says to Eve.
Joel Brooks:Look at verse 16 again. To the woman God said, I will surely multiply your pain and childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. So now even one of life's greatest joys, having children, is gonna be marked by pain. Now I've I've never had a child.
Joel Brooks:Alright? I've I've never birthed a child, although who knows technological advancements happening, all done by women scientists, that it might be possible someday. But from what I have seen, I'm glad this curse went on the women. Alright? From looking at my wife as she was giving birth, that is not something that I would like to go through.
Joel Brooks:But it's not just the women who experience the pain in this. I can tell you from the husband's perspective that for one, the pain of when I was holding my wife's hand, I I did not know any human being could squeeze so hard in their life. Now also, you know, at this point, and I've shared this before, but my wife was in the other side of the bed, on the far side, when I was holding her hand as she was giving birth, and so I had to like stoop over like this for hours, and it was miserable, people. And then I was I was doing that, my my back was hurting so bad. And I kept trying to time it like in between contractions, But from this moment on, all of life's greatest joys, there's always gonna be some pain there.
Joel Brooks:There's always gonna be some sorrow accompanied with it. Then we also find that work becomes exhausting. Look at verse 17. And to Adam he said, because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you.
Joel Brooks:In pain, you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you. And you shall eat the plants of the field by the sweat of your face. You shall eat bread till you return to the ground. The world used to be fruitful and work for us and work with us.
Joel Brooks:I mean, work in the garden, I'm sure it took effort to do this, but but it was enjoyable because fruit readily sprang from the ground. Environment. There was no sunburn. There was no freezing cold. You didn't sit down and and have a thorn.
Joel Brooks:So clothes were not necessary. There there was no thorns. There were no thistles. There were no hurricanes. There were no droughts, no earthquakes, no floods.
Joel Brooks:Neither was there disease or genetic disorders or aging or crime or violence or oppression. All of these things came into the world as a result of Adam and Eve sinning. So now the world sits under a curse. Notice up to this point it's in Genesis has been nothing but blessing Blessing. Blessing.
Joel Brooks:And now God finally says, cursed. He curses the very world he had initially blessed. So the world sits under a curse and this is the world we live in. A world filled with anxiety, brokenness, loneliness, and depression, and exhaustion. We would say that shalom has been shattered.
Joel Brooks:Do you know when I feel the effects most of the fall? I mean, there's there's the obvious. I don't know if most is the right word because the obvious is when I, you know, make hospital visits or if I preach at funerals, or go to a funeral. I mean, you you can't help but when you stare into a grave and you have a broken heart, and somebody you know and loved has has died, you feel the effects of the fall. It's a unique thing being a pastor.
Joel Brooks:One of the things that I do when I do funerals is I'm the last person that's in the back room and I close the casket. And it is the strangest sensation to know that I'm the last person to ever see that face. And whenever I do that, all I could think of is this world is so broken. And we feel that. We're like, it's not right.
Joel Brooks:And it's true. It is not right. It was not meant to be this way. But but I also feel the effects of fall of the fall, more acutely on a daily basis this way. It can be a Friday night and my whole family's at home, we're by the fire, and it is just the most picturesque scene you can imagine.
Joel Brooks:It's something you know that, Norman Rockwell would paint, alright? That's that's what we are as a family. We're in our pajamas. Lauren and I are enjoying a glass of wine. The kids maybe have some hot tea or cocoa.
Joel Brooks:We're playing our favorite game, Dutch Blitz, if any of you know that, and so, I mean life is just perfect. And then there's a comment. I mean, it could be something silly, it could be something like, get your feet off me. Your feet smell. Well, my feet only smell because you're in the shower forever and I didn't have time to take a shower.
Joel Brooks:And then it escalates. And then it ends with a girl going upstairs going, I'm not playing anymore. And then their mother says, Calm down, she didn't mean that. Come on down. Please play.
Joel Brooks:And then it ends with me stepping up saying, come down. We're gonna finish the game and keep your mouth shut, because I'm here to bring shalom. Alright? Works every time. I'm here to step in there.
Joel Brooks:Nothing we do at that moment works. Shalom's been shattered. Once again, paradise ruined. For a brief moment, I thought we had it. And sin caused it all to break apart.
Joel Brooks:And so you know what we typically do after that? Our response is this, well we gotta create another paradise. We gotta create another Garden of Eden. And that could manifest itself many different ways. For some of you it's like, well I gotta, you know, find the perfect house or I gotta clean up the house really, really well.
Joel Brooks:Get it perfect and in order and and you do that, but then that falls apart. For others maybe you're having a problem with your relationship either with your boyfriend or girlfriend or with your spouse and like I gotta go on the perfect date, plan the perfect date, and so you create that Garden of Eden, but still sin enters there. Or you decide I need to prepare the perfect dinner and we can just have a family meal together and if I spend hours on a dinner in preparation, I'll put it there and all the kids will be happy. That never happens. And then when all else fails, you outsource.
Joel Brooks:Everybody says, If you can't be happy at Disney, you can't be happy anywhere. I'm like, I wanna hit that. Everybody says, if you can't be happy at Disney, you can't be happy anywhere. I'm like, I wanna hit that person. But but but for those of you who've been at Disney, you know, see it.
Joel Brooks:All
Speaker 2:you have to do is just look at some family, and and you can see it. Maybe it's the little see it.
Joel Brooks:All you have to do is just look at some family, and you can see it. Maybe it's the little Mickey ice cream cone that falls. And at that moment, it's like the magic kingdom becomes the tragic kingdom. Like it just it turns right there. Kids are miserable.
Joel Brooks:The parents are trying to put on fake smiles, but you can sense the tension there. Once again, it all falls apart. It always falls apart because we bring the sin in with us to paradise. We're the ones who cause it to fall apart. When I was smaller, can't remember the age I was, I broke one of my mother's plates.
Joel Brooks:It was a really nice china plate. And she didn't see it, she didn't know about it. So I thought I could fix it. And I remember I got just like Elmer's glue. And I just, I worked and I put that whole thing together, you know, and it, at least, like if it was there, if you were like from right here, it kinda looked okay.
Joel Brooks:So if you stood far back enough, you might not notice, and then I gently tried to put it back on with the other the other China plates there. You know it would kind of maybe work. It'd be, you know, maybe could fool her at a distance, but the moment anybody tried to pick up that plate, it was all gonna fall apart. And that's what we do that when we're trying to create these Garden of Edens, try to create these paradises, we create something that kinda looks okay, but you can't work with it. You can't actually function within that world.
Joel Brooks:It's always gonna fall to pieces when you get in there and you work in it. The moment Adam and Eve disobeyed God, the moment they proclaimed self rule, we're our own gods, the world broke. And there was nothing that they could do to put it back together. For it wasn't just the world that was broken, they were broken. And if things were gonna get better, somebody from the outside was gonna have to come in to fix it.
Joel Brooks:And so this is what we see promised in Genesis 3:15. Let's read this again. Genesis 3:15. God's God is speaking here to the serpent or to Satan. I will put enmity between you and the woman, And between your offspring and her offspring.
Joel Brooks:He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. This is the very first promise or prophecy that we have concerning Christmas. This is the very first hint we have of the gospel. And I love that the first proclamation of the gospel is given to Satan in the midst of a curse. But it's it's like God is saying this, I can't even curse the world.
Joel Brooks:I can't even curse unless I immediately offer hope. Yes, the world is cursed, but hope is on the way. Help is coming. Yes, I have to curse this world through your, because you sinned, but I will provide a way out. After Adam and Eve disobeyed God, Satan had to have thought at that moment that he had triumphed.
Joel Brooks:He had triumphed, because he achieved what he wanted all along. Adam and Eve obeyed him. They didn't obey God, they obeyed Him. And at this point, we know from elsewhere in scripture that a third of the angels were already following Satan. So a third of the angels are following him and now all of humanity is following him.
Joel Brooks:Just chosen him over God. And so Satan had to be thinking at this moment, I've thwarted God. But then the first two words of Genesis 3:15 come like a hammer blow. God simply says, I will. I will.
Joel Brooks:Satan, you are not sovereign. I am. Satan, you don't make the decisions. I do. I declare what will be.
Joel Brooks:Not you. And I will do this. And the first thing that God says He will do is to put enmity between Satan and the woman. Satan might have thought of this moment that he has just turned the entire human race against God, but now God declares, nope. Satan, you're not gonna have complete control.
Joel Brooks:You will not have complete control. There's always gonna at least be a remnant that loves me and hates you. The woman here, she had just moments earlier, just moments earlier, she had just trusted Satan over trusting God. But God says, I will not allow you to continue on that path. Notice that it says, God says, I will place enmity there.
Joel Brooks:This isn't something that the woman just created in herself. This is the first time we see grace pouring out to them. God changing a heart. Yes, you've sided with Satan, but no I'm putting an end to that. I will place in you a hatred for him.
Joel Brooks:This is gonna come from me, this hatred towards evil. And so we see that with Eve. She begins once again to set her heart and affections towards God. If God hadn't done this, then all of humanity and Satan would have formed an alliance together against Him. And what this means is now from this point on, there is always gonna be some people who love God and who hate Satan and there's gonna be other people who hate God and love Satan and they're gonna be at war with one another.
Joel Brooks:We see this most vividly in Adam and Eve's first children, Cain and Abel. It's like it's so easy to see. You got an an offspring of Satan and then the the offspring of Eve there, warring it out. Good and evil, battling it right there. Those who love God and those who love Satan.
Joel Brooks:And this will continue all throughout scripture. But then ultimately, it's gonna come down to just 2 individuals. Just 2. There's gonna be a singular offspring of the woman who comes forth to fight Satan himself. In verse 15, God uses he transitions and he uses the singular masculine pronoun, he.
Joel Brooks:So you've been talking about offspring in general, but now let's reduce down to he. A man's coming. A man's coming. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. A time is coming when the singular seed born of the woman, this man's gonna come and Satan is gonna bite him in the heel.
Joel Brooks:And he's gonna turn around and crush its head. That's the imagery there that the serpent's gonna come and attack the heel. He's gonna turn around and he's gonna crush its head giving it a death blow. And it will be the end of Satan. And this is the first gospel that we have in all of scripture.
Joel Brooks:Right here. And hear me, this is the only gospel that mankind had for 1000 of years. That was it. You don't get to Abraham or Moses. It's a long time from this.
Joel Brooks:This was all humanity had was this one hope. Someday a man's coming and is gonna fix all this. Someday a man is coming and is gonna destroy the works of the devil. So they placed all their hope on that man coming. And so from this point on throughout scripture, the people who love God, they're looking and they're waiting and they're hoping for this one man to come.
Joel Brooks:And you can't understand scripture unless you understand that narrative happening all throughout it. I mean, if you go through Genesis alone, you're gonna see the word offspring mentioned so many times. Just look at the life of Abraham. Just go and write down how many times the word offspring is mentioned in Abraham's life. Because what it is is he's looking for the seed to come forth from him.
Joel Brooks:Why was having a son such a big deal to Abraham? Because he's waiting for the one, the one that will come. So the hope of the entire world rests in this offspring. And throughout scripture, people keep looking for that person. They think when Moses comes up, is it Moses?
Joel Brooks:Deuteronomy 18 says, no. Moses says one like me is gonna come later. King David comes along and is like, is it David? And 2nd Samuel 7, no it's not you, but it's gonna be one of your descendants. And over and over a person rises and people think maybe, and God says not yet.
Joel Brooks:Now, when God said these words to Satan in Genesis 3 15, Satan absolutely knew what he meant. Satan understand understood exactly what God meant because from that point on, Satan is gonna go all out in trying to destroy the offspring of the women or the woman. All out. And we see that once again immediately with Cain and Abel right after this. But if it's not Cain and Abel, it's gonna be the Philistines trying to destroy the people of God, it's gonna be the Assyrians trying to destroy the people of God, It's gonna be the Babylonians trying to destroy the people of God.
Joel Brooks:Have you ever wondered why everybody's trying to kill Israel? Over and over throughout scripture, everybody's trying to wipe them off the planet. It's Satan trying to snuff them out to keep this child from being born. And there are times you almost succeeded. I mean we've looked at this.
Joel Brooks:Remember when we talked about Hezekiah and you have the Assyrians coming in and they've wiped out all of Israel except for Jerusalem. There's only 10,000 left, and they're surrounded by an army of 250,000 and Satan is just squeezing just about to snuff them out, and God wouldn't let them. God always preserved a remnant, and he kept preserving this remnant and preserving it and preserving it until finally you get to Joseph and Mary. And here we come to this young Jewish couple and we read these words in Matthew 1. It's there in your worship guide.
Joel Brooks:We open up the service with these. Look at Matthew 1. We'll begin reading with the words from the angel. The angel appears to Joseph in a dream and he says, Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
Joel Brooks:All this took place to fulfill what the Lord has spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel. Mary will have the long anticipated child who's finally gonna save people from their sins. 1000 and thousands of years of waiting. Literally, from the very first moments in human history waiting for this child to be born.
Joel Brooks:And I want you to notice here that the child's born of a virgin. That the child had to be born of a virgin. In other words, the child is born of the seed of a woman, not the seed of a man. Born of the seed of a woman, not the seed of a man. When you go back to Genesis 3:15, you read about the offspring of the woman.
Joel Brooks:That's a really unusual phrase there. It's so unusual, you will not find that phrase anywhere else in scripture. Offspring is mentioned all throughout scripture. Offspring or seed. It's the same word.
Joel Brooks:But it's always the seed of man or the offspring of man. You will never find it listed as the offspring of of a woman. And so here, this is Mary's child not Joseph's. This is the offspring of the woman. This is the child.
Joel Brooks:The long anticipated child. The savior who's gonna set right the broken world. So all of our hopes of peace, all of our hopes of joy, of glory, of shalom again, rest on this one baby. And then once again, once this baby's born, Satan tries to kill him. He couldn't prevent the child from being born so then well, try to kill him.
Joel Brooks:So he sends Herod and his soldiers there to slay all the children in Bethlehem. But then God the father says, no. Or actually, God the father says, not yet. I will not yet I will not let you slay my son yet. First, he was gonna allow Jesus to grow up to a mature adult to where he can be tempted in every way just as Adam and Eve were, but this time not fail.
Joel Brooks:Not fall where they fail. And only after Jesus had done that and lived the perfect life that all of us should have lived, it's only at that point that God the father gives Satan permission to kill him, and that's the heel strike. That's that's the serpent grabbing the heel, and the resurrection is the death blow. It's when Jesus gets up and he crushes the serpent's head. At the resurrection is the victory.
Joel Brooks:At the resurrection, Satan is defeated. And so is your anxiety, and your depression, and your loneliness all defeated at the resurrection of Christ. All of those things have lost their power. They might still be around in a dollar sense, but they've lost their power, and they will be eradicated and full when Christ returns again. And we'll be living these words.
Joel Brooks:That's a verse from Joy to the World. No more let sins and sorrows grow, nor thorns infest the ground. He comes to make his blessings flow. As far as the curse is found, far as the curse is found, far as, far as the curse is found. If you would pray with me.
Joel Brooks:Lord Jesus, you took that curse, You took those thorns and they were placed on your head on the cross. And you bore the curse of this world. And you put it to death. Lord, and you have risen and you have given us life. Your word says in 1st John 3 that you came to defeat the works of the devil, and you did.
Joel Brooks:And Lord, I pray that we would live in light of that. I know we only live partially in light of that now, but Lord, we long for the day when we experience that in full. When you come again and you completely make whole this world that we broke. We long for that day. We pray this in your name, Jesus.
Joel Brooks:Amen.
