Heroes: The Life of Adam
Notes
Transcript
Somebody tell me who your hero is
why?
My hero is…
We are going to start a series talking about some Old Testament heroes and what made them heroes.
Is newer always better?
no of course not, but a lot of the time it is.
When we were in high school, Abbie had a 2002 or 2004 ford explorer that was named Dora and it was a pretty good car for the most part. But at one point it started to just rumble and shake for a minute or two while driving and then it would just die, the electric seats stopped working, one of the windows stopped rolling up, it would just fall down, the paneling on the inside was falling off and falling apart, mainly because it was just getting old.
When we moved to Alabama God actually blessed us with a car, it was free to us, a 2011 or 2012 mercury mariner, a good car nothing wrong with it, and it’s so much better to have that new car it’s more reliable, doesn’t die randomly when you drive it, it’s not falling apart on the inside, its just better to have this new version.
Of course we have to start with Adam, right. He is the literal OG. And then we’re going to talk about how Christ is the new Adam.
1. The Characteristics of the Old Adam
1. The Characteristics of the Old Adam
Quick Facts about Adam
— First person ever
— The name Adam means “man”
— He was created from the Earth
— He was created on the sixth day
— He named all the animals
— He was the first human to talk with God
— He was the first husband and father
— He was not the first person to sin
— He lived to be 930 years old
— He had three children
But of course he is most recognized for being the first human ever, the father of the human race. Let’s read about it
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
And God said, Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat. And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And the Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
And the Lord God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. And out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever Adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him. And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man. Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
— And we know the rest of the story… *Explain fall of man*
We were in the garden. Everything was perfect. There were no problems and no issues, and we still messed it up. We, as humans, had perfect, meaningful and intimate fellowship with God. We were given one rule, and we couldn’t simply obey that one little rule.
Why did we break that rule? Why did Adam and Eve fall into that sin?
They were tempted by the Serpent.
The Devil was the actual first person to commit a sin. It was the sin of pride.
How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning!
How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!
For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven,
I will exalt my throne above the stars of God:
I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north:
I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High.
So why did they fall to the temptation of Satan?
They allowed themselves to go near what God had never intended for them to go near.
I didn’t want to say that they allowed themselves to get near to what God commanded them not to go near to, because God did not command them to not go near it, he only commanded them to not eat it.
This is what standards are for.
So this is just a sidenote, we’re gonna talk about standards for a second and how they can be a healthy tool when applied correctly, but they can also be an unhealthy detriment when applied wrongly.
God didn’t say don’t go near it or don’t touch it, and even Eve got her standards confused with God’s commands. She said God had commanded them not to touch it, but He didn’t, He only commanded them to not eat it.
So what’s a standard.
A standard is a guardrail that you put in place to keep yourself from sinning.
Eve had the standard of since we aren’t supposed to eat this fruit, I’m not even going to touch it, but she was still tempted. The Devil’s temptations were stronger than her will power.
But if she would have known what would happen because of this, if she would have known the extent of this sin curse and death, she would have had higher standards. Not only would she still say she shouldn’t touch it, she wouldn’t have even gone near that tree.
It’s like alcohol. There’s not an explicit command in the Bible to not drink alcohol. Jesus turned water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Paul tells Timothy to drink a little wine when hes sick to help his stomach. Pretty much everybody back then drank wine because there wasn’t easy access to clean water and the alcohol level in their wine wasn’t near as high as it is today.
But the Bible does say that drinking alcohol is dangerous and unwise, and that drunkeness is a sin.
Proverbs 4:7 tells us
Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom:
And with all thy getting get understanding.
So since wisdom is the principal thing in life i should be striving for, and drinking alcohol can be unwise, then I’m not even going to consider it. I want to stay as far away from sin as possible, and if drunkeness is a sin, then there is no reason for me to even consider drinking. I’ve seen how this sin of drunkeness can destroy lives, it destroyed my life, my dads life, and my moms life.
So never touching alcohol and never drinking is a standard that we put in place to keep us from getting drunk, or sinning.
And honestly today, I see no reason for a Christian to drink any alcohol for any reason. We have plenty of other drinks and medicines to choose from.
So standards are guardrails that you put in place to keep yourself from sinning.
But just because someone does not have the same standards as you, does not mean that they are living in sin.
Some people prefer to wear shorts and skirts down below their knees, which is awesome, that’s perfectly fine. But that doesn’t mean someone who wears shorts above the knee is sinning, right? does that make sense?
Someone turn to Ephesians 4 27
Listen to this verse, we’ve talked about it before
Neither give place to the devil.
explain^
Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:
explain^
So eve had her standard of not touching the fruit (a perfectly fine standard) she had that confused with God’s command of not eating the fruit.
And then she ate the fruit and even convinced her husband to eat the fruit.
So because of this fall of the human race into sin, we no longer had perfect fellowship with God, now there’s new rules.
a) Obedience resulted in communion
— They worked toward God
The Old Testament is filled with rules and regulations that the Jews had to follow. They thought that if they followed all of these rules that they would earn God’s favor. They were given 613 commandments to follow. So it went from one rule in the garden to 613 rules.
So they worked and worked and worked but it was never enough. They could never keep all the rules. It was impossible to keep all 613 commandments.
The purpose of the Law, or these 613 commandments was not to save them, it was to show that they needed saving, because they obviously couldn’t follow all of these laws.
O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that ye should not obey the truth, before whose eyes Jesus Christ hath been evidently set forth, crucified among you? This only would I learn of you, Received ye the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect by the flesh? Have ye suffered so many things in vain? if it be yet in vain. He therefore that ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you, doeth he it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.
Wherefore the law was our schoolmaster to bring us unto Christ, that we might be justified by faith. But after that faith is come, we are no longer under a schoolmaster. For ye are all the children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.
Explain all verses ^
— can promote legalism
So the Law was to show them that they were imperfect people trying to save themselves. This known as legalism. Legalism is when we add anything to salvation other than by grace through faith. If you’re doing works to try to save yourself like the Jews did, then you’re committing legalism.
And since salvation also encompasses sanctification, which is the ongoing process of being molded into the image of Christ, then legalism can also be applied to sanctification as well. If I am trying to be more like Christ and sanctify myself by doing good things, without the work of continual grace and faith on the inside, then I am committing legalism.
The only way that I am molded into the image of Christ is by grace through faith, and to add anything else to that is legalism.
b) Under the old Adam, Disobedience resulted in wrath
— punishment of death
Because of sin, their punishment was the same as today. Death. Except they used lambs to take their place, it was their sacrifice.
They were separated from God when they would not sacrifice their lamb by faith. (maybe explain)
c) Under the Old Adam, there was a Lack of Satisfaction
— it can lead to trying to satisfy yourself with other things
explain
— can lead to trying to satisfy God with other ways
explain
d) Waiting for the Messiah
Somebody read Genesis 3:15
This is the first prophecy of the coming messiah to redeem man. And the Jews were expecting Him from that point on and even today those Jews who do not know Christ are still expecting the messiah to come.
So we looked at the characteristics of the Old adam, lets look at the characteristics of the new adam.
2. The Characteristics of the New Adam
2. The Characteristics of the New Adam
a) Communion results in Obedience
Under the old adam, our obedience resulted in communion and fellowship with God, but under the new Adam, our fellowship with God results in obedience
explain
b) Disobedience results in wrath
When humans disobeyed in the Old Testament, they had to face God’s wrath, but now under the New Adam, or Christ, he took that for us.
— on Christ
God’s wrath, punishment, and justice for your sins had to be fulfilled somehow, and so Christ willingly took that wrath upon himself so that you wouldn’t have to.
When you sin, if you’re a Christian, you do not have to feel shameful, Christ already took all that guilt and shame on the cross for you.
What you should feel is conviction, but only temporarily. when you feel that conviction for the sins you committed you are then to confess them and forsake them, or repent, as were commanded to in 1 John 1:9.
c) Completely Satisfied
God is completely satisfied with us, because when He looks at us He sees Christ’s righteousness.
AND, we can be completely satisfied with Him, whenever we don’t feel satisfied, it is because we have an unhealthy desire, wanting something else more than we want Christ.
d) Expecting the return of the Messiah
Under the old adam, Humans were waiting for the messiah to come.
Now under Christ, we are waiting for His imminent return. He could come back for us any day and it will happen in the blink of an eye.
So heres a verse that sort of encompasses this whole message
And so it is written, The first man Adam was made a living soul; the last Adam was made a quickening spirit.
So the first adam was made to be given a soul, but the last Adam came to give the spirit, to save us.
So Adam was a hero because he was the father of the human race, but his purpose was actually to introduce us to the real hero, the last Adam, Jesus Christ.
Questions to Consider:
Are there any sins in my life that the Devil constantly tempts me to?
2. Do I have any standards in my life? Do I need to set up any guardrails in any particular area?
(For example, if the devil tempts you late at night to look at pornography on your phone, it would be a good idea to set up a guardrail by maybe giving your phone to your parents at night so you can’t even be tempted)
3.. Am I living like the old Adam, trying to earn favor with God by doing good deeds, or am I living like the new Adam realizing that I am already favored and accepted?
4. Do I live life with the constant expectation of Christ’s return? If I knew He was coming back tomorrow, how would I live today?