Main idea: Live with faith in God, and hope in His promises while death still reigns.
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we are going to turn our attention to hearing from God's word. It's a key part of our Sunday morning gathering. Turn to Genesis chapter five, and we're going to read all of Genesis chapter five. It is a genealogy. It's a genealogy, and you're going to have a part in the genealogy. But before, before we do that, let me talk to you about why genealogies are really important and what to look for. First of all, God has an eternal plan. We heard it in Scripture reading he he implements His eternal plan through people that have names. You don't always know the names. You don't know what went on the lives of people. But over and over, throughout the Bible, there is a record of names, and God has a record of your name. There is a book with your name in it. If you're a follower of Christ, it's the Lambs Book of Life. So God loves people and they have names. The second thing is, a lot of times when you're reading a genealogy. There's a little comment made. It's like something you'd highlight that's interesting. Notice this as we go through Genesis five. Here's your part you're going to read with me every time it says and he died. Seems kind of funny, but it's kind of the point. That's why it's funny. Long life, yet death reigned until Jesus came to overturn it. Genesis, five, verse one. This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, He made Him in the likeness of God, male and female. He created them and blessed them and named them man when they were when they were created, when Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died when Seth had lived 105 years. He fathered Enosh. Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died when Enosh had lived 90 years. He fathered Kenan. Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died when Canaan had lived 70 years he fathered Mahalo. Kenan lived after he fathered mahalo 840 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Canaan were 910 years and he died. Mahalo lived 65 years after he fathered Jared. Mahalo lived after he fathered Jared 830 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of mahalo were 895 years, and he died when Jared had lived 162 years he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died when Enoch had lived 65 years. He fathered Methuselah. Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Enoch were 365 years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God took him when Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech, not the line, not from the line of Cain another Lamech Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died when Lamech had lived 182 years. He fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands, Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died after Noah was 500 years old. Noah fathered Shem. Ian Ham and Japheth. This is the word of the Lord God. We read a genealogy. We read a record of names and how long men lived and how long they lived after they fathered a son. But it is evident. We read it, we set it together, all but one of these died, and in the record of the Bible, there's only one other that got translated immediately to heaven, that was Elijah. Death has reigned since Adam, and it is only in Jesus Christ that we have a hope. Father. There is much here in a little genealogy, and I pray that you would open our hearts and help us be ready to hear. Help us be ready to live in a way that pleases you in a life where death is a certainty. I pray that You would give us attentive hearts and minds. We pray that you would be at work among us. We pray for the many people who are suffering. I could think of some that are at home with chronic pain, watching watching online. We pray for their comfort. We know that there are some are recovering from surgery, like Marty tornquist, who had hernia surgery last Sunday. At this time, we pray for Brian and Michelle's daughter and son, Keith and Alicia, who are here today, and we pray for future treatment of her brain cancer. Pray that You would help the family settle in, and we pray that You would help the family heal from sickness, Lord, I pray that you would be at work in our church, helping us care for one another well. We pray for churches in our area. I thank you for what you are doing in Aaron badly life through he and Jess Colvin as they're leading the church plant at Princeton Avenue the northwest side of town. Help them be faithful to your word and to shepherding. And now help me do that as we walk through a surprisingly interesting passage in Christ's name amen may be seated. Take this the right way. You don't need me or the Bible to tell you that everybody dies. You already know that it's self evident. But this doesn't mean that people don't try to live forever. They do. You know, there's stories about people looking for the fountain of youth. We watched the Netflix documentary on Brian Johnson. He's the bio hacker, tech millionaire. The title of the documentary was, don't die, and he is devoting his full time attention to mastering the science of longevity, taking every supplement, eating every good things, getting under the right light all the time to avoid aging. I think I've read it. He's hoping to be one of the first people to live to 150 it's, it seems like, like the whole effort. I mean this, I think about this, it's, it seems as delicate as wet rice paper compared to the longevity of the guys in this passage. Great. You're going to try to live 250 methusalah made it in 969 years. I mean trying to live healthy, stretch out your time on Earth's good if you're seeking to honor God while you do it, but it's complete vanity if it is health for health sake. And we have phrases for approaches that are flimsy. We call them fad diets, fad exercise programs, and those kind of things can consume our life like it does. Brian Johnson's what we really need in a in a world, in a life where death is a certainty, is we really need to know how to live. Genesis five is the first chapter in the Bible that does this. If we're taking chapters two and three, three and four, after Adam and Eve sinned, broke God's rules and laws. We have excuse making. In chapter three, we have a brother murdering a brother. In chapter four, we have a man taking vengeance, his own personal vengeance, on somebody who struck him, this other Lamech in the line of Cain, sort of gangster, like vigilante, and the world looks terrible. Chapter Five, yes, you have people who live centuries long, but they still die for. The end of chapter four, we had a glimpse of hope, a glimmer. Josh called it last week of hope. Men calling on the name of the Lord. Chapter Five, we find that death reigns,
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but we also find that God has not ended his promise. We while death reigns, the only long term hope is a life apart from the Fallen body and the Fallen planet in the presence with God in heaven, we're going to see that with Enoch. We know that from the New Testament, that unless Jesus returns first, you're going to die. Try as you might try as you might not to die. It's it's going to happen. But are you truly living? Can you truly live? Do five. Remember, Genesis was written to Israel, about to enter the promised land. The Account provides their history. The Account provides our history, forcing them to recognize God and His purposes. This passage forces us to recognize God and His purposes. What does it mean to truly live? What does it mean to truly live? As we look at the summary of the three major things here that we're going to look at, we need to live with faith in God, hope in His promises while death still reigns. It's this big idea, faith in God, hope in His promises while death still reigns. This is what it really means to truly live. If you look at chapter five, the opening of it says, this is the book of the generations of Adam, and we have a new section, and the generations motif will happen eight more times. That's how the sections of Genesis are laid out. Before we had the generations of the heavens and the earth, what came from them? What came from them was disobedience, brother, killing brother, a vigilante justice and now death. What comes from Adam we're going to find a line of 10 generations, 10 men, their offspring. So what comes from them? As far as genealogies go, there are none more interesting than this, and there might be some that are more important, the genealogies of Jesus in Matthew one and Luke three, they might be more important. But this one's interesting. 969 years you just think of a little historical perspective. Martin Luther and John Calvin would be middle aged right now. If this was the case, Genghis Khan could still be the Emperor of all of Asia. If this was the like, they could still be like this. It's a long time. Automatically makes it interesting. Pastors always preview the passage to talk about the passage. And Ian says at our pastors meeting, I mean, can you imagine living this long and and I say, Yes, I can imagine. I didn't even finish my statement, and Sayers goes, Look, he gets a new hip and he thinks he's invincible. Which I was like, That's hilarious. I Yeah, because of what Jesus has done, I can imagine living forever. So what we want to think about this long life, and what it really means long life, short life isn't the ultimate issue. It's how we live with God. That's the issue. Kids, you kids in the room. I know there's some kids in the room. Hey, kids right over there. They're sitting here. It might seem like a long way off, but you're gonna die. Do you want to know how to really live? Youth? Our youth, you know they're going to youth group I'm with. They just about have life all figured out. They tell us that all the time,
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death seems like a long way off. You're going to really die. Do you know how to truly live?
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Seniors, some of you feel like death close it's creeping in.
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Are you really living? Truly living? What is truly living? It is living daily with faith in God and hope in His promises, serving his. Purposes in the world. They're right here in this passage. They're right here in this passage. Let's unpack it. How do we live with faith in God, with hope in God's promises so that we would truly serve Him in the world? We're gonna take some of the highlighters here, first of all, take up your privileged charge. Take up your privileged charge when you you truly live, when you seek to live your life, serving and representing God. It's when you're really living. The beginning of chapter five, the creation mandate is restated. We unpacked it in Genesis 126, through 31 the first time we went through it. It's going to show up again in Genesis nine, after the flood and a new covenant with Noah. And here's what's extraordinary, despite the fall into sin, God is still gracious. He's still gracious. He is gracious in giving mankind the role of representing him in the world. Look at 151, when God created man, He made Him in the likeness of God, male and female, He created them, and he blessed them, and he named them, man where they were created, death may reign. For now, sin may seem to have the upper hand, but God's purpose remains. God made man and woman equally in God's likeness. Genesis 126, 31 says that our purpose is to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, exercise dominion, that is rule in God's place in the world, representing him in the world. This is still at play. I just just stop and think for a moment the grace and goodness of God that He has given you a fallen sinner, a role to represent him in the world. It is an amazing privilege, and it's not just representing him, notice the image and likeness language shows up. So what does it mean to be made in the likeness of God? Well, we get some explanation. Verse three, when Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness after his image, and he named him Seth. He had a family resemblance. As all sons and daughters do have a family resemblance. I just Just think about this. After the fall, going forward into the future, you still have the stamp of God on your life, your personhood, your body, you are, in some sense, resembling God. It says that he blessed them, blessed them when we saw Genesis one, and we're going to see blessings throughout the whole of the Bible to bless someone God grants the grace, the power, the energy, to fulfill his commands. A blessing like this is he's going to make his purpose successful, prosperous. There's some sense where this is just astounding. After the fall, God is continuing to carry his purposes through his creatures.
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He takes male and female and he says he names the man
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one race a unity. So here's the question, what are you doing with the purpose God made you for? What are you doing with the purpose God made you for? He made you to represent him in the role that he made you for and in the way he made you to do it. What a joyful privilege. A few of you here have really not stopped to think about why did God put me here? What am I supposed to do? Most of your life has been about what you want for yourself. You're living to make yourself look great. You're living to enjoy things for self. You're living for things that are spoiled or decaying. In just a few years or decades, you're going to stand before Your Creator. You're going to stand before Your Creator as judge, and he is going to ask you, I made you for my purpose. What did you do with it? What did you do with it? So for a few of you here who have never given any thought about God making you to represent him in the world. This is the time to turn from worshiping yourself and your desires. Time to turn to Jesus Christ for forgiveness and a new life to truly live kids. So we got a bunch of kids, kids, you might say right now, look, I'm going to school. I'm doing what my parents tell me. Sometimes they let me play some video games. I'm in sports. I'm in community theater. I mean, that's my life right now. Remember what Josh said last week. We are all, in some sense, a billboard for God on the earth. Are you representing God and what He has called you to do? Do you take thought of representing God in how he has called you to do it? If you are, you're truly living because it's not how long you live, it's how you live. That is really the issue. Teens, singles, you have school, you've got a job, because I have a car and I need to make the car payments. I work out, I go to the gym. I'm in, I'm also in community theater, serving in the church. That's my life right now. It's great. That is your life right now. If you are representing God's grace in the gym, God's grace online, in the classroom or the workplace, you're really living parents. You're probably gonna sit here and say, my job and my kids are my life right now. My job, my kids are my marriage. That's my life right now. But if you're seeking to represent Jesus by your attitude to your kids, bringing the Gospel into all the conversations about the hard things of life, and the conversations about the joyful, easy things in life, you're truly living. You're doing what God's called you to do AARP members. When I was 49 I got just feel like two or three weeks before my birthday, I got my first AARP card. I threw it on the ground and I stomped on it. I said Christian cussed words.
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I didn't really do that, but I'm like, I'm 49 Come on. But now, like, I'm 57 it's like, I want the discounts so you're
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close to your retirement years, you're in your retirement years, deaths, a lot closer than it was when you started your career, your kids, maybe your grandkids. Some social activities, your are your life right now, like, this is my life right now. You, some of you are seeking volunteering at a local school or at the symphony. You're seeking to represent God in the world, and you are really living. I think of our group of retirees who bring lunches to the kids at Willard. They're really living because they're seeking to represent God in the world. If we could jump ahead to the New Testament, we can jump ahead to the New Testament. Couple passages shape this one is the how we're doing it, because there's the what we do. God is always more concerned about how we do it. So if the what you do is shaped by this, from Galatians five patient kind, it's the fruit of the Spirit. It's love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, self control. If the how you're doing is controlled by the Spirit of God, you are living, I could think of First Corinthians 13 with the how you're doing and what you're doing shaped by love, parents, co workers. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable and resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love. Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. If you're if you're seeking the what, out of the motion motive of love and the how out of the control of love, you're really living. And you are imaging God. You are representing God to the world. That's what He made us to do, the image and likeness. So first, take up your privilege, your privileged position, your privileged role. Second, be sober minded. Be sober minded about your life. We're going to take the whole of the section, because there's a big set of lessons about the whole of the section, long life, short life. They are not the most important thing about your life. It's how you're relating to God that matters. If we take the overall view of the chapter, there are some things that should keep us sober. In Genesis chapter two, God set a set of conditions for Adam and Eve. I'm gonna give you everything you need. Be fruitful, multiply, tend the garden, work and keep it. But this tree, tree of the knowledge of good and evil, do not eat it. Day you eat it, you will surely die. In Genesis three, they believed Satan's lie. They ate it and they spiritually died. Genesis chapter five, they literally die. Here it is, you're going to die. It's a consequence of your sin. It's a sober reality. We die because we sin. God keeps His promises. I mean we we love a mom sign. That's what I call him. When, like, you take a scripture verse, you take this little thing and you decorate it on a nice piece of wood or with water color, whatever it is, God keeps His promises. Yeah, if you violate his covenants, he's going to discipline you or kill you. That's not quite true, is it? Dad? I mean, there's a sober minded about, not about this, isn't there? God made good on his promise, and he still does. But that's not the whole of the story. I use the word sober minded because we don't like for most people, the idea is lost on them, but, but you know what? Being drunk is carried away. Somebody gets drunk, they're carried away. They don't control themselves. They're out of control because they've lost all their inhibitions. So there's a phrase that's called sober minded. It's a character quality where you're not prone to get carried away by things. You've not lost control one side or the other. So you don't need to lose control about the despair of death, because God has also promised and keeps his promise about life, the promise about Eve and her offspring as one day, someone would come who would destroy the works of devil, the devil of Satan, and destroy sin, death and guilt, and there would be a restoration of the body and the earth. There is a promise that is alive in this passage. This passage is as much about God keeping alive, that promise as anything. On one hand, we die. On the other hand, God promises life.
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God preserves that promise. Genesis, 45 says the days of Adam after he fathered Seth for 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Adam lived were 930 years and he died. I mean, the lifespan of these pre flood patriarchs seems almost mythical to us. Adam lived to 930 Seth lived to 912, Enosh to 905, Canaan to 910, mahalo 895, Jared 962, and Methuselah, 969, almost 1000 years. I
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mean, it's just, it's a little inconceivable to us. Some credit it to pre flood, glorious atmosphere that didn't allow the sun's violent rays. I don't know. It doesn't say what, why they live that long. Might just as well, because they were really close to at. Him and God had made a perfect world. We know after the flood, mankind's lifespan goes down with mankind's evil right in the middle toward right in the middle. So to speak, we have Enoch. Enoch walked with God, and he was taken at 365 I read that, and I go taken at three. Why does Enoch get the short end of the stick? Because, like, longer, life's supposed to be better, right? But he walked with God and was spared 600 years of life. It sounds like a reward, if you watch it, right? It looks like a reward. I'm packing a minute Lamech, which we'll get to at the end of Seth Lynn prophesied of Noah, and at 182 knowing that he's he could be living another 700 years or 600 years, as somehow prompted by the Spirit of God to say, this is the one who is going to give us rest for our toil. Because la Max life, like everybody's life, was centuries and centuries of toil. It was toil, and so we have two truths. God is faithful to keep his promise, but this life is going to end, and it also has toil. You Moses, who recorded this from the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, penned his own psalm about how we should think about life. Psalm 90. Psalm 90, verse four says, For 1000 years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is passed or as a watch in the night. I can't help but think that he's thinking of these, these patriarchs going even they were just a day compared to the eternal nature of God Almighty, 969, not 1000 there's no God like status for Methuselah, just a man pre flood who lived a long time, but he died. Moses in Psalm 90 says, you know 70, maybe 80, if you're really strong. So his summary statement is this, teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. How do you truly live? Having a heart of wisdom thinking sober mindedly. The best summary in the New Testament by the Apostle Paul is this, because this gives the tension. There's very much a sense where the Christian wants to die and be with Christ, but there also has this pull to really live. Paul says this in 121 Philippians, 121 for to me to live, is Christ like how you truly live. It's in relationship submission to enjoyment of Christ, which is usually going to mean a life of meaningful service and suffering. That is Christ to die is gain, he explains himself, if I'm to live on in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me, like I'm going to be able to serve God and the people that I love. I yet which I shall choose, I cannot tell. I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is depart to be with Christ, for that is far better. But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. So because it's more necessary. I think God's gonna make me live because he loves you, service or delight. I mean, that's your choice. To live is Christ. To die is gain, service or delight, which would I rather have? Not sure. You know, most of us don't get to choose. You don't get to choose. But there's an attitude that's really critical. The right question to ask is, what is defining my life? That's really the right question to ask, is it what I own? Is it what I do? Is it my successes? Is it my failures? Is it my physical condition? The defining question leads to our third point. Am I walking with God? Am I walking with God? This is really the defining issue. Am I walking with God? If you want to truly live in a world where death still reigns, walk with God. Walk with God. Do. Verse 22 we we get this little vignette into the life of Enoch. We know very little about him. Enoch walked with God. Thus all the days of Enoch. Enoch were 365, years. Enoch walked with God, and he was not for God took him. It doesn't say that he died two times walked with God. His reward was an early exit into God's presence, early compared to the others, not early compared to us. So in Genesis, 426, it says that after the degradation, the decline of humanity and the trouble that was in the earth, it says men began to call on the name of the Lord. Josh unpacked it last week. I'll summarize his statement about it. It's worship, worshiping God, exclusive worship. And it's asking him for deliverance. He's the exclusive one to deliver. He is the only place to go to ask for deliverance. Now here we have another vignette. Enoch walks with God. What is a walk with God? There's no explanation here, but let me give you a few things from other parts of Scripture, it's a major theme, especially in the Psalms. First walking with God is traveling through life in obedience to God and His Word. Traveling through life in obedience to God and His Word Psalm, one, one and two said, Blessed is the man who walks is his way of life, not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on His law he meditates day and night, to walk with God is to live in regular thinking about God's word, a commitment to obeying God and worshiping God. But this walking gives you this idea of traveling, and it becomes a word picture, so to speak, Christians ask other Christians, how's your walk going? Meaning, how are you relating to God? How are you hearing from his word? How are you pouring your heart out in prayer? I'll get to that in a second. Second. First is traveling through life with God in obedience to Him and His Word. Second, it's consistent. It's consistent. A Walk is a consistent pattern of life, because the word picture in the Bible, especially starting in the Old Testament, moving to the New Testament, that goes along with it, is path. So a walk with God is on paths. What are paths? If you've ever seen a game trail, we have them in our neighborhood, where you see a game trail where the deer or the various animals use it consistently, and it's hard, nothing grows on it. You know what a road looks like. Nothing grows on it. A hard path where, just because it's so consistent, it is, is marked out. Ian, the path is a well worn place of travel. God is concerned about your paths. How you travel? Psalm 139, three says you search out my path and my Lynn down my routines. A walk with God. Is traveling through life in obedience to God's word, meditating on it. It's consistent. Third, it is a communion with God. There's the other side. We commune with God when we read His word and we think about it. That's how he talks to us. We talk to him by ongoing conversation from the heart, ongoing conversation from the heart. Sometimes we sum it up as prayer, but sometimes you're specifically praying, and sometimes you're just conscious that the Lord is near. He's always near. It's an ongoing conversation of the heart, communion with God. Fourth, it seeks to be pleasing to God or worthy. Seeks to be pleasing or worthy. We get this in the New Testament about walking. The apostle Paul uses the walk metaphor as the characteristic of your life
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multiple times. He uses this passage in Ephesians chapter four, one of my favorites, after three chapters of talking about all the blessings of the grace of God and what He has done in a Christian's life, in their personal life, and in the church that they belong to. After this, he says, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. So this worthy idea is here's what you have been. Given by God's grace. And here's how you match up to it by your life. It's the appropriate response to the great grace of God. It's not out of balance. I mean, here's the grace, but my, you know, here's the great grace, but my life is like this. No, it's, it's something that corresponds, walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called. Enoch walked with God and appears he has a special reward. He's translated right into the presence of God. Only the prophet Elijah will do the same.
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The Holy Spirit, though, left this here for us as a hope for future relationship of those who walk with God, those who have faith in Him, trusting him in an ongoing way. And what's critical to remember is the better life, the better life is in the presence of God. This can be a good life, blessed by God. It will always have some toil. The Better Life is in the presence of God, if we fast forwarded to the New Testament, to Jesus, death for our sin, His resurrection to prove the payment, we find out that there is a real new life, a body coming. There is a resurrection coming, if he returns. There is a catching up to him, a taking up to him, so to speak. Some here may escape the physical death and be like Enoch, but unless Jesus returns, you're going to be like the rest in the list nine of 10, they all go the natural way of death, continuing your charge. Be sober minded about life. Walk with God. You're gonna truly live finally, hope in the promise of rest. Hope in the promise of rest. In a world where death seems to rain and toil seems to be the norm of the day, remember that God keeps His promises. There is a future rest coming related to His Son, Jesus, Christ. Our ultimate rest is not really in a circumstance, but a relationship with Christ. That relationship with Christ is right, then the circumstance will be transformed. Verse 28 says, When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son, and he called his name Noah, saying, out of the ground that the Lord has cursed this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands, out of the dust of Earth. Adam came out of the stuff of the earth. Our bodies are made. It's a cursed Earth, and it's a cursed body.
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Is there rest from the toil of this earth? Yes, Noah means rest. So is this a prophecy, or is it a wish? It is significant here and all the way out to the rest of Genesis. When a character names something, it is theologically significant when a character names a place, it's theologically significant. When a character names a person, it is theologically significant. And this is theologically significant. There is Noah, the one of rest. At first, you could read it and think, well, it must have been a wish, because what happened with Noah? A worldwide cataclysmic flood in which everybody but Noah, his wife, his sons and their wives died all the planet, but eight died. That's the rest.
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No, Noah is the one who will carry the seed promise, the descendant that's going to lead to Jesus. Noah is going to do that. He's got a special role he is going to be uniquely preserved, so that God's promise of redeeming a people for Himself, restoring the heavens and the earth, will come true, promises fulfilled in Christ Ian. Yeah. And until Jesus died for our sins and rose from the dead, it looked like death might always win. There were promises of resurrection in the Old Testament. Something here about Enoch, like, you know, some people walk with God, and they go to be in God's presence. God takes them. There's some light. But until Jesus rose from the dead. Those were all hopes. These are realities. Because Jesus has risen from the dead. We have the down payment that we will rise from the dead, and there is this to trust in. I mean, to me, it's an awesome reality. It's just a profound reality. Enoch walked with God. He did not die. Jesus walked with God more completely, more perfectly than Enoch ever did, and he was killed on our behalf so that we could live. Jesus himself died. He wasn't translated like Enoch. Nobody walked better than Jesus. Nobody was more obedient than Jesus now is to fulfill this promise, to give us rest. When Jesus returns, he's going to resurrect. He will judge, he will restore the creation itself. Lamech, who's like, he lives nine. I think he's got 777 years. He got an early out too the year before the flood. If we add up the time, at 777, he was looking for the really from the toilet this life. And we are too. You are too. If you want to be in heaven instead of suffering here on Earth, you're you're right on track with, with, with Lamech. Here's a promise as we finish the Testaments. Jesus good friends lot. His good friend Lazarus dies. He shows up late. Lazarus. Sisters are upset with Jesus. If you would have been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died, because we know you can heal people. Jesus is doing this for a point. He looks he says, I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live? And everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Now here's this glorious promise. Do you believe this?
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Martha said, I believe Do you believe this? This is not how long you live that's the issue.
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It's how you live and who your faith and hope is. In the writer of Hebrews says that we must keep trusting Christ, demonstrate that our faith is active and enduring. So Hebrews 411 says, Let us therefore Strive to enter that rest, so that no one may fall by some sort of disobedience. Keep hoping in Jesus. Keep trusting in Jesus. My year life verse. I normally don't like life verses, but I want this one to be my life verse this year, Colossians, 34 When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with Him in glory. You will have your rest seeing him. Let's recap. I think if you, if you reverse the order here, you'd have a really good sense of how this works out, starting with hoping in Jesus Christ, the ultimate answer to La mix prophecy, by his death, by His resurrection, He paid the price for your sin and my sin, and when we are in His presence, we will finally achieve our rest hope in Him, out of the hope in Him, we are now driven to a walk with God, the One who has loved us, died for us, risen for us, promises to come and take us, gives us all the motivation to draw near to Him and walk with Him. Ongoing conversation, meditation on his word, confession of sin, obedience to His will, walk with God. Sober mindedness about life, not how long you live that matters, it's how you live. Relationship with God that matters. God's going to keep his promise and continue in your charge. If you've trusted Christ, you're in a role. You want to be doing what God's called you to do, and you want to be doing it how he has called you to do it. I find that life as it goes through its various seasons, requires adjustments of the dial. Different Seasons require different focus. So getting wisdom about it from others, praying for his guidance, applying the gospel to your life, making the adjustment adjustments and how remember that clinging to Jesus will also produce the fruit of the Spirit. And today we have the New Testament version of the Creation mandate, which is go into all the nations and make disciples. It's being fruitful and multiply. Remember Brian Johnson, the don't die guy is trying to he's giving his life to the study of longevity, but it won't ultimately help. You can live 900 years and you will still die. You okay,
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you can live 100 years, you'll still die. Do you live with faith and hope in God? Let's pray,
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Father, thank You for a genealogy, a genealogy that has really helpful highlights we see you and your glory and your grace. Help us be faithful. Help us be faithful. God, in living this life that you have given us, we find even a genealogy in Genesis, Genesis to be practical enough. Now may we carry these truths in our hearts, giving glory to you Christ's name. Amen.
Dr. Dan Jarms is teaching pastor and team leader at Faith Bible Church in Spokane Washington, as well as associate dean at The Master's Seminary in Spokane. He has been married for over 30 years to Linda, and has three adult children. He earned his B.A. in English at the Master’s College, B.Ed. at Eastern Washington University, M.Div and D.Min in Expository Preaching at The Master’s Seminary. His other interests include NCAA basketball, woodworking, and art.
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