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Good evening. It's good to be with you all. It's been a great lord's day today. I've been encouraged by your singing, by your prayers, and the thoughts we've had at the table. The other preaching from Reagan we've heard this morning as well.

It's been a great day. Very hot day, but still a really good day nonetheless. And we wanna continue that on this evening. And I'm doing what Reagan did last Sunday night. We're me...

Harold's already spoken. Reagan's going this week, and then I'm going another couple weeks to stalling. So... And they're doing a summer series on the book of Genesis. And so I'm gonna trial run my lesson for that...

For you guys because I think y'all probably a little bit more forgiving since y'all know me a little bit better. So not that stalling should not be forgiving, but you guys can put up with my intricacies a little bit better. And tonight, this lesson is a little bit different because it's titled finding Jesus in Genesis. That was the prompt I was giving for this summer. And that's really what I wanna do this evening.

And, you know, finding Jesus in Genesis, if you're well acquainted with the scriptures, that's not really a hard thing to do. Right? Because he's everywhere. But Genesis introduces so many different types, so many representative people or events that ultimately that really are anticipate anticipate their ultimate fulfillment in the Messiah, Jesus. And Jesus, as we read just a moment ago, as John led for us in John chapter five, he says, is it they, the scriptures that bear witness about me?

And he also goes on to say that Moses wrote of him. And likewise, he goes on to say in Luke 24 that everything written about him in the law of Moses must be fulfilled. So finding Jesus in Genesis is a easy thing. Jesus tells us, hey. Go look for me in the law of Moses.

Go find me in those scriptures. It's not a hard thing to do. But preach a sermon on a topic, the challenge is really about what not to include. Right? There's...

We could be up here... I could be up here for hours talking about Jesus in Genesis. But still wanting to find him in as many places as we can, and we won't even touch on every single one because you'll probably be like, why didn't you talk about Melchizedek? I know. I wanna talk about him.

I couldn't fit him in. But I want you... Tonight, I really wanna do is I wanna tell the story of Genesis, but I wanna allow the words of the New Testament authors to narrate the story for us. So tonight, I'm gonna ask you to keep your Bibles closed. You got them open, shut them.

I know normally the first thing I say up when I get up here is, like, open up your Bibles and turn and tonight I'm gonna tell you shut them. Alright? But I want to... I have all the scripture references on on the screen at the PowerPoint. Black background will be a Old Testament reference, obviously.

Green will be a New Testament as you'll see the citations there. I really want you to listen tonight as if you're hearing a story and hearing it for the first time, as if you're hearing the story of Genesis for the first time. Because tonight, again, Jesus invites us to find him in Genesis just as he does the other scriptures. And as we open the scriptures together tonight, well, I hope that like the disciples on the road to Emmaus, I hope that each and every one of us at our heart will... Our hearts will burn within us.

So let's count again. Before we jump into the story that we're telling, let's look at a little bird's eye view of the book of Genesis. I'm sure you're already familiar with Genesis, of course, to be in the first book in our Bibles, but it's a really neat and tidy structure. On the one hand, you could really say Genesis is divided into two parts. On the one hand, the first 11 chapters really cover the primordial or kinda ancient human history, whereas chapters 12 through 50 begin to introduce the family of Abraham who who we kinda know as the patriarchs, the ones through whom god will bring redemption to the world.

But Genesis really provides a trajectory not only, you know, the story of Genesis provides a trajectory really of the entire biblical story. As we'll follow along tonight, Jesus' story really consists of three major movements, creation, the fall or the rebellion of humanity, and the promise of redemption. And that really sets the biblical supply kind of in motion, and it helps us anticipate Jesus. But to find Jesus tonight, we're gonna really try to focus on these three movements. So keep your eyes on the screen, ears open, try to follow along with me.

I've got 53 slides tonight, so it'll be a lot. They'll be moving fast. Don't worry. I was under thirty minutes, but now I'm gabbing, so it'll probably be longer than thirty minutes. So here we go.

Let's jump into it. Hebrew Bible, Genesis is titled by the first word, in the beginning. A story of Genesis really begins before any other story. It's the story that begins at the creation of the world. But even here in creation, we can find Jesus as the preexistent word.

In Genesis chapter one and verse one says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And as the apostle John spoke, he tells us God was not alone here. He says in the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. He was in the beginning with God. And as the holy spirit hovered over those primordial waters, God spoke through the preexistent word, the one through whom also God created the world who upholds the universe by the word of his power.

As the apostle Paul says, through this word, all things were created in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible. Whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities, all things were created through him and for him, and he is before all things. And in him, all things hold together. And together, the father, the son, and the spirit brought creation into existence in six days. And on the seventh day, God finished his work that he had done, and he rested.

But in all of the six days of creation, God's most glorious creation was humanity from whom God said in Genesis chapter one, let us make man in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over all the earth. So God created man in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them. Humanity was placed by God in the Garden of Eden to work and to keep it.

And God put everything in subjection to him, and he left nothing outside his control. Yet he left only one command saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die. From then on, human... Humanity lived in blessed communion with God.

God blessed them saying, be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth and subdue it and have dominion. This blessed communion that God was in with humanity and creation was very short lived as we begin to read on in the biblical story. Because in chapter three, Genesis' story shifts immediately from humanity's exaltation in creation to their rebellion and their demise. Because humanity rebels. And before we know anything really about Adam and Eve and the life that they live, we're introduced to Satan, the serpent, the great dragon, that ancient serpent who is called the devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world.

And he led them to rebel against their creator because the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning. And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to the eyes and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate and she also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate. And as we know, their eyes were opened knowing good and evil. But man and woman realizing their sin, they go and they hide. They hide from god's presence, and god walks through the garden and he finds them.

And, ultimately, we know that they're cursed and they're exiled from the garden of god. And, therefore, the image of god was marred, and humanity's dominion was later abused. And yet, God did not abandon his good creation or humanity. Even in the curses placed upon them, we see a promise. Before men and women were taken from the garden, before they made any attempt to rectify their sin, by God's grace, God promised, I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring.

He shall bruise your head, the serpent, and you shall bruise his heel. Early on, the book of Genesis calls us to look for Eve's promised offspring, to look for her seed. And as the New Testament tells us, the seed came when the fullness of time would... Had come. The god sent forth his son born of woman.

He was the one who came for the purpose to destroy the works of the devil so that the god of peace would crush Satan under the feet of his people. But who would this son of Adam be? Who was gonna... Who who is this individual going to be, and how is he going to restore humanity's lost image? Eve's promised son came, as we know, when the word became flesh and dwelt among us.

We have seen his glory, glory as of the only son from the father, full of grace and truth. The very preexistent word we met back in Genesis chapter one that was present in creation to humanity's surprise took on human flesh. And so we know the word, this promised child, by the name Jesus, the Christ. And though man had not upheld his calling as bearing God's image, Jesus came in divine human form as the image of the invisible God. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature.

And just as God said on day one of creation, let lie... Light shine out of darkness. God has shown in our hearts to give the light to the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. And where there was death through the first Adam, in the new Adam, there would be life. As Paul says in Romans chapter five, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

For as by the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience, the many will be made righteous. And all who would repent, we know would be conformed now to the image of this son, the son of God. They would be formed in the same image from one degree of glory to another just as he had been. And so, therefore, just as we have been born of the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven. And then the promised seed of woman in Jesus Christ, humanity's status as image bearers of God has been restored.

He has shown us what it truly means to be human. But that restoration is still a long way off in our story in Genesis. In the meantime, as humanity continued to multiply numerically, so did their corruption. Therefore, reigned in death. We already saw it in Adam and Eve.

We'll come back to them. Not only was the relationship between God and humanity broken, but so was it between man and woman. While the two were meant to be one flesh as Genesis chapter two ends, now the woman's desire would be contrary to her husband and man would rule over her. But even the broken relationship of man and... Between man and woman ultimately calls us to anticipate its restoration.

Jesus would be the bridegroom who comes to retake his lost bride. As Paul says, the institution of marriage news of the gospel. He says this mystery of the of marriage is profound and I'm saying that it refers to Christ in the church. That though the bride had run off, Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her so that the relationship that was broken might be restored. As the story continues from here, maybe we think, well, what about Cain and Abel?

Will will one of them be the promised seed of evil? Will they be the ones through which the world will experience salvation redemption? Well, unfortunately, like their parents, their son's relationship was broken when Cain killed his brother Abel. And Abel's blood cried to God from the ground. But like Abel, Jesus would be the righteous martyr whose blood speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

Because though Abel's blood cried out for justice, Jesus' blood replies with salvation. But the world continued to become increasingly more corrupt even after Cain's murder of Abel so that it gets to a point in Genesis chapter six that every intention of the thoughts of humanity's heart was only evil continually. Therefore, God said, I have determined to make an end of all flesh for the earth is filled with violence through them. Behold, I will destroy them with the earth. But even in God's chaotic watery judgment over rebellious humanity, we still see Jesus even here.

For god had found favor in one man, a man named Noah, and he told him, make yourself an ark of gopher wood. He promised him, I'll establish my covenant with you and you shall come into the ark, you, your sons, your wife, and your son's wives with you. And while God ultimately desired to purge his creation, he wouldn't allow judgment to be the last word of his story, but new creation. And as Peter speaks to the early church, God delivered that ultimate deliverance through Jesus Christ and offers that power to us in baptism.

When he says, God's patience waited in the days of Noah while the ark was being prepared in which a few, that is eight persons, were brought safely through water. Baptism, which corresponds to this now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body, but as an appeal to God for a good conscience through the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And so just as the... Noah and his family passed through death into life in the ark, so do we pass from death into life through Jesus' resurrection power received in baptism. You might think after the slate of creation is wiped clean and God starts over a new creation with a new family, we might think, well, now is the time.

Maybe the seed will come. Maybe things will be put right. But even still, if humanity multiplies, once again, God's recreation of world we see didn't stop humanity's sin because Noah's family ultimately failed too. And rather than allowing God to fashion them in his image, humanity rebelled saying, come, let us build ourselves a city and tower with its tops in the heavens, and let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be dispersed over the face of the whole earth. See, they not only spurned God's image for their own, but they defied the divine command to multiply over the earth.

And therefore, we see God confused their language, so the Lord dispersed them from there over the face of all the earth, and they left off building the city. But as the biblical witness goes on to show, that God would ultimately regather a diverse new humanity, not under some shared arrogance or language, but under one head beginning first in Jerusalem on Pentecost in Acts chapter two, but also ultimately at the end of the age. As the prophet John foresaw, there will be a great multitude from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages who will stand before the throne and before the lamb crying out with a loud voice, salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne and to the lamb. And even though they're all singing and speaking these words in different languages, these saints, these redeemed humans are united in Christ. That gets us to the first half of the book.

What about the second half? The promise of redemption. Well, this point, Genesis' story, we've we've talked a lot about seeing Jesus already in these early parts. But if you read Genesis alone, his... God's ultimate plan of salvation, it still remains hidden.

But his plan to redeem humanity is soon to start unfolding. It's gonna unfold through one family, through the family of Abraham. And as God elected and called Abraham from Ur of the Chaldeans, he's given a great promise, promises of a great land, a great nation. But, of course, because of the promise given to Eve earlier in Genesis three, the final promise he's given calls back our hope for the promised son of Eve. God promises, I will bless those who bless you.

In him who dishonors you, I will curse. And in you, all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. Later, God would specify that Abraham's blessing would come through an heir saying, in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed. But Abram and his wife, Sarah, they were they were really old. How are they gonna have any offspring?

And despite the physical challenges and the moments of doubt they encounter through their story, Abram continued to believe the Lord and god counted it to him as righteousness. And so like Abraham soon to be named Abraham, we wait with bated breath for the arrival of his heir. But as Paul taught the Galatians, that very seed would come in the person of Christ, saying now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say into offsprings referring to many, but referring to one, and to your offspring who is Christ. Therefore, he goes on to say, and if you are Christ, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise.

So consequently, though many, if not all of us here in this building tonight are not Abraham's children by blood, we are his sons and we are his daughters through faith in Christ. But as the story continues, we come not only to Abraham but to his son, Isaac, that that promised heir that he had so long desired. And now we start to think again, will Isaac be the one? After all, Isaac is Abraham's son, his only son whom he loved. And while Isaac is a fulfillment of God's promises and he is Abraham's heir, really in the story, Isaac is kind of a blip.

He's a blip in the story. He's here and then he's gone. He's very passive when he is in the story. He's not gonna be the one who saves humanity. However, he still points us to God's own beloved son with whom he is well pleased.

Like Isaac, Jesus ascended the Mountains Of Moriah to be sacrificed in Isaac and all humanity's place. He carried the wood of the cross on his back to Golgotha outside of Jerusalem, but there was no lamb at this point to replace him. There was no ram caught in the thorns because he was the lamb of God who would take away the sins of the world. God did not withhold his son, his only son from us. Instead, like the ram caught in the thorns, Jesus headed to the cross as the Romans twisted together a crown of thorns and placed it upon his head.

But though Jesus died, even if Abraham believed of his own son, so do we believe that God was able to raise even Jesus from the dead. So Isaac comes and he goes, very passive character in the story, but his son Jacob is very different. He's incredibly active in his story. You might think, will it be Jacob? It doesn't take long to read Jacob's story.

In fact, his birth story. We already find out really early on. He's a heel. He's a trickster. He plays people to get what he wants.

He stole his brother's birthright. He took his father's blessing away from his brother, Esau. Jacob's story really is as complex as as as he is himself, and his name change really says it all. Says your name shall no longer be called Jacob but Israel, which means he strives with God. For you have striven with God and with men and have prevailed.

But even though Jacob may not be the one we're looking for, nonetheless, we still see Jesus and Jacob's story twice, it seems, and maybe more, but early in his life and also at the end as well. We see him first in Jesus'... See Jesus in Jacob's dream at Bethel, a place which name means the house of God. Here, Jacob dreams of a ladder that's set up on the earth whose top reached to heaven. And as Jesus proclaimed, he would later say that he is that ladder.

Truly, truly, I say to you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the son of man. Jesus is that divine and human tabernacle, that temple. He is the house of God in human form. He is the focal point between heaven and earth. As Jesus would say of himself, he said, I am the way, the truth, and the life.

No one comes to the father except through me. But likewise, in... As Jacob's story continues to unfold, another very vivid image that we can identify with Jesus is the lion of Judah. We hear Jesus in the promise that Jacob gives to his sons. God, of course, extended the promise that he had given to Abraham that the king shall come from him to Jacob himself, and Jacob receives this promise the second time when he...

When God reappears to him at the same place he saw the ladder, and then that's... That place of Bethel, the house of God. And God tells him there in chapter thirty five and ten through 12. He says, I am God almighty. Be fruitful and multiply.

A nation and a company of nations shall come from you, and kings shall come from your body. The land that I gave to Abraham and Isaac, I will give to you, and I will give the land to your offspring after you. So Jesus now... Genesis now, it doesn't just cause to expect just a seed, but it calls us to expect a royal seed, to expect a king, one from the tribe of Judah. At the end of his life, Jacob blesses his son Judah and he tells him, the scepter shall not depart from Judah nor the ruler staff from between his feet until the tribute comes to him, and to him shall be the obedience of the peoples.

And being Judah's descent or ancestor, descendant, excuse me, Jesus had the rightful claim to his throne. And as John said, he is the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David. So Jacob isn't who we're looking for, but his interactions with God at Bethel point us to Jesus. He's the one who makes a way for us to God. He is the Judahite king whose rule will never end and receives tribute and obedience from all the nations.

And then lastly, as Genesis starts to come to a close, several chapters are spent on another one of Jacob's sons, Joseph, as we know. And Joseph, we might think, maybe he's the seed because Joseph is about a pious dude as you find in scriptures. He's a wise man, and he gained vast power through the spirit of God that was at work within him. But at the end of the book of Genesis, at the end of Joseph's story and Genesis's story is that Reagan talked about last week, He lies dead in a tomb at Egypt. He lived for a hundred ten years.

He still died, and he was embalmed in Egypt. Salvation for humanity was still yet to come. But even Joseph, as great as he was, he was still a signpost to something greater. And while there's no direct New Testament quotations linking him to Jesus, Joseph's story allegorically, it parallels Jesus' own repeatedly. Because like Joseph, Jesus was the one whom his father loved.

But his brothers, the sons of Israel, they hated him and cannot speak peacefully to him. And therefore, though he had been sent to his brothers, they conspired to kill him, and they sold him for a few pieces of silver. Later, he would stand before a pagan ruler as Joseph did. He would be stripped of his clothes. He would be falsely accused, and he would be condemned for crimes he didn't commit.

And nevertheless, though he descended down into a pit, God was with him and rescued him out of all his afflictions so that he arose to be exalted at the right hand of God, being given all authority in heaven and on earth. And very much like Joseph's brothers, we come before king Jesus pleading, please forgive the transgression of your brothers and their sin because they did evil to you. And in mercy, Jesus forgives our trespasses, speaking these kind and comforting words to us saying, as for you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good to bring it about that many people should be kept alive as they are today. So do not fear, I will provide for you. Jacob saved his family from famine, but Jesus saved the family of humanity from sin, death, and Satan's slavery.

So after examining all these figures, all these different people, we repeatedly ask at different points, and this is what Genesis is calling us to do as we read. Will it be Adam? Will it be Abel? Will it be Cain? Will it be Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Judah, Joseph?

Will it be any of these people? We never find the answer within the covers, the book of Genesis. But as we pointed out, Genesis is always looking beyond the borders of its own story. And that's because, really, Genesis is the beginning of a much greater and larger story that leads us to the one that is Jesus Christ. We mentioned earlier that the book Genesis and the Old Testament scriptures, the Hebrew scriptures, they named the book Genesis after its first word first word that appears in the book.

They did that with a lot of the different books in the Old Testament. And so Genesis was named Barasheet, the first word in Genesis, meaning in the beginning. But when the Greek Old Testament started translating the Hebrew scriptures into Greek, it gave it another fitting name. It gave it the name Genesis from the Greek word, meaning birth or descent or origin. And when we come to the very first book in our canon or in the New Testament, Matthew, it begins with these words, the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham, the book of the genealogy.

It's the same word that's used in the Septuagint for Genesis. But in other words, Matthew's gospel two titles itself almost as a Genesis of Jesus, the beginning, the birth, the origin of the long awaited heir of David and son of Abraham. So the book of Genesis, it sets the biblical plot in motion, but it calls us really to anticipate a greater Genesis that begins ultimately with Jesus of Nazareth. And it's through his Genesis that we experience the freedom from corruption, We experience everlasting salvation and a new creation. In the one Genesis has taught us to expect, he has come, and we have found him.

Have you found him this evening? Do you know Jesus? Have you seen Jesus, my Lord, who we sang just a moment ago? And if you have not, tonight, we wanna help you with that. We want you to come to know him, to have your heart burned within you as the disciples did on the road to Emmaus, that you would come to know what it is to have faith in the son of God, who is the new Adam, the true human.

He is that righteous martyr, the one who brings salvation to the world, who unifies all nations and gets the obedience to the nations under one head that is the church. He's that true seed of Abraham, the one that we waited so long for. He's finally come. He's the beloved son. He's the way that we get to God.

He is the lion of the tribe of Judah, and he's the savior of his brothers. And so if you don't know him, if you have not found him, we hope tonight has helped you on that journey, and we hope that we can help you come to know him at this moment and to bow your knee to him and to live a life of service to him, to follow him in the footsteps of baptism, and to live a life of allegiance and dedication to him. So if we can help you with that this evening, we'd love to. If you'll come now as we stand and as we sing.