No Middle in the Trenches (Genesis 3:15)

Hey, good morning. If you've got a Bible, go ahead

and get that open to Genesis chapter 3.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

We are only looking at one verse this morning and we're only

going to do that for one Sunday. I almost, I got to be honest

with you, I almost turned the singular verse into two sermons.

But then I was like, man, not everybody's like me.

Some people have lives. So we're going to try and do it

all. We're trying to do it all in

this one morning. As you're turning there, Just

just a question for you. What are we doing here?

Why, why, why are you here this morning?

And the answer to that question this morning is the answer to

that question every Sunday morning.

We're here this morning, we're singing this morning, we're

praying together, we're taking communion together, we're

preaching this morning all for the same singular reason.

And that is to remind one another of the love of God and

Jesus Christ for all of us. And the reason why I'm front

loading with that is because I got a got a lot of content here

this morning. I'm going to cover, I think a

lot of ground. I've got a lot of things that I

want to teach. We're going to talk.

We're going to teach on offspring.

We're going to teach on seeds. We're going to look at Calvin

and Luther's view of this text. I'm going to talk about Arnold

Schwarzenegger. Probably I'll talk about

Sylvester Stallone. I'd like to quote some of the

ancient church fathers if we get around do it.

So it should be when it's all said and done, honestly, a

pretty average cold Ike sermon, but we've got a lot to get

through. And so all of the all those all

those details, right, that all the explanation, all the

illustration, all of it, it's all aimed at the singular goal.

And, and that singular goal is to remind you that Jesus loves

you. OK?

So like no matter what you hear this morning, no matter what

unhinged things I'm probably going to say a little bit here

and there, no matter how much I go off the rails over here or

what strikes the heart, just remember that Jesus loves you

and he loves you a lot. So let me pray and then we'll

jump into this text. Heavenly Father, I confess that

this morning my heart just feels kind of dull.

I don't think for any particular reason, nothing that I can

discern. It's been a relatively good

week. It's just kind of dull.

And so I pray that you would protect our church from a

preacher who is bored with the gospel.

Don't let me be bored with the Gospel, cut away the extra fat

from my heart and just help me experience the life in Christ

that you've given me. And the one thing Lord, that

really got to me this morning was I felt really dull.

And until the liturgy, I just legitimately think that the

liturgy preached my entire sermon probably more effectively

than I then I will. And so I'm just going to re pray

this for us because it's all in here.

So oh Lord our God, you are Christ the victor, King of

heaven, champion of all creation.

You rule in the midst of your enemies.

You are the destroyer of death, God the serpent stomper, the

curse crusher. You are Christ the victor,

worthy to receive glory and honor and power.

For you have hurled down our accuser, that great dragon that

leads the world astray. So where, O death, is your

victory? Where serpent is your sting?

Our enemy has been evicted, the serpent put to open shame.

No longer are we slaves to sin, but servants to the triumphant

King. So LOL, lead on Christ our

victor, King of Heaven, champion of all creation.

Lord, help us believe that you don't just save us from sin.

You do. You don't just cover us in

righteousness. You do.

You also defeat, overthrow, and crush the enemy.

And so I pray that we would rejoice in in the victor that we

have in Jesus Christ. So it's in his precious and

powerful name that all God's people pray.

Amen. If you're able, let's go ahead

and stand. OK, so last week we if you if

you missed last week, we literally preached chapter 3

verses 14 all the way through 19.

God administers righteous curses to the earth and to the serpent,

and we see the consequences of sin.

But if you were here last Sunday, you know that I skipped

probably the most important verse in there on purpose so

that I could isolate this morning and then preach on it

and dig as deep as as I can. And and that verses verse 15.

Nerdy theologians refer to this as the proto evangelium.

I'll explain that in a second. Here's the actual text.

God, he's speaking to the serpent and he says, I will put

enmity an enemy. I'll put an enemy between you,

the serpent and the woman. And here's where it gets

weirder. This enemy is going to stand

between your offspring, but the serpent has offspring, your

offspring and her offspring. And here's how it's going to go

down. He shall bruise your head, and

you shall bruise his heel. Believe it or not, we got a lot

to talk about this morning, so you can go ahead and have a

seat. So I'm going to start with that

big word. I mentioned it kind of in

passing there really quickly. I've got it on the screen for

you. Proto evangelium.

There's some debate over the pronunciation.

Some people drop the second O and say prot evangelism.

Some people explain it really fancy and and call it the proto

you angelion. I like proto evangelium.

I think it's great. But that's the reason why that's

an important word is because that's the word that Christian

theologians use to refer to this one singular verse.

This verse stands out so much. It's so important.

It's so foundation to the entire story and narrative of the

scripture that it gets its own made-up word.

That's how important it is. And that word, even though it's

a handful of of syllables, it's it's pretty fancy, but the

meaning is really simple if you break it down.

Proto means first evangelium gospel, and so this is called

the first gospel, the proto evangelium.

It's the first time in the entire biblical narrative that

the gospel is preached out loud. Now, if you've been with us for

the last 20 weeks of Genesis, you know that we've preached 20

sermons on Genesis, and everyone has had the gospel.

And so already throughout Genesis, the gospel has been

hinted at and it's been clued at in a lot of different ways, but

nobody yet has preached it out loud until right now.

And we see the first character preach it out loud for the first

time. Who's the character who preaches

it? It's God before it's ever us,

before it's ever Adam, before it's ever Eve.

God preaches the gospel out loud, and essentially the

gospel, the proto evangelium that God preaches is this.

God says to the serpent, there's going to be a war, it's going to

be a perpetual war, and it's going to be between two massive

figures throughout all human history, the serpent and the

woman. And then it gets, it gets

weirder. It's the same way of saying it,

but a little bit differently. The serpent seed or offspring

and the woman seed or offspring. So glue in really quickly on the

first part of 15. Just look at that really, really

closely. I'm just going to take that

first bit. We'll call it 15 A God says I'll

put an enemy, I'll put enmity between you and the woman.

OK, so there's going to be a war between the serpent and the

woman, and between your her offspring and her offspring.

Pause. What's what's going on here?

The the war between the woman and the serpent is fairly

obvious, but what's less obvious and more hotly disputed is the

war between the woman's offspring and the serpent's

offspring. Who are who are these children

of the serpent? How, how does a serpent have

offspring that can go to war? Well, we've, we've got 2 basic

options we can look at right here.

We'll look at both of them. The first view is that these are

moral offspring. And so when Genesis 315 is

talking about the offspring of the serpent, these are moral

offspring of the serpent. This is the view of John Calvin,

Martin Luther, 500 years ago, the Reformed view of what's

going on right here. The offspring of the serpent

here, their offspring by what influence?

Offspring by influence. Essentially the serpent will

bigot children, bigot a family who will belong to Satan by

allegiance and loyalty and lifestyle.

So those who embrace a life of celebrating sin, our children of

the serpent, I think this is a pretty strong view.

It's been probably the, I think probably the dominant position

throughout Christian history for interpreting offspring of the

serpent right here. But I think what's more is that

it's supported by the rest of the book of Genesis.

Almost immediately after chapter 3, when we turn to chapter 4,

what do we see? We see a family war of Cain

versus Abel. These are human characters who

either act like a serpent or God.

Later on, we meet another human character named Jacob.

Isn't he interesting? Jacob is really interesting,

especially in light of this verse right here.

Jacob is a liar and a deceiver. Does that sound like anybody to

you? Deceiver.

Exactly like the serpent. And you know how Jacob was born?

He came out of the womb with his twin brother grabbing what his

brothers heal. Hold on, hold on.

You mean like almost like a character bruising or biting the

heel of another character? And yet Jacob wrestles with God

and gets a new name and identity.

Essentially Jacob's the story of someone who was transferred from

the Kingdom of the serpent, who acts and lives like a serpent

into the Kingdom of God and then begins to act and live like God.

I think this view that they are moral offspring is supported by

Jesus. Jesus calls hypocritical

religious people sons of the devil and a brood of Vipers.

That's the Pharisees. Isn't that interesting?

That for me that's, that's the, that's the tough thing about the

serpent and Satan and the dragon and the devil is it's when you

look at when you look at the serpent, when you look at the

devil biblically, he's not, he's not irreligious.

Ever notice that? Like he's not, he's not anti

religion like Satan. And he knows the Bible, he

quotes it to Jesus. He's he's religiously

pluralistic. He's probably got one of those

coexist bumper stickers on the back.

He's willing to work. He's willing to work literally

with anybody of any religion so long as their hearts reject

Jesus. And so he shows up in the

morality of human hearts, which is an important note.

And the reason why that's an important note is because a lot,

a lot of times, a lot of times when we think about the

influence of Satan, Christians will look anywhere like under

any Bush, under any rug, right? It's, it's the ACDC records.

We got to burn the ACDC records or it's, it's MTV or it's

Monster Energy drinks. They'll look for Satan anywhere

besides in their own hearts. And so we're just, we're just

blind to this. That's the mistake that the

Pharisees made. The devil's out there.

He's on the other team. And Jesus said, no, you're sons

of the devil. And so this all points to the

fact, Oh my, we're I'm already behind on time.

Time is a valuable thing. Watch it by as the pendulum

swings. This all points to the fact that

the serpent begets offspring by influence and allegiance with

human beings. So this is a strong view, but I

want to get a little bit weirder.

And here's the part where the teacher probably loses the

classroom. That's the first view.

I think it's strong. Here's the second view, when

Genesis 315 is talking about the offspring of the serpent.

The second view is that it's talking about literal offspring.

This is the view of Doctor Michael Heizer, a relatively

modern biblical academic and scholar.

I think he's a smart guy, even though I don't agree with

everything that he writes. But he essentially argues that

the offspring of the serpent here, our offspring by, wait for

it, literal seed or biological offspring.

Where would he get this interpretation from?

Well, this interpretation is supported by a literal reading

of the word offspring. Do you see it there?

It's right there in verse 15. It's like the second, it comes

right after the comma, right between off your offspring, her

offspring. That word, if you circle it,

that word literally just means seed.

And it's also supported by some strange things that some future

preacher frontier will have to do with in the book of Genesis.

I hope it's me. I'm not afraid of it, right?

We, we deal with some strange things later on in Genesis.

For instance, in Genesis 6, which is a parallel, parallel

literary text to Genesis 3, we see this crazy story of

rebellious angelic beings taking the daughters of man and

populating the world with these creatures called Nephilim or the

giants of old. That seems to strongly suggest

that the serpent knows clearly what God's plan is to win the

war through the seed of the woman, the offspring of the

woman. And so Satan, strategically, he

tries to win the war. How?

By subverting the offspring of the women.

And so yes, this is hard to wrap your modern mind around, and it

will make you deal with some hard questions throughout the

rest of the Bible, like Joshua's conquest against giant clans.

Where did these giants come from?

Even the famous story of David and Goliath, Where did Goliath

come from? Where did these giants come

from? Even in the New Testament Jesus

war against demons, where did all of these demons come with?

It'll make you deal with some difficult historical questions

that quite frankly, I don't really care how you answer them.

I just think they should be dealt with.

Like, what do we do with the fact that virtually every

ancient culture up until modernism has literature,

evidence and stories about giants?

Those are all questions for a future preacher to deal with.

Not me this morning, at least. But I think this is actually

important to reckon with because it reminds us that though we

need to take personal responsibility for our hearts

and not align ourselves with the evil one, we need to remember

that Satan doesn't just want to rule in the human heart.

There's also a heavenly realm outside of us that is densely

populated with spiritual beings, and not all of them are good.

We see demons on cling spirits were evil and want to bring

chaos to God's good order. And that all begs the question,

who's right which, which position is the correct

position? Should we take a kind of a more

meta metaphorical reading and it's moral offspring or a more

literal reading and say it's biological offspring?

You can disagree with me on this, it's totally cool.

But my answer is simple. I actually think that both are

biblically valid and I think they both play a role in our

biblical theology. I I was, I came home from work

the other day and and I walked into my house and favorite.

This is one of my favorite things entrances ever.

I walked into the house and immediately when the door knob

turned, I hear Jack's little voice go Daddy's home, Daddy's

here, mommy, Daddy's here and he runs over and we exchange a few,

you know, maybe a hug or just a high and he goes, Daddy.

He said Daddy came to Jack's house.

I was like, that's debatable. Your mom and I pay for it.

How's you in it? Stock it?

And so I didn't say that to him. What I did say was, yeah, yes,

it's also Daddy's home. And he said no.

And he pointed this direction and said the church is Daddy's

home now. I actually think my relationship

with work is pretty healthy now. So I don't, you know, I early

days of church planting were 50-60 regular hour.

We're not, I'm pretty close to pretty standard 40.

So I didn't feel I didn't feel rebuked by it, but I was like,

no, daddy doesn't have two different home addresses.

I got after you go to bed. I don't like sneak over here and

go to sleep here. Like this is daddy's home.

I only have one home address. Satan has two home addresses and

sometimes denominations. Sometimes Christians don't

really understand that, or we emphasize one at the expense of

of other. Take for instance, our our

charismatic brothers and sisters in in the Lord.

What our charismatic friends get right about the influence of

Satan is that he's out there. He's in the spiritual realm and

demons are real and unclean spirits are real and spiritual

warfare is real. But sometimes it gets under

emphasized that we also have a personal responsibility to cast

Satan out and his influence out from our hearts.

And So what ends up happening is everything comes becomes about

spiritual warfare and you look for demons under every Bush and

refuse to take responsibility for your sin.

Now I'm, I'm reformed in in my theology and I like being

reformed in my theology. Our reformed brothers and

sisters, and I would also lump our our Roman Catholic brothers

and sisters into that. They do a really good job of

remembering that Satan also wants to rule and reign over the

human heart. And so they do a really good job

emphasizing repenting of personal sin, making sure that

your heart is right with God, acting morally upright.

And that is good. Sometimes I sometimes we under

emphasize the fact that also spiritual warfare is real and I

think an appropriate reading of Genesis 315 includes both of

these things. I think they both have a ton of

biblical support and I think as a literature nerd I think

Genesis 315 is probably a double in tundra that purposefully

works at both levels. Whatever you think, you can

disagree with me on this, just don't miss the clear meaning

which is you were born into a war.

You might be ignorant of it, you might be dull to it, but you

were born into a war. Life is war, and your allegiance

is everything. In Genesis 3, what we see is

that the world splits into two, those who belong to the

serpent's family and those who belong to God's family through

the seed of the woman. There are two trenches.

Is there a middle in the trenches?

Ben? Ain't no middle in the trenches.

No middle in the trenches. Family of the serpent, the

family of God. And there's going to be a

massive lifetime war, and there's going to be one son, one

seed, who ultimately determines who wins, Who wins.

Look at the second part, 15-B, we'll call it.

He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.

Huh. The hero the Sun's heel gonna

get bruised. What's?

What could that possibly mean? Well, friends, there's levels to

this game, so let's go through all of them.

Why? Why the heel?

Why does the heel of the hero get bruised?

Well, first and foremost, the serpent will bruise the sun's

heel because this is actually just realistic serpent imagery,

right? In the ancient world, you are

afraid of snakes, you're afraid of serpents.

If you were walk around in tall grass and a serpent bit you, it

would probably bite you in the heel.

It would come from the grass and boom.

So it's just realistic serpent imagery is really just one

reason why that's there. And chapter 3, verse 15, but

also the serpent will bruise the sun's heel because this is

actually dirty. It's dirty imagery.

This is not the kind of the type of combat that you would expect

from an honorable person. Honorable people, They fight

face to face. The serpent's deceptive,

cowardly. This is a cheap shot.

Evil always comes from below, like a serpent striking from the

ground and never comes from above.

Even among when humans act Serpentine, it always comes from

below. Gossip, slander, anonymous

blogging, talking behind your back, It's always a striking

from a place of lowness and so it's just a metaphorically tight

and loaded phrase as well. But most importantly, thirdly,

why the heel? Why the heel?

The Serpent will bruise the sun's heel because a heel strike

is non fatal. We're not going to kill, destroy

the hero, the head, now that's a fatal bruise.

The heel is not a fatal bruise. What does this teach us?

This teaches us that the Serpent can wound, but he cannot win.

Evil darkness can wound, but it cannot win.

Look at the other part of verse 15.

He takes a heel strike, but the seed, the sun will bruise the

serpent's what head crush the serpent's head.

That's a fatal strike. And so here's here's the point

of the the way that this battle is described in Genesis 315,

this lifelong war, there's going to be an exchange of supposed

victories. And what's going to happen is

that the serpent will wound, but the sun will ultimately win.

The hero will ultimately take a heel strike willingly for the

head crushing victory. There's an exchange of pain, but

the good guy wins. Does that sound familiar to you?

A bruise on the heel to crush the head?

A wound for a win? That sound familiar?

You can tell, by the way, which stories are the truest by

thinking about which stories are etched more deeply into the

human heart. And you can tell which stories

are etched more deeply into the human heart by thinking about

which stories are more common across all cultures throughout

time. Have you ever noticed then, if

this story is true, have you ever noticed how the story of

the bad guy striking the heel so that the hero can strike the

enemy's head? This exchange of pain, if you

ever notice how this is everywhere in culture, it's at

like it's, it's everywhere. I'm going to go off for a second

and I'm not just going off to entertain myself here because

I'll probably be the only person entertained by it.

I'm going to go off here because I want to show you how

frequently, how often the gospel echoes into pop culture.

It tries to weave itself in and recycle itself in literally

every good story or every good movie you've ever watched.

It is everywhere. For instance, the original

Predator from 1987. Have you seen this?

Kids? Don't watch it until your dad is

ready to watch it with you. I will say I read an article

that didn't seem like it came from a reputable source that

said that the original Predator and watching it can raise your

testosterone by 400%. I didn't have any science

backing, but I thought it sounded good.

So essentially what happens is how how does you got

Schwarzenegger? You've got some of the best

quotes in cinema history, guys. Right.

Get to the chopper. If it bleeds, we can kill it.

I'm I'm totally freaking to the wrong crowd.

I don't have any. Yeah, I don't have any

references from the chosen, so my bad.

I like, I actually like the chosen.

That wasn't like a a rib. But how does Schwarzenegger

defeat the Predator? It's this epic scene, right?

Schwartz? It's an exchange of blows.

Schwarzenegger, he literally sheds all of his weapons and he

sheds his weapons. He lowers his defenses and he

presents himself as bait to the Predator and he allows Predator

to beat him up. There's he even allows the

Predator to grab him by the neck and hold him against the tree.

Why? Because he's trying to trick him

into a trap. There's even a point where

Schwarzenegger says out loud to the Predator from a distance,

come on, kill me right here, kill me.

And he gets the Predator to take like two or three more steps and

what happens? Boom, Predator trips the

trigger. Bam, there's the fatal

destruction of Predator. What is that?

That's a trading of wounds for a win.

Symbolically, it's the exchange of the heroes bruised heel.

I'll let you beat me up to destroy the enemy.

I'll destroy you with my trap. Does that sound familiar or?

I hate to be that guy? No, I don't.

Rocky Three. Easily the most underrated movie

in the entire Rocky series. Not the best, but easily the

most underrated. What Rocky's got to do, he's got

to go up against this imposing, intimidating figure.

It's actually Mr. T, so you know it's good cinema.

Surprising it didn't win an Oscar, but that's not a chip on

my shoulder. So he's going up against Mr. T.

His whole strategy in the fight is to let Clubber Lang or Mr. T

repeatedly hit him over and over and over again.

He literally says to him, is that all you got?

Hit me harder, hit me harder. And what happens?

Mr. T exhausts himself, and then Rocky knocks him out with the

left hook of his own. It's a trading of wounds for the

win. It's symbolically the exchange

of the hero's bruise heel to bruise the enemy's head.

Does this sound familiar? OK comic book people, The Dark

Knight Batman literally allows himself to be captured by the

Joker so that he can defeat the Joker's plan from the inside

out. It's an exchange of the heroes

bruised heel to bruise the enemy's head.

Sound familiar? I can go on and on and on and I

can tell in your eyes you'd like me to spare you.

But I could talk about Godzilla 2000, Jaws, Rambo, First Blood

Part 2, and most action movies. But here's the point.

All of culture, all of creation, longs just long for a hero who

comes to save the day by allowing himself to be wounded

so that he can crush the enemy's head.

For it to be a truly great story, the hero's heel must be

bruised. The enemy's head must be

crushed. Does that sound familiar?

Not just too bad 80s action movies, but also a certain book.

Let's keep talking about bruised heels.

Are you guys with me? Let's keep talking about bruised

heels. This is going to sound off topic

for a couple minutes and then we'll bring it back.

But the ancient Romans, they didn't actually invent the

crucifixion. What they did is they picked it

up and then they absolutely perfected the crucifixion to

make it maximally painful and embarrassing and humiliating.

And what's interesting is that in the last couple decades,

historians actually discovered the corpse of a 1st century man.

So around the time of Jesus, who was crucified.

And do you know where this corpse was crucified?

Jerusalem. And why is that important?

Because that means that we would be observing the same local

strategies that we would expect to find in the dead body of

Jesus after he had been crucified, had his body remain

dead, of course. And what's interesting about

this corpse that they found that was crucified in the 1st century

in Jerusalem? So fascinating is when they were

exploring the nail wounds in the corpses feet, they noted that

the nails were driven in at a mathematically precise angle,

which we would expect. And the reason why we would

expect that is because Roman soldiers were competently

trained expert killing machines. And so the nail in this corpse

was driven mathematically through the foot at an angle so

that the purpose of holding the body weight up better, it was

driven at an angle actually upwards so that the nail was

driven through the any gas, the heel piercing through the heel

bone. Why?

Well, first, certainly because it increased pain.

Secondly, because it held the body weight up more securely,

preventing the foot from slicing into.

But third, it also prevented the victims from pushing upwards and

breathing better for momentary relief.

To crucify someone well, the heel bone must be pierced.

That's why from the vantage point of the Romans, why did he

have to be crucified that way, from the vantage point of the

sovereign plan of God, so that Jesus fulfilled the prophecy of

Genesis 315 perfectly. That's why the cross, friends,

is the ultimate fulfillment of the proto evangelium.

It is the finish line of this story that begins in Genesis

315. Jesus on the cross is Genesis

315 with flesh on, Genesis 315 with arms and legs, Genesis 315

with lungs so that he can breathe.

The great action hero, Jesus Christ himself allowed the

serpent to bruise his heel literally when the nail went

through. Of course there would be blood,

but there would also be a literal bruising of the heel.

Christ literally and of course, metaphorically, had his heel

bruised by the serpent, just like Genesis 315 says.

Make no mistake about it, Jesus is the truer and better

Schwarzenegger. He baited Predator into the

trap. Jesus is the truer and better

Rocky. He allowed Kleberlang to exhaust

himself with punches before throwing the death blow.

He's the truer and better Batman.

He willingly allowed the Joker to capture him, to destroy him

from the inside out. And by letting the enemy bruise

his heel, he crushed the enemy's head.

Make no mistake, Christ took the cross cross into his own hands.

He's not a victim on the cross. Get that?

He's a victor victim. We don't worship victims.

We support them, we care for them, and we show them sympathy.

But Jesus doesn't want sympathy. You want your worship.

So Jesus willingly took the cross into his own hands and did

what with it? He wielded the very cross itself

like a sword. And just like David, after

defeating Goliath, Jesus chopped the serpent's head off with the

enemy's own weapon. Just like David beheads Goliath

with Goliath's own sword. It's the same story recycled and

brought to ultimate fulfillment in Jesus.

And I know this is gruesome language, but it's not.

It's not locker room talk. It's actually very theologically

precise, right? David cutting Goliath's head

off, Jesus crushing the head of the serpent.

It's very violent imagery, but it's very theologically and

experientially precise. The serpent's been decapitated.

You can look that. Have you ever, anybody in here

ever run a snake over with a lawn mower?

Yeah. What happens for a short time

afterwards? What do they do?

They keep on wiggling and moving.

You can look it up on YouTube. Maybe don't.

I did. When you look it up on YouTube,

when you chop a snake's hat off, it has a strange way of still

remaining alive for a short amount of time.

There's even a video, there's even videos of snakes having

their heads chopped off and then attacking and biting their own

body. But what's happening there?

Those are mere, they're mere death rattles.

And as Christians, this is exactly the period in human

history that we live in. It's precisely the period of

human history we live in. We live precisely between the

serpent's defeat on the cross and his eventual annihilation in

the resurrection. Satan has been beheaded, but he

continues to wiggle around. He does have real rage and real

influence, but it is short and it is momentary, like a snake

that's been run over by a lawn mower until on the last day he

will be fully and finally destroyed and disposed of in the

crucifixion of Jesus. For those who believe, Jesus

takes away all of your sin. That's all that the accuser has

to hurl at you. His accusations, it's gone.

He's been disarmed. He takes away all your sin and

he comforts you with all of his righteousness.

And it's not just about a personal relationship with you

and Jesus. You get that through the Gospel.

What's more than that is that Jesus also destroys and defeats

the devil, and then he graphs us sinners, imperfect slobs into

the family of God. That's how you become the

offspring of God by the gospel. By believing Jesus through faith

alone and the crucifixion of Jesus, we are made into the

offspring of God and we are placed on the winning team.

Amen. Even though you didn't do it

right. Like imagine yourself on a team.

Imagine. I'm not.

Let me do a sport. I'm not.

I don't like basketball. Obviously that was never in the

cards for me. I've got a chip on my shoulder.

Suppose you're you're on the bench and the hero on the court.

Last second buzzer beater drains A3 to win the game.

Everybody goes crazy. Here's my question.

Who gets those points, you or him?

Answer is both of you. He scored them, but you get them

because you're on the team. You get the victory.

That's what the gospel of Jesus is like.

Jesus defeated the enemy. He was perfect, He was holy, he

was righteous. By virtue of faith and faith

alone, you are grafted into his team and you get his points.

It's so massive to understand. This is why the Bible talks

about how how salvation is apart from works of the law, but by

faith alone, because only faith alone grafts you into the team

of Jesus. And what does this mean for you?

It means you are born into a war between two different teams and

there are two trenches and there is no middle in the trenches.

And So what does this mean for you?

It means that you should put your faith in Jesus.

You should pronounce the devil, and you should give your

allegiance to the son of the woman, Jesus Christ.

You have to understand that Christianity, Christianity is

like, it's like sports betting. I'm not pastoring you.

I'm not telling you to go download DraftKings.

We're not supported by DraftKings.

I'm saying it's, it's like that, right?

I'm trying to, I'm trying to make a point here.

But unlike sports betting, God actually celebrates inside

betting. You get in trouble for that and

sports betting, God actually celebrates it.

If you have the Bible, you are an inside better.

You know how the game is going to end.

You know who's going to win the fight, You know who's going to

win the war. Like like what?

What would you do if you knew for a fact?

Like we're talking about sport? You imagine you're a Sinner and

you bet on sports. I'm, I'm kidding, I don't bet on

sports, but I, I, it's fine, man, I wish I could walk that

back. OK, but imagine you are betting

on the big game, right? That and imagine that you know

for certain which team is going to win.

I'm not talking like 99%, I'm talking 100%.

Imagine you know for certain 100% what team is going to win.

What's the responsible amount of money to bet on that game?

All of it, all of it. Push all your chips in if we're

at 100%. Put them all in.

And so it's no wonder why Christianity demands all of our

lives, right? Every, everything.

Faith. That's what faith is.

It's a betting on Jesus as the witting team, a giving of all

your heart, all your mind, all your life to Jesus.

Faith is a confident allegiance of everything you have being

placed on Christ because you know that Jesus is going to win

and crush the head of the serpent.

That's what faith is. So my encouragement to use to

get off the fence with Jesus and push all your chips in today.

Faith is the willingness to assume that everything that

happens to you, whether you you win or lose in life, whether you

get the promotion or lose the job, whether you get the girl or

lose the girl, whether you get the horrible diagnosis or have

the results come back negative. It's it's the confident belief.

Faith is the willingness to assume that if you were on

Jesus's team, you are on the winning team.

No matter what, no matter what befalls you, no matter what

happens to you, no matter how hard it gets, if you are in

Christ, you are Romans more than a conqueror on the winning team.

That's what it means for you. What's that mean for you?

Well, it means that if you have the Holy Spirit, you will spend

the rest of your lifetime on earth at war for the rest of

your lifetime. So do not make peace with the

serpent, Fight against him. Renounce his ways.

Do not make peace with falsehood.

Know the truth. Don't make peace with sin.

Fight against the flesh. Don't make peace with cowardice.

Be strong and courageous. Do not make peace with lukewarm

spirituality. Fight for spiritual vigilance.

Don't make peace with cynicism. Fight for hope, living hope.

Take every impulse within you, even the violent ones, the anger

and the rage, and commit to never using it against other

people or neighbors or loved ones.

Use every ounce of that to fight a war against sin, Satan, and

even death itself, the enemies of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Throw it off. Throw it all off Worship Jesus

Christ. He's the living God.

He's the living God and he alone will conquer the evil, the evil

1 And if you are in Christ, you are more than a conqueror.

If you're in Christ, you are on the winning team.

He will be at war for you and he will give you peace.

He's good stuff, Heavenly Father.

It's just there's so much. The right word that comes from

this is peace. There's so much peace and

knowing that you were at war for us, that you are like David

going before our army and doing the hard work for us and

defeating and overthrowing Goliath.

You are the seed of the woman who crushes the head of the

serpent. We we know how this ends.

I was just thinking about the great irony of not knowing how

my own life is going to end, but knowing how all of human history

is going to end. And so no matter how my life

ends, whether I am peaking at 95 or limping with Parkinson's or

taking early, whatever happens to me, whatever happens to us in

these short momentary lives, we know how human history ends.

It all culminates with the Son of God throwing the evil 1 into

a lake of fire and us living with God in perfect bliss and

pleasure forever. And so Lord you are.

You are Christ the victor. You are the destroyer of death,

Serpent Stomper the curse Crusher.

Jump into his arms right now. Embrace him with every ounce of

faith you have in you, and be of war against the flesh.

Amen.