Jesus, the Key to Unlocking the Scriptures, iii: “Who’s Your Type?” Romans 5:12-19

*- In part two, we saw in Luke 24:25-27 that he presents Jesus as teaching his disciples that the whole of Scripture points to Jesus.

- We've been talking about typology as a key method which Jesus & the New Testament writers used to interpret the Hebrew Scriptures, meaning the Old Testament.

*- In part one of "Jesus, the key to unlocking the Scriptures," we examined John 5:39-40 & in those verses we saw that the Scriptures point to Jesus as the source of Life.

*- Again, typology means our experience of God is typical of how the ancient authors of Scripture experienced God.

*-So, the application of Scripture is timeless & typical to all of human experience.

*- God will act in the future in the way he has acted in the past because his character is unchanging.

*- The persons & events of the Scriptures serve as types or patterns for the present & the future.

*- What is interesting in the Old Testament is that when one person fails to accomplish God's purposes, then God raises up another person to take the former person's place.

- We see this throughout the Hebrew Scriptures: Joshua replaces Moses; David replaces Saul; Elisha replaces Elijah...

- Boaz replaces Chilion as the new husband of Ruth & kinsman redeemer, Naomi's new son-in-law & father of Obed, the father of Jesse, the father of David.

- It is marvelous to read the Scriptures & see the gracious acts of God & how he works all things toward the accomplishment of his rescue plan to save the world.

- Even what we would dismiss as simple or insignificant, God does not overlook.

- God saw the plight of Naomi & Ruth, & provided in Boaz, a man of integrity to act as kinsman redeemer, a man who would be an ancestor of our Lord & Savior Jesus Christ.

- That same grace is available to us today. God is in the small stuff.

- The pattern repeated in the Hebrew Scriptures is when one person fails to accomplish God's purposes God raises up another person to take the former person's place.

- But who could take the place of Adam? Who could replace Adam?

- Only one who was able to undo the effects of Adam's fall & become the author & originator of a new humanity could replace Adam (Bruce, Romans, p. 129).

- The only one who meets those qualifications is Jesus Christ.

*- & in verse 14 of today's passage, Paul tells us plainly that "Adam... was a type of the one who was to come." (v. 14, ESV, emphasis added)

- Adam was a pattern for Jesus.

- For Paul, sin & death entered the world through one man's disobedience, Adam; but new life enters the world through one man's obedience, Jesus Christ.

- Jesus becomes the type and pattern for all, by faith.

- For Paul, Adam is his namesake (Adam in Hebrew means human) because he represents all humanity. Paul sees all humanity as existing in the first Adam.

- Therefore, Adam's disobedience & alienation from God are imputed to us, assigned to the entire human race, that is to say, Adam's sin is charged to everyone's accounts.

- Adam's one act of disobedient failure charted humanity's course, determining the character of the entire world.

- But, as Paul explicitly states, Adam, the first man, is a counterpart, a pattern, "a type of the one who is to come."

- Elsewhere, in 1 Corinthians 15, Paul calls Jesus the last Adam.

*- ⁴⁵ The Scriptures tell us, “The first man, Adam, became a living person.”  But the last Adam—that is, Christ—is a life-giving Spirit. ⁴⁶ What comes first is the natural body, then the spiritual body comes later. ⁴⁷ Adam, the first man, was made from the dust of the earth, while Christ, the second man, came from heaven. ⁴⁸ Earthly people are like the earthly man, and heavenly people are like the heavenly man. ⁴⁹ Just as we are now like the earthly man, we will someday be like the heavenly man.

- Jesus becomes the type & pattern for all, by faith.

- It is fitting for Adam to be a type or pattern representing Christ, but as Paul makes clear, there is as much contrast between them as there is likeness.

- Adam was God's son formed by God's own hands & received his spirit, the breath of his life, by the Spirit of God.

- So often we typically blame Eve for the fall, but Adam was right there with her in her temptation.

- He could have been her Savior & should have been.

- Until the moment before he touched the fruit of the knowledge of good & evil, Adam had the opportunity to step in, to call out to God, but he was as mesmerized by Satan's temptation of Eve as she was herself, so he took & ate.

- Jesus is also God's Son, only begotten, the Scripture tells us. He was conceived because of the special creative act of the Spirit of God, like Adam who received the breath of God's Spirit, but it is here that resemblances come to an end.

* - Whereas Adam disobeyed God, the author of Hebrews tells us that Jesus learned obedience through suffering: Even though Jesus was God’s Son, he learned obedience from the things he suffered. Hebrews 5:8, NLT

* - Whereas Adam's disobedience brought sin into the world, again, the author of Hebrews tells us about Jesus: This High Priest of ours understands our weaknesses, for he faced all of the same testings we do, yet he did not sin. Hebrews 4: 15, NLT

- Jesus becomes the type and pattern for all, by faith.

- In Paul's thinking & in the minds of the other New Testament authors, Christ replaces Adam as the archetype, pattern & representative of a new humanity.

- The impact of the gift of God's grace to us in Jesus Christ has an even greater opposite effect than the sin of Adam & its penalties.

- The sin of Adam brought death, disease, decay, & God's curse upon all humanity & all creation.

- Whereas the obedience of Jesus brings to bear upon humanity & upon creation the transforming power of God's grace.

- Because of Adam's sin, all die, but because of Christ's obedience, by the grace that is available through faith, eternal life is available to all.

- As Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Anyone who believes in me will live, even after dying. Everyone who lives in me and believes in me will never ever die." John 11: 25-26, NLT

- Jesus becomes the type and pattern for all, by faith.

- That, my friends, is the power of the gospel & the power of God's grace.

- At the beginning of today's message, we saw in the Old Testament that where one person failed to accomplish God's purposes, then God raised up another person to take the former person's place.

- It is very clear that Adam failed God's assignment for him, & it is also very clear that Jesus succeeded in every way, beyond our wildest imaginations.

- Because of the victorious resurrection of Jesus from the grave, God has made the transforming power of his grace available to us by faith in Jesus Christ.

- Jesus becomes the type & pattern for all, by faith.

- As C.S. Lewis puts it in the Chronicles of Narnia, human beings are sons of Adam & daughters of Eve.

- Near the end of the novel Prince Caspian, Caspian states: “I was wishing that I came of a more honorouable lineage.” To which Aslan responds, “You come of the Lord Adam and the Lady Eve,” said Aslan. “And that is both honour enough to erect the head of the poorest beggar, and shame enough to bow the shoulders of the greatest emperor in earth. Be content.”

- We are the children of our spiritual parents & inheritors of their spiritual legacy, but Jesus Christ has established a new legacy.

- We have a choice to make. We can accept the marvelous gift of God's grace to us in Jesus Christ by faith, & live by grace through faith, daily accepting the call of God upon our lives to fulfill his plans by the power of his grace.

- OR we can choose to fail, & God will raise up someone else to take our place.

- It's up to us. When one person fails to accomplish God's purposes God raises up another person to take the former person's place.

- What we must realize as we respond to God's grace in Christ is that God wants to transform us into the likeness & image of Jesus, not just his earthly likeness, which we see in the gospels in the power of his integrity, his miracles, & his teaching, although that might be glory enough, but his transfigured, resurrected, glorified likeness.

- C.S. Lewis puts it another way: “It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible gods and goddesses, to remember that the dullest and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship, or else a horror and a corruption such as you now meet, if at all, only in a nightmare. All day long we are, in some degree, helping each other to one or other of these destinations. It is in the light of these overwhelming possibilities, it is with the awe and the circumspection proper to them, that we should conduct all our dealings with one another, all friendships, all loves, all play, all politics. There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilization—these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub, and exploit—immortal horrors or everlasting splendours.” (Lewis, "Weight of Glory.")

- When one person fails to accomplish God's purposes God raises up another person to take the former person's place.

- We have the choice to live by the legacy of Adam & become immortal horrors or live by the legacy of Jesus & become everlasting splendours.

- "Because one person disobeyed God, many became sinners. But because one other person obeyed God, many will be made righteous." Romans 5:19

- Jesus becomes type & pattern for us all; lived by faith.

Jesus, the Key to Unlocking the Scriptures, II: Scripture's Point Luke 24:25-27 (reading 13-34)

*- In part one of "Jesus, the key to unlocking the Scriptures," we examined John 5:39-40 & in those verses we saw that the Scriptures point to the source of life, Jesus.

- We also saw that a key method which Jesus used to understand the Scriptures and apply them was typology.

*- Again, typology means our experience of God is typical of how the ancient authors of Scripture experienced God.

*-So, the application of Scripture is timeless & typical to all of human experience.

*- God will act in the future in the way he has acted in the past because his character is unchanging.

- In this chapter of Luke's gospel, he presents Jesus as teaching his disciples that the whole of Scripture points to Jesus.

- After Jesus spends some time with these disciples on the road to Emmaus, asking about their experience & listening to their story, he then began to engage them.

*- Let's listen again to what Jesus had to say: ²⁵ Then Jesus said to them, “You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. ²⁶ Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?” ²⁷ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. (Emphasis added).

- Jesus took the time to teach these disciples not only that Scripture is authoritative, but also that the Scriptures must not be treated selectively, preferring some passages & ignoring others as the scribes, Pharisees, and Sadducees treated them.

- If we are to look to the Scriptures as authoritative & having authority over our lives, then we must understand that the whole of Scripture points to Jesus.

- The Hebrew Scriptures, meaning the Old Testament, are primarily about God & his actions & his mission to save the world, which is the very reason he sent Jesus.

- The Jewish leaders displayed a total disregard for the teaching of Scripture that God's Messiah &, by way of association, the true people of God are presented from the beginning as suffering servants.

- While there are several passages of Scripture throughout the Old Testament, which point to the Messiah, specifically, Luke does not point to these passages or list them.

- Instead, he points out for his readers, as the voice of Jesus, that it is all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures & that Jesus explained from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.

- In the eyes of Luke & of Jesus, in the pages of the Old Testament we are presented with the problem of sin, & God's mission to redeem people, which reaches its climax in the person & work of Jesus Christ, the suffering servant.

*- A common theme which church people have heard over & over again is the idea of the suffering, death & resurrection of Jesus as the fulfillment of the Scriptures.

*- The apostle Paul tells us: ³ I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. ⁴ He was buried, and he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. 1 Cor. 15:3-4 (NLT, emphasis added)

- But we also need to remember that Jesus fulfilled the Scriptures in a way that was completely unexpected.

*- Why were Messiah's rejection & suffering unexpected?

- The rejection & suffering of Jesus was unexpected because of natural human tendencies.

- It is only natural for us to reject suffering. It is natural because suffering is overwhelmingly difficult & painful.

- The way of suffering is not the way that we would suspect any sane, person, someone in her/his right mind, would choose.

- If given the choice between a long, comfortable, trouble-free life of contentment & a life filled with trials & troubles & tribulation & pain & disease, I would guess all of us would choose a life of contentment over a life of pain & trouble.

- So because we can't wrap our heads around it & it sounds crazy to us, we reject it.

- I would also guess that because the Jewish leaders did it 2000 years ago, we also do it today, disregarding what the Scriptures say because it doesn't tickle our fancy or because we don't understand it or know how to go about interpreting it.

- The scribes & teachers of the law spent their lifetimes studying the Scriptures.

- They knew what was written in the pages of the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, but they conveniently ignored the concept of a suffering servant (Luke LABC, p. 562).

- But the truth of the matter is: the whole of Scripture points to Jesus.

- He was a suffering servant & he interpreted his suffering as the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures.

- Jesus understood himself as the fulfillment of the law.

- What we could not accomplish, he accomplished in his blameless life & sacrificial death.

- The two commands which sum up the law and the prophets, loving God with wholehearted devotion & loving your neighbor as you would love & care for your own body, these commands Jesus kept flawlessly.

- The very things God told his people He expected of them through the prophet Micah, Jesus was able to do: Jesus acted justly; Jesus loved mercy; & Jesus walked humbly with God.

- There is no doubt in my mind that Jesus saw Abraham's lifelong loyalty & faithfulness to God as a type for himself.

- I am confident that Ruth's loyalty to Naomi typifies Jesus' concern for the widowed & others dealing with tragic loss, grief, & death.

- I am convinced that the suffering & integrity of Joseph in Egypt points to the suffering & integrity of Jesus.

- I'm certain that the suffering of Israel under their Egyptian taskmasters & their exodus through the Red Sea is a type for the suffering of Jesus & his exodus out of death into eternal life.

- I believe it's obvious that the blood of the Passover lamb smeared on the door posts & lintels & the same lamb then roasted & eaten in table fellowship foreshadows the shed blood of Christ & the meal we share in remembrance of him.

- Everywhere I turn in the Old Testament, the Hebrew Scriptures, I am beginning to see Jesus.

- I see Jesus in King David, the man after God's own heart.

- I see Jesus in King Solomon, the wisest man who had ever lived.

- I see Jesus in the outcry of the prophets for justice for the poor & the oppressed.

- I see Jesus in the grief of Jeremiah over the people of Israel.

- I see Jesus in Hosea's marriage to an unfaithful prostitute.

- I am convinced; the whole of Scripture points to Jesus.

- I firmly believe that Jesus is the key to unlocking the Scriptures.

- As Luke explains to his readers: Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself. Luke 24:27 (NLT, emphasis added)

- The whole of Scripture points to Jesus.

Getting the Kingdom, 11: The Mustard Seed & the Yeast Matthew 13:31-33

* - Do you ever find yourself complaining about how bad this world is getting?

- Today in North America, many Christians believe that things are going from bad to worse.

- Many Christians do not hold much hope for the growth of the kingdom of God in North America.

- We tend to focus on the negative, but these two short parables of Jesus remind us of the growing power of God's kingdom.

- Jesus is still telling his people that the kingdom of God will grow.

- Because God chooses to restart or reboot his kingdom through one obedient, humble person, Jesus, God's kingdom will grow & grow & grow until it fills the whole world.

- Jesus described how God's kingdom would grow by first comparing it to a mustard seed.

- A mustard seed is quite small. It was probably the smallest seed known to the people of the Holy Land 2000 years ago.

- But while a mustard seed is so small, after it is planted it grows so quickly, & becomes so large that it takes over the garden.

- In one growing season, it becomes a large bush the size of a small tree.

*- Check out the picture on the wall behind me. That's a small stand of mustard.

- No wonder ancient people avoided planting mustard in their gardens, the mustard plants took up way too much space.

- If you planted mustard in your garden you risked the mustard taking over.

- The simple tiny mustard seed shows how God's kingdom had tiny beginnings in the person of Jesus.

- Global researchers report that today there are over 2 billion (w/ a B) Christians on the planet: 2,000,000,000

- & every day more & more people are coming into the kingdom of God.

- Even if things don't look the tops, God's kingdom is growing; it never stops.

- It's pretty obvious that these plants are large enough for birds find shelter in them & build their nests among them.

- But why would Jesus mention that? Why did Matthew report Jesus describing the birds of the air nesting & sheltering in mustard plants?

- Well, Matthew's gospel points out that the good news about Jesus is not just for the Jews, but for Gentiles, the whole world.

- The birds of the air represent the good news being for the whole world & Jesus' mission is for God's kingdom to reach the non-Jewish world outside the Holy Land.

- Now, let's spend a little bit of time looking at the parable of the yeast.

- This little parable is making the same point as the parable of the mustard seed.

- Yeast is a very tiny thing. In fact, taken alone, they are microscopic. You cannot see them with the naked eye.

- If you've ever made bread at home from scratch, then what you see when you're preparing the yeast is a colony of many.

* - Here's a picture of yeast magnified 2,000 times.

- Yeast is a single celled fungus that multiplies quickly. A small amount of yeast goes a long way.

- That's the point of Jesus second parable about the yeast.

- God's kingdom is like yeast that a woman took & mixed into three measures of flour until it multiplied & mixed to affect the whole batch of dough.

* - Now there's something odd about this little parable. Can anyone guess what the odd thing is?

* - The odd thing in this little parable is the amount of flour the woman used.

* - Three measures or 3 epha's of flour were about 40 Litres, that's 50-60 pounds.

- So the amount of flour is not for everyday, ordinary use. That much flour could be used to feed between 100 to150 people.

- 40 Litres of flour would have been enough for a banquet.

- Jesus is saying that a small amount of yeast in the dough would be enough for an entire village.

- So that's the odd thing about this parable, but there's also a shocking thing in this little parable.

* - Can anyone tell me what the shocking thing is in this little parable?

* - The shocking thing is that Jesus uses yeast to describe the spread of God's kingdom.

* - Why is that shocking? Well, it's shocking because in the Old Testament yeast is almost always used to describe the spread of sin.

- Something that the Jews always understood as negative, Jesus turned upside down & used to describe something positive.

- Why did Jesus do that; why did he take yeast & use it to describe something as wonderful as the growth of the kingdom of God, when everyone was used to yeast describing something as negative as sin?

- Jesus used yeast to represent God's kingdom because in the Old Testament, God's feast celebrating the harvest was the feast of weeks AKA Pentecost.

* - Listen to what Leviticus says: "You shall bring from your dwelling places two loaves of bread to be waved, made of two tenths of an ephah. They shall be of fine flour, & they shall be baked with leaven, as firstfruits to the Lord." Lev 23:17 (ESV)

- So the grain offering of bread brought to the Lord for the feast of Pentecost was leavened; it was made with yeast.

* - Why is Pentecost important to the church?

* - Pentecost is important to the church because it is on Pentecost, that God poured out the Holy Spirit & the growth of God's kingdom began anew.

- No wonder Jesus tells us about a woman who uses enough flour for a banquet. He was thinking about the yeast-raised-bread eaten to celebrate God providing a plentiful harvest at the feast of Pentecost.

- Jesus was pointing to the Feast of Pentecost as the new beginning of the growth of the kingdom of God.

- Before God's Spirit was poured out on the day of Pentecost, there were only 12 apostles & 500 eyewitnesses to the resurrection of Jesus.

- But on the day of Pentecost after Peter preached, 3000 people were added to the church.

-  & today remember, there are more than 2 billion (w/ a B; 2,000,000,000) people who claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.

- Even if things don't look the tops, God's kingdom is growing; it never stops.

- To close the message this morning, I want to conduct a little experiment that shows us what the growth of God's kingdom is like.

- First, we're going to take 4 ounces of hydrogen peroxide & 2 ounces of ordinary dish soap & put them in a pop bottle.

- Now we are going to take 1 teaspoon of yeast that's been soaking in warm water for about 5 min.

- & we' re going to add that yeast to the peroxide & dish soap & watch & see what happens.

- This experiment is in rapid decomposition of hydrogen peroxide aka elephant toothpaste; you can watch one on Youtube.

- Even if things don't look the tops, God's kingdom is growing; it never stops.