This sermon is the sixth in the Beginnings series, preached for Emmanuel Reformed Church, in Springfield, SD, on Sunday, February 17, 2019.

There are some distractions during the beginning of this recording, you’ll probably hear them. A member of our congregation was experiencing some health concerns. She is doing well now. We continue to trust in God’s power over death, and in the eternal life won for us by Jesus Christ.

Genealogies are hard for us to read, let alone study and make sense of. The names are hard to pronounce. We get lost in the repetition.

But God’s Word says of itself:

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God [lit. “the prophet”] may be complete, equipped for every good work.”

2 Timothy 3:16-17, ESV

So reconsider Genesis 5. It is the beginning of God’s victory over death, as unlikely as that seems.

Death reigns in these verses. Each name is ended with the refrain, “and he died.” The notable exception is Enoch, who “walked with God” until God received him to Himself. See? God was at work against Death already here.

But even more, we see signs here that God is beginning to defeat Death here, because “the book of the generations of Adam” (Genesis 5:1) doesn’t end here. It extends all the way to Jesus Christ, “the Son of Adam, the son of God” (Luke 3:38). Jesus is anticipated already here, as the fulfillment of God’s promise concerning Eve’s offspring (Genesis 3:15). And now we are not only invited to walk with God, like Enoch, but that kind of intimate relationship with God is made possible for all of us by Christ’s own Spirit, poured into our hearts to bind us to God forever. We will never be separated from God’s love: not even by death.

Thanks be to God!

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