or on your phones. And there's an outline here in your bulletin, so you can follow along and take notes as you feel the need. I'm beginning a new series on covenant theology throughout scripture, throughout time. The Lord has interacted with his people by means of covenant. What's a covenant? O Palmer Robertson gives this biblical definition, a covenant is a bond in blood, sovereignly administered. A bond in blood, sovereignly administered. A bond is a tying of two parties together in an intimate agreement, in blood, because it is a serious agreement, made with the understanding that if the covenant is broken, someone will die. Covenants are not always literally in blood, but there's always a tangible symbol of the intangible agreement. And sovereignly administered means in these agreements, there's a person of power and a person under power. And the person in power initiates and creates the terms of the agreement. Let me introduce this scripture to you just to get our bearings here. We're going to be reading from Genesis. Genesis 2, starting with verse 5. It's the first book in the Bible. It was most likely written down by Moses in the wilderness by the inspiration of God. Moses was a trustworthy prophet, attested by public, historic, epic miracles. And this attestation is very important because there are a myriad of other creation myths. But there's only one that comes with the audacious miracle claims or the audacious proofs. Like the epic plagues in Egypt, the parting of the Red Sea, food from heaven for 70 years, earthquakes and lightning on the mountain of Sinai. This assuredly is the Word of God. So let's pray. Jesus, thank you for bringing us your word that we can trust and that we can believe. Lord, as we look at other creation myths, other stories, other histories, they all pale in comparison to your word, to your true, authentic, real, honest history. Thank you, Jesus. Give us eyes to see, give us ears to hear this morning what your word has for us. In Jesus' name, amen. Genesis 2, starting with verse 5. When no bush of the field was yet in the land, and no small plant of the field had yet sprung up, the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the land, and there was no man to work the ground. And a mist was going up from the land and was watering the whole face of the ground. And then the Lord God formed the man of dust from the ground, breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living creature. And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good. Bdellium and onyx stone are there. The name of the second river is the Gihon. It is the one that flowed around the whole land of Cush. And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man saying, you may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat. For in the day that you eat of it, you shall surely die." Then the Lord God said, it's not good that man should be alone. I will make a helper fit for him. Now out of the ground, the Lord God had formed every beast of the field and every bird of the heavens and brought them to the man to see what he would call them. And whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name. The man gave names to all livestock, and to the birds of the heavens, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. The Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man. And while he slept, took one of his ribs, closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man, he made into a woman and brought her to the man. And then the man said, this at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She shall be called woman because she was taken out of man. Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden? And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened. And you'll be like God, knowing good and evil. So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that there 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 then the eyes of both were opened and they knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day. And the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, Where are you? And he said, I heard the sound of you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked and I hid myself. He said, who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat? And the man said, the woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I ate. Then the Lord God said to the woman, What is this that you have done? And the woman said, The serpent deceived me, and I ate. And the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field. On your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman, he said, I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. And to Adam he said, because you've listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, you shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground because of you. In pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for you are dust, and to dust you shall return. The man called his wife's name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. Did your parents ever make an agreement with you when you were a kid or a teenager? Ever make an agreement with you? My parents made an agreement with me when I was a teenager. They would provide me with a car and with a gas card. But I needed to be home at the time when they told me I needed to be home. And one weekend there was a party on a Saturday night and my curfew was 10. And I wanted the freedom to be out a little bit later than that, because my brother and our friends all wanted to travel in my Ford Taurus wagon, wearing our matching Izod sweater vests and slacks to this party. True story. And so I didn't like the agreement, so I wanted to renegotiate the terms with my father, who, FYI, is a lawyer, so kind of bad starting out there. And I said, I'd like to be home at 11 p.m. Dad said, no, 10 p.m. I said, I don't like this agreement. And he said, fine, you won't be able to go then. I didn't like the way that the arbitration was going. I was in no position to bargain with my dad. I couldn't tell him, look, if you let me stay late till like 12, I'll obey you. I already needed to do that. I couldn't tell him, if you let me go and stay out, I'll get good grades. I already needed to do that. I was in an agreement with someone who had vastly more power than I did, and so, I took the Ford Taurus wagon to the party. We rolled in four deep in our sweater vests, and the party wasn't cool enough for us, and so we were totally home by 10. Have you ever had a problem like I was having, where you're in agreement with somebody, but you don't really have a whole lot of choice in the matter? Sounds like anyone's internet bill? You're not really in a position to make your own internet, so the option is to pay the one company who services your area, or you don't have any service at all. It's kind of like how our agreement with God works. Mankind has had a series of agreements with God. We call them covenants. They could also be called testaments. Has anyone heard the term testament before? As Christians, our Bible consists of an Old Testament and a New Testament. In our culture, the place where you'll frequently hear the term Testament is when someone dies, they have a last will and testament, it's an agreement about how their property is to be split up, is to be given out. But in order to have a testament, someone has to die. So, in the New Testament, who died? Jesus. In the Old Testament, who died? Jesus. Jesus didn't die in the Old Testament, but his death is prefigured there and foreshadowed and symbolized in various ways to point us to the time when Jesus would actually give his life that he might give his people an inheritance, a testament. So just like the teenager who doesn't really like his parents' agreement, sometimes we don't really like the agreements with God or that God set up for us and others. And sinners, honestly, they tend to find fault with God in the way that he's ordered providence. And so we're going to take a look at how God set things up, how he originally had the agreement in the first place, and let's see if we can't find some wonderful beauty and grace in the story of the fall, the fall from grace. And we may even find some grace in what reformed theologians like to call the covenant of works. Here's what I'm trying to tell you this morning. God's covenants with his people are clothed with grace. Therefore, we should clothe ourselves with the armor of God. God's agreements with his people are clothed with grace. Therefore, we should clothe ourselves with the armor of God. Point number one, a suitable home. Genesis 2, 5 through 15. Our scene begins with God leaving the hose on, his spring on, as it were, to water his garden. Just get a picture of God as a gardener. He's not just planting wheat and boring lines or growing grass to fill in blank spots. He is gardening a diverse, expansive arboretum. And he's creating what my children like to call a set. Okay, a set at our house is like a bunch of Duplos and Legos and blocks and maybe using some tissue paper or toilet paper as blankets and they set it all up so that the Duplo person has whatever they need to thrive and they have food and protection and transportation and a toilet. And that's what God is setting up for his gardener. And then he builds his gardener. Look at how he does it. He formed him from the dust, from the dirt. In Hebrew, he formed Adam from the adamah. In English, Adam's name would be roughly translated dusty. God gets down in the dirt, anthropomorphically speaking, and he makes a mudman. As close as we might get to it is when we make a person on the beach with sand. We have fun, but we get dirty. And then God puts his own breath, his own spirit into his sandman, into his dusty boy. And so in God's set, he makes the man, and then he makes all the beautiful plants to look at and to eat. It's as if he wanted the man to share in his joy of growing the plants. He allowed the man to see and enjoy some of the process of making the garden grow. And when we think of a garden, usually we think of either a flower garden or a crop garden, one for beauty and one for utility. But in God's garden, they're one and the same. And he has trees, which, you know, you can't just plant them one season. I mean, it takes a long time for a tree garden to grow. And there were two significant trees in the garden. One stood for life and blessedness, everlasting life with God, a real tree. And there was planted a tree of knowledge of good and evil. Both trees had fruit on them. Not apples, by the way. We're allowed to eat apples. Not apples. Both trees were pleasant to the sight and presumably good for food. It's mentioned in that context. What a suitable home. What a suitable home. In verses 10 through 14, our story continues to tell of the garden. We'll have a water source, a river, four rivers even. The tree of life and the river of life are ongoing themes in the Old Testament and in the New Testament. In Ezekiel, a river flows from the temple, giving life as it flows east towards Eden. It's a huge river surrounded by trees whose fruit is food and whose leaves are for healing of the nations. In Revelation 22.1, a river flows from the throne of God, feeding the tree of life, which bears all different types of fruit for the healing of all the nations. So these heavenly trees were there in the garden, picturing blessedness, life, and health. And God gave Adam a job. He was to guard the garden. Keep there means guard. Every guy in this room has to appreciate this part, okay? God gave Adam a job. He gave him a job to do. We want to have a purpose. We need our marching orders. We do our best when expectations are put out there. And so God gives him a job, tend my garden. And then he gives him a gracious statute, Genesis 2, 16 through 17. Here's where we get to the agreement part. But look at how graciously God frames his command. You may surely eat of every tree of the garden. Look at all the freedom he gave man. And what types of trees can Adam eat from? All sorts, even the tree of life. It's a tree in the garden, is it not? God is so gracious. His command could have been singular. It could have been, none of the trees are you allowed to eat from. You can only eat grass. No, God gives Adam of his wide bounty on the earth that God had formed in the garden that God had planted and watered of all those trees Adam may eat. And yet some would look at this command and say, well, why did he even make a tree of knowledge of good and evil? Why give Adam an option to do evil? And that could be a mere intellectual question, and we could have an intellectual discussion about it. But frequently, it bespeaks a doubt of God's goodness and wisdom. And we cannot start there. How good is God here in his gracious setup for Adam? And so we just trust him, that he's doing a good thing. Furthermore, God tells Adam why not to eat of it. There's some parents in the room, okay? We know that we don't always tell kids why they're not allowed to do something or why they must do something. We have a rule at our house that we borrowed from the Cody's that children may ask why as they're obeying or only after they have obeyed because otherwise it's disobedience. We still might not answer the child ever their question why. But with God, he tells Adam why. In the day that you eat of it, you will surely die. But I can just hear a child still asking, but why? Here's why. Because disobeying God is death. God is life. Disobeying him necessarily means accepting death. And for us, in our modern context, our temptation is not to eat from a tree. Our temptation is about not loving God with all our strength, all our mind, all our soul, and all our mind and body, and not loving our neighbor as ourself. And when we reject God in any way, we invite death, death and loneliness. So this is the agreement, the covenant. Adam, you may eat of the trees, even of the tree of life, and you'll have life. If you eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, you will have death. Our forefathers in the faith called this the covenant of works, because if Adam did the work of eating from the right trees, he would live. If he did not, he would die. It is an agreement, even though we never hear Adam say, yes, sir, where do I sign? It is an agreement, even though we don't see the word covenant in this section of scripture. It is a covenant, even though we don't see a shedding of blood, which we usually see in covenants, we will see that in just a few verses. The symbols of this covenant were two trees, life, death. Another thing to note about covenants here, I would add to Robertson's definition, a bond and blood sovereignly administered through a representative, through a representative. Notice how Eve is not here when the agreement is made, when the command is given. Nonetheless, she is held to the commandment. Adam is her representative in the covenant agreement. Covenant agreements use a representative, one person that stands in the place for all people. We're gonna see this over and over again. A suitable helper, Genesis 2, 18 through 24. God's gracious ways continue as he sees the first thing in creation that's not good. He made it, he sees something that's not good. Adam's alone. Adam has all the trees, all the plants, he has all the creatures that the Lord brought to him to name. Each of them had a mate, male and female, yet Adam had no corresponding human counterpart, no helper. I love how God notices the problem before man does. Adam doesn't notice that he needs this helper. And God doesn't just give the man a job and command him and leave him. God is watching over Adam. He notices if something needs to be fixed or completed or repaired. He doesn't say, make your own helper. God makes a helper for him. So much better than if man had made his own helper. What kind of grace is here? And God brings the animals to Adam first to show him that he doesn't want a wild companion, nor a domesticated companion. He wants a woman, both wild and domestic, both soft and strong, both nurturing and deadly. Then God sedates Adam. God the anesthesiologist. God could have said, look buddy, this is going to hurt a bit, but it's worth it. No. He causes him to sleep. And not just a local anesthetic. The whole deal. And God took out the rib and formed a woman and then closed up the wound. More grace. God the surgeon, God could have said, hey buddy, sew yourself up or let the woman do it, you got your helper, okay? No, God covers it with flesh. And Adam is so excited that he utters his first poetry and he names her, woe man. And then we've got a suit yourself story in Genesis 3, one through 10. Adam and Eve decide that they don't think that God is believable, that he is holding back on them, and that he doesn't want them to be like him. And when they doubt what God has said, they don't take it to the source and ask him themselves. They don't stop to pray before deciding to go against his only rule, they just disobey. At first, Satan spins God's command. He leaves out how gracious God was and asks, as if he didn't know, whether God said they couldn't eat from any of the trees in the garden. Satan's spinning here. He's spinning God's words to make God appear more stringent and less gracious. And then Eve, intentionally or unintentionally, makes out God's rules to be more strict than they are. Neither shall you touch it. God didn't say that. And then Satan flat out contradicts God. You will not surely die. And partly Satan is right. He's half right. Adam and Eve do die that day spiritually, and the process of death begins in their hearts and souls and bodies. So with them, so with all creation, but they don't literally die that day. But that's because of God's grace. Satan doesn't say, you won't surely die because God will offer a sacrifice for your sin and keep you alive because of his great grace. No, he doesn't say that part. He just says, you won't surely die. And Adam and Eve fall for it. Yes, Eve ate of the fruit first, but Adam was right there with her. See verse six. Presumably the whole time. You would think that Adam would have taken out his hoe and started pummeling the serpent for daring to question his best friend and king, the Lord. Adam should have kicked the serpent out of the garden as part of his duties to guard it for daring to pick on his wife. But no. Adam lets her take the initiative. He even lets her eat first. What a jerk. God told me that if I eat of this, I'll die. My wife wants to eat it. Okay, honey, we'll both eat it on the count of three. One, two, three. And he's like waiting to see. She didn't die. What a jerk. So they ate of the fruit and their eyes were opened and they saw that they were naked. So their eyes had been closed before. Did God want to keep their eyes closed? In a way, yes. He wanted them to be totally innocent to evil. They discovered that they were naked. Big deal. Okay? It's like you're in the middle of a shower and you discover that you are naked. Okay? Not a problem. That's as it should be. You're supposed to be naked in the shower. Adam was in the garden with only his wife. They're supposed to be naked and unashamed. Well, shame crept in to the garden. And it's not that there was anything wrong with their bodies or anything wrong with the husband and wife being naked together. What was wrong was that they'd sinned against God and they were ashamed. And that plays out in them trying to suit themselves. The true problem is not their nakedness, it's their disobedience. So they have a little craft time and make themselves the totally unnecessary, not very good loincloths. of leaves. And you know they're not very good because although they presumably have them on minutes later, Adam still says, I was naked. Okay? A.k.a. Adam is not very good at craft time. One of my children, when they were young, came upstairs stark naked. And this child was covering themselves in this way. Okay? I'm covering myself because I don't want anyone to see my bottom. I said, OK, why don't you go downstairs and get dressed? And that's how it is with us when we try to suit ourselves, when we try to cover ourselves. We're missing something. We're missing it. Don't try to cover yourselves. They're ashamed. We're ashamed at our rebellion against God. Any covering that we make for ourselves is going to be utterly pointless. How do we do that nowadays? We try to do good works. We try to lie and cover our own sin, point the finger at somebody else. It doesn't work. It's missing it. A lawsuit, Genesis 3, 11 through 19. Then God brings his complaint against them, his lawsuit, if you will. But even here, God is so gracious. If you doubt God's grace and bring in his suit, all you need to do is see a normal parent in anger over being disobeyed by a child. You've heard it said, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. Well, a woman scorned hath no fury like a parent scorned for the 30th time that morning. Eyes wide with anger, shouts well above the normal speaking range. Sometimes something is pounded or grabbed and hopefully it's not a child. and there may be a long lecture or a vehement spanking. Let's look at which one of those gods does. None. First, they hear him walking. I would have pictured stomping, thunder, lightning, darkness, cold. Nope. They hear him walking, and so they hide. instead of dragging them out of the bushes by their hair, God calls to them, where are you? And did you notice who he called? Not them, the man, Adam. Adam is the one responsible. Adam is the representative. He's the one who needs to come out and talk to God. Adam is the one who God made the agreement with, Adam is the representative head. Look at God's parenting style. He knows he's been a disobeyed in the most epic magnitude ever. And he walks so they can hear him. He's testing them. Then he calls out a question that they easily know the answer to. Where are you? He's testing them. What's the answer? They're in his garden that he made for them. They're hiding from God in the garden that he made for them. He wants them to notice something so wrong in themselves and their reaction towards them. Then he asks another question he already knows the answer to. Who told you that you were naked? What's the answer to that? Nobody. Adam is ashamed and so he's projecting that onto others. Then he asked, have you eaten of the tree of which I told you not to eat? Does God know the answer to that? He still asks. He wants their heads in the game. He wants their consciences involved. He wants them to be asking these questions of themselves. Now, parents, I hope you're taking notes here. Do you see how gracious God is with the biggest sin in the universe? Instead of lecturing, he's asking. He's getting his children involved by asking them questions about what's going on with them. And this is a great parenting trick to say, I already know the answer to this question, and I already know the punishment I'm going to give you. Are you ready to tell me what you did? Then there are consequences for each of them for what they did. Satan's consequence is that he will be humbled. He will fight with mankind. And the seed of woman will deal him a critical death blow to the head. This is called the Proto-Ewangelion. Can you guys say that? Proto-Ewangelion. It's the first good news. The first good news. Satan will be crushed and God will even allow Eve's offspring to participate in the final justice for that great serpent, Satan, and what he did against her, against her seed. The consequence for woman is that she will have pain and child-rearing, child-bearing and child-rearing. The Hebrew word is broad there. And she's going to want to continue initiating going first, leading the way, ruling her quiet husband who was with her. But God gives her quiet, jerk husband authority over her. The consequence for man is that his work will be toil, will be pain, sometimes fruitless. He'll be kicked out of the sustainable trees garden. He's got to go to the field. He's kicked out of the permaculture, Charlie. And he's got to go to the field and he's got to work it all the time over and over again. And it's going to die. And he's going to die. A covenant has consequences. Just because God loves us and is gracious to us doesn't mean he totally spares us from the consequences of our actions, even now. Yes, we are spared from God turning away his face from us, but we should fully expect consequences for our sin here on earth. God is gracious, not killing us when we sin. So anything less than death that you have as a consequence for your sin is a grace, and not a burden. In our covenants with one another, just because there are consequences doesn't mean that we're cutting off the relationship, okay? There's consequences for them. They're kicked out of the garden. It doesn't mean God's cutting off the relationship. Teenagers, parents might give you consequences. They are gracious. Accept them. They are not cutting off the relationship. A leather suit. Genesis 321. We have this tiny little verse. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them. But this verse packs so much power. It strongly reveals what kind of God created us, covenanted with us, and it powerfully foreshadows what is going to come in the Old Testament and in the New. But it seems as innocuous as God gave them leather suits to wear. First of all, in spite of all their sin, God clothed them. Remember their leaf loincloths that were so successful? God makes their clothes this time. He could have said, oh, you thought you were naked, huh? Well, get out of the garden with your leaf leader hose, and I'll bet you get a whole new definition of naked. No. He fashions their clothes of something sturdy and warm. Skins. Skins just don't fall from the sky, do they? A skin comes from somewhere. Comes from a living beast. God probably didn't conjure the skins. God probably didn't take them off of a dead animal. God most likely killed an animal. The Hebrew here for skin is singular. Took its innards out, cut and ripped off the skin, strung it up tightly to dry, tanned the hide by sponging the brains of the animal into the hide, and then sewing it back together around the different sizes of the woman and the man, tailoring the suit to fit the needs of each one. The woman would be giving birth to children. The suit needed to accommodate that. The man would be toiling under the sun, sweating. The suit would need to accommodate that. What work for the Lord? And that an innocent animal might die to clothe sinners. How could God bring himself to do that? He did. Because the sacrifice of this innocent animal points to the cross of Christ. On the cross, we know that God offered up his one and only son, Jesus. Jesus was stripped of his clothes. His skin was punctured by sharp thorns. His skin was literally ripped from his body as the Roman soldiers cut him with a cat of nine tails, a gruesome whip. Then he was stretched and hung out to dry on the cross. And the only thing to moisten him was the blood streaming from his many wounds and wine on a sponge. The Lamb of God was innocent. The wrath of God was poured out on him. Jesus cried out, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And why did he? What is the answer to that question? The Lord forsook Jesus. so he could find you and clothe you. And if we believe that Jesus died for us, if we repent of our sins, we are clothed with the righteousness of Christ, spiritually now, but really in heaven. Make sure that that's a reality for you today. Make sure. And if you believe that, you need to bear witness to God's work in your life to the elders. This isn't a private thing. So what's the application of this story for us? We don't have serpents tempting us to eat cookies or do drugs, but the devil's still around. We fight not against a physical snake, but against a spiritual constrictor. What should Adam have done when faced with the temptation of the devil? What should we do when tempted by spiritual forces of evil? Thankfully, The New Testament gives us some specifics. We're to put on a suit of armor. Turn with me to Ephesians 6, 10-18. Ephesians 6, 10-18. The whole armor of God. Finally, Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. Therefore, Take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand firm. Stand therefore, having fastened on the belt of truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and as shoes for your feet, having put on the readiness given by the gospel of peace. In all circumstances, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one. and take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication to that end, keep alert, and with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints. As Christians, we need to arm ourselves with the truth. the truth that we always need to speak so as never to be caught in a lie, and the truth that we know from God's Word regarding what really is and what really is not, what has been and what will be. Arm yourself with that truth and you will not be as susceptible to doubt and mistrust. We arm ourselves with righteousness, personal holiness, Nothing will paint a target on your chest for the arrows of the evil one more than a lack of own care for your personal holiness. Take up righteousness in your conduct with your peers, always doing what's right with your family, never letting your guard down or being lazy and attending to the holiness of your life. Put on gospel readiness, always being ready to give an account for the hope that's in you. on the field of play, on the internet, in the grocery store, in the doctor's office, in the work office, share the gospel, be ready. If you're very afraid to, make sure that you're hiding. You have nothing to be ashamed of in Christ. The gospel is peace. Do not be anxious. And as you are not anxious, people will want to hear more of you and enjoy your company as you are not anxious or wrathful, but rather full of peace. And have faith. Trust and believe God that he will conquer as he says he will. And if you know the end of those that set themselves against the Lord, you'll be far less susceptible to their ways. If you know that they're just a whole lot of talk and a whole lot of hot air, and they're destined for hell, we don't need to worry about them. Finally, take up the Spirit. Be constantly in prayer for more of God's Spirit to indwell you and give you power over temptation and life, to blow into others as well. Adam and Eve's story ends sadly. They're kicked out of the garden. It ends mysteriously. They don't know about Jesus, the Jesus that the sacrifice points to. They don't know how the seed of woman shall crush the head of the serpent on the cross. But thanks be to God, we're on this side of the cross this morning. We aren't being kicked out of the garden, but called to the blessed garden of God's church, of God's heaven. We know of a far greater sacrifice than a deer that clothes us, or something far greater than leather. We have holy robes of righteousness. And we know how Jesus has already crushed the head of the serpent, conquering him on the cross. And we already know that he will throw him into the pit when he comes again. Therefore, let us rejoice and obey and put on the whole armor of God. Amen. So we're going to review what we've learned about by reading the catechism. And it's going to teach us a little bit more about covenant. But before we do, let me pray. But you can open up in your bulletins to that catechism. and I'm gonna read, and then you guys are gonna read together the bold side. But let's pray. Oh Jesus, thank you for your great grace to us. I pray that we would be gracious with one another. I pray that we would understand our agreement with you, that it's not like a peer to a peer, but it is like an aunt to a man. It is sovereignly administered. And we weren't there to make the agreements with you, but we have a representative. And thankfully, we have a far better representative now. We have Christ. Thank you, Lord Christ, for being our representative and for teaching us the ways of the Father. And thank you for the covenant of grace that we now have and live and walk in. And oh, Lord, we do look forward to that day of walking in the garden of heaven that you have created for us. where we will see you face to face. We won't need to hide from you because we will have robes of righteousness on, the robes of Christ. Thank you, Jesus. Amen. Let's confess our faith in the words of the Westminster Confession of Faith, chapter seven. I'll read the first paragraph and you guys will read the bold. The distance between God and the creature is so great that although reasonable creatures do owe obedience unto him as their creator, Yet they could never have any fruition of him as their blessedness and reward, but by some voluntary condescension on God's part, which he has been pleased to express by way of covenant. The first covenant made with man was a covenant of works wherein life was promised to Adam and in him to his posterity upon condition of perfect and personal obedience. Man, by his fall, having made himself incapable of life by that covenant, The Lord was pleased to make a second, commonly called the Covenant of Grace, wherein he freely offers unto sinners life and salvation by Jesus Christ, requiring of them faith in him, that they may be saved, and promising to give unto all those that are ordained unto eternal life his Holy Spirit, to make them willing and able to believe. This covenant of grace is frequently set forth in scripture by the name of a testament in reference to the death of Jesus Christ, the testator, and to the everlasting inheritance with all things belonging to it therein bequeathed. This covenant was differently administered in the time of the law and in the time of the gospel. Under the law, it was administered by promises, prophecies, sacrifices, circumcision, the paschal lamb, and other types and ordinances delivered to the people of the Jews, all for signifying Christ to come. which were, for that time, sufficient and efficacious, through the operation of the Spirit, to instruct and build up the elect in faith in the promised Messiah, by whom they had full remission of sins and eternal salvation. And it's called the Old Testament. Under the gospel, when Christ, the substance, was exhibited, The ordinances in which this covenant is dispensed are the preaching of the word and the administration of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper. which though fewer in number and administered with more simplicity and less outward glory, yet in them it is held forth in more fullness, evidence, and spiritual efficacy to all nations, both Jews and Gentiles, and is called the New Testament. There are not, therefore, two covenants of grace, differing in substance, but one and the same under various dispensations.