I'd like to invite you to stand with me now for the reading of God's Word. And as you stand, would you please turn with me in your Bibles first to Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses 15 to 25. Deuteronomy chapter 28, verses 15 to 25. Beginning in verse 25, or 15, excuse me. But it shall come to pass, if you do not obey the voice of the Lord your God, to observe carefully all his commandments and his statutes, which I command you today, that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. Cursed shall you be in the city, and cursed shall you be in the country. Cursed shall be your basket and your kneading bowl. Cursed shall be the fruit of your body and the produce of your land, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks. Cursed shall you be when you come in, and cursed shall be when you go out. The Lord will send on you cursing, confusion, and rebuke, and all that you set your hand to do, until you are destroyed and until you perish quickly because of the wickedness of your doings in which you have forsaken me. The Lord will make the plague cling to you until he has consumed you from the land which you are going to possess. The Lord will strike you with consumption, with fever, with inflammation, with severe burning, fever, with the sword, with scorching, and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish. and your heavens which are over your head shall be bronze, and the earth which is under you shall be iron. The Lord will change the rain of your land to powder and dust. From the heaven it shall come down on you until you're destroyed. The Lord will cause you to be defeated by your enemies. You shall go out one way against them and flee seven ways before them. And you shall become troublesome to all the kingdoms of the earth. May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. And now would you turn with me in the New Testament to 1 John chapter 3. 1 John chapter 3 as we read verses 1 through 9. The Apostle John writes, Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed on us, that we should be called children of God. Therefore the world does not know us because it did not know Him. Beloved, now we are children of God, and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be. But we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see him as he is. And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. You know that he has manifested to take away our sins, and in him there is no sin. Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen him nor known him. Little children, let not one deceive you. He who practices righteousness is righteous just as he is righteous. He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God has manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil. Whoever has been born of God does not sin, for his seed remains in him, and he cannot sin because he has been born of God. All flesh is like grass, and all of its glory is like the flower of the grass. The grass withers and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord abides forever. And all of God's children said, Amen. Please be seated. Join me in prayer once again. Gracious Heavenly Father, Lord, we ask very simply that you would give us ears to hear and eyes to see what your word has to say to us. Pray, Heavenly Father, that in the hearing of your word and the preaching of it, that we wouldn't run away from what it says and what it has called us to do, but that we would rest Jesus Christ who has made us, your people, righteous through His perfect righteousness and the shedding of His blood. We ask, Heavenly Father, that this would be to your glory, for it is in your precious name we pray. Amen. If you have not done so already, I invite you to turn with me to the book of Genesis, chapter 3, as we look at verses 14 through 19 together. Genesis chapter 3, verses 14 through 19, and I have entitled this the first gospel. Well, I hope three weeks ago, chapter 3, verses 1 through 7, we looked at the fall of Adam and Eve. Remember that when we went there, Satan does not go to Adam who is the covenant head, he goes to Eve. Satan uses verse 1, a name of God, but did not use the name Yahweh, which God had given to Adam and Eve, indicating that as the covenant-making and keeping God, that is, the personal God who was the creator of all that Adam and Eve saw, the provider of all that they would need as well as their sustainer, and the issue is that as Eve is listening to Satan and they're having this conversation, she, like him, begins to refer to God Almighty with his impersonal name, as if he's a stranger. Satan then, in verse 3, asks Eve what God had said in the original covenant, the covenant of works, which we remember she wrongly quotes God, and in so doing, bringing confusion Satan lies about what God says, verse 4, when he tells her that even though God had promised in the covenant of works that should you eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that you'll die, and Satan tells Eve in this conversation that he lied, that you won't die. He tells her because, verse 5, that God knows that if you eat, you'll be like Him, knowing the difference between right and wrong, implying that God is somehow withholding something good from them. Verses 6 and 7, Eve eats of the tree. She hands the apple to Adam, fails to protect his wife, fails to obey God, and fails to trust God over against the word of the serpent. Two weeks ago, verses 8 through 13, we see how the sin of our federal head, that is Adam, affects his relationship with God, but also with Eve. Because of their sin, verse 8, they hide from God in the middle of what God had given to them, what He had created, given to them. Suddenly, because of their sin, verse 10, they realize that they are naked and ashamed before Him, even before He has said anything to them. Verses 12 and 13, suddenly, because of sin, Adam and Eve, who at one time enjoyed one another, now blame one another for their sin. The point, however, is we have looked through Genesis, coming to know God as the covenant maker and keeper who is faithfully bringing a people to himself to whom he will be their God and they will be his people. a relationship whereby he is king and lord to be worshipped, he is provider, he is sustainer, he is the cause of their ability to persevere, even though all of the world is sinning and rebelling against him, there is but one people, the church, who God is raising up out of the dysfunction and sinfulness of this world that will simply live apart from this world, giving glory and honor to him because he is faithful to them. As he loves this entire world faithfully, but he is nevertheless covenantly faithful to this one people. This covenant by which God performs this loving act is called the covenant of grace. The covenant of grace is simply that God is working through redemptive history, that is, from the beginning of time to the end, He is literally, through the proclamation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, calling a people out of that same darkness into His glorious light for His glory, to be a people, for His purposes, unto Himself. We saw, however, that the Covenant of Grace was originally formulated or made in what is called the Covenant of Redemption, or as it is also called, the Council of Peace. where the Father within Himself, the Trinity, covenants to the Spirit and to the Son to call a certain group out of darkness and into His glorious light. The Son then covenants again to Himself to go willingly into the world to live without sin, to proclaim His name as the source of salvation, that people would believe upon Him, that He would suffer and die for, that one day, when they are dead, would be raised into the newness of life, and the Spirit covenants to work in the hearts of those people whom the Father has chosen and the Son has purchased their salvation. The point is this, as we look at God's testimony, His unveiling of redemptive history, and how He works in the lives of His people, He has not led us to our own demise. Amen? that even though we are living in rebellion to Him, the Lord continues to draw about this people who will be His people, to whom He will be their God, and He will cause us to persevere to the end as He works in us and sanctifies us, that we might continue to live for His glory. Getting a little bit ahead of myself, but as sad as this story has been, it ought to be the greatest thing we have ever heard in our lives. Amen? He has not left us, nor has he forsaken us, nor has he left us wallow in our demise. He has simply picked us up out of the pit of muck and mire that we might be a people unto him, because he is faithful. to his word. This morning, we look in the midst of curses and punishments that God hands down first to the serpent, verses 14 through 15. We look at curses and punishments that he gives to Eve, verse 16, and finally to Adam, in verses 17 through 19. And yet even in the midst of these curses and punishments, God reminds us in all patience and endurance that this is not the end of the line. Will you follow along with me as I read verses 14 through 19 of Genesis chapter 3. Beginning in verse 14, the word of the Lord says, So the Lord God said to the serpent, Because you have done this, You are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your lives. And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. To the woman he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. Verse 17, then to Adam he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it. Cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." May God add a blessing to the reading of his word. We begin here, verses 14 through 15, with curses that have been handed down to the serpent. You'll notice verse 14, it says, "...because you have done this," he says to the serpent, "...you are cursed more than all cattle, and more than every beast of the field. On your belly you shall go, and you shall eat dust all the days of your lives." I'm sure, like many of you, you have heard repeatedly that when God says to him, that you're going to crawl on your belly, that the conclusion that we come to is that snakes, prior to this punishment, walked upright on two legs. That is consistently what many churches teach. But that isn't the point of what the Lord our God is making to the serpent. You'll notice here, verse 14, he says, The point that is actually being made here, both to the serpent and to Satan himself, is that his crawling on his belly, being reduced to eating dust, is that what God punishes Satan for leading Adam and Eve astray is a life and a future of abasement. That is a fancy way of saying that Satan, as is being handed down the word of the Lord, is from that point on demoralized. He is defiled. he is frustrated and defeated and disgraced. And when his people, that is the people of God, read the word, and we read that the serpent will be on his belly and he shall eat the dust, God's people, when reading this and watching snakes, who we all, you know, love and want to buy a whole cornucopia of pets, are visually reminded that like this serpent who is crawling on his stomach, who is defiled by spending his entire life eating dust, that both here and now and all of eternity that Satan, although he will do his best to lead the elect astray, will in the end be utterly demolished. Amen? The first gospel that is preached Micah chapter 7 verse 17, the prophet says, Do you understand what the prophet Micah is telling us? That like the serpent is declared here to be crawling on his belly, eating dust, that the same fate waits for those who will not repent and trust Jesus Christ for their Lord and Savior. Isaiah chapter 14, verses 13-14, the prophet says, "...you said in your heart, I will ascend to the heavens, I will raise my throne above the stars of God, I will sit and throne on the Mount of Assembly, on the utmost heights of Mount Ziphon, I will ascend above the tops of the clouds, I will make myself like the Most High." Isaiah, speaking prophetically, is describing the heart attitude, perhaps something that Satan has even said, even though he is already subjected to an eternal punishment that leads to his utter destruction. Understand the amount of pride that must go into Satan's head that says, even though God Almighty has declared to me a life of defilement, I will somehow raise above him in rebellion to him, and yet God's Word never changes, it never falters, it does not become culturally relevant. It is a lamp unto our feet, amen? And when the Lord our God spoke from eternity past that this would be the punishment of Satan, no matter how hard he might try, His fate, excuse me, is sealed. There's something very interesting here, verse 15. It says, And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed. He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. God is describing now enmity. That is a constant fight between His seed and her seed. There are only two, amen? The first seed are those of the devil. He says, between you and the woman, and between your seed, that is Satan's seed, and her seed, that is Eve's seed. Romans chapter 1 verse 28, And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a debased mind to do those things which are not fitting. See, the idea here, theologically, is that when Adam and Eve sinned against the Lord, Adam and all of humanity after him lost its ability to will to do any good that would please or honor or worship God. And that is what Paul is describing as a debased mind in Romans chapter 1 verse 28. Paul's point here is that the Lord had placed mankind to live in the condition of a reprobate mind that can only be undone by God's electing purposes and the Spirit's work of regeneration. In other words, what God is describing here in Genesis is that because of sin and the result of depravity from here on out, all those apart from the saving work of Jesus Christ are of the seed of the devil, that is, the reprobate, those of the depraved mind. The second seed, however, is her seed, that is, the elect. Election, as simply as I could define it for us, is God's choosing to sovereignly bestow or give His grace on those sinners He chose from before the creation of the world. That is a reference to the covenant of redemption. That is, the Father from eternity past has chosen certain individuals because of His grace and mercy being given to them for them to be his people. Election is not God choosing us based on good things that we will do in the future. Election is not based on our, you know, God's foreseeing our choosing of him. Election is based solely on God's sovereign mercy. Paul writes concerning the doctrine of election to those who would conclude that if God elects certain people to be saved, how unfair God must be when he writes Romans chapter 9 verses 14 through 15. He says, What shall we say then? Is there unrighteousness with God? Certainly not. For he says to Moses, I will have mercy on whomever I will have mercy and I will have compassion on whomever I have compassion. The idea here is very simply that there are those who in God's mercy has chosen to save according to his electing purposes. her seed. And then there are those who God has chosen to leave in their sins, called His, that is, the devil's seed. This is not, however, the only place that God's Word describes the separation of the two seeds. Jesus Christ, in Matthew chapter 13, verse 38, says, "'He who sows the good seed is the son of man. The field is the world. The good seeds are the sons of the kingdom, but the tares are the sons of the wicked ones.'" Jesus Christ makes a clear, pointed distinction between those who are of the woman's seed, those who are His, who will enter into the kingdom of God, from those who are of Satan's seed. John chapter 8, verses 44 to 46. Jesus Christ again says, you are of your father, the devil, and the desires of your father you want to do. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a liar and the father of it. But because I tell you the truth, you do not believe me. Which of you convicts me of sin? And if I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?" In other words, what Jesus Christ is saying is that one of the things that will separate those who are of the seed of the woman from those who are of the seed of the serpent are those who listen to him. That is, not just hear him, but do what he says. Notice that there is enmity between God's people and the people of Satan. He says, verse 15, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and then again, between your seed and her seed. That is a subtle indication that no matter how politically correct Christians want to be, there is and always will be friction between those who confess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior from those who are of the world. They don't apologize for that friction, and neither should we, as we lovingly continue to pursue the light and to proclaim that which is true according to the word of the Lord. In fact, Peter describes the tension this way. He says, do not be surprised that the world hates you. Paul tells Timothy in 1st Timothy that anyone who looks to pursue Christ-likeness and righteousness will be hated by the world. Where did that begin? Genesis chapter 3 verse 15 with the enmity. Notice something else, and this is the first gospel that is proclaimed both to Adam and Eve and to us. He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. The first one here, he shall bruise your head, refers to Satan's attempt to crucify Jesus Christ. That is his ultimate attempt There are other things that Satan does, both then and now, but the idea here is God permits Satan to pursue the end of Christ's life. That is a promise, that is a guarantee that will inevitably come. When Jesus the Christ comes, I have eternally given Satan permission to pursue him. But what Satan doesn't seem to realize is that even though he's pursuing his heel, all he's going to do is bruise his heel, I'm sorry, I got those confused. He shall bruise your head. That is what Jesus Christ will do, and he shall bruise his heel. The idea is that when Satan moves in the heart of the seed of the serpent, and he gets Christ crucified, it isn't some idea that Satan has. It was the eternal plan, and literally, Jesus Christ flips Satan's plan on its head, and it's for his glory. That is the very thing that seals the fate of Satan's eternal trajectory. I hope that makes sense, I apologize for getting the two confused. But the tension, the enmity that is going to exist between the seed of the woman who will bring about Jesus Christ, the enmity that still exists between Christians and the world is going to continue to exist, in fact it's going to intensify. All these Christians that I see that preach messages that are nothing more than motivational speeches are oftentimes messages that any Christian could give to any religious group in this world. Because it doesn't include anything about sin, it doesn't include anything about Jesus Christ, or of repentance, or of walking in the light. It is simply this talk that includes lots of jokes and anecdotes and a pump-you-up type atmosphere so that when God's people, if there are any in the sanctuary, leave, they feel better. They're not pumped with truth. They're not fed spiritually. They're not encouraged to walk closer to Jesus Christ. And the whole idea is that when they go out into the world, they don't look any different than the world does. Therefore, there is no enmity between them and the world. But when we live for Christ, that enmity will continue. Secondly, verse 16, God gives a curse to Eve. Follow along with me. To the woman, he said, I will greatly multiply your sorrow and your conception. In pain, you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you. There are two very interesting things that God brings up by way of punishment or curse because of her sin and rebellion against God. It's not just that she will have trouble in burying children and giving birth to children, but from that point on, marriage will suffer its own struggles and difficulties. We're told here that God has greatly multiplied your sorrow and your conception, meaning all of the changes and the difficulties that come with giving birth, that come with carrying a child. It's interesting because if we look back at chapter 1 verse 28, The Word of the Lord says, "...then God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth and subdue it. They have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth." The idea of having children was a blessing. This curse doesn't take away anything from that. It is still a creation mandate for us to have children and to enjoy them and love them and to teach them the way in which they should go according to God's word. The only thing that God is adding here is that in the delivery of those children and the raising of those children, it'll be hard. It'll be difficult. curse does not take away from the blessing that children are, it makes bearing them full of pain and taking care of them harder to do." You notice, secondly, it says, your desire shall be for your husband. The word in Hebrew for desire is a word, tesuka. It literally means to stretch out. What God is telling Eve is that should she not learn to control her flesh, as we all have been called by the Lord to do, that there will be real times, stressful, difficult times, when a woman will want to, and perhaps consistently, if not careful, look to impose control on or dominate over her husband. That's where the tension comes from. Remember that Adam was called by God to be the covenant head of his family. He was to take care of Eve, he was to take care of the creation that God had given to him to take care of, to have dominion. Well, because of her dominion or rebellion against the Lord our God and looking to somehow decide what God had said to Adam in the covenant of works, because of the confusion that Satan brought within the conversation that was had earlier in chapter 3, the very punishment is from then on, women in your flesh will look to usurp the husband's God-given role as head of the family. But our husbands, men, we do not get off. He says, your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you. It's interesting, but the idea of ruling over you actually goes back to what God told Adam to do in the beginning. Again, chapter 1 verse 28, chapter to verse 15, verse 18, verse 23, Adam was to have the kind of dominion over his family and over creation, not as some kind of a dictator or a controlling guy, but the kind of guy who did the work that God had called him to do with love, a sacrificial love, a care, a tenderness. But again, because of sin, what he will now want to do is to have a rule over you, to dominate over you, again, if we don't learn to control our sinful flesh. what was beautiful and given from God by way of the marital covenant relationship where you have two people working together. There is a covenant head, that is, a God-given role given to husbands. There is a submissive role given to wives, but the two of them were not in competition. And from this point on, that's what marital strife in the flesh can be. A competition where one person, one spouse, is looking to dominate over the other, and the other's response isn't to patiently love them, but to react to them. And there's this back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. Finally, verses 17 through 19, the curse then is handed down to Adam, Says verse 17, then to Adam he said, Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it, cursed is the ground for your sake. In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life, both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat of the herb of the field. In the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return." We look now at the curse that is given to Adam. Verse 17, you're going to work through toil. Verse 18, he says, "...both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, verse 19, "...in the sweat of your face you shall eat bread." The issue we need to understand here, beloved, is that again, the very thing that God gave to Adam to enjoy, that is his work, to tend to it, to work for the glory of God, is now being flipped on its head, and even though Adam is called to continue to work, the work that Adam is to do is now difficult, it's strenuous, it's frustrating, it is by the sweat of his brow. In fact, the word toil from the Hebrew word isabon literally means work will now include sorrow, pain, and suffering. The reason that when we work, suddenly we get sweaty and we get sore knees and back pains and headaches and arthritis and all these other things is because of the rebellion of Adam and Eve from God. But the idea here is that Adam is to continue to work. Work is still a blessing given from God. Work is still something as God's people we continue to pursue so long as we can continue to do it so that we can provide for the very people God has given us to take care of. But from this point on, In work, there is a sense of betrayal. Think about it. How many of us have been given a God-given talent to work on your car? Say, is something as small as an oil change, amen? I don't have that talent. There are brothers who do. Say, go change the oil. I'm going to tap on it with a tap on something with a screwdriver and hope that oil will start coming out. I don't know where to go or what to do. But you work on your car. You need to oil change. You need to change the tire. You need to do this or that. Guess what? Several months, you're going to need to work on it again. At the beginning, there wasn't that issue. It was time for Adam to plant an apple tree. I don't know how he did it, but poof, there's an apple tree, and all Adam's got to do is eat it, take care of it, prune it, whatever that even means. When we work, we sweat. It's frustrating. You've got to mow the grass. Well, guess what? In three or four days, it's going to be long again, or however long it takes. And guess what? You're going to have to go back out and cut the grass. In other words, work, because of sin, is no longer satisfying. It is frustrating. It is difficult. And as we get older, the more pain we feel because of it. Notice what he says here. says, "'Til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken, for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.'" The very ground that Adam was called to take care of is the exact place that he will end up when God has sovereignly chosen to end his life because of sin. The revolving door of being born growing up, working, taking ibuprofen, dealing with your back pain or your shin splints or your headaches, and when the Lord has called us home, going home. What's happening here is very interesting that we need to conclude with. Because as discouraging as this is, again, as we talked about at the very beginning, the discouragement is not the end for God's people. Amen? Look at this. Discouragement upon discouragement. The discouragement of even having snakes in the world. That's discouragement. and yet being reminded that as they eat dust, that like the snake is humiliated, so Satan will be humiliated, and he is now humiliated. The fact that there is enmity between God's people and Satan's people, the fact that there is enmity between husbands and wives, that we will simply want to work together, we will desire to be humble and serve one another, but when our flesh rises, what we will end up doing is viciously, if we're not careful, attack one another. But the thing that's actually being portrayed here is that because of Jesus Christ and God's covenant of grace, The people of God are not defined by the wickedness, by the sin, the curses that God allows. Because by His grace, we are His people for His glory. We are given the Spirit of God. These things that define the world, the thing that we see every single night on television and news does not define us. When I was in seminary, I took a number of Greek courses. I don't remember which one, but in one particular Greek course, one of my favorite professors in seminary took a sudden break from teaching us Greek. We were going through the book of Matthew, I believe, at the time. And he begins to tell us how it is that the Lord worked in his life. It's interesting, he was a college student at the University of Tennessee studying engineering. Very smart, very mathematically minded, very gifted. And he was there and he didn't know the Lord and he lived with two other guys that he had known from his adolescence who he had grown up with. None of these three guys knew the Lord. They liked to party, they liked to drink, they lived in excess in almost every conceivable way. And they discover one day that their RA, the resident assistant, was a believer. He is a nice young guy, quite a bit smaller than they were, but he was very eager, passionate about proclaiming the word of the Lord. And as these guys move into his hall where he's the, the, uh, the RA, the... the person who is to look after the students who are living on this floor, and he introduces himself, and one of the first things that he tells them is that he's been praying for them all summer long. He didn't care how they would react, he just humbled himself and he told them, I've been praying for you all summer long, and I'm excited that you're here, I'm looking forward to getting to know you, and if you need anything, you knock on my door, morning, noon, or night, and if I'm there and I can help, I'll help. These guys hear that little introduction, they mock him and they keep it moving. A couple of days later, the RA knocks back at their door and he just asks them how they're doing. Because these guys don't know the Lord and there's something peculiar about this guy, they decide that they're going to hurt him the best way that they know how. So you know what they did? They go down to the bathroom and they use it. Leave that alone. They go and they grab this young man, they grab him, they take him, they tip him upside down, and they stick his head where it should not go in that bathroom. He's humiliated. It's disgusting. All because this young man knows the Lord, and by virtue of the way he lives his life, these three hate him for it. As they're pulling him out of the water, this young man looks at what would become my professor teaching Greek in seminary and he's got tears running down his face because as eager as he was to share his faith, he wasn't embarrassed about the way he felt. Tears are streaming down his face. They plop him down on the ground and two of them laugh and they go about their business. The third guy turns around and he looks and he feels So much shame. How could I do that to another human being? This guy gets up from the ground, he goes back to his dorm room, cleans himself off, and he begins to pray. He prays for these three, and not ten minutes later, one guy comes down, He says, I don't know what happened, but when I looked down on you and I, I don't know, just something came to me and I realized that what I had done was mean and vicious and I want whatever you have. Teach me about your walk with the Lord. The guy right then and there begins to open his word and teach him all that God had taught him according to his word. The point is this. God describes curses that He hands down to Adam and Eve and all their progeny, that is, everyone who's going to come after them. Realize that that is their fate. until the Spirit of God opens their eyes, leads them to repentance and faith in Jesus Christ, this, according to the Word of the Lord, is who they will be and how they will act, and they will justify it to the hilt. But when we come out of that, because of His mercy and His compassion, we have freedom to love people in spite of the way that we're treated. This is what the world will do. Amen? It's remarkable. Because Jesus is the second Adam. His perfect obedience to the law. So that when we trust Him and His righteousness, that when the Spirit awakens us and opens our eyes and transforms our hearts, the unrighteousness that was our life to that point is suddenly transformed and His righteousness becomes our own. Realize that. His righteousness becomes ours. Because of Him, we don't wallow as the world does in our sin. We rejoice because we've been forgiven, and then we fight the good fight of faith, and never pursuing the things of unrighteousness again for His glory, because He has so moved in us to pursue Him and His righteousness. Because of Him, we don't treat our spouses as the world does. Yes, there are times of struggle. There is stress. There are things that we need to forgive. Those are real, and we're not taking any of that away. And yet at the end of the day, because of Christ and Christ's work in us, we don't live like the world does with people that we grow to resent. Because we love our spouses the way Christ has loved us. We're wrong. We pray for one another. We forgive. We don't serve one another the way the world does. We watch these shows occasionally and so-and-so will call somebody up and they'll say, do you remember when I did this for you? It's time for you to buck up and pay up here, bub. We don't do that. We delightfully serve and love one another. I'd like to conclude with one final point. If you would, turn with me in your Bibles to 1 Peter, chapter 2. 1 Peter, chapter 2. We look at verses 9 and 10. 1 Peter, chapter 2, verses 9 and 10. Listen to the word of the Lord. But you, that is those who God has elected and worked in for His glory until the end of the age, but you, the elect, our chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy." The Apostle Peter is not writing in regards to our self-esteem. What is he doing? He's describing who we are according to his mercy and grace to the praise of His glorious name. Because of that beautiful work that He has performed in us, not only do we live differently, but we proclaim that very word that was proclaimed to us, that others might obtain that same mercy. We are not defined. by the sinfulness of this world, although we will continue to struggle with it. We are defined by the work that God Almighty has performed in you through regeneration in the work of God the Holy Spirit, and therefore we strive for greater purpose. Amen. Let's pray. Lord God in heaven, we thank you for your word. We thank you, Heavenly Father, for your grace and your mercy. We pray, Heavenly Father, that this would stick deep, deep into our hearts and take root. We pray, Heavenly Father, that as difficult as this might be, that we wouldn't look to do this on our own, but that we would know that you are the author and the perfecter of our faith, and you and you alone work in us to make us more like Jesus Christ, our Savior, We pray, Heavenly Father, that we would lean on you all the more. For it is in your precious name we pray. Amen.