We have been in a sermon series based on the Book of Genesis, chapters one through eleven. In the beginning, God made everything out of nothing. After the six-day creation work, the Lord rested and blessed the seventh day as the Sabbath. The Creator God prepared the Garden of Eden for Adam and Eve and asked them to take care of the beautiful paradise. The first marriage of Adam and Eve was stated in the previous sacred text. Interestingly enough, today’s scripture in the Old Testament introduces the first argument between the same two. A while ago, Adam and Eve expressed their delight in the Garden of Eden. Still, this morning we arrive at the loss of their perfect peace due to their disobedience. Through the fall of Adam and Eve, we can find God’s curses and blessings upon them. In the first book of the New Testament and its first chapter, the Family Tree of Jesus is described. The writer of Matthew’s Gospel starts with a lot of names there. It seems boring; however, it is one of the most critical passages in the Holy Scriptures. Through Christ’s Genealogy, we can discover Jesus, the Messiah, known as the New Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). He came to restore the broken relationship between God and us as Adam and Eve’s spiritual descendants. This morning I want us to explore how we can become a new Adam or Eve in our faith journey as Christ followers.

Before we dig in, I want us to look at what happened to Adam and Eve after they ate the forbidden fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Adam and Eve were exposed to corruption instead of becoming like God. When their eyes were opened, Adam and Eve started recognizing their nakedness, shame, and guilt. They feared the Lord and wanted to be far from Him. The loving relationship between God and human beings was damaged. Adam and Eve also started to blame each other.

When Adam and Eve kept God’s command, like the lyrics of the hymn “In the Garden,” they loved walking and talking with God in the Heavenly Kingdom. They had abundant gratefulness due to God’s perfect provision in the Garden. They experienced indescribable joy from their intimate fellowship with the Lord. They felt that they were precious in His sight. After the fall of human beings, Adam and Eve lost their divine happiness. On top of distancing from God, Adam asked why the Lord made Eve and brought her for him. Adam justified his wrongdoing while complaining to God and blaming Eve’s initial action regarding the fruit. Someone said, “This is typical of human nature. [Humankind] loves to find someone or something to blame for their behaviour.” In the earlier passage, Adam was thankful to God for creating Eve. He was delighted to have her as a wife in his next adventure of life (Genesis 2:23). All of a sudden, Adam reversed his view on his suitable helper, given by God, and started pointing the finger at her. Eve also accused the serpent. Both Adam and Eve excused themselves for their behaviour instead of admitting their failure and repenting of their sin before God.

I have found one interesting point from God’s statement to Adam and Eve. Nobody had told them, including God, that they were naked. Feeling unclothed would mean having a sense of shamefulness from doing unrighteous things. Since we, as human beings, are created in God’s image, our minds deep inside are influenced by His godly characteristics. We naturally become guilty when we have done something untrue. There are two types of guilt in the Bible. I would call the first kind “harmful regret” or “self-condemnation.” Spiritually speaking, our divine adversary, Satan, deceives us and condemns us when we do something unrighteous. Like Adam and Eve, we may mitigate our false to someone, including ourselves, and/or something instead of taking responsibility for our mistakes. Due to a blaming and complaining game, we may hurt those who are close to us, once again, along with ourselves. We may also put a lot of good layers upon our guilty areas. None of those attempts could remove feelings of remorse in our hearts. I would name the second type of regret “healthy guilt.” This feeling is the one God wants us to have. The Apostle Paul describes this in the following statement: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death” (2 Corinthians 7:10). Even though Adam and Eve reacted to God’s instruction in a wrong way, the Lord kept searching for them by saying, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). The Omniscient Lord already knew where they were and why they hid from Him. God wanted Adam and Eve to come to Him as they were and confess their sins. The Lord was willing to cleanse Adam and Eve’s shamefulness inside out. He desired to restore the separated relationship with them.

What type of sorrow would we like to have toward our unlawful behaviours? Like Adam and Eve, do we want to make excuses after excuses for ourselves? Do we want to compare ourselves with others who would have done more bad things than we did? Do we want to keep reminding ourselves of our past failures and put ourselves down day after day? God desires to create us as a new Adam or Eve when we repent of our wrongdoings and receive His garments from the sacrifice of Jesus Christ (Genesis 3:21). The Lord our Merciful God is still saying to us today, “Where are you?” (Genesis 3:9). Let us accept our Heavenly Father’s calling and go back to share our gladness with God in our spiritual race.

This fact can lead us to look at God’s blessings even under His curses. God first punished the serpent by saying: “Because you have done this, ‘Cursed are you above all the livestock and all the wild animals! … And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers…” (Genesis 3:14-15). Some biblical scholars entitle the second part of God’s condemnation “the First Gospel.” This section is one of the most wonderful scriptures showing “the love of God.” Later, Adam accepted this blessing and named his wife Eve, since “she would become the mother of all the living” (Genesis 3:20).

This morning we witnessed our spiritual predecessor’s initial act toward the prohibited fruit. “When the woman saw that the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it” (Genesis 3:6). The author of Genesis describes what happens in this scripture: “she (Eve) took the fruit,” “she ate it,” “she gave it to her husband (Adam),” “he ate it also.” Did we notice the consequence of this dishonourable deed? Our godly forebear’s disobedience has affected her spouse, their children, and every offspring since the first sin. Due to this spiritual incident, we as human beings have been shaped by our original corrupted nature.

Many of us remember the story I have shared before. {A father and a son were walking on the mountain trails. Most of the areas were covered by snow. Both of them did not talk for a while but tried to keep moving to their final destination. Sometime later, the father looked back to check how his son was doing. “How are you doing, my son?” he said. The son simply replied, “Dad, I am fine. I have been following your footprints.”} Whether we realize it or not, in some way, the things we have done in the past affect our descendants’ lives in the future.

In our Gospel for today, we can see this Promised Savior in the Heritage of Christ. The seed of salvation had bloomed through the three of fourteen generations from Abraham to David, David to the people of Israel’s separation from Babylon, and the exile to the Messiah. When Mary gave birth to a son, Joseph gave “him the name Jesus because he [would] save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). When Jesus came to Jerusalem as the King of kings, many people shouted at Him: “Hosanna!” which means “save us” (Psalm 118:25; Mark 11:9). The Apostle Paul confirmed this Assured Rescuer by saying, “By this gospel you are saved… that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures” (1 Corinthians 15:1-4). Paul also added the relationship between the first Adam, our spiritual ancestor, and the last Adam, our divine Messiah, to this gospel message in the next statement: “Consequently, just as one trespass (Adam’s) resulted in condemnation for all people, so also one righteous act (Jesus’) resulted in justification and life for all people. For just as through the disobedience of the one man (Adam) the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man (Jesus) the many will be made righteous” (Romans 5:18-19).

Like our parents, many of us have the same voice, posture, and character. The physical and emotional personalities of our ancestors can pass on to us. Some of these family traits and genes may give us positive influences, and others would be negative. Generational effects could also occur in the spiritual realm, like natural ones. God’s blessings and curses upon ancestors can be given to the next generations. As I have previously stated, if we are so successful in some areas and receive God’s abundant blessings, we need to remember that it is not just because we have worked hard but also because our forbearers had put some good seeds long before we were born. God placed them and blessed us for their sake. Suppose we notice that some of our ancestors did not leave good examples. In that case, however, we may wonder what would happen to our descendants and us. We need to remember that we are the ones accountable for the actions we have made. No more excuses! We also need to recognize that God’s curse has been switched into His blessing through the cross and crown of Christ. Our Saviour Jesus sacrificed His whole life for Adam and Eve and us as their spiritual descendants to be rescued from the power of sin and death. So, Christ can change our sinful heritage into His sacred inheritance. The Apostle Paul describes God’s will for those of us who place our trust in Christ, the New Forbearer. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

This morning, we need to ask ourselves whether we want to be transformed into a new Adam or Eve in our divine family tree. By faith in God, we can start setting up better examples of daily lives for our loved ones. Through the grace of Christ, we can build a strong foundation of faith for the following generations. With the guidance of the Holy Spirit, we can break the chain of our inherited dysfunctional patterns in everyday life. In the Triune Lord, we can become a new Adam or Eve and leave our God-given extraordinary inheritance behind our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and more generations. In the future, when they look at their genealogy, they will appreciate the footprints we leave, big or small, for each of them to follow.

When I look back on my faith journey, I might say to God, “Dear Lord, how many mistakes have I made before you?” At the same time, I am reminded of how faithful the Lord my God has been during my faith journey. I am so grateful to God for His comfort in the discouraging times I have been in and for His power in the challenging periods I have gone through. Above all, I am so thankful to the Lord my God that He continues to remind me of my true identity in Him. “I am God’s masterpiece, God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works…” (Ephesians 2:10).

One more time, we need to remind ourselves that the race we have been in is not just for ourselves but also for our descendants. God wants us to remember our genuine uniqueness in Christ. We are created in the sacred image of the Triune Lord. God wants us to refocus our eyes on Christ, who is “the Pioneer and Perfecter of our faith” (Hebrews 12:2), rededicate our whole bodies “as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing” (Romans 12:1) to the Creator God and renew our minds continuously with the help of the Holy Spirit. These divine goals in this new season will help us walk courageously and confidently, one step at a time, before the Lord our Creator God.

*In this sermon, I have used some thoughts from various addresses based on the text, Genesis 3:1-24 and Matthew 1:1, 16-21.