The Gospel

This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang.! Thank you for joining us. ...with us tonight.

Just to help us to prepare for the Lord's table tonight, we're spending just a few weeks on Sunday evening talking about the Bible. Joey's done a couple of weeks on introduction and background of why we trust the Bible.

I did a message a couple of weeks ago on the Christian's perspective of the Bible, and we've got one more next week in this short Sunday evening series on the Bible.

What I want to do tonight is just show you something very briefly about the Gospel in the Old and the New Testament. And I want to just zero in on one specific aspect of that to prepare our hearts for the Lord's Supper in just a moment.

If you've got your Bible, open with me to Genesis chapter 3. Genesis chapter 3. You're no doubt familiar with what's going on in Genesis 3 as we get the account of the fall.

Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. They disobeyed the Lord. They are confronted in their sin.

And in verse 7, it says, Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves loincloths.

What's happening here is this is the first human sin that's taken place. And as a response to that, it's the first attempt at mankind trying to cover their own sin.

Adam and Eve have sinned, and now shame is brought into humanity. And as a result of their sin and their shame, they're going to try to cover their own sin.

They're going to try to cover their own shame. This is essentially the first attempt at salvation by works.

salvation by trying to cover yourself with what you have and what you can provide.

In verses 14 to 19, we then get the curses that take place. But I want you to look at verse 21. And the Lord God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

The Lord is not accepting their own attempt to cover themselves, but He will cover their sin. Now, this is in a physical, literal sense of their covering.

But just before that, we have the promise and prophecy of one who would come to do spiritually what is being done physically.

We see that in verse 15. This is the first prophetic mention of the Messiah, the Redeemer. 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. There is going to be a division in humanity. Humanity will be in one of two categories.

Not rich or poor, because we all die with nothing. It's not ultimately about any other distinction other than this.

Are you covered by the grace of God, or are you exposed in your sin? That is the line of demarcation.

It's not about your education. It's not about your income. It's not about your vocation. It's not about your notoriety. It is all simply this.

We are all sinners. That's true. All of sin and fall short of the glory of God. All are exposed spiritually. We are in nakedness, exposed in our shame.

Will we be covered by our own works, or are we covered by what God alone provides? From Genesis 3.15 on, the Bible is now on a trajectory pointing toward the fulfillment of Genesis 3.15.

Who is this Messiah? Where is he going to come from? And all throughout the Old Testament, we get some road signs that tell us about his background and his family.

And for an example, in Micah, where he'll be born. And as you read your Old Testament from Genesis 3.15 forward, it's all pointing forward toward the one who will come and be the fulfillment of Genesis 3.15.

This one who will come and bear our sin and cover our wickedness. But just like the Lord did not accept Adam and Eve trying to cover their own sin, cover their own shame, so he does not accept that today.

Salvation by the work of our hands, the covering of our sin by our own works, has never been sufficient. And so in the Old Testament, the promise has been made, and people would be covered by their sin by believing and trusting in the promise of God.

Trusting in that promise that was yet to come, that was future. The Messiah has been promised. That gets more and more clarity and details as you go through the Old Testament.

But those who believed, it was credited to them as righteousness. Their sin was covered by their faith in the promise of God.

The problem is that in the Old Testament, New Testament, and in our day, there are all kinds of people who try to cover their own sin. Who try to cover their own shame.

Who would take their works, whether it be monetarily, whether it would be religiously, whatever it may be, that try to, on their own, do something that would cover their own wickedness.

But the fact is, that the work of our hands can never accomplish that. It would never work. The question becomes for us, what does cover our sin?

In Isaiah 64, 700 years before the birth of Christ, it says, As we have all become like one who is unclean, all of our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment.

Our best works are like putting on a polluted, defiled, messy, dirty, unclean garment.

So in the Garden of Eden, it didn't work for them to try to cover their own sin, their own shame by the work of their hands. In the Prophets of Isaiah, it didn't work for people's own religious works, even their own attempt to do that themselves.

That's like putting on a polluted garment. And so the question is, what kind of garment can we put on? And we could spend a lot of time looking at all different sections of Scripture to see where this theme is continually taught.

Even last week in Colossians 3, you're talking about put off and put on. We take off the old, we put on the new. But just to show you how this is the theme of Scripture literally from beginning to end, we started in Genesis 3.

Let me read to you from Revelation 3, literally from beginning to end. Genesis 3 to Revelation 3. Revelation 3 verse 18, I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich and white garments so that you may clothe yourself and the shame of your nakedness may not be seen.

And salve to anoint your eyes that you may see. Those whom I love, I reprove and discipline. So be zealous and repent.

Genesis 3, Revelation 3, there's a problem. The problem is sin. And the result of sin is being exposed in spiritual nakedness.

And the need is to be clothed. And what will not work is to try to clothe yourself by the work of your hands. What you must have is the covering only God provides.

And it is called to us, told to us in response, to be zealous and repent.

This is what we're called to do in response to our sin, is to repent. To not try to cover our own nakedness and shame by our works, by our deeds, but instead to repent and receive the covering that the Lord, our God, has provided.

And from Genesis 3, 15 on, it's pointing toward that one ultimate covering for our sin. In the Gospels, we see it lived and played out and documented for us as Jesus Christ is our covering.

We're clothed, the Bible says, in His righteousness. Clothed in His works and what He has accomplished for us.

And when we take the elements of the Lord's Supper, what we are saying is that we are completely and thoroughly unable to save ourselves. That there's nothing we can do to cover our sin.

But we're reminded of what that covering is. A covering that had been promised in the garden in Genesis 3, revealed to us in clarity in the Gospels, and then for the rest of the New Testament, pointing back to the cross as the fulfillment of that promise from Genesis 3.

So it just goes like this. Genesis 3, you believe in the Word of God looking forward. At the cross, it's revealed, and the rest of your New Testament looks back at the cross and says, we believe in the finished work of Jesus Christ.

And now, outside of the Scripture, since it's been closed, and now in the church age, we read the Bible, preach the Bible, proclaim the Bible, believe the Bible, calling people to do two things.

Look backwards to the cross where the covering was provided in light of looking forward to the day when Christ returns. And as we conclude this Thanksgiving holiday, it's fitting for us to take time to be thankful and be grateful that in Christ, God has kept His Word and has provided covering for our sin.

And it's fitting for us as we launch a new Christmas season and think about the coming of Christ to realize that when we read in the Gospels about His birth, it's the fulfillment of Genesis 3 where God has promised to send a Redeemer.

But when we read of Him being born, we think about why He was born, namely, to give His life as a ransom, as a sin payment, as an offering, as a covering for our sin.

And just as God kept His promise for Christ to come the first time, so we have reason to believe He will keep His promise that Christ will return a second time.

And so we take the Lord's Supper in light of what has happened where our covering was provided and what will happen when our ultimate salvation is fully realized.

And so the elements of the Lord's Supper are provided for us to help us remember the body and the blood of Christ, that covering that was given. In Christ, we have a covering for our sin, a covering for our spiritual nakedness, a covering for our shame, a covering for our punishment because our punishment was put upon Christ and we are now, if believers in Him, clothed in His righteousness.

from Genesis to Revelation, Old Testament and New Testament, people are saved, covered, delivered by trusting in the Word and the promise of Jesus, the One who is to come, the One who came, the One who died in our place, and the One that we proclaim one day will come again.

So rightly understood, the Lord's Table is an invitation to us to remember Genesis 3, where mankind fell and their own attempt to cover themselves was not accepted.

It's a reminder of Genesis 3, verse 20 and 21, that God in grace clothed Adam and Eve with the work of His hands and so by the work of His doing has so covered us in the person of Christ.

And it's a reminder to us that we are to live our lives proclaiming that Christ will come again so that others around us who need to know how can their sin be covered can hear the gospel message not by the work of your hands, not by even your attempt at righteous deeds but only in what God Himself has provided.

That's the continuity of the Scripture. Pointing to Jesus, revealing Jesus, calling people to trust in Jesus, and proclaiming the return of Jesus.

Adam and Eve were not covered by the work of their hands. In Isaiah's day, people were not covered or clothed by the work of their righteous deeds.

And as Revelation 3 reminds us, we are to be found in the clothing God provides for us. Namely, the body and the blood of Jesus given to us as a payment for our sin that we who were sinners would be forgiven.

We who were exposed would be covered. We who were spiritually naked would be clothed. Not in the filthy rags of our works, but in the spotless garments given to those who find themselves hidden in Christ.

That's the gospel message. And the Lord's table helps us to think of that. And so we're going to take a few moments to worship as we consider His sacrifice and the covering He has given as a payment for our sin.

I want to invite you for just a moment if you would just right where you're seated just to bow your head and close your eyes. I'll ask the deacons of our church to come forward to help me to prepare to serve.

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