The Mix

This is, the first Sunday of the month.

And the first Sunday of the month, we do something called the mix. It's where young people and most of the children stay in. A little later, those in yellow class and orange class, I think it's nought to six, will go out. And they're going to do a mini mix. This is new for us.

Or a little mix, if you're in the know with those sort of things. So they're going to have a little mix coming, and we're going to stay in here and do the mix. The mix is really it's not we're trying not to do a family service. Okay? But we are trying to do adult teaching in sort of child sized bites.

Those bites sometimes are quite big, but we're we're we're that's what we're doing. Now listen. The first thing I want all of you to get before anyone goes out, and I need you to Simon up here, please. Yep. And I need Tom.

Yep. Yeah. And I want you to hold this. I wonder what you whether you know what this is. Okay?

Alright. You gotta hold this out. Oh, see other way around. Oh, it's that way around, Matt. That's it.

Hold that. And hold it up. I might need someone else. Right. Pull it.

Pull it. Jesus Christ. It's really long. Oh. I need someone taller.

Yes. You stand on there. That's good. Yeah. Pull it.

Go further. Further. Right. Now, this is a picture of a very, very old tapestry. In fact, it isn't a tapestry.

It's whatever it's called. An embroidery. Yes. And it was made by English nuns. There's lots of rude things in this, but we won't point them out.

And it was made nine hundred and fifty years ago. And the real thing has just come to England after nine hundred and fifty years, and it's in the British Museum. What's it called? Depends whether you're French or whether you're English. It's if you're English, if you're French.

So we'll call it Bayou. The Bayou tapestry. Now the thing about this is if you've never seen it, and if you're like Emma Sims, have no idea what even happened in 1066 or no idea about the Bayou Tapestry and had never heard of it because she was Irish and didn't learn English history. If you don't know English history, this is a really, really important thing. Right?

Everybody in England knows the date 1066. Yeah? We only know sixty sixes, remember. And 1066 is the date. And when you look at this, if you came and look at it, you see all kinds of little self contained stories.

And if you look at it, you think, what is that about? Is some bloke there talking that must be a king, and there's something going on here with a boat, and there's something going on here with lots of boats, and there's people singing, and they're you see lots of stories, and it's made up of lots of stories. What you really need is a key. And when you get the key, it it makes a whole story. It's about two people.

It's about a bloke called Harold and a bloke called William. Here's Harold right at the beginning. Now when you know that, when you see the little Harold there, you can follow along. Harold, he's in prison. And you see, Harold, he's meeting William.

And then when you know who William is, that he's king of not France, the French never invaded us and have not taken us over, Normans. He's a Norman, which means north man. And so when you see William see how William's the king, and you see Harold coming and talking to the king. And then you see Harold in prison. And then you see Harold being rescued by William.

And then it goes on and on. And then you see a big battle. William's preparing to bring loads of ships to England to attack Harold. And then there's this battle going on here, and then you see really, really horrible bit of the battle, and then you see Harold killed. And he might have got a thing in his eye, but he may not have.

Yeah? So it's got a whole story. You need the key, which is to know it's about Harold and about William to understand this magnificent tapestry. Otherwise, you'll just focus in on, say, there's bishop Odo, and he's sticking a spike up someone's bottom. And you could say, well, that's interesting.

Or you could say, you could get all muddled up. Who actually stitched it together? And is there an end that was cut off? And did William really you could go into all kinds of arguments about who is the only woman. Well, there's three, four women, but only woman in the main bit.

Who is who is she? You could and you miss the whole story. You can put that down somewhere, but be careful with it because it is actually lovely. One of you fold it up, I think. Yeah.

On. Off you go. Now, so you need a key to understand. And that's my first slide if it if I'm gonna get this to work. Can you put it on someone?

Jesus in the book, that's not a slide I've ever used. Move on. There. You need a key to open up. And when it comes to the Bible, if you're not careful, you just hear lots of little stories and you miss the main thing.

And some of you young ones, you've got this. Put your key in. Yeah? And it unlocks the bible. Do you wanna do it?

Who wants to do it? You unlock the bible. See? And the key is called Jesus. He's the king that you need to understand that goes all the way through all the stories of the bible.

Like Harold and William, Jesus is the one. Just have a look at what Jesus said. Next slide, please. Jesus said this after his death and resurrection, and he's talking to his disciples. And he he said to them, how foolish you are and how slow to believe to believe all that the prophets, that's the Bible, have spoken.

Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory? And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the scriptures concerning him. And then it goes on in those other verses. If you look at the last little section, it says, then he opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures. We open our minds to all the stories.

They're not just individual stories. They're about the king. As the bio tapestry is about Harold and William and who's gonna be king and the battles between them. The whole Bible is about Jesus. Now, we're looking, we're gonna do on the mix.

Jesus in the various books of the Bible. How many books in the Bible? Anyone know? 66. We got 66 sermons.

I won't be alive by the end of that, and you probably won't either. But we've got 66 to go through to have a look at Jesus in the book. And today, we're right at the beginning, and it's Jesus in Genesis. Just go to this next slide, please. Now the book of Genesis means the book of beginnings, and it sets the scene for everything in the whole bible.

It's like the first picture in the Bayou Tapestry where you've got Harold going to the English king at the time. And it's it's set it's full of of shadows and seeds and pictures. And when you read it, you think that's a seed. Is something gonna grow out of that? So like a seed grows, it's a seed, and you know it's gonna turn into, in this case, an oak tree.

And in the book of Genesis, there's a seed, seed, seed, and it's gonna grow as the story of the bible goes to show you Jesus. Or have a look at this. Next slide. Right. There's shadows.

Right. Who can guess what all of those four shadows are? When you've got all four, put your hand up. Anybody think they know what those shadows are? All four, not just one.

Okay. Okay. No one's putting their hand up. Okay. Let's go on to the next slide.

Who thinks they can do all four? You think you can do all four? Who thinks they know all four? Okay. No one now.

Okay. Next one. Next one. Who thinks they can do all four now? Yes.

Next one. Next slide. There they are. There's a rhinoceros who seems to turn around to be fair. There's a monkey.

There's a boat, and there's a person. And you see, when you first see the shadow, you know it's there's something coming. And the book of Genesis is full of beginnings. There's something, or in this case, someone coming. Isn't that wonderful?

And that one is Jesus and he's number one. So remember, the Bible is full of lots of stories. The key to the Bible, Jesus says, is Jesus. That's how you understand all of those stories And in Genesis, there are seeds and shadows that are pointing to Jesus, and it becomes clearer as you go on in the Bible. So we are looking then at Jesus, some of the seeds, some of the stories that are gonna be developed and and fulfilled in Jesus.

That's what Genesis is about. It's a book of beginnings. So we're going to have a look, and we're gonna whiz through stories. I'm not gonna be able to tell you, all the story and fill in with anything. I'm just gonna tell you bits.

And you could pick that up and re start reading the whole book of Genesis yourself or ask your mom and dad to read that to you. That would be great. In fact, we do have a reading scheme that's going through Genesis this month. And then next month, when we do Exodus, we go through Exodus. And if you want to keep up with that reading scheme, there's a WhatsApp group.

Really good. And there's lots of interesting insights that people have when they read it. So I'm going to whiz through, and I'm not going to tell you everything. There are loads and loads and loads of seeds and loads and loads of of shadows. But let me just show you where we're to go in this first section.

There are three things I want you to see. Jesus in Genesis. I want you to see that he is the word, the very word of god. We're to have a think about that. That he's the new Adam.

In other words, he's a new human. He's he's a human, but he's a a new start. We're gonna think about that. And that he's the serpent crusher. They're the three things we're going to have a quick look at.

So when you open the first page of the book of Genesis, do you see Jesus? Well, let's first of all have a look. I'm going to ask if you're under well, if you consider yourself to be a young person or a child to say all of the and God saids. Let's have a practice of that. That's gotta be loud and authoritative.

Can we say it? And God said. Well, nothing would happen if you said if God said it like that. Let's have another practice. Okay.

That's no adults to do that. The adults then read the the other bit. So let's have a practice on verse three, and then I'll start at verse one. So young people, children? Adults?

Brilliant. K. Got it? We're just gonna whiz through Genesis chapter one because it starts with who made the world, the universe, and everything in it out of nothing. So Genesis one then, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.

Now the earth was formless and empty. Darkness was over the surface of the deep and the spirit of god was hovering over the waters. Hold it. You see, before god speaks, there's darkness, there's no structure, there's emptiness, everything's formless, it's it's weird, it's there's no real reality there and well, there's god and that's all there is but he's going to speak and when he speaks, wonderful things happen. That's what I want you to get.

When he speaks into darkness and formlessness and no structure, wonderful things happen. So, here we go then. Verse three, young people. No. It's getting weaker and weaker.

I I'm going to sleep here. This is life. Yeah? When God spoke, life came into being. So Really loud.

Do you get it? Darkness, formlessness, emptiness, no life, and god said, where's Jesus in this? Ah. You go to a book in the New Testament because that's the seed, remember? That's the shadow and you go to this next verse and you realize that Jesus didn't begin in Bethlehem.

He didn't start on Christmas day that Jesus was already there. Let me read it. In the beginning was the word. God was in the beginning. Now there's the word.

And the word was with God, and the word was God. He who was with God in the beginning Sorry, he was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him, nothing was made that has been made in him. Was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness is not overcome. Overcome it. Then, go down a bit in John's gospel and you see the word became flesh and he he and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who comes from the father full of grace and truth. Where is Jesus in Genesis?

He's there at creation. He's the very word when god said, that's Jesus making the world. Jesus isn't some little prophet. You can't compare him to any of the other prophets that are around in other religions. He's not another Muhammad.

He's not another Buddha. He was there at the beginning of all of those people. He spoke. He said, and Jesus, the word, has life and grace and truth. And so if Jesus is the word, and notice, in the darkness came these wonderful things, water and life and light and all kinds of animals.

That's Jesus speaking. When Jesus speaks, it's good news. It's full of light and life and joy. And therefore, and grace and truth. You want to know what truth is?

Jesus said, I am the truth. It's all about Jesus right from the beginning. He is the very word of god. He's the word of god. Yeah?

And he's coming to this world and he's full of grace and truth. So, if he is the word if he is the word, then we need to listen. We need to listen. How many ears have you got? How many mouths have you got?

One. Well, shut that and open their ears. Two ears to listen to god. So, let's shout this out then. The first seed we see in Genesis, the book of beginnings is Jesus is the word.

What is it? Bit louder. Jesus is the word. Okay, let's move on now. Next slide, we're going to move on in Genesis.

We're going to move on to Genesis three. Just stay there a moment and what happens is, those that were made in the image of god and God saw that they were good, that's Adam and Eve, they went bad. And you probably know the story. Because they opened their ears to another word, a liar. He's called the serpent or the snake.

And he lied about God. He lied. He said God isn't generous. He's hiding something from you. You can read that story yourself.

He said God God's word isn't really true. He won't judge you. Nothing will go wrong if you if you don't listen to him. He said, believe in yourself. Ever heard that message?

Believe in yourself. He said, make up your own rules. He basically saying, you can be your own god. You can have god in your life, but you make up what you like about god and what you don't. He lied.

He lied. He lied. He lied. And Adam and Eve, the first parents, opened their ears to the liar and everything went wrong. Because if you listen to lies, it might be alright at the start.

But in the end, everything goes wrong when you listen to lies. So what's God going to do? Well, remember, it's the book of beginnings, and it's the book of seeds, it's the book of shadows that are about Jesus. So on to the next slide. So there you get Adam and Eve listening to the liar, the snake, the serpent.

But at that very point, god promises, he speaks another word into our world. And he says, I will put enmity. That's you're gonna have some war arguments. I will put enmity between you. He's talking to the snake and the woman.

There's gonna be now a division. There's gonna be war of words going on as well between you and the woman. That's that's Eve. And between your offspring, and the word is seed there, interesting, and hers. He will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.

He's talking to the snake. He, the one that's gonna come from the woman, will crush your head, and you will strike his heel. So there is a promise. It's in seed form because he hasn't been born yet into this world although he is the word but the word is going to come in. That's Jesus.

Jesus is going to come in and when you read about Jesus in the New Testament, you see that he's in a garden, that he's being tempted by by the devil. Actually, he's in the wilderness and he says no to the devil. You liar. You liar. You liar.

God says, he says, god says, he said, god says, And he says that to the to the liar. And so he doesn't listen to the lies. He says, God said, God said, God said. The very word of God is listening to the word of God and not to the liar. And so, there's a promise of this seed, of this one is going to but did you notice this?

Not only is he going to be like a new Adam who's going to resist the lies of the devil, Adam and Eve, they listened. Jesus didn't listen to the liar. Not only is he going to be like that, but he's going to crush the lies. He's going to crush the serpent's head. Just go on to this next lie next slide.

Right in the New Testament, you see these words. Quite a lot of stuff here but let's let me just read it anyway particularly for the adults. When you were dead in your sins because we've listened to the liar, god made you alive with Christ. You see, the word of god always brings life. He forgave us all our sins.

You see, the word of god always cleanses us. Having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness which stood against us and condemned us. The word of of god actually condemned us but when the word of god comes, he takes that condemnation. He has taken it away, nailing it to the cross, and having disarmed the powers and authorities. That's the devil.

Disarm the powers and authorities. He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross. On the cross, the new man, Adam, that only listened to the word of god was being bitten on the cross by the lies of Satan. He stirred up the world. Crucify him.

Crucify. Liar. The the lies that were put on Jesus. But Jesus being bitten, crushed the head of Satan on the cross. Isn't that amazing?

Shout out something horrible about our world. Something horrible. Anyone, just shout out something quick. We haven't got much time. Chef.

What? Politics. Politics. Well, you you need politics in the world. It can be horrible.

It can be good. Yep. Pain and sin. Yeah. Natural disasters.

Natural disasters. Awful. Yeah. Marmite. What?

Marmite. Marmite? No. Completely wrong on that. I can prove Marmite from the New Testament.

Yeah? War. Come on. Serious stuff. War.

War. Lies. Murder. Who's been scammed here? Who's ever been scammed?

I have. Come on. Own up. Horrible, isn't it? Liars.

Who's got locks on their door? Yeah? Who's got passwords on their computer? Yeah? Why?

Because there are nasty people that want to get in and do nasty things. Jesus stamped on them. And he's gonna stamp it out forever. And on the cross, he started the big stamp. Right?

So I'm gonna shout out lie and I want you to raise both feet up if you've got them. If you only got one leg, fine. Both feet, lift your feet up, everybody. Yes. Jesus came to stamp out lies.

Stamp. Jesus came to stamp out wars. Jesus came to stamp out all evil. And he started, he did it on the cross, and we'll see it fully when he comes again. So let's go to our shouting out, and I want some volume here.

What we've seen so far in Genesis is Jesus is the word. Jesus is the new Adam. Jesus is the serpent crusher. What is he? Jesus is the serpent crusher.

Brilliant. We're moving along now. There's lots of other things we could say. There's lots of seeds in Genesis, the beginning. But we're coming to see, well, two more stories that point us to Jesus.

They're shadows. Let's just have a look at where we're going. So, Jesus in Genesis, we're going to see that he is our ark. I'll explain that in a minute and we're going to see that he is our priest and our king. Now, remember, these are shadows and they're pictures And in these cases, their shadows, well, the first one is what Jesus is gonna do to the to the whole world.

And it's a picture of restarting. Sometimes we have to reset. Just go on to the next slide. We have to start again. We have to reset.

You know what it's like when your mom or dad says something to you? Can you do something? And you've messed it up. Well, okay. Just start again.

Or you're doing a drawing. You screw it up. Just throw it away. Let's start again. You can't make that into something decent.

Just throw it and start again. Those of you parents that have ever tried to put a flat pack together without looking at the instructions and suddenly, you've got the shelf is at that angle, and the other shelf is at that angle. And you think, how can I put a book or a plant on that? And then you say, I should have looked at the instructions. I have to unscrew it all and start again.

Ever done that? You have to start again. You know what it's like to start again. We're always doing that. And we're going to see a start again.

Remember, Jesus has already started again. He's the new Adam that listens to god whereas the old Adam, that's us, didn't. Remember that. And we're going to see a start again in this next story and it's a picture. So, no, go just go back a little bit.

Just that's it. Start again. Now, listen. I'm gonna tell Anne, my wife, just I want you just to see what goes on in the Woodcock household. I'm gonna ask her to draw things.

Come and draw things on here, Anne. She's a good artist like her daughter. Right? Right. What I want you to do and listen carefully.

You're listening. You're listening carefully. I want you to draw a picture of god is king. God is king of us. Draw a picture of God is king.

You'll have to get out the way a little bit. I'll to pass you. In a minute. Okay. God is king, please.

Very clear instruction. Did she do it? She did it. She did god is king. Did she do it?

Did she do it? No. Well, it's meant to be no. No. I think Yes.

Yes. He's gonna readjust it. Okay. He said no. No.

Put me there. Put me here. Put me here. Yeah. Okay.

That went badly, didn't it? Yes. Me. Did she do it? No.

She didn't listen properly and he was trying to listen but she didn't listen. So wipe it out. Let's start again. Wipe it out. Alright?

Now I want you to do a picture that you need to listen to God first. Listen to God. Do a picture that you listen to God. You should have got it by now, you know? Yeah.

See if she's doing it. Right. Is that a picture of listening to god? No. What what what is that person listening to?

Well, they haven't got any ears, but, yeah, they're looking at their phone and listening to their phone. So did she listen to me properly? No. That well, let's wipe it out, reset, and let's start again. You can't see it.

Who can't see it? Okay? Well, it's hard. This is the extent of, by the way, this awful thing. This is what the church can afford.

So, you know, all of you who can't see it, you need to give some more money. It's pathetic. Anyway, okay. Do a picture now. I want you to do a picture of loving people.

I want you to love people. Draw a picture of loving people. I will then show it to you. They can't see now. Oh, that's the sort of language on the Bio tapestry, actually.

So is this person loving? So she's got it wrong again. Wipe it out. Start again. Now, you've got the idea, I think.

Have you got the idea now? Yes. Thank you very much. You've got the idea that actually, there is times where you have to wipe it out and start again. And what happened after Adam and Eve and after and Adam and Eve sinned and listened to the liar was that the world started.

Everybody in the world start stopped listening to God. And God said I'm king. Listen to me. Love people. And the world became a place where everybody said, god is not going to be king, I'm going to be king.

I'm not going to listen to god. I'm going to listen to my mobile phone or whatever it was in those days and listen to myself or other people and I'm going to be violent. And it says in the book of Genesis that the whole world was taken up with evil and violence. And it comes a point where God has to say, reset. Wipe it out and start again.

And this is a picture of what God is going to do at the end of the world. And so he did it right then with Noah. He raised up a man called Noah, and he made Noah make an ark. And he made Noah make an ark. It took a hundred and twenty years to make the biggest visual aid the world's ever seen.

And we're told the world laughed at him. But he had an ark, and God said, I'm going to wipe out the earth. I'm going to send a flood. I'm going to destroy the world. You see evidences of a flood all the way around the world.

I'm gonna send a flood, and I'm gonna start again with a man called Noah, and I'm gonna start a new creation. I will wipe out the world, and then when the floods go down, we'll start again. Now it didn't work properly, but it's a picture of what Jesus is going to do at the end, and that's what we've got to understand. Lots of people didn't listen. They didn't listen.

I'll come just to that reading in a minute. They didn't listen to God. Some of you adults have seen the dreadful flood that happened in Nepal. It was awful, wasn't it? And you've seen some of those pictures.

You've seen that? There was a school, a school full of 900 children in the way of that flood, and someone rang the headmaster up. And another text him and said, move the kids quickly because it's just up the road. It's just coming down the river. And he didn't he he he wasn't sure whether it was true or a joke or anything, but he listened.

And he said it there's a flood coming. And so he got the kids, and he ran them up the hill. And he saved 900 people because they listened to the warning. Well, not everybody did. Let me read a bit from Genesis chapter six.

This is where you find the story of Noah and the ark and the flood. I'm going to bring floodwaters on the earth to destroy all life under the heavens. Every creature that has breath of life in it. Everything on earth will perish, but I will establish my covenant. It's like a marriage.

I'm gonna establish my promise with you. He's talking to Noah. And you will enter the ark. You and your sons and your wife and your son's wife. And so he warned them and only eight people went into the ark.

God is going to judge this world because it's so full of violence and hasn't listened and there everybody's their own king. And they're just not listening to me. So I'm gonna start again. And then he says, in chapter eight, because the story goes on for a few chapters, then God said to Noah, because the ark then landed, the waters went down, come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring every kind of living creature that is with you, the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground so that they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on the earth.

In other words, it's like a restart. God wipes it out to restart with a man called Noah and an ark. And who where is Jesus in all of this? Well, when you go to the New Testament, you can go to the next phrase, the next slide, please. Yes.

When you go to the New Testament, I won't read that out. You see that Jesus is the ark. Salvation is when we follow him. He's talking about baptism there. But you're not saved by baptism.

You're saved by what what it means. Jesus died and rose again. Jesus is the ark. Jesus is the one who takes us into a new creation. And he's gonna speak his word in that new creation.

Not of judgement now. But of life. And all the things that we've seen about Jesus. So the question is boys and girls and young people. Are you on the ark?

It's my job now to shout to you. There is a judgment coming. You will stand before god. Have you listened to him? Have you listened and come to Jesus?

Have you ever said, Jesus, be my ark, be my savior? Rescue me from the judgment that I deserve. Have you listened like the head teacher? Have you encouraged people to run to safety? And in this case, to Jesus.

See what Jesus is? Let's just shout these things out. See him? Let's shout them out. Jesus.

One more thing before we move on to the next section. We're still in the book of Genesis, and we're looking for these pictures and shadows. Abraham you can go to the next slide. Abraham meets this very strange man. And he's a man, if you read these bible passages, that actually doesn't seem to have any beginning.

You don't know who his parents are. He just sort of turns up. And Abraham now is the one that is going to all the families of the earth. People that are saved are going to be like Abraham. They have faith like Abraham had.

He's the father of faith. If you have faith, you're really like Abraham. And he's going to bless the nations. And the faith is going to come to the nations through Abraham. That's what's going on.

And his name was Abram before he was Abraham. And he meets this bloke. And it's very odd man but the Bible in the New Testament opens it up. It's like a little seed here. This man is a king.

His name is Melchizedek. Can you say that? Melchizedek. What's his name? Melchizedek.

You you need to learn that. You need to go up to your teacher at school if you're going to school for on on Monday morning and say, teacher, got one thing to say to you. What is it? Melchizedek. Really nice and loud.

Melchus there. That's what you wanna say. When you go to the shop to buy your food for the feast, you wanna say, just bring it out. Just say it. I'll have the chicken, please, and you'll get those things.

Yeah. We got feast at the school. That will get people thinking. And what's Melchizedek? They'll say, ah, you say.

I'm glad you asked. Because he's the king of peace. He's a priest that brings people to God. He's the king of righteousness. He's the right one.

He's the peace one. And he's the one that brings us to God. And he's this mystery figure and we're told in the Bible that Jesus is exactly like him. He's a shadow of Jesus, the king of rightness, and the king of peace, and the one who brings us to God. That's good, isn't it?

Let's just shout these things out. Jesus is the lamb. Jesus is lamb. Jesus Jesus is is our king and priest. Lord Jesus, isn't there?

So we're looking at shadows and pictures and seeds. They're stories that are true, but they're all to point us to Jesus. We won't understand if we just take one story and take it away from Jesus. He's the king that goes all the way through the story like the Bayou Tapestry, and we need to understand that. So now, we're just going to have a look at two pictures and the first one is go go to the next slide is this story.

Jesus in Genesis, he's our sacrificial ram or sacrificial lamb. You get this a lot in the Bible and this is like the first, well, it's not the first one because Adam and Eve had one but this is like the first one. It's a little bit clearer and then when you go into the next book and we see this in Exodus, you'll see that actually a first son is rescued by a lamb, by a lamb that is slain. And you've got this pictured here already right in this story. And it's a story of Abraham and Isaac.

He's now Abraham. He's going to be the father of these people, a father of faith. If you're a Christian, you know, he's like our father in that sense. It's amazing, isn't it? Right the way around the world, there are people of faith in Jesus.

But he has a son, and his son is Isaac. And, Isaac is going being taken up a hill. And Isaac is going to die as a sacrifice. He's the firstborn son. But God never intended for him to die.

God provided a ram. So right at the point where Isaac was gonna die, God said, no. No. I'm showing you pictures of the firstborn son is rescued by a ram. And there was a ram stuck in the thickets and in the in the in the in the sort of undergrowth.

And God provided. This is what it says. Look at this line here. It's fantastic. Abraham looked up, and there in a thicket, in the in the in the in the, what do you call, bush, he saw a ram caught by its horns.

And he went over and looked at the ram and sacrificed it as a burnt offering instead of his son. So it's a substitute. The son doesn't die. The ram dies. Where the son should have died, the ram died in his place.

He took his place. And so Abraham called the place, that place, the Lord will provide. What did he call it? The Lord will provide. Wow.

Instead of you dying for your sin, what will the Lord do? The Lord will provide. And to this day, it is said on the mountain of the Lord, it will be provided. That's Jesus. It's a picture.

It's a seed that Jesus saves us. He stands in for us. Instead of the anger of god for my sin, where I haven't listened to him. Jesus, who did listen to him, the new Adam stands in. The one who did no wrong, who did no sin.

God provided a sacrifice in Jesus. Isn't that wonderful? You see, we're living in a, just go to this next verse here. This is from the New Testament and it says, he who did not spare his own son, this is this is god now. God sent his son but gave him up for us all.

How he will he not also along with him generously give us all things. So God gave his son as a sacrifice for us. Isn't it wonderful? I I was reading an article yesterday, and it was talking about self help that's going on in generation zed. And I was staggered that there are there were 2,000,000,002 look ats or whatever you call what would you call it?

Sort of No. Look when you look at a TikTok thing. Use. Views. Views.

That's the word. Yes. Yes. What is TikTok? What is view?

Yes. 2,000,000,000. 2,000,000,000 views about self help. 2,000,000,000 views. How do you help yourself?

How do you save yourself? How do you rescue yourself? How do you stop doing this? How do do 2,000,000,000. Self help.

It doesn't work. This isn't self help. This is god to the rescue. This is god will provide. You don't have to provide for yourself.

God provides. You don't save yourself. God provides. He gave an ark. He gave a new man, Adam.

A new a new Adam, Jesus. God provides. The serpent crusher. The one who crushed the lies in your life. It's Jesus.

Jesus. Jesus. Don't want self help. We want 2,000,000,000 views of Jesus and listen to who he is. So, that's that story.

Let's get on to shouting out. Shout this out quickly because we can move on to the next story. Jesus. Jesus is the new Adam. Jesus the serpent crusher.

Jesus is king sacrifice. And priest. Jesus is Right, here's the next story and it's the last one. And a lot of Genesis at the end is taken up with this story. Remember, it's seeds, it's shadows, it's making a point so that we're recognized the reality to come.

When you see the shadow, you know someone's coming. And when you see the shadow in a bit more detail, you know he's going to be like that. You know what he's going to be like. And this is a shadow one. Now, in order to get into this story, this is the story.

It's about Joseph and Jesus is like Joseph. He's betrayed. He's rejected, and then he's raised the power. That's the story we're looking at. And you get this story everywhere.

Right. Boys and girls, tell me what this story is. Next slide. What's that story? Does anybody know that?

The ugly duckling. What happens in the ugly ducklings? Yes. They all laughed at him, didn't they? If you know the song, it's like, get out of town, you ugly duckling.

There's the ugly duckling being laughed at by all the the the good looking ducklings. But what happens to the ugly duckling? Turns into a swan. Turns into a swan. It's a story of rejection and then raised to something more beautiful.

What about this story? What's this story? What is it? What happens there? Someone tell me.

Laura, tell me the story. Stand up and tell me it clearly. Cinderella is a servant to her horrible stepmother and sisters. And then she has a fairy godmother who comes and transforms her. She goes to the ball, leaves a slip and meets prince happily ever after.

So she becomes a queen. Yeah. She becomes beautiful. You can clap her if you like, but yeah. So at first, she's she's a she's a slave.

She's rejected, and then she's raised. Right. Let look at this story. This is in the Bible. This is the story of Joseph.

Yeah? Joseph and his brothers didn't like him. They were jealous of him. They rejected him. They basically sort of tried to kill him.

And then what happened to Joseph is that Joseph was down a well. He was then sold as a slave. He then went to Egypt. And then someone accused him of something that he didn't do, and he was in prison. And then suddenly, he was taken out of prison, and then he became prime minister.

He was the second most powerful man in the world. And the people that his brothers that hated him and rejected him were saved because of him, because they lived in a land where there was no food and there was food in Egypt. And they had to go to Joseph and they didn't know it was him because they thought he was dead and asked for food and Joseph gave them food and then revealed who he was. That's the story. Rejected, raised.

It's a seed. It's a shadow. When you see the shadow, you're supposed to think, ah, there's someone coming who's rejected, who's poor, who's seen as nothing that the whole society goes against. Let's kill him. But then he's raised again to life.

That's Jesus. Go to the next story. That's the story of Jesus. There he was on a cross but he rose again. He's the king of life.

He's the word of truth. There he was, despised, rejected, taking our sin in order. You see, Joseph had to be rejected in order to become king and Jesus and in order to save them and Jesus was rejected and he was rejected in order to save the people that rejected him. He is the savior. That's who he is, the rejected one.

They're all seeds. We're finished now. So, let's just shout all these out. Let's go for it. Jesus.

Right. Now, if that's true and they're all seeds in Genesis, you need to turn to Jesus. You'd be crazy not to. He's all of those things. So, I'm going to pray.

Let's just bow our heads to pray. Father god, we thank you for the book of Genesis. We thank you for these seas and these shadows and these pictures that show us the wonder of the lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that Jesus is the word, the word of life, full of grace and truth that he speaks and life comes into action. We thank you Jesus came into this world as a new Adam to do what we didn't do, to listen to you, to follow you, whatever the circumstances, that he resisted the devil, that he's the sinless son of God.

We thank you that he's the one that crushes Satan and lies and evil. We thank you that he's the ark. We're living in a world full of lies and destruction and war and all kinds of ugly things are going on in this world. This is not heaven. But there's an ark that will take us to the new creation.

There is a Jesus that takes us beyond death into a new life where the word is spoken and listened to. And there's more beauty than we could imagine. We thank you that Jesus is the king that we should follow and the priest, the one that brings us to god and we don't need priests today. He's the one. He's the one that brings us to God.

We thank you that Jesus is our sacrifice. He stood in our place. He took all of our sin. We thank you Christianity is not a self help movement. It's a rescuer.

It's about a savior, someone who substituted himself as a sacrifice for us. We thank you that Jesus, the rejected one, was raised again. And we as followers of him know that what it is sometimes to be rejected, but we have a place in heaven. We have a resurrection day. We pray for our brothers and sisters in parts of this world that are suffering for following Jesus.

We know that they love you, and there are enemies around them shouting out that they're nothing, rejecting them. But we pray that they would understand that in rejection, there is hope because you raised up Jesus who died on a cross. Help us to understand these things we pray. In Jesus name, amen.