The Devil conquered by Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

March 13, 2016 in Bible - NT - 1 John, Bible - NT - Hebrews, Bible - NT - Revelation, Easter, Good Friday, Meditations, Postmillennialism, Satan
1 John 3:8 (NKJV)
8 He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
For the first three Sundays in Lent, we addressed our three chief enemies as Christians: the world, the flesh, and the devil. When we are outside of Christ, these forces dominate our lives and compel us to sin; they drive us away from our Creator. So having identified each of these enemies, we have begun to highlight the way that Jesus, through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave, has conquered each of them. Last week we heard John’s announcement that Jesus was manifested to take away our sins. He died and rose again to free us from the guilt and power of sin. This week John reminds us that not only did Jesus die and rise again to conquer our sinful nature, he also died and rose again to conquer the devil. Listen again to John’s words: He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil.
John’s words remind us that though Satan is alive on planet earth, he is far from well. Through Jesus’ death and resurrection Satan’s power over the world has been fundamentally broken. He can no longer enslave the nations as he once did. Momentary victories he may have but his ultimate defeat is sure for his power is broken.
Consider, for example, the power he once had over death. Paul writes in Hebrews 2:14-15 – Inasmuch then as the children [we] have partaken of flesh and blood, [Jesus] Himself likewise shared in the same, that through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage. Jesus broke Satan’s power. He did, in John’s picturesque imagery in Revelation 20, chain Satan that “he no longer deceive the nations.”
This is why, therefore, our due sense of caution in the presence of the devil and his minions must always be tempered by a robust and profound scorn of his weakness – not his weakness in relation to us but his weakness in relation to God, the God who has promised to protect us and who has entrusted all authority in heaven and on earth to the Lord Jesus Christ. He holds the keys of death and hades. So we can remind one another, when fearing the devil, “Greater is He who is in you than he who is in the world.” Even as John writes in 1 John 2:14 – I have written to you, young men, because you are strong and the Word of God abides in you, and you have overcome the wicked one.

So as we enter into the presence of our Lord today, let us confess that at times we have failed to fill our hearts with the fear of God in our fight against the Wicked One and have instead fallen prey to his schemes and stratagems and intimidation. And as we confess, let us kneel.

The Flesh conquered by Jesus’ Death and Resurrection

March 6, 2016 in Bible - NT - 1 John, Church Calendar, Easter, Good Friday, Meditations, Sin
1 John 3:4–6 (NKJV)
4 Whoever commits sin also commits lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness. 5 And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin. 6 Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.
For the first three Sundays in Lent, we addressed our three chief enemies as Christians: the world, the flesh, and the devil. When we are outside of Christ, these forces dominate our lives and compel us to sin; they drive us away from our Creator. So having identified each of these enemies, let us, in the next couple weeks, highlight the way that Jesus, through His death on the cross and His resurrection from the grave, has conquered each of these enemies. Lent, recall, is a time of preparation – a time to prepare for Good Friday and Easter, to remind ourselves anew of the glorious Good News that Christ has died and risen again to free us from our slavery to sin, to the devil, and to the world.
So notice that our text today emphasizes one reason Jesus was manifested. John writes, “And you know that He was manifested” – He was revealed, He took on human flesh – “to take away our sins, and in Him there is no sin.” Jesus appeared to take away our sins. How did He do this?
First, Jesus died on the cross to take away the guilt of sin. Jesus was the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. And even as the lambs under the old covenant had to be perfect, without blemish, so Jesus was without blemish, “in Him,” John writes, “there is no sin.” So as the perfect Lamb of God, Jesus offered Himself as our substitute. He died in our place. We are sinners, enslaved to the world, the flesh, and the devil; we deserve God’s wrath and curse. But Jesus, the one who was free of the world, free of the flesh (the sinful nature), and free of the devil, offered His own life in place of ours. Consequently, through Jesus’ death on the cross we can be forgiven – glory be to God! Jesus appeared to “take away our sins.” No matter how heinous your sin, Christ died to take it away, died that you might stand before God holy and blameless – not because of Your goodness but because of His. By His death Jesus frees us from the guilt of sin.
But not only did Jesus “take away our sins” by dying on the cross, He also “takes away our sins” by His resurrection from the dead. Jesus rose from the dead that we sinful and rebellious human beings might have new life; that the resurrection power of Jesus might transform our fallen nature that we might live lives that honor and please our Creator. So, John tells us, “Whoever abides in him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him.” Jesus did not come simply to forgive you; He came to transform you. All those whom He forgives through the cross He transforms through His resurrection from the dead. By His Spirit, He dwells in us and we dwell in Him and He frees us from the power of sin.
Good Friday and Easter, therefore, are the foundation of our deliverance from sin – our deliverance from the flesh, from our sinful nature. Jesus frees us from the guilt and power of sin. And, praise be to God, one day Jesus shall return in glory to free us and all creation from the presence of sin. Truly He was manifested to take away our sins.
So have you praised God for the blessing of forgiveness through Jesus’ sacrifice? Have you praised God for the blessing of new life through Jesus’ resurrection? Or have you been making light of your sin instead? Perhaps claiming that you don’t need to be forgiven? Or claiming that you’re really a pretty good person on your own?

If so, the Word of God comes to you today, reminding you of your sin and the impossibility of taking away your sin by yourself. There is only one who can take away your sin – Jesus Christ. So reminded that it is Jesus’ death and resurrection that frees us from sin, let us confess our sin and praise the Lord for providing for our forgiveness and new life.

The Sin of Idolatry

April 19, 2015 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Easter, Meditations, Ten Commandments, Worship
1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (NKJV)
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
We find ourselves in Eastertide, the time of year that we celebrate the way the resurrection of Jesus has transformed the world. The entire cosmos has been changed, shaken at its very core. And because the world has been changed, we can be changed. Hope has arrived:  forgiveness has been achieved and new life has entered into the world. And God promises that forgiveness and new life to everyone who turns from his sin and trusts in Jesus’ death and resurrection.
In our text, Paul catalogues a number of sins from which God in Christ has determined to free His people. Today we consider the sin of idolatry. In Romans Chapter 1, the Apostle Paul declares that because of our fallen nature all human beings worship and serve the creature rather than the Creator. In other words, we are prone to idolatry, to the worship of false gods rather than the Living God. Though we all know the Living God deep in our hearts and consciences, we suppress that knowledge, refusing to glorify God as God.
In modern America we like to think that idolatry is a distant problem – it conjures up in our minds images of primitives bowing before graven images. But idolatry is far more pervasive than we like to think. Because human beings are religious creatures, we always worship something. As Bob Dylan sang, “You gotta serve somebody. It may be the devil or it may be the Lord but you gotta serve somebody.”
An idol, therefore, is anything that we place above the Living God in our affections. The first and second commandments demand that God be first in our affections. Idolatry is the inverting of our priorities and placing the Living God lower on the scale or repudiating Him altogether. Our idol may be something relatively good like our reputation or our family or our career or our country; it may also be something intrinsically evil like a false god or a perverse behavior. Regardless, any time the Living God is not first in our list of allegiances, then we are guilty of idolatry.
So how does idolatry manifest itself? Idolatry reveals itself in our desires and actions. Whose approval do you want most? Whom do you strive to please above all others? Whom do you most fear disappointing? Whose precepts and commandments are supreme for you? What makes you really upset? For whose honor are you most concerned? These questions help get to the heart of the issue: we are to fear the Lord and serve Him come what may. We are to seek His glory above all – more than our own, more than another’s, and exclusive of any other deity.

Reminded, therefore, of our calling to place the Living God first in our affections, to turn from the worship of idols to the Living God, let us confess that we have often placed other things before Him. And as you are able, let us kneel as we confess our sins to the Lord.

The Sin of Fornication

April 12, 2015 in Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Bible - OT - Song of Solomon, Easter, Meditations, Sexuality
1 Corinthians 6:9–11 (NKJV)
9 Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, 10 nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. 11 And such were some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.
Following Jesus’ resurrection, he appeared to the disciples over a period of 40 days and manifested Himself to them, convincing them of the reality of the resurrection and enlightening their minds to understand the things that had been written about him in the law and the prophets. This 40 day period has historically been called Eastertide, a time to celebrate the way the resurrection of Jesus has transformed the world. The entire cosmos has been changed, shaken at its very core. And because the world has been changed, we can be changed. Hope has arrived; forgiveness has been achieved; new life has entered into the world; consequently, we can have hope, we can receive forgiveness, and we can experience new life.
So this morning we begin examining the identities we used to have from which God in His power has delivered us as His people. Such were some of you, Paul writes – these works of darkness at one time defined us; but now God has claimed us as His own, He has forgiven us through the sacrifice of His Son, and He has sent His Spirit to empower us to change.
The first group of people who will not inherit the kingdom of God are fornicators. The word is pornos and is sometimes translated the sexually immoral. It is a broad term that refers to those who corrupt and defile God’s good gift of sexuality. Sex enjoyed within the context of a marriage covenant is good, holy, and right; the marriage bed is, Paul informs us in Hebrebs, undefiled. It is pleasing to God and can even be sung about as the Song of Songs reveals.
However, when we seize this good gift outside the marriage bed, we defile it and ourselves. The “fornicator” or “sexually immoral” person sins against his own body, tarnishing the image of God and incurring the wrath of God. The problem in the world is not unprotected sex – as many of our political and cultural pundits would declare – the problem is defiled sex. Any pursuit of sex outside the marriage bed – in pornography, prostitution, casual sex, masturbation, petting, sexual fantasies, etc. – defiles God’s gift of sexuality and incurs His wrath.
The man or woman who pursues sex outside the marriage bed is like a madman who decides that the fireplace is just too confining and so builds a fire in the midst of his house. He wants that orange glow in his bedroom or in the kitchen or in his entry way. But the soot and smoke will most certainly tarnish the house and the flames will most likely catch the whole thing on fire. Beware. Our sexuality is a gift from God; the sexually immoral person defiles it.
And such were some of you; but you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.God has given you a new identity. He has united you with Himself in the waters of baptism. So flee sexual immorality and pursue holiness without which no one will see the Lord.

Reminded that we often defile and distort the good gifts that God our Creator has given us, let us seek His forgiveness this morning and pray that by His transforming grace He would empower us to live new lives that honor and glorify Him. And as you are able, let us kneel as we confess our sins to the Lord.

40% of the Gospels to .1% of Jesus’ Life?

April 5, 2015 in Bible - NT - Romans, Cross of Christ, Easter, Justification, Meditations, Resurrection
Romans 4:24–25 (NKJV)
[Righteousness] shall be imputed to us who believe in [the Living God] who raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead, 25 who was [crucified] because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.
For nearly two millennia our fathers and mothers have been celebrating Holy Week – beginning last Sunday with Palm Sunday and culminating today in the feast of Easter. Part of the rationale for this celebration is the unbalanced record of Jesus’ life found in our four Gospels. What do I mean by that? What I mean is that each Gospel devotes about forty percent of its narrative to the last week of Jesus’ life. Let that sink in for a moment. Jesus lived for about 33 years – or approximately 1,716 weeks. One week of those 1700 weeks amounts to less than 1/10 of 1% of Jesus’ total life – yet the Gospels devote 40% of their narrative to that one week.
In so doing they announce – as does the rest of the NT – that Jesus’ ministry reaches its dramatic climax in this week. Jesus’ birth was not the climax; His childhood in Joseph and Mary’s home was not the climax; not even His interaction with John the Baptizer nor His teaching nor His miracles were the climax. Though all these events were important in their way, they were mere preludes to this one week in Jesus’ life.
So why is this week so important? Paul answers that question here in Romans. It is in this week that Jesus “was crucified because of our offenses, and was raised because of our justification.” First, Jesus was crucified because of our offenses. In other words, all of us have sinned against God in thought, word, and deed. We have failed to love our Creator with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Consequently, by nature we all stand guilty before God – estranged from God and in need of reconciliation with Him. We are, Paul says, “children of wrath.”
So how shall we be set right with Him? How shall we be reconciled to God? Only through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on our behalf. Jesus gave His life that He might take away our guilt and set us right with God. He was crucified because of our offenses.
But how do we know that Jesus’ sacrifice was accepted by God? How do we know that trusting in Jesus to reconcile us to God isn’t just some pie in the sky hope; just wishful thinking? We know because Jesus rose from the dead. In the resurrection, God has given proof to all men that the sacrifice of Christ has been accepted. Jesus was raised because of our justification. In other words, Jesus was raised to set us right with God.
So what of you? Where have you placed your hope for acceptance by God? Have you placed it in your good works? This hope shall fail. Have you placed it in your sorrow for your bad behavior? This hope shall fade away. Have you just hoped that God won’t care? That He is a benign and easy-going deity? That hope is vain. Our only hope lies in Jesus, the Lamb of God who was crucified for us and then rose again from the grave that we might be set right with God. So put your trust in Jeus. On the last day, we shall all rise from our graves and stand before our Creator – and the only way we shall endure that interview is if the crucified and risen Christ is our Defender.

Reminded that we can only be reconciled to God through the sacrifice of Jesus, let us kneel and seek His forgiveness in Christ.

Christ, the Center of Time

December 14, 2014 in Ascension Sunday, Bible - NT - Colossians, Christmas, Church Calendar, Easter, Ecclesiology, Good Friday, King Jesus, Liturgy, Meditations, Pentecost
Colossians 3:17 (NKJV)
17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
If you’ve been at Trinity long, you’ve no doubt discovered that we utilize the Church calendar to organize our year. Our songs, our Scripture readings, our confessions, our meditation, and even sometimes our sermons are geared to the Church Calendar. Given that following the Church Calendar is not a matter of necessity, why have our elders decided to do so? What’s the point?
As we consider that question, consider what each phase of the church year does: it places Christ and His life and work at the center of all reality. It orients the entire year around the life of Christ: Advent – awaiting His birth; Christmas – celebrating His birth; Epiphany – celebrating His revelation as Messiah to the Magi and in his baptism; Lent – remembering His suffering on our behalf; Passion week – remembering His final week of challenge, betrayal, death, burial, and glorious resurrection; Ascension – celebrating His enthronement at God’s right hand as King of kings and Lord of lords; Pentecost – celebrating the outpouring of the Spirit by our Risen and Exalted Lord. Between Pentecost and Advent? Celebrating the work of Christ by the power of His Spirit throughout the course of history. The Church Calendar put Jesus at the center of our lives.
So why is this valuable? Well note Paul’s command today: So whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him. Whatever you do – whether eating or drinking or sleeping or waking; whether living in the winter or summer; in the fall or the spring. Do all in the Name of the Lord Jesus. The Church Calendar helps us fulfill this command by putting Jesus exactly where He belongs – at the center of our Church life. And this, of course, reminds each of us to put Jesus at the center of our own life.
But often we are consumed with other things. We want to push Jesus to the margins of our lives; oh, we’ll give Him a bit of attention on Sunday but the rest of the week? That’s ours. But Jesus demands all our time – each day, each hour, each minute, each second. He is the Sovereign Lord and all we are and do is to be offered up in praise to Him.
So what of you? Has Christ been at the center of your life this week? Fathers, have you led your family to Christ this week, worshiping and praying and speaking together of Christ’s work in your home? Christians, have you displayed Christ this week, manifesting His character in your life and speaking His praises with your lips? Or have you put your own self at the center of your calendar?

Reminded this morning that whatever we do, in word or in deed, is to be done in the Name of Christ to the glory and praise of God, let us confess that we often do things and speak things in our own name. And as we confess, let us kneel before the Lord.

The Ascension of Jesus

June 1, 2014 in Ascension Sunday, Bible - OT - Psalms, Church Calendar, Easter, King Jesus, Meditations, Resurrection
Psalm 110 (NKJV)
A Psalm of David. 1 The LORD said to my Lord,“Sit at My right hand, Till I make Your enemies Your footstool.” 2 The LORD shall send the rod of Your strength out of Zion. Rule in the midst of Your enemies!
Today is Ascension Sunday. Forty days after rising from the dead, forty days after Easter, Jesus ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. What is the significance of this?
Oft times in history, the coronation of kings was followed by a time of travel – the new king would journey throughout his kingdom and show himself to his people. It was an opportunity for the people to see the new king, pledge allegiance to him, and rejoice in his coronation. But eventually the circuit would come to an end and the king would return to his palace, take his seat on his throne and begin to rule.
It is this narrative that ties Easter and Ascension together. In the NT, the resurrection of Jesus from the dead is understood as coronation day. When Jesus rose from the dead on the third day, he rose as God’s triumphant King; the ruler over all the kings of the earth. “You are my son,” God declares in Psalm 2, “Today I have begotten you.” And that “today”, Peter declares in Acts 2, is the day of Jesus’ resurrection, the day God crowned Jesus King.
For the next 40 days Jesus showed himself to his people. It was an opportunity for them to see the new king in his glory, to pledge their allegiance to him, and to rejoice in his coronation. But eventually this time came to an end and Jesus took his seat on his throne and began to rule – He ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God Almighty, there to rule until all his enemies are subdued beneath his feet. The Father said to Jesus, “Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.”
And it is sitting on the throne of His father David, sitting at the right hand of God Almighty, that Jesus continues to reign even now and will continue until he has subdued all his enemies beneath his feet. Jesus is Lord! Jesus reigns! Let the earth be glad and the righteous rejoice! And so we are instructed to pray that God’s kingdom come, his will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. We are told to pray for the expansion of Jesus’ rule, the full manifestation of His kingship in human history. For as Jesus’ kingship becomes increasingly acknowledged, light and life come in ever greater degrees.

And because Jesus is Lord, because Jesus is God’s anointed king, the only way that we can come to God is by pledging our loyalty to Jesus. He who honors the Son, honors the Father; he who does not honor the Son, does not honor the Father who sent him. This morning we have been summoned into the presence of God Almighty; let us kneel as we enter his presence and pledge our allegiance through His Son Jesus.

Death is not Normal

May 25, 2014 in Baptism, Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Bible - NT - John, Easter, Eschatology, Judgment, Meditations, Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:29–34 (NKJV)
29 Otherwise, what will they do who are baptized for the dead, if the dead do not rise at all? Why then are they baptized for the dead? 30 And why do we stand in jeopardy every hour? 31 I affirm, by the boasting in you which I have in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily. 32 If, in the manner of men, I have fought with beasts at Ephesus, what advantage is it to me? If the dead do not rise, “Let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we die!” 33 Do not be deceived: “Evil company corrupts good habits.” 34 Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.
Prior to becoming a pastor I used to daydream about preaching a sermon on the text in John, “Jesus wept.” I found myself frustrated by the way in which death is often trivialized in our current discourse; by the way in which even well-meaning Christian people speak of death as though it is a normal and natural part of human existence. And so I wanted to preach on that text, “Jesus wept.” There in the face of death, the death of his close friend Lazarus, Jesus wept. Tears that were a protest against death; a protest against the notion that death is natural. Jesus wept.
And we all sense this, particularly we who know our Bibles and who know that Jesus has risen from the dead. We know that death is unnatural; we know that death is an enemy. Jesus wept. And it is this knowledge of the abnormality of death which Paul highlights in our text today.
How can some of you say, Paul has been insisting, that there is no resurrection of the dead? How can you say that death has the final word? How can you say that Jesus’ resurrection from the dead has not transformed all of human history? Jesus is the firstfruits of those who sleep! Because Jesus has risen from the dead, we too shall rise from the dead.
Now Paul appeals to the absurdity of their claim, their claim that death will basically continue on indefinitely. If death is normal, if death is not something that God intended from the very beginning to eliminate when the Seed of the Woman crushed the head of the Seed of the Serpent, then why did God command our fathers be baptized, to be washed with water, whenever they touched a dead body? Further, why do we Christians keep putting ourselves in harm’s way? Subjecting ourselves to ridicule, to criticism, to persecution, to death? Why endure all this pain and agony? If there is no resurrection of the dead, then let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow we die.
But Jesus wept. Jesus wept because death is not natural; it is an invader; it is not a normal thing; it is a foe. But glory be to God, it is a defeated foe. There shall be a resurrection of the dead. Jesus has risen – so we too shall rise. We shall stand before our Creator and give an account of what we have done in the body.
Therefore, we must beware how we conduct ourselves during the time of our stay on earth. We must pursue righteousness and holiness; we must beware departing from the simple Gospel of the death and resurrection of Christ; we must beware embracing ideas that undermine our hope in the resurrection.

So what of you? Are you prepared to stand before your Maker? Have you sought His forgiveness through Christ and endeavored to conduct yourself in righteousness? It is the reminder that we must all appear before our Creator that is issued to us every Lord’s Day. Today we enter into God’s presence – and so we must kneel before God and confess that only in Jesus are we worthy to enter into His presence. So let us kneel and seek His forgiveness in Christ.

Two Humanities, Two Representatives

May 18, 2014 in Baptism, Bible - NT - 1 Corinthians, Creation, Easter, Eschatology, Judgment, Meditations, Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:20–28 (NKJV)
20 But now Christ is risen from the dead, and has become the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For since by man came death, by Man also came the resurrection of the dead. 22 For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ all shall be made alive. 23 But each one in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, afterward those who are Christ’s at His coming. 24 Then comes the end, when He delivers the kingdom to God the Father, when He puts an end to all rule and all authority and power. 25 For He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet. 26 The last enemy that will be destroyed is death. 27 For “He has put all things under His feet.” But when He says “all things are put under Him,” it is evident that He who put all things under Him is excepted. 28 Now when all things are made subject to Him, then the Son Himself will also be subject to Him who put all things under Him, that God may be all in all.
Today we continue to make our way through 1 Corinthians 15 in celebration of Eastertide, the time of year when we are invited to give special focus to the significance of Easter, the significance of Jesus’ resurrection from the dead.
Here Paul unfolds for us the point that we endeavored to make last week: there is an indissoluble connection between the resurrection of Jesus and our resurrection. Because Jesus has risen from the dead, we shall rise from our graves. Jesus came, Paul tells us, as a Second Adam, head of a new and renewed humanity. While the sin of the First Adam plunged not only himself but all humanity into death and judgment, the resurrection of the Second Adam, Jesus, brings new life not only to Himself but to all those who are in Him.
What this means is that throughout history there are two humanities: the seed of the woman and the seed of the serpent; the sheep and the goats; the circumcised and the uncircumcised; the wheat and the tares; those who have the First Adam as their representative before God and who will, therefore, face death and judgment; and those who have the Second Adam as their representative before God and who will, therefore, inherit eternal life and salvation.
You see, when Jesus returns in glory, every human being shall be made to appear before our Creator – and when we appear before Him, there will be but two fundamental groups of men and two spokesmen. There will be those who stand with the First Adam and who say to God through their representative, “I will rule my life by my own standards; I will be my own authority.”Then then there shall be those who stand with the Second Adam and who say to God through their representative, “All glory be to You, O Lord; for you have created me so I will live for your glory not my own.”
So in which group shall you be found? Will you stand with the First Adam? Will you stand in rebellion against God, choosing your own way and ignoring the commandments of God? Or will you stand with the Second? Will you stand in submission to God, choosing His way and treasuring the commandments of God? These are our two options; these are the two spokesmen. You must choose one to speak for you; there is no viable third option.
Of course, there are those who try to fool God; there are those who unite themselves with the Second Adam in baptism but who really embrace the life of the First. But on the final day there will be no fooling God or others. He knows the Adam with whom you identify.

So today as we confess our sins, let me remind you to confess them in the Name of Jesus Christ, trusting in Him as your representative. Only in this way shall we rise unto life on the Last Day. And as we confess, let us kneel before the Lord.