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[0:00] Do we have any math teachers here? Put your hand up. Don't be embarrassed.! Mel, loud and proud.! Mike is like, ah, yes, too. There's a few more here. Caleb's here.! Ebenezer's here.

[0:11] Who's that? Locke, math teacher. I found myself saying something a few days ago. That was what I said when I was in year seven, which was, what's the point of Pythagoras?

[0:25] What's the meaning of it? And then my kids now say it because I'm trying to teach them. And thank goodness, Ebenezer is someone who also teaches math, who has been helping our kids. And they ask the same question, which is, what's the point of it?

[0:39] What are we supposed to learn? Mel, can you tell us, what's the point of Pythagoras? To torture us. Excellent. To torture us. And then I try and tell my kids, okay, well, the reason why we do Pythagoras and trigonometry is it helps us deal with problems.

[0:58] It helps us look at the world. And actually, if you look deep enough, the world, there's maths everywhere. And the reason why I say that is, you're about to find out, because we're about to read a passage of scripture that feels a lot like maths.

[1:14] And doesn't really feel as though there's really much point to it. Remember, we started in Genesis a couple of weeks ago. Genesis 1 was great. Like, he creates the world. And then he says it was good. He does it in six days.

[1:25] And then he has a rest for seven days. And then we talk about what it means to rest on the Sabbath day. And then Genesis 2, he zooms in to creating man and woman. And then what that is all about.

[1:36] And then Genesis 3 is when we see the fall. When they make a decision to not trust him and say, God, you know what? I'm just going to trust myself. I'm just going to figure this one out myself. And so then they go down that route. And they end up getting banished from the Garden of Eden.

[1:48] Genesis 3. And Genesis 4, as Gabe preached last week, was basically an extension of Genesis 3. That decision, that original decision, that original sin, then just continues to multiply.

[1:59] What started with a fruit now ends with a murder. And so that's Genesis chapter 4. Genesis chapter 5, you could argue, is an extension of Genesis chapter 4.

[2:10] And what you see here, if you open up your Bibles, and hopefully you've been handed one, is we're going to look and we're going to see a whole list. But one thing that we've been learning here as a congregation, as a flock, as followers of Christ, is how do we submit ourselves and humble ourselves under this book?

[2:28] When it makes sense, when it's nice, when it's Philippians 4, when it tells you not to be anxious, but in everything, in prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. We love that because it's encouraging to us.

[2:40] So we put it onto a fridge magnet, and then it reminds us to not be anxious. Those are good verses. John 16 is a verse that says, oh, take heart. In this world you will have trouble. But I have overcome the world.

[2:51] Those are good ones. I don't know if I've ever seen a fridge magnet of Genesis chapter 5. It's a tough one. But yet, as I was looking through this, and honestly, I'll confess right now, I was like, do we need to do this chapter?

[3:06] Maybe we should just skip it. And actually, the Lord convicted me, and actually Gabe convicted me. He's like, no, there's something there. And here it is. And we're going to do a sermon on this list.

[3:17] But before that, we're going to do something even better. We're going to stand for the word of the Lord in our reverence and awe for him. And I'm going to ask Christina. And who else have you picked, Christina? Bethany, to come and, oh, there we go, to come and read the word of God to us.

[3:32] Excellent. Perfect. Thank you. You got it, Beth. Okay. Just read, like, five verses at a time, okay? All right. Adam's Descendants to Noah.

[3:43] This is the book of the generations of Adam. When God created man, he made him in the likeness of God. Male and female, he created them. And he blessed them and named them man when they were created.

[3:54] When Adam had lived 130 years, he fathered a son in his own likeness, after his image, and named him Seth. The days of Adam after he fathered Seth were 800 years, and he had other sons and daughters.

[4:07] Thus, all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh.

[4:17] Seth lived after he fathered Enosh 807 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Seth were 90 years, and he died.

[4:31] And Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan 815 years, and he had other sons and daughters.

[4:44] Thus, all the days of Enosh were 905 years, and he died. When Kenan had lived 70 years, he fathered Mahalalel. Kenan lived after he fathered Mahalalel 840 years, and had other sons and daughters.

[5:00] Thus, all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. And when Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared. Mahalalel lived after he had fathered Jared 830 years, and had other sons and daughters.

[5:13] Thus, all the days of Mahalalel were 895 years, and he died. When Jared had lived 162 years, he fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 800 years, and had other sons and daughters.

[5:28] Thus, all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.

[5:42] Enoch walked with God after he fathered Methuselah 300 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Enoch were 365 years.

[5:55] Enoch walked with God, and he was not. For God took him. When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech.

[6:07] Methuselah lived after he fathered Lamech 782 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Methuselah were 969 years, and he died. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered a son and called his name Noah, saying out of the ground that the Lord has cursed.

[6:25] This one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands. Lamech lived after he fathered Noah 595 years, and had other sons and daughters. Thus, all the days of Lamech were 777 years, and he died.

[6:40] After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth. This is the word of the Lord. Praise be to God. Thank you, ladies. Please take a seat. Can we give them a round of applause?

[6:51] Woo! If you are expecting a baby, and were looking for inspiration for baby names, Genesis 5 is your friend. I've told you before, I grew up in the late 1900s.

[7:08] Well, actually, I was born in the late 1900s, but I actually grew up, or I was fully formed, in the early 2000s. And my mentors at the time were a guy called Marshall Mathers, otherwise known as Eminem.

[7:21] And then 50 Cent was someone else as well. And Nelly was someone that I listened to sometimes. I got a nod from you, Alex. Did you listen to Nelly? Back in the day.

[7:32] It's getting hot in here. Correct. If you just have a peek into the end of chapter 4, you'll see the first version of a gangster rap.

[7:45] You'll see Lamech. The end of chapter 4, we're not going through it, so don't worry. But you see, when Cain murders his brother, and then God sends him and goes, and then his descendants, there's a list of actually his descendants.

[8:01] And what actually happens is, verse 17 in chapter 4, Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch. And when he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, Enoch. So this begins.

[8:12] This begins of, hey, I want to name something after myself. I'm going to make a name for myself. And so you see, the descendants of Cain, that's where they're heading. And it just keeps going. It keeps going up until the point where, and then you have Lamech, verse 19.

[8:24] Lamech here, he has two wives. Adam and Eve only had one. And yet, for some reason, he decided, actually, I will have whatever my eyes desire, and I'm now going to have two wives. Not only does he have two wives, and then he sings a song to them, which is verse 23, and he basically raps to them, and he's saying, hey, you two, you two are my wives.

[8:43] Listen to me. Listen to what I've done. I have killed a man. That sounds like gangster rap to me. And he's proud of it. And so what you see then, and actually, society is changing here.

[8:55] Because if you have a look, look, Adam and Eve, of course, in the garden. There's nothing else around. There's no technology. There's no iPads. You'd thought of just garden. But by the time it gets to Lamech, actually, just before that, in verse 21, suddenly, you've got instruments.

[9:09] The lyre, the pipe. Verse 22, there are instruments of bronze and iron. Again, civilization was starting to develop. Culture was starting to develop. Gangsters were starting to appear.

[9:21] And then you ask, well, okay, I can see where we suddenly get to where we are now. And then you wonder, well, what hope is there? What was God's response to the evil that was starting to multiply? You see, what happens is when you choose sin, when you choose the fruit, it's not just about the fruit.

[9:35] It's about the thing that happens after the fruit. And then it's about the thing that happens after the fruit that happens after the fruit. And what you then see is just generational sin. And you see it just passing down the line. See, God made Adam after him, and he was perfect.

[9:47] But then Adam decided to choose another way. So he was not perfect anymore. And so then when actually Adam then has his children, they are no longer perfect. And it passes down to you. I would guess if you took a little time to think about your parents and your family and your grandparents, you're like, oh, I think I can see where some of my shortcomings are coming from.

[10:08] I think they're passed down from there. They are generational. So what hope do we have? At the end of chapter 4, verse 25, Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth.

[10:22] For she said, God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him. To Seth also was a son born, and he called his name Enosh. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. So even though gangster rappers were starting to appear everywhere, there was another line.

[10:38] There was another group of people that were starting to form, from Adam down to Seth. And at that time, people started to call upon the name of the Lord. There was another group of people that started to say, hey, we're not going to live that way.

[10:51] We're not going to succumb to that kind of way of living and thinking. We're going to call upon the name of the Lord. And that's when we move into the wonderful list that is Genesis chapter 5, that we are going to try and go through a little bit.

[11:06] But before we go through, and don't worry, we're not going to go verse by verse. But what we will do is just take out some of the key themes. When you look at a list like this, when you look at any list in the Bible, what you're trying to do is actually look at the patterns.

[11:18] And you're looking at the details and see what's happening here. And what's the author trying to show you? And the first thing that you have to address to begin with is why are people living so long? Right?

[11:30] Some people say, oh, is it really that word? Well, it is. I do believe it is. And here are a few reasons that I have, that as I looked and as I read about it, that actually I'm convinced that these are the real ages of the people.

[11:41] The first thing is, remember, Adam and Eve ate the fruit. So they introduced sin into the world. But at that point, it was still paradise. The world that God had created was still pure.

[11:51] It was not polluted by the actions of man. So you can imagine even the fruits that they were eating would have been glorious, would have been delicious, would have been nutritious. So actually the paradise, and actually this was all happening before the flood.

[12:03] So actually creation itself would have been exactly how God intended. And so I can imagine then that actually it would have been okay. It would have been reasonable to actually assume that people could live for much, much longer.

[12:14] The second thing, before sin was introduced into mankind, into the human genetic code, you would have had actually genes. DNA would have really not been mutated.

[12:26] They would have not have been compromised. So actually you would say actually the genes from the original man and woman would have been pure as well. That would have again lent itself to them living much, much longer than what we do now.

[12:37] A third reason is in order for people to actually fulfill the creation cultural mandate, which is to be fruitful and multiply, to fill the earth. You would have had to have people live much longer.

[12:49] It wouldn't have been possible if everyone still lived just to this age that we were in. In fact, God said, hey, create culture. Make it to reflect me. It would have had to have people who were able to live much longer for art and civilization to even develop.

[13:04] Right? Otherwise there would be no chance. Hong Kong had a boom. Actually, some of you know, my family, my dad's family, he was the youngest of 10. Actually at that point there were 16, but of course medicine was just different back then, so 10 survived.

[13:19] And my mum was the second youngest of 11. And of course that's when population just kind of exploded. And of course imagine if all of the, imagine the smartest people in the world. Imagine if Einstein lived for 900 years. Imagine how much there would be developed in the way of maths and the way of science.

[13:33] Imagine if Mozart lived for 900 years and all the music that would be developed. So I think one of the reasons, my personal take is, God allowed for mankind to live for that long, so for culture to develop, for science to develop, for arts to develop.

[13:47] Anyway, so it's a side note. We're not going to focus too much on it. But if you're asking about why the people lived for so long, I would say that's why. The other reason is, remember, mankind was not supposed to die. Because if we didn't eat the fruit, then we would have stayed with God and walked with God and been with God forever.

[14:03] And then there is a painful reminder of that. If you look at this list again, what's the thing that you notice? Remember, rhythm, patterns, details. The creation story, he makes one thing on one day, and then he says, and there was evening, and there was morning, and it was good.

[14:18] Day two, and there was evening, and there was morning, and it was good. Day three, the same thing. Remember, by the time it got to day six, where he was making man and woman, he says, it's not just good. It is very good.

[14:28] Which shows you that actually, God cares especially a lot about humans. When he reaches day seven, and it's the Sabbath, and where he rests, he doesn't even say, there is evening, there is morning.

[14:41] And that's where we explored. Maybe we were just created to be in a state of perpetual rest that we have strayed from. So you see those rhythms. If you look at this list in Genesis chapter five, please feel free to have a look.

[14:52] And what you see, something else that you see here is, after every person, it says, there's all the days that Adam lived, that Enosh lived, that Canaan lived. What's the word that comes out?

[15:06] And he died. The painful reminder that mankind is now going to die. Remember, it was never supposed to happen.

[15:18] My brother spends a lot of time ministering to people, caring for people at funerals. And actually, he's shared multiple times over the years that actually he cherishes those places, those spaces, because when you're with those people in those moments of grieving, life seems to stand still.

[15:37] It seems to pause. Suddenly, perspective seems to come. And suddenly, you understand what Scripture says when it's better to be in a house of mourning than to be the one that's celebrating. Because when you're celebrating, you actually lose perspective of what life is.

[15:49] It's when you see that life comes to an end, is finite. That's when it's sobering. But that's actually when life becomes actual life. Because you realize how precious it is.

[16:02] You see here, the writer seems to just remind us that this is almost the justice of God. This is the consequence of the actions of man. That each person that lives from now on, and he died, and he died, and he died.

[16:18] And I've shared at length with you in the past about my relationship with death. That is something that I think about regularly, since my dad passed when I was 17, and grandparents shortly after. And again, cherishing that very thing that death brings, which is that you appreciate what life truly is.

[16:35] So you go through this list, and you see everyone dies. But that's not the truth, is it? Did anyone notice that someone didn't die in this list? Who was the one who didn't die?

[16:47] Enoch did not die. What? Let's take a look. Try and find him in your list. And you see chapter 5, verse 18. Jared had lived 162 years.

[16:57] He fathered Enoch. Jared lived after he fathered Enoch 18 years, and had son and daughters. And so Jared was the father to Enoch, who lived 65 years. He fathered Methuselah. And then Enoch walked with God.

[17:09] And later, 24, Enoch walked with God, and he was not. For God took him. One of two people that don't die. He's one. Who's the other one? Elijah. Taken up.

[17:19] God just takes him. Can you imagine being there at that time? In civilization. As the group of people who were trying to call on the name of the Lord, and the other group of gangsters that are on the other side.

[17:30] And everyone's dying. And you're like, man, if only we didn't eat the fruit. We wouldn't have died. We wouldn't have to keep saying goodbye to these people that we love. And then suddenly, in this rhythm, in this pattern, someone breaks it.

[17:45] Someone doesn't die. Enoch, if you have a look. Actually, there's not much we know about Enoch. I mean, what a great thing to actually be described as, just that you walked with God. And I'll talk a little bit about that later.

[17:55] I'm just going to fly all the way to the other side of the Bible now, in the book of Jude, which is just before Revelation. We actually get a little peek about who Enoch is.

[18:06] Jude, verse 14 to 16. I'm going to read it to you. And it was also about these that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, interesting. It's the number seven, which is the number of completion in the Bible.

[18:18] It's the seventh descendant from Adam, prophesied, saying, Behold, the Lord comes with ten thousands of his holy ones to execute judgment on all and to convict all the ungodly of all their deeds of ungodliness that they have committed in such an ungodly way and of all the harsh things that ungodly sinners have spoken against him.

[18:36] These are the grumblers, malcontents, following their own sinful desires. They are loudmouth boasters, showing favoritism to gain advantage. Interesting. Enoch walked with God. And what does he do?

[18:46] He's a preacher. He's telling the generations, hey, don't live that way. He actually stood up to the society that he was in, preaching repentance.

[18:58] Isn't that interesting? Even more interesting. Sorry, I went on a bit of a just kind of like a rabbit hole with some of this research. He's a seventh from Adam. Guess who else was seventh from Adam? The original gangster rapper, Lamech, with two wives.

[19:11] He was also the seventh. So then it would have actually stood to pretty reasonable chance that actually Enoch and Lamech, Lamech would have been contemporaries. They would have lived around the same time. So then Enoch's actually preaching to people like Lamech, who are having two wives, who are killing people and proud of it and singing about it.

[19:26] He's like, repent. This is not the way to live. That is Enoch. And it's interesting because he breaks the rhythm. And he was, he walked with God, and then he was not.

[19:38] Because God took him. It makes me think, it makes me think what it would have been like to be in that society where everyone is dying and suddenly the one person doesn't die.

[19:50] Wouldn't that have been just, that would have been all over the news. Did you hear? Did you hear about Jared's son? He didn't die. He just got taken away. Guys, there's something out there that's more than what we can see.

[20:05] Maybe there's something beyond this realm here. Maybe there's something beyond this paradise. Maybe there's something out there. Someone didn't die. And what a legacy.

[20:18] If you look at the maths, and they would actually kind of be reasonable to say that Enoch was middle-aged, or just actually he was still in the prime of his life. 365. Which makes me think, actually it reminds me, as I'm approaching a significant birthday myself, my dad actually passed when he was 41.

[20:40] When I look back, my memory of my dad, he was like complete classic uncle material. Just the way he talked, the way he dressed. But now I'm like, oh, I'm actually the same age that he was.

[20:56] It's a little bit disorienting for me. It's a little bit like, oh, why does God take people away at different stages in their lives? And as I think about that, I think, actually, what was the legacy that my dad left?

[21:11] I would say, if I was to describe it, it would be one of integrity. He was the same everywhere. Whether he was talking to his university students, whether he was talking to his church friends, whether he was talking to his family, he really felt like the same person.

[21:23] And as his son, who lived in his house, I would say the same. He was a man of integrity. Sounds a little bit like Enoch, who walked with God. The question I want to ask you here, just as a little pause and reflection, is if you were to be cut down, if God was to take you away, and the way we all want to die is in our sleep.

[21:42] We all know that. If God was to take you away in your sleep tonight, and next week we have to write about you. What's the legacy you want to have?

[21:53] How do you want to be described? I want you to have just 20 seconds to think about it, because I may ask you, because I think it's important to think about this. It's important to think about the end of your life and what your life was all about.

[22:10] I'll share first, just to help buy you some time. I think at the end, if on my grave, it just says James was real. He was just whoever you saw he was, that was it.

[22:24] You might not find him funny, but he's still going to keep telling jokes. You might not agree with how he does church, but he's going to keep following Jesus in the way he thinks. And he was real to every person.

[22:35] And actually the same James that Reuben, Alicia, and Micah see is the same James that you see. What's yours? J1, what's yours? Yeah.

[22:57] A man who is humble before God. Wow. Again, that's a peak. That's a portal into something bigger. In a world where we stay here, can we just be the biggest person that we can be, climb the ladder that we can climb, and everything's about us and what we can achieve and what fulfills us.

[23:14] Suddenly there's a portal open saying, there is a man that was humble before God. What that really means, if you keep unpacking it and give him time to, but it's, man, he doesn't really care as much what other people think.

[23:27] He's not humbling himself unto other people. There's only one that he's seeking the approval of. Matthew, what's yours?

[23:38] What's yours? Loving. Matthew, loved. I see that.

[23:52] I think it's important to think about that because when you think about what your legacy is, sometimes you don't feel like that person. But the challenge is, we make decisions based on who we want to become.

[24:05] And so actually when we know what we want to be like, who we want to be, then actually even when we don't feel like it, even when we don't feel like doing something, well, actually that's who I want to become, so I'm going to make that decision right now so I get a step closer to that person.

[24:18] I can absolutely guarantee that Enoch did not live in a time where it was easy to walk with God. And yet here we are seeing that's exactly what he did.

[24:29] What is your legacy? A Christ follower is someone who is counter-cultural, who just lives in a different way. When someone looks at you, do they go, hmm, that person is just different. Sometimes a little bit weird, but that person is just different.

[24:42] That's what it means. To be holy. That's what it means, to be set apart, to be different. Anyway, let's carry on. So Enoch, he keeps going, because actually this whole passage isn't even about Enoch.

[24:53] Okay, so we keep going. Enoch, when he's 65, has Methuselah. Methuselah is the subject of lots of interesting Bible trivia. Why? Does anyone know what the Bible trivia for Methuselah is?

[25:06] He's the oldest man in the Bible. 969 years. Okay? So it gets a little bit more interesting here, kind of. And so he then has Methuselah. Methuselah here, actually his word, his name actually means when he dies, it shall be sent.

[25:22] That's what his word means. The first part means death and that's the second part. So it's when Methuselah dies, it will be sent. I want you to keep that in the back of your minds and remember it because it will come back later. Okay? So that he has a kid and his kid is called Lamech.

[25:35] Not the same Lamech from chapter four. Not the gangster rapper. Okay? This is another Lamech. Okay? And this Lamech is actually a bit of a prophet also because he actually gets a quote written in the scriptures here.

[25:48] So Lamech then actually fathers a son. But before we go there, there's something that's interesting. If you look at, we're looking, being inspectors here, if you look at the scriptures, it's always when Jared had lived, he had this and he fathered Enoch.

[26:03] When Enoch had lived, he fathered Methuselah. So it's always this rhythm of this person fathers this person and it just keeps going until you reach here and then suddenly you look at verse 28. When Lamech had lived 182 years, he fathered, not just the name, he fathered a son.

[26:18] Long pause. The writer breaks the trend. He breaks the pattern because he's saying there's something important about this next son that you all need to know about. Lamech fathers a son.

[26:32] Long pause. And he named him Noah, which means rest, which means relief. Can you imagine how exhausting it would have been to live in that society, to walk with God despite all of your friends doing something different?

[26:46] And every time you try and do something right in your job as you run your company, every time you try and do something right, there's another person who's prospering and they're doing the exact opposite. Can you imagine how exhausting it would have felt to be working, to be raising a family in that kind of society?

[27:03] I can imagine because I feel as though there's hints of that here. And how tiring that is. If only, if only we lived in a place where we didn't have to keep fighting against society, fighting against culture, fighting against sin.

[27:16] Lamech fathers a son, long pause, and he's going to call him rest, relief. Noah. And then he actually says it. Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the painful toil of our hands.

[27:34] He's saying, guys, I'm so tired. I'm fighting society. But there's going to be one who comes, who gives us rest and who gives us relief. Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed.

[27:46] Where did Lamech hear that? When did we last hear about that kind of line, that kind of phrasing? You have to go back to chapter three, when God tells Adam after he eats the fruit, you shall not eat of it.

[28:04] Cursed is the ground because of you. Guess who Lamech heard that line from? If you track the ages of all the people in this list, something surprising will show up, which is that actually Adam lived with every single person in this list.

[28:26] The person who Lamech would have heard that quote from is Adam himself. Isn't that mind-blowing to you? My dad died at 41.

[28:38] One of my biggest regrets, one of my only regrets, because I don't like living life with regrets, is I wish I got to know him as a fellow adult. He loved tennis, he loved beer, and he loved farsan.

[28:50] And we would have just sat, and we would have just eaten, and drank, and talked. And I wish I could have known him. Because to him, I would have just been that annoying teenager that was trying to hide things from him at 17.

[29:06] But to be able to sit with him across would be my biggest dream, would be my biggest regret. So forget my grandfather. Forget my great-great-grandfather, who came down from Boon to live in Yunlong, Ping San, to settle there and have the family and have the Tang Clan kind of grow there.

[29:24] I would have loved to meet them. That would have been fun. Can you imagine Lamech would have been able to sit with his great-great-great-great-great-great- great-great-great-great- great-grandfather, Adam, and said, why did you eat the fruit?

[29:41] Why did you not tell great-great-great-great- great-great-great- great-great-great-great- grandma what God told you? Why did you stay silent? Now, because of you, my work, my homework, is hard when it shouldn't have been.

[29:57] Can you imagine that feeling of him sat with Adam and Adam telling him, I'm so sorry. It wasn't supposed to be like this. We were supposed to be walking in the garden in the cool of the day with God himself.

[30:13] but in one slip, we are where we are. I know you're tired and I'm sorry.

[30:25] Can you imagine sitting at Adam's feet? Interesting is this. Methuselah actually lived all the way till he got to see his own grandson, Noah.

[30:42] In fact, what did the meaning of his name mean? Methuselah. Does anyone? When he dies, it shall be sent.

[30:54] If you do the math, Methuselah lives 969 years. If you trace when he comes and from the, if day zero, if year zero was when Adam was born, Methuselah dies in year 1656, 1656.

[31:09] That is the same year that the flood comes. Which tells me another thing. Grandfather Methuselah would have actually lived whilst Noah was building the ark because Noah spent 100 years building the ark.

[31:24] So grandfather would have been there. Lamech would have been there. So grandfather and father was there. Something else about Lamech which is interesting, he was the first person to die before his dad. Lamech only lives 777 years.

[31:36] Methuselah lives 969. God's almost trying to show us something about Methuselah's life which means when he dies it shall be sent that actually there is there is patience to God's judgment.

[31:49] God doesn't send the flood until he dies and he lasts it. He dragged it out for as long as is possible. 969 years. What does that remind me of? 2 Peter 3 that the Lord is not slow to judge.

[32:00] It's not the same slowness that we look. We look at the world right now and we go, Jesus, why don't you just pull the plug? This world is so messed up. Let's just finish it here and God says, no, I can still wait because there are still people who can come to me.

[32:11] There are still people who will be able to experience my love. I'm going to wait because a thousand years is a day to me when it comes to my children and waiting for them to come home. And so what you have is Methuselah is almost a symbol of that God waiting, waiting, waiting, waiting.

[32:27] 969 years until it's time. Okay, this is the time where rest and relief comes. Interesting. We'll talk about this next week because actually Noah has a lot of time later so we're not going to focus on him but the flood comes and it's the flood, it's the judgment that brings rest and relief to creation.

[32:47] Methuselah and Lamech are actually the two people who bridge, who bridge Adam to Noah. Noah in this whole list is the only person who doesn't know Adam, who hasn't met Adam.

[32:58] Isn't that interesting? So what's this whole list about? It's actually not about Enoch, how he walked with God and how he died in middle age.

[33:11] It's actually not about Methuselah that he lived to 969. This whole list is about one thing. The author is trying to show us one thing from Adam to Noah because I'll tell you something else.

[33:23] This whole list of people that goes from Adam to Noah, they're not all good. Even though this line started to call upon the name of the Lord, this line is not all good. Why? Because this line, everyone ends up drowning in the flood apart from Noah's family.

[33:40] This whole chapter is about God showing us from Adam to Noah that there is a rescue plan, that there is someone who is going to deliver mankind from sin and give man rest and relief.

[33:56] Are you tired? Are you exhausted of living the life that you're living? Are you so fed up of the darkness that's around you? Every time you open the news and you see the issues that surround us, every time you go to work and you see the problems that exist, are you tired of that?

[34:09] Are you losing hope because you are surrounded by gangster rappers everywhere who are proud of what they do and you're trying to figure it out but actually you realize that you're not so good yourself? Are you tired of that?

[34:21] Of trying to deliver yourself? If we look at this, we can see and he died and he died and he died. This is a whole list but it wasn't about the people, it's about where he's trying to get to. He's trying to get from Adam to Noah because he's bringing a deliverer.

[34:35] He's bringing someone to deliver us from all the pain, death, sickness that we experience right now. And afterwards, from Noah, you know it doesn't go well.

[34:46] Noah actually also has that description that he walked with God but actually he also dies. Actually, Noah's end of life doesn't end that great either. And so then, mankind keeps going and eventually God sends another deliverer.

[35:00] Who does he send? He sends Moses to deliver. And each time, God sends someone to come and try and rescue the people away from darkness. But even that isn't good enough.

[35:14] This genealogy is something that you find at the beginning of the Old Testament. But if you fast forward to the New Testament, at the beginning of the New Testament, there's another genealogy. this list doesn't just go from Adam to Noah.

[35:27] This traces it to someone else and it traces it to a final deliverer. Someone that Hebrews 3 and 4 says is greater than Moses himself. That is the great every other deliverer that has happened in the past is nothing compared to this final deliverer who is to come.

[35:44] The one who will give final rest. The one who will give relief to our toil as we are working the ground that is cursed. He is the one who ends up taking on all the curses on himself.

[36:01] And even though Adam was cursed to work the ground with the thorns and the fissles and hurting his hands, this final deliverer, this final one that the genealogy in Matthew, the genealogy in Luke points to is one who was willing to have his hands pierced to do all the work that needs to be done to rescue us from, quite frankly, ourselves.

[36:21] Whether it's obvious or not, we are the gangster rappers. We are the ones caught in sin. That person, of course, is Jesus.

[36:34] Adam and Eve failed miserably in their first walk in the garden when they did exactly what God told them not to do. But you fast forward to this deliverer, he's also in a garden, he also doesn't want to follow God's will and yet he says, not my will but yours be done.

[36:54] And so he then drinks from the cup of suffering for us. He then takes on the consequence of sin for us. The Lion of Cain built a name for themselves, a city named after themselves, but this one had the ultimate name, the name above all names, but decided to empty himself to come down from his throne in heaven, to come down to be with us in the dirt and humbled himself even to the point of death, even death on the cross.

[37:25] Adam and Eve failed at the tree. Jesus, the final deliverer, succeeds at the tree on the cross. and we are sat here because of him.

[37:39] He came to show us there is something beyond the grave. So imagine yourself. Where you're at right now, how must you respond?

[37:51] You and I, we are part of a list that looks just like this. The numbers have been going further and further down. But it's really just the same. Paul lived, he sang, and he died.

[38:09] Sam lived, he taught, and he died. Queenie did all the stuff that she does with law, and she lived, and she died.

[38:26] Justina plays the violin in the most beautiful way, and she dies. And just before you think, that is so morbid and so negative, that is ruining my vibes here, remember, the pattern gets broken.

[38:50] the pattern gets broken. We get delivered. We can sing that song, that hymn of heaven, because the pattern was broken.

[39:03] So we can face whoever we have in front of us and live in a different way, knowing that God is patient, and we should be too, because he will bring rest and relief.

[39:20] before we jump into a final song, I want us to have a few moments just to absorb all that and ask what that means for you.

[39:36] This life that God has given to us, what are we supposed to do with it? What is the legacy that we're supposed to write? Not a legacy for ourselves, not to make a name for ourselves, but how can we be part of a line that ultimately points to the one deliverer, the one rescuer?

[39:53] Let's spend a moment now to reflect. Lord, as we look at your word, as we look at the passage from today, whether we zoom right into the details, whether we zoom right out, what we see is just that you are in control, that despite the mistakes of man, you are sovereign.

[40:45] Despite the pain and the sickness that we experience, you are in control. Despite the ground that we work being cursed, you are still here.

[41:10] Despite childbirth being painful, you are here to bring sorrow and turn it into joy. Lord, all creation is longing for the revealing of your children to be who we truly are supposed to be.

[41:30] and we maintain that hope in you for it is by that hope that we are saved.

[41:46] So we can sit in a time like this, with a work like this, with a family like this, because you have delivered us and you will come back again once and for all.

[42:06] Make all things new. so we come to you now with our pain, our anxiety, our confusion, our anger, our pride.

[42:27] we cry out just like Enoch would that you would deliver us, that we who were once dead in our trespasses and sins following the course of this world would be made alive together because of your great love and your mercy.

[43:01]  Thank you for delivering us.