We are in a predicament. You and I, dear reader, are both born into a broken family. We need to change the family tree and the Bible tells us how. Now I work hard to show everyone that my family has it all together but the reality that I know and the reality my family knows is that we have issues. I know, dear reader, that your family has hidden issues as well. How do I know that? Because we are both people and we are under a curse. Everyone has issues some families are just better at keeping those issues out of the public than others. What Adam and Eve did at the very beginning left all of humanity in a mess and yes under a curse.
17 For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ! Romans 5:17 ESV
Dead Family Tree
The trespass of Adam brought death to his family and to the families of all his descendants. This is hard to accept for modern man because we do not hold the sins of the father against the son. But in this case humanity was born into the decay of death because the sins of our father Adam are also our sins. We continue in the sins of Adam and embrace selfishness like all those before us.
When building a family tree most people start with themselves and work backward creating a tree and branches on the way back in time. However, this is backward. Our family tree actually starts with Adam and Eve as the seed of destruction and from this seed is the growth of a family that branches out into peoples, nations, and culture over time. Yet all of those families and nations share the original seed of sin from Adam. We are in a mess and there is nothing we can do to fix the family because the root is bad. The seed we draw our life from was corrupted from the start.
Hope For Even Dead Trees
Yet there is hope. God steps in through the person of Jesus Christ and a new family tree is started. This new tree is alive with the grace of God. This tree is free of sin and death because the seed is the perfect righteous life of God.
16 If the part of the dough offered as first fruits is holy, then the whole batch is holy; if the root is holy, so are the branches. 17 If some of the branches have been broken off, and you, though a wild olive shoot, have been grafted in among the others and now share in the nourishing sap from the olive root, 18 do not consider yourself to be superior to those other branches. If you do, consider this: You do not support the root, but the root supports you. Romans 11:16-18 ESV
Grafted into a Living Tree
God breaks all the rules. He does something amazing for those that call on the name of Jesus for salvation. He cuts them out of the dead tree of Adam and He then grafts that person into a new family tree. The living tree of Jesus Christ. The root of Jesus is holy and we who are grafted in receive nourishment from the life giving source of Christ.
5 “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6 If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. John 15:5-6 ESV
