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Matthew: Adam, what in the world were you thinking? Let's talk about it on Key Life. This is Key Life. We're here to let you know that because of what Jesus has done, God will never be angry at you again. Steve invited our friend Jerry Q. Parries to do the teaching this week. Jerry is a pastor, an author, and has served in ministry for more than 35 years.

Steve Brown: Thank you, Matthew. We have a treat this week, and you know it's a treat from the response we get to you every time Dr. Parries is here. Jerry is one of my very closest friends and I love him more than you know. I love his book on Romans. I loved going to his church and preaching and listening to him preach, and he's one of the voices of Key Life.

Now I'm going to pray for us, and then we're going to do something that's very special. We're going to look at the biblical theme of covenants. Father, we come into your presence, surprised we're here. They told us if we did things right, you'd accept us, and we tried. We couldn't pull it off. Then we heard your voice, "Welcome, child," and we came running.

Father, we're not good, but we're yours. We're not always faithful, but we're yours. We're not always the kind of child that a father would want, but you want us and we're yours. We praise you for it. Father, we lift this time and this week of broadcasts before you. May we, during this time, hear the soft sound of sandaled feet. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.

Jerry Q. Parries: Amen.

Steve Brown: Jerry, I'm so glad you're here. The response—this is a pretty complicated deal. We're going to talk about covenants and theology books have been written about it. So you're going to have to keep the fodder down low enough that it makes a difference. Let me read some scripture and then you can comment on it and begin this trek into the covenants of God. We'll look—I think you're going to teach us about Adam today.

Jerry Q. Parries: That is correct.

Steve Brown: Okay, this is what the scripture says, Genesis 1:26 through 30. "Then God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. Let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.' So God created man in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them.

Then God blessed them and God said to them, 'Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.' And God said, 'See, I have given you every herb that yields seed which is on the face of the earth, and every tree whose fruit yields seed. To you, it shall be for food. Also to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food,' and it was so."

Jerry Q. Parries: Yes, absolutely it was so. This is good because we're going to be talking about covenants and we're talking about the covenant that God made with Adam. All of this week, we're going to be talking about different covenants. We're going to be handling Adam and Noah. But let me tell you about the covenant that God made with Adam. There's a three-part to the agreement between God and Adam.

The covenant God made with Adam defines the human role, it defines the fall of humans, and then the third one, it defines the redemption of humans. In the Garden of Eden, humans received authority and responsibility along with a warning against the tree of knowledge, not to touch it, not to eat it, or the day you do, you will die.

After Adam fell, then you have the pain and death that followed, but there was a promise of hope and we're going to get to it today, a promise of hope of salvation. All of the covenants in the scripture really do point to Jesus Christ who would fulfill the redemption through his crucifixion and resurrection. So these covenants underscore God's faithfulness and hope for restoration.

Steve Brown: Now this covenant explains a lot, doesn't it? People always ask, why are things so bent? Why are things so wrong and so dark? What you're teaching us is that a guy we never met—in fact, a couple we never met—messed it up for the rest of us. That never seemed very fair to me, but I didn't get a vote. It does explain me, and explains the listeners, and it explains you, doesn't it?

Jerry Q. Parries: It really does, but there's something very magical about something you just said. You didn't get a vote when Adam messed it up, but when Jesus came and redeemed us, you didn't get a vote for him to fix it up.

Steve Brown: That's true. In other words, this is God's deal.

Jerry Q. Parries: Yeah, it really is. Let me talk about what God told Adam. He says, "I want you to have dominion over everything." And he goes down to the animals, the fish, the dominion of the sea, and also on the earth. This is what God is saying to us today, that that covenant applies to us today because we're supposed to have dominion over every aspect of our lives.

I like to say this and I want to say this to our listeners: if you have chaos in your life, most times—not all the time—most times you've created it because you have caused that and called those things to be as they have become what they are. For an example, God tells Adam, "I want you to call and name every animal." Well, you get to name everything that's happening to your life.

So if you want peace in your life, you've got to name it. If you want joy in your life, you've got to name it. But if you call it chaos, if you call it crazy, if you call, "I'm having awful days," and if you're calling those things to be, then you're taking dominion over your life in a negative way. God has given Adam the authority to take dominion and power over his life in a positive way, and that's what this commandment and this covenant is with you and I with God.

Steve Brown: So we are kind of—as we've decided to be where we are, even if we don't know it.

Jerry Q. Parries: That is correct. That's exactly what I'm saying. The Bible says in Hebrews that the world is framed by the words that we speak. So we could speak our words to have this—that's why the scripture says, "This is the day that the Lord has made, I will rejoice and be glad in it," because we have that option to have this as a great day because of the covenant that God made with Adam, that you get an opportunity to have dominion and power and authority over your life.

Steve Brown: And that's what God has arranged in his covenant. That's an act of love, isn't it?

Jerry Q. Parries: It really is, because he says, "Let us make man in our own image." And that's the image that God has given us, to create the atmosphere by which we live.

Steve Brown: Now, what's the promise?

Jerry Q. Parries: The promise of that is that if you declare a thing, it will be established. Here's what the scripture says: "From this day forward, it is what we call seed time and harvest." That when you plant seeds of love, plant seeds of joy, plant seeds of peace, the harvest of those things are going to come back to you. But if you plant seeds of discord, then the harvest of discord is going to come. God told Adam there's going to be a promise of as long as the earth remains, there will be seed time and harvest.

Steve Brown: That is—it's kind of looking into the future too, isn't it, at Jesus? You said something earlier, that Jesus was what all this covenant stuff is about. As we look through history, each covenant thinks of him and points to him and remembers or forecasts what he's going to do for us to make the reality of what you just taught us true in our lives.

Jerry Q. Parries: Yeah, and we're going to get to that. So you want to come back and listen to our program for the next day when we get back into Adam, and you're going to see how all of this really mixes together. Because now Adam then does something that God tells him not to do, and when he does that, then it falls apart, but he comes back to rescue him.

Steve Brown: And you know, that's the experience that we all have. We do the things that God told us not to do. So we sin because of Adam's sin, but we sin just like Adam's sin. And then we mess up the covenant, but God is faithful. The rest of this week, we're going to see that over and over and over again. The covenant is God's covenant that he makes with the people that he loves. That would be you and me. You think about that. Amen.

Matthew: Thank you, Steve and Jerry. That was Steve Brown and Jerry Parries teeing up our series this week. Two of the covenants we find in the Bible—fascinating stuff. Make sure you join us again tomorrow. Well, here's a statement I probably don't have to convince you of: we all fall short of God's standards. We fall short of our own expectations. We're called to radical obedience, but why is it that we struggle so much? Why do we feel guilty?

The fact is, we are weak and needy people. And so, when we run to Jesus, we find the power we lack. Steve spoke about this in a message called, "When Being Bad Isn't Bad Enough." We'd like to send you that full CD for free. So claim yours right now by calling us at 1-800-KEY-LIFE. That's 1-800-539-5433. You can also email Steve at keylife.org to order that CD, or to mail your request, go to keylife.org/contact to find our mailing addresses for the US and Canada. Again, just ask for your absolutely free CD called, "When Being Bad Isn't Bad Enough."

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