Family Secrets - Genesis - April 12th, 2026 (Sermon Transcript)

A few years ago, there was a huge increase in the number of people getting their DNA tested.

A bunch of companies popped up offering affordable, easy DNA testing, and I think it's kind of since declined because people realized, wait, I don't want this company having all of my genetic information to then sell to somebody else or share with my

health insurance company. But when it first came out, people were really curious. Obviously, our DNA is something that we inherit from our parents, and it therefore shapes who we are, our physical characteristics.

And yet, there's always that debate between nature versus nurture.

Like, are you the person that you are today because of your genetic information, or is it because of how your parents raised you, their parenting style, or the environment that you were raised in?

Well, it turns out that when these companies became popular, we started to learn, or at least I started to learn, that the amount of things that are determined simply by your DNA is really surprising.

Like, it can tell you where in the world your ancestors lived, going back hundreds of years. It can tell you how likely you are to get certain diseases, how your body might respond to certain medications.

It can even predict how likely you are to have freckles. Your DNA can tell you about your hair texture, your muscle composition, how you process caffeine, and how you feel about the taste of cilantro even.

Apparently, to some people, it tastes like soap because of their DNA. We have at least one of them here.

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Familyʼs Impact

So, all these things are determined by the DNA you receive from your parents, not to mention all the things that are determined by how your parents raised you, what your childhood was like, what your family dynamic was like, how many siblings you

have, where you are in the order of siblings. In a hundred different ways, your family has a huge, huge impact on who you are. And that's a truth that we see all throughout this passage this morning.

We're back in the book of Genesis, and we're going to be looking at chapter five, verses one through 32. It's the first genealogy, the first family history in the Bible.

And if you've ever tried to read through the whole Bible, you know that genealogies can be boring. They shouldn't be. It's all the word of God, right?

And we all read through them with a little bit of guilt, as we just kind of slog through name after name after name, thinking like, it's so hard to get through sometimes, but God put them in the Bible for a reason.

Even if it seems a bit repetitive or boring at first, family histories have a lot to teach us because family has such a big impact on who we are. So let's read the passage, and then we'll look carefully at the wisdom and truth and significance of it.

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Genesis Genealogy

Please stand for the reading of God's word. I'll read the text for us. Genesis 5, verses 1 through 32.

And if you get tired from standing halfway through, it's okay if you sit down. 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. 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. Thus all the days that Adam lived were 930 years, and he died. When Seth had lived 105 years, he fathered Enosh.

Seth lived after he fathered Enosh, 807 years, and he had other sons and daughters. Thus all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died. When Enosh had lived 90 years, he fathered Kenan.

Enosh lived after he fathered Kenan, 815 years, and had other sons and daughters. 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. Thus all the days of Kenan were 910 years, and he died. When Mahalalel had lived 65 years, he fathered Jared.

Mahalalel lived after he fathered Jared, 830 years, and had other sons and daughters. 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. Thus all the days of Jared were 962 years, and he died. When Enoch had lived 65 years, he fathered Methuselah.

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. Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him.

When Methuselah had lived 187 years, he fathered Lamech. 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, 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. After Noah was 500 years old, Noah fathered Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated, and please join me as I pray for us. Father, help us to understand your word, to believe it, and to live in accordance with the truth, and wisdom, and goodness of it.

There are 10,000 paths we could take in this world, 10 million things that we could listen to and follow, but this is the one thing, the one supreme infallible truth from you, God, the one thing truly worth following and believing.

So help us this morning to understand it, and believe it, and trust it. We pray in the name of Jesus, amen.

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Divine Likeness

One of the first and most important truths we see about family in our passage is this. People from the same family usually resemble each other.

My parents are here this morning, and maybe you'll see them afterwards, and maybe you'll say, oh wow, yes, he resembles them, because most kids resemble their parents in some way.

This truth is highlighted for us right here at the beginning of this genealogy. Look again at verse three. It says, Adam fathered a son in his own likeness after his image, and named him Seth.

I'm sure you can identify the ways that that you resemble your parents, or the ways that your kids or other family members resemble you. And I'm sure that it goes deeper than just your appearance.

When the Bible talks about image and likeness, it's more than just physical genetic characteristics. For example, if you're a hard worker, it's probably because you learn that from your parents.

If you're quick to apologize, it's probably because you saw that modeled for you growing up. The things that you love and believe and value, you probably got many of those things from your parents, just like Seth got many of those things from Adam.

But here's the question, where did Adam get those things? Where did Adam get his taste or distaste for cilantro, or his work ethic, or his preference for dessert? Here's where it gets really interesting, because Adam didn't have a normal dad, did he?

He didn't inherit his DNA from another man, but he resembled his father in heaven. As it says in verse one, he was made in the likeness of God. Think about that for a minute.

The same word, the same words that are used to describe how Adam's biological son resembled him, are the same words that are used to describe how Adam resembled God. And it wasn't just Adam who resembled God, it's you.

You are made in the image of God just as much as Adam was made in the image of God. So what does this mean for you?

I think sometimes people can get really fascinated, I've seen people get really fascinated by their family histories, or by how their parents grew up, and they really dig into this stuff, and they want to know like, how does this stuff affecting me

today? Like there's some secrets there, there's some wisdom there.

If I could just understand my parents and why they were the way that they were, and maybe where they come came from, if I can trace my genealogy and see my other family members, then I'll better be able to understand myself and why I am the way that

I am today. Well, here's the most important information that you have for understanding yourself, and who you are, and why you are that way, and who you're supposed to be. It's right here. You were made in the image of God.

And this passage is giving us clues about what that means. When you start putting together all the pieces of the puzzle from throughout the Bible, here's the picture that you get.

To be made in the image of God means that we, as human beings, are creative. We have power. We have a will, a sometimes free will that we can exercise to decide things or believe things or do things.

Those capacities are built into us because we are born in the likeness of God. We are also, according to this fact that we're made in the image of God, we are God's representatives in the world.

When your kids go out into the world with your last name as your children, they represent you and how you raise them.

When my kids get a little bit too crazy in the toy aisle at Target, start knocking things down and getting too loud, that represents me and how I'm raising them.

On the contrary, when they're well behaved, which thankfully they usually are, that also represents me and how I'm raising them. And it makes me feel proud. But we all understand that.

But what I want you to understand right now is in the same way, you represent God in this world. As a human being, you are meant to represent God in this world and to reflect good things about him.

When human beings use their capacities, their powers, their gifts, to do good things in the world, that represents God well.

But when we use our powers and our capacities and our gifts for purely selfish things, for evil things that defaces the image of God in us, what are you using your gifts and powers and capacities for? God made you to be like him.

We also reflect God in terms of our dominion over the world. The Bible uses that word dominion. God rules the world, and he has entrusted some of his authority and control to us.

We as human beings have been given dominion over the world. And we need to use that dominion, not just our powers and capacities, but also our authority. We're supposed to have authority over the animals and over the plants.

We're supposed to take control over nature and manipulate it for our purposes, but we're supposed to do it in a way that is good and beautiful, in a way that honors God.

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Godʼs Family

When it comes to family, the Bible puts a massive emphasis on our inclusion in the family of God. So we're looking at this family lineage here, right? Genesis chapter 5, from Adam down through Seth and Enoch and Mahalalel and Methuselah.

Fun fact about Methuselah, he was the oldest man who ever lived, but he died before his father did. Did you notice that?

Methuselah lived 969 years, longer than anybody else in this list, longer than anybody else in the whole Bible, 969 years, but he died before his father did. How is that possible? How could he be the oldest man who ever lived?

Well, because his father, Enoch, was taken to heaven by God. He never died. Just a fun fact for you about this family lineage.

But the whole point that I'm trying to make right now is this is this family lineage, and we see that Adam comes from the family of God, but we all are made in the image of God, and through Christ, we all can be a part of the family of God.

That's one of the benefits of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. People generally think that everybody on the planet is a child of God. Think everybody on the planet is a child of God, but the Bible says that's not true.

Everybody on the planet is a creation of God. Everybody on the planet was made in the image of God, but it is only through Christ and what He accomplished in our faith in Him that we are able to become children of God.

So when you put your trust in Jesus as your Savior, as your King, when you turn away from your sin and you commit your life to following Jesus, God adopts you into his family and you become his son or his daughter.

And God wants us to live in accordance with his family values, with his family values. Recently, Kayla was talking with a friend of ours, and he shared something really cool about the way that he's raising his kids.

Obviously, like any parent, he's trying to help his kids to become good people rather than bad people, right? To be kind, to be generous, patient, forgiving, and so on. And their last name, this family, their last name is Fabrini.

So he'll often tell his kids like, oh, we don't do that. We're Fabrinis. Or we always tell the truth because that's who we are.

We're Fabrinis. I think that's a powerful way to teach your kids about what is good and right. To remind them of who they are, what family they come from.

Well, as Christians, we're part of God's family. So what does that mean about who we should be and how we should behave?

Romans 8.29 says, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son, in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

So if you're a Christian, that means that before you were even born, God chose you to be adopted into his family. And he chose you and he's working in you to make you more like his son, Jesus.

Because Jesus, if you're a Christian, that means that Jesus is your family now. God is your father, and like father, like son, we are destined as Christians to take on the family resemblance of God's family, and that's a big deal.

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Trust Godʼs Word

In any family, the resemblance between family members is a significant thing. Another significant thing with families is every family has stories, and tales, and lore, and legends. And we see that here as well in Genesis chapter 5.

The real legend in our passage is Enoch. It says that he lived to be 365 years old, and then in verse 24, it says this, Enoch walked with God, and he was not, for God took him. And he was not, for God took him.

And it never says that he died, implying he did not die, God just took him straight to heaven. That's quite the family legend, isn't it? But when I say legend, I don't mean that in a fictional way.

These are not characters in a story. They are real historical people, and they really did live for hundreds of years. They really did live for hundreds of years.

When you walk out this door this morning, or that door in the back this morning, when you leave today, you are either going to believe that these people lived for hundreds of years, or you're not.

You're either going to believe the word of God and what it says, or you're not. And I think that might be the most important thing for us this morning.

When we read passages like this, we see these statements, like Enoch was taken straight to heaven, this guy lived for 900 years, that guy lived for 969 years, and as modern people, we find stuff like this hard to believe.

It seems impossible that human beings could live for that long, but there's nothing scientifically impossible about it. Many scholars have attempted to explain away these long lives.

Like they've theorized maybe in the ancient Near East, in this time period when the Book of Genesis was written, maybe they just counted years differently. We do our years by revolutions around the sun.

Maybe for them, it was based on different stars or something like that, or maybe these genealogies or this genealogy, it's not about individual people, but maybe it's about individual people that represent tribes or clans.

So when it says, so and so lived for 900 years, it's really him and then his sons and their sons and a group of people that lasted for 900 years. So maybe that's what's going on here.

But when you get into the details of all these theories that are trying to explain away these super long lives, they just fall apart. They don't stand up to any sort of investigation. The plain truth is this.

The Bible means this literally. And there's no way to get around that. The only faithful reading of this text is the plain and simple conclusion that prior to Noah, the flood of Noah, humans lived much longer.

And why is that? How does that work? Well, the Bible doesn't fill us in on those details.

It doesn't explain how that works, how people's hearts beat for 969 years without going out.

But some people speculate that before the flood, we know that geologically, we know that atmospherically before the flood of Noah, before the entire earth was flooded with water, that things were very different.

Some people speculate that the extra water in the atmosphere filtered the sun's radiation in such a way that it allowed for a much more mild environment here on planet Earth, and therefore for much longer lifespans.

There are brilliant people, credentialed scientists who have sophisticated, well-evidenced explanations for how this is possible. So, it's not as crazy as you might think.

In fact, cultures from all over the world, listen carefully, cultures from all over the world have records of early ancestors that lived for hundreds or even thousands of years. Isn't that remarkable?

That independent histories from independent cultures all over the planet, remember ancestors who lived for hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years? So, listen carefully, there's a very important lesson here.

Always give the word of God the benefit of the doubt.

When you see a passage like this that talks about people living for 900 years, or you read in other parts of the Bible about an axe head that floats, or the sun going backwards, or blind people seeing, or a man rising from the dead, and you start to

wonder, did that really happen? Here's the key. You need to assume that it really did happen. Give the Bible the benefit of the doubt.

Just assume that there is some explanation, some evidence out there that you're not aware of, because in my experience, there always is. The word of God always proves true. So trust it.

Assume that it's true until proven otherwise. And I want to invite you, if you want to look into it, then do it. The Bible is not scared of you and your skepticism.

God is not scared of our investigations and our questions. I dare you. I double dog dare you.

If you think that the Bible is incorrect, then study it. Read every book on the planet if you want to. The Bible always wins.

It always proves true. It always stands up to the most skeptical of investigations. If you give it a fair hearing, you can research to your hearts contents.

You can read whatever you want to read, and the Bible always proves true. Just a warning, though.

I've seen a few people go down this road, and here's what they do, especially kids who have grown up in the church, and they just don't like it, and they get to be 22 years old, and they're filled with doubt about the truth of the Bible.

And so they start reading stuff online, and maybe they read a few actual real books. But what they do is they only read the skeptical stuff, and they never read the Christian responses to it.

So they're like, oh, I don't know if I can really trust the Bible, so let me read five books that attack the Bible ruthlessly. And then they come to believe those books, and they're like, okay, well yeah, they're right, the Bible isn't true.

But they never actually read the Christian defense of the Bible. They only read one side, because it's the side that they wanted to win in the first place. So again, research to your hearts content.

Read as much as you want to read, because the Bible is not afraid of your skepticism, but give it a fair hearing. Don't go read 10 atheist books, and never read a single Christian book. If you're gonna be scientific about it, be scientific about it.

If you're gonna be logical and reasonable and examine the evidence, then examine all the evidence, not just the evidence that you want to be true. But again, here's the main point. Always assume that it's true.

And then research whatever you want to research. But if you're not gonna do the research, give the Bible the benefit of the doubt. The moment that you let doubt take hold, there's a big difference between giving into doubt and doing your research.

Doing your research is awesome, and I will always support that. But just giving into doubt, just reading the Bible and thinking, man, it's really hard to see how that could be true. That sounds implausible.

And then just going with it, when you give into doubt like that, you are letting the enemy in. Because faith pleases God. Trusting God pleases God.

And Satan does not want you to please God. Satan does not want you to trust God in his word. So you need to decide right now, you need to decide that you are going to trust God in his word, no matter what.

Because you can't have a good relationship with somebody if that relationship is not built on trust. Ultimately, that's what it comes down to. That's what's most important here, is you having a good relationship with God.

Have you ever been in a relationship with somebody where you prove yourself to them over and over and over again, and yet they never trust you? They're always doubting you? It's frustrating, it's insulting.

It destroys a relationship, and the same is true of our relationship with God. If God proves himself to you over and over and over again, but you never trust him, that is displeasing to God.

God wants you to trust him because he's good and he's trustworthy, and because he wants to have a good, healthy relationship with you.

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Enochʼs Walk

Enoch is a great example of someone who had a good relationship with God. That's what this passage is highlighting for us in verse 22. In the Old Testament, the phrase walked with God means that the person was a friend of God.

They lived in close relationship with God, and for Enoch, the result of that closeness was God, was that he did not have to experience death. Everybody else in this genealogy dies, but not Enoch. Simply says in verse 24 that God took him.

That was the benefit of his relationship with God, and believe it or not, it's a benefit of your relationship with God, too. Enoch was a preview for us New Testament believers. Enoch, because of his relationship with God, did not have to die.

Well, because of your relationship with God, through Jesus, you also do not have to experience death the way that these men did.

I'm not saying that all of us are gonna get taken up to heaven, but I am saying that through Christ, death has lost its sting.

Through Christ, when we die, we are ushered immediately into the presence of God, absent from the body, present with the Lord. If you believe in Jesus, that means that your biological death is not the end of your existence.

It is not the end of your life. It's just the beginning of the life that you were always meant to live. So death isn't this big, scary, horrible thing that you have to be afraid of.

It's something that you can pass through with peace. It's interesting to see that contrast throughout this passage with Enoch not dying.

Enoch being taken by God, but Methuselah died, and Lamech died, and Jared died, and Mahalalel died, and Kenan died. Every time you see the word died, it's a reminder that God always speaks the truth. Talk about trusting God in his word.

Every single time you see the word died, it's a reminder that God spoke the truth, and the enemy lied. Do you remember what the enemy said? Back in Genesis chapter 3, Genesis 3 verse 4, the serpent said to the woman, you will not surely die.

That's what he said. But Eve did die. And so did Adam, and Cain, and Abel, and Seth, and Enosh, and Kenan, and everybody else.

This genealogy is proving God true over and over and over again. The penalty of sin is death. God is truth.

His words in Genesis 3 are echoing throughout this passage.

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Hope Fulfilled

We see another echo from Genesis 3 in verse 29. Maybe you remember Genesis 3 15. After the fall, after Adam and Eve sinned in the garden, God curses the serpent, and then he gives the punishments, the penalty for their sin, to Adam and Eve.

And in the midst of God laying out the consequences of their sin, which would affect them and human nature and human history until the end of time, in the midst of all that, there was this little glimmer of hope in Genesis 3 15, where God promises

Eve that one day one of her descendants would defeat the enemy, would defeat the curse. And we see an echo of that hope here in verse 29 with Noah. Look at what Lamech says.

Lamech prophesies about his son Noah, 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. This is a great example of one of the major themes of the entire Old Testament.

God is always preserving a lineage of chosen people to keep the hope alive. And eventually, we see in the Bible that that lineage leads directly to Jesus.

Right here with Lamech, he's zeroing in on Noah and identifying Noah as the one to keep the promise going. You see, when a child is born, they often carry the hope of their parents. When I was a kid, I wanted to be a professional golfer.

And I can totally see myself being one of those dads that puts that hope on my son when he gets older. I've already kind of halfway put that hope on my daughters, but usually guys are more into sports.

So, saving a lot of that hope for my son when he's born. To do what I couldn't do, get the club in his hand before he turns one, and start working on the grip and the backswing, and maybe he can become the player that I always dreamed of being.

I think we see that in a more healthy way with kids of immigrants. When people come to this country, it's often with the hope that their kids can live a better life.

They want them to have greater opportunity in life, to go to college, to be successful, to achieve and accomplish. They want something greater for their kids. And we see that kind of attitude here with Lamek.

This is not the same Lamek from chapter 4, by the way, lest you get confused. In chapter 4, there was a guy named Lamek who was a murderer and polygamist, and that's the bad Lamek. This is the good Lamek from the line of Seth, not the line of Cain.

And this Lamek is clearly hoping that somehow his son Noah can rise above his life of labor and toil, to rise above the labor and toil that everybody at this point was consigned to live. Lamek wants Noah to defeat the curse of sin in the world.

He wants his son to find peace and rest from his labor and toil. Really, he wants Jesus, but he just doesn't know it yet. In a moment, I'm going to show you how Lamek's dreams for Noah are ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

Noah wasn't able to fully accomplish what his dad dreamed of, but Jesus was. So Lamek was longing for Jesus to fix his broken world, and he just didn't know it yet. And that's true for millions of people in the world today.

They're longing for Jesus, but they just don't know it yet.

Millions of people in our world today who put their hope in their kids having a better life, who put their hope in some politician to come along and fix America or fix this broken world, millions of people in this world today who are longing for the

day when they can finally experience real peace and real rest, real escape from all the labor and toil. And it's our job as Christians to show all these people how all these things are ultimately fulfilled in Christ.

Lamech had a good desire, a good dream, that someday some son would be born who could defeat the curse, who could put an end to the meaningless labor and toil of this life, who could give people the peace and rest that they always longed for.

Well, let me finish with these words from Jesus. Matthew 11 verses 28 and 29, Jesus cried out, Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light.