In Jesus Holy Name April 20,2008
Easter IV Series: O.T. Challenges Redeemer
Genesis 4:25-26
“Building Bridges”
This is the fourth message in our series: O.T. Challenges. In Genesis chapters 1-3 we saw Adam and Eve sharing a life of perfect love and harmony, with each other and with their Creator. All of creation existed in harmony with each other, until the slithering serpent came into their world and caused them to doubt God’s goodness and love.
Adam and Eve lived in an intimate relationship with each
other; with God and their world. The world and the relationships in which we now live are different. Perfect love, harmony and peace are things people in the world only hope to possess.
In Genesis 4 Cain knew his offering was not acceptable. He became jealous and angry. It isn’t fair! Haven’t I worked as hard, if not harder than Abel? It’s not fair. Maybe he thought: “What good is it to pray and sacrifice to God if God treats me like this?”
Our world, our society still seeks peace and harmony and
intimacy but these are elusive. Instead, we have alienation and fear in our city streets, playgrounds and homes. Human beings experience separation from the knowledge of the goodness of God. We have become descendants of Cain.
The Lord comes to Cain, “If you do what is right, will
you not be accepted? But if you do no do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” (Genesis 4:6-7)
The Lord intervenes for Cain. Cain’s real enemy is not God, not Abel, but sin. God warns him…. “Don’t let your anger lead you to sin….Sin is crouching at your door, it desires to have you.”
Cain acts as if he did not even hear God’s words. God has also placed his law into our hearts as well. We have a conscience. We know what is right and what is wrong. Too which voice do we listen? Cain invites his brother out into the field? He has hatred for his brother. He murdered his brother.
The act is done. The temptation became a sin. There is no turning back. Abel is dead.
God was not deceived by fig leaves Adam and Eve used to hide their shame. He sees through Cain as well. Abel’s tongue is silent, but his blood is not. It cries to God from the earth.
Cain is alienated from his family, from his earth, from God. He turns his back and walks away from God. How can God bridge the chasm that now exist and remains for human beings are alienated from God and one another. Can a bridge, can a connection be reestablished?
In 1851 many of the most accomplished engineers in the country thought James Roebling was out of his mind. That year Roebling began to work on the unthinkable: the bridging of the Niagara River Gorge.
Disaster was nearly universally predicted. There was, of course the sheer mathematics of the thing, 825 feet across, 200 feet straight down.
But the numbers paled in comparison to the sheer power and raging river. Roebling’s proposed site was just upstream from the Great Niagara Falls where 37.4 million gallons of water per minute fell into the Niagara Gorge. The water had cut a deep abyss with a series of savage rapids, ending in a tremendous whirlpool. A no man’s land.
Across such a chasm, Roebling believed a train could cross. History was not a powerful ally. Although greater spans had already bridged ….including Roeblings own bridge across the Ohio River…. The Niagara posed tremendous difficulty. No girders, or bridge mounts could survive the raging river. The only possibility was a suspension bridge.
That is what had people worried. They shook in the wind, after a few years they twisted and crumbled into the waters they were designed to span. When Roebling proposed the bridge most people were putting their money on the gorge….not the bridge. (from "The Church of Irresistiblde Influence by Robert Lewis)
The chasm was simply too great.
We live in a world that is self-obsessed and few want anything to do with the selfless servant hood offered and displayed by Jesus Christ.
We live in a culture that has shifted from one that respects authority and chooses the world of Cain, the world of knowledge of good and evil….of course, decided by the individual. It’s called “relativism”. “I’ll do it my way.” What used to be “deviant” behaviors are now called “lifestyle” choices. Truth has no absolute ground upon which to stand…. Listen to our political leaders….half truths are told, few people care or call for reality.
God’s truth, his basic commandments, on which all American laws are based, are being removed from court house lawns as people seek moral compromise. And we then wonder why a kindergarten class could plan to kill their teacher.
“Numerous studies confirm that the public, especially the media and intellectual leaders do not see Christianity as a dominant social force.” Six out of ten Americans feel the church is irrelevant. There are 170 million non Christians living in America….making us the 3rd largest mission field in the world. (Elmer Towns "Into the Future Turning Today’s Church Trends into Tomorrows Opportunities" p.37)
This is not a new reality. The first century church began with 120 Disciples in the Upper Room and 3000 on the day of Pentecost. Since the fall of Adam and Eve, men and women live outside the Garden of Eden. We do know that Adam and Eve told their children their story. They told about God’s forgiveness to Seth and his descendants. “At that time men began to call upon the name of the Lord.”
What does that mean? It means they offered their hearts to God in worship and prayer. Donald Posterski in his book “Reinventing Evangelism” writes; “To pray is to say “I believe”. “I believe that God exists.” “I believe he wants to hear from me. God is acknowledged as Creator. Prayer means that we are partners with God.”
Only God, the Lord, the Creator could restore Adam and Eve, offering the forgiveness and covering their shame by a blood sacrifice. He promises Eve that she and one of her descendants would the slithering serpent’s head.
God himself visited Enochville, our world. He did not come to destroy the city for its corruption and violence as in the days of the flood, or visit it with fire and brimstone as he did Sodom and Gomorrah. He did not come as Judas and other Jewish Zealots had hoped, with power to overthrow the Romans and give Jesus victory in a holy war.
He came secretly, quietly without fanfare to Bethlehem. “For God sent his son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” John 3:17
John writes at the beginning of his gospel…. This Jesus, born in Bethlehem… “He was in the world and though the world was made by him the world did not recognize (her own) creator. He came to (his own people) and they did not receive him…. Yet some believed and they have the right to become children of God.”
Those who believe, while living in this world, are baptized by the Spirit, reconciled to God by faith in Jesus. They are now the living voice of God’s word…they invite those who have no spiritual hope, no security about heaven, to be reconciled to God.
This is what God says: “Don’t be afraid of tomorrow, don’t grasp for it. I know where you are in time and space. I have created you & redeemed you; I promise that you will have daily bread, for I am your Father… I will not make sport of you by giving you stone for bread or a serpent instead of a fish.” (Matthew 7:7-11) (thoughts from "Cain Come Home" by Robert Hoyer)
Jesus, who died on the cross, took the full wrath of God against sins committed. As the Good Shepherd he laid down his life for our benefit. The purpose of his sacrificial death on the cross was for the purpose of restoring each of us friendship, peace and harmony with God. We need no longer be alienated, spiritually empty and alone, like Cain.
Jesus was the “visible presence of the invisible God” who by his death on the cross canceled the eternal consequences of the ten commandments which we had broken. For these broken commandments constantly keep us alienated from one another and from a holy and righteous God. (Col 2:14)
Someone might ask: “Why does “God not simply forgive us, without sending his son to the cross?” The obstacle to forgiveness is neither our sin, our acts of disobedience, nor our guilt, but the divine reaction in love and wrath towards guilty sinners. His love is holy love…. A love which yearns to love us but at the same time refusing to condone or wink at the commandments we have broken. At the cross divine mercy and justice were equally expressed and eternally reconciled. (from John Stott The Cross of Christ)
God created the bridge (Crossways insert) Jesus simply calls his people…into community, called “Church”. He built the bridge that restores harmony and peace with God. He calls us to “follow him and he will make us fishers of men, women and children”… He calls us to be salt and light and proclaim his message of grace to a disbelieving and disinterested world.
James Roebling’s bridge was completed in march 1855. Four plain towers 60 feet high on opposing banks, four cables ten inches in diameter with their suspenders and stays and trusses joining the two levels into one span. The bottom level was for carriage and pedestrian traffic the top for the Great Western Canada Railroad.
The separation between Canada and the United States was spanned. He was pleased with the harmony, economy, grace and soundness of its structure. But most of all “No one”, he wrote to his family, “is afraid to cross.”
Jesus is our bridge. He has given us assurance of God’s love, sins forgiven at the cross; an empty grave and resurrected body assures us of life beyond this earth.
He simply asks us to be a bridge to those in Enochville by developing friendships with those who do not know His love. Be different than your culture. Be honest.
Care for others. Pray for specific people. Prayer for specific people prompts God’s Holy Spirit to speak to them. The Holy Spirit arouses an interest in spiritual things and convicts people of their sin. (You and I don’t)
The apostle Paul wrote: “live in the world, but do not conform any longer to the “cultural values of this world” but be transformed.” Be different. Be like Jesus.
Let you acceptance be experienced. Let your care be felt. Overcome evil with good. “Let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.” Do tangible acts of care and kindness… that’s how the Good Samaritan is remembered. (Galatians 6:9-10)
Those who live with out God sense a grown sense of emptiness, that their toys have not filled. Build bridges. Pray. Care. And tell the story of Jesus.
