Lane Fusilier - Musings of a PastModernist

Finding the Love of Your Life, Part II

2008-04-27T16:07:00.000-05:00

Finding the Love of Your Life, Part II

Bible is quite clear about marriage: it is difficult to be married, it is difficult NOT to be married.
Jesus didn’t say that fulfillment is only available in marriage!
We cannot find our ultimate fulfillment in marriage, or family, or friendship, or work.
We enjoy the greatest happiness and joy when we choose to Find Jesus as the Love of Our Lives. That was the point I attempted to make last week.
In fact, marriage is a challenging pathway.
* In Canada, the divorce rate is just under 40%.
* You might say, well, why not try it out first as a trial?
Of those who marry in our country, 60% cohabit first.
How do they fare?
Their divorce rate is fifty percent higher!! Just under 60%.
Well, why try? Why not just pair off, forget the marriage license, maybe the wedding itself spoils everything!
* Of those who cohabit without marrying, after 5 years, only 10% remain together.

So, then, what if we do insist on pairing off? How might we avoid catastrophe? Ah, now we can find some help in THE STORY, God’s Story. In that story, marriage is described as God’s invention for the welfare and well-being of humans.

I. Remember Cain:
a. Self-absorption leads to disaster
b. Marriage and children do not compel blessing and approval from God

II. Isaac did not find a wife, so his father, Abraham, sent a servant to seek one, successfully.
a. That marriage lasted.
b. The fruit of that marriage was problematic: Esau & Jacob.

III. Jacob also missed the direction of God in marriage.

NASB95
Gen. 29:9 ¶ While he was still speaking with them, Rachel came with her father’s sheep, for she was a shepherdess.
Gen. 29:10 When Jacob saw Rachel the daughter of Laban his mother’s brother, and the sheep of Laban his mother’s brother, Jacob went up and rolled the stone from the mouth of the well and watered the flock of Laban his mother’s brother.
Gen. 29:11 Then Jacob kissed Rachel, and lifted his voice and wept.
Gen. 29:12 Jacob told Rachel that he was a relative of her father and that he was Rebekah’s son, and she ran and told her father.
Gen. 29:13 ¶ So when Laban heard the news of Jacob his sister’s son, he ran to meet him, and embraced him and kissed him and brought him to his house. Then he related to Laban all these things.
Gen. 29:14 Laban said to him, “Surely you are my bone and my flesh.” And he stayed with him a month.
Gen. 29:15 ¶ Then Laban said to Jacob, “Because you are my relative, should you therefore serve me for nothing? Tell me, what shall your wages be?”
Gen. 29:16 Now Laban had two daughters; the name of the older was Leah, and the name of the younger was Rachel.
Gen. 29:17 And Leah’s eyes were weak, but Rachel was beautiful of form and face.

NETBIBLE Gen. 29:17 Leah’s eyes were tender, but Rachel had a lovely figure and beautiful appearance.)

31 tn Heb “and the eyes of Leah were tender.” The disjunctive clause (introduced here by a conjunction and a noun) continues the parenthesis begun in v. 16. It is not clear what is meant by “tender” (or “delicate”) eyes. The expression may mean she had appealing eyes (cf. NAB, NRSV, NLT), though some suggest that they were plain, not having the brightness normally expected. Either way, she did not measure up to her gorgeous sister.
32 tn Heb “and Rachel was beautiful of form and beautiful of appearance.”

Gen. 29:18 Now Jacob loved Rachel, so he said, “I will serve you seven years for your younger daughter Rachel.”
Gen. 29:19 Laban said, “It is better that I give her to you than to give her to another man; stay with me.”
Gen. 29:20 So Jacob served seven years for Rachel and they seemed to him but a few days because of his love for her.

a. He saw and “loved” Rachel.
b. He was deceived by her father.
c. He would have been Leah’s ideal soul-mate, the fellowship of the unpreferred.

IV. Samson was deceived by his own impulse.
Judg. 14:1 Samson went down to Timnah, where a Philistine girl caught his eye.
Judg. 14:2 When he got home, he told his father and mother, “A Philistine girl in Timnah has caught my eye. Now get her for my wife.”

a. He saw a woman from a distance and wanted her.
b. He asked his parents to secure her.
i. The work of the parents is not condemned.
ii. OT parents are commonly committed to seeking an appropriate spouse for their child.
iii. The problem here was that Samson’s parents submitted to Samson’s
c. He was embraced, deceived, shorn, and died for his confusion.

If we cannot find love through lust, then can we find it at all?
V. Paul gave us a remarkable list of traits to pursue as maturing Christ followers.
i. That same list can serve us, then, on our quest to find a mate
ii. That list can serve us as we attempt to guide our friends, our children, our grandchildren, in their quest for a spouse.
b. Titus
i. Older Men
Titus 2:2 Older men are to be temperate, dignified, self-controlled, sound in faith, in love, and in endurance.
ii. Older Women
Titus 2:3 Older women likewise are to exhibit behavior fitting for those who are holy, not slandering, not slaves to excessive drinking, but teaching what is good.

iii. Younger Women
Titus 2:4 In this way they will train the younger women to love their husbands, to love their children,
Titus 2:5 to be self-controlled, pure, fulfilling their duties at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the message8 of God may not be discredited.

iv. Younger men
Titus 2:6 Encourage younger men likewise to be self-controlled,
Titus 2:7 showing yourself to be an example of good works in every way. In your teaching show integrity, dignity,
Titus 2:8 and a sound message that cannot be criticized, so that any opponent will be at a loss, because he has nothing evil to say about us.

c. I Tim 2:8

1Tim. 2:8 So I want the men to pray in every place, lifting up holy hands without anger or dispute.

d. 1 Tim. 2:9
1Tim. 2:9 Likewise the women are to dress in suitable apparel, with modesty and self-control. Their adornment must not be with braided hair and gold or pearls or expensive clothing,
1Tim. 2:10 but with good deeds, as is proper for women who profess reverence for God.

e. What is NOT in the list?
i. Hot
ii. Looks, a “designer spouse”—bilaterally symmetrical
1. Cosmetics: $18Billion a year
2. Botox: $1.3B
iii. Weight
iv. Height
v. Intelligence
vi. Cool
Conclusion:
If we choose friends or a spouse on the basis of superficial elements, then we will be greatly disappointed and will do great harm to the one we “love.”
If we choose friends or a spouse on the basis of character and engagement in kingdom business, then we will find challenge, satisfaction and encouragement, along with the difficulty of living with a fallen creature!

Application:
1. What does this tell you about your quest for a mate?
a. Marriage is about friendship: not sexual intimacy, not having children, not being passionate toward one another. “It is not good for a man to be alone.”
b. Friendship is always about more than the two of you!
Therefore:
c. Physical, financial, social issues are set aside for Traits of character, focus on partnership in the divine Story, the extension of God’s Kingdom.
i. “IN LOVE?” Infatuation/Affection: does not lead to “BEST FRIEND” experience.
ii. SAME FAITH: required for best friend status; or, Jesus cannot be at the centre of your life.
iii. We need to find someone whose CALLING fits with our own: debi felt that she should be a missionary (this is as close as we could get!).
iv. You need to WANT to marry the person you marry. Feelings may follow later.

2. What does this tell you about your attitude towards your spouse?
a. When your spouse is a little slower, a little heavier, a little more unique than you expected him or her to be?
b. Solution: remember why you married, what drew you together, how you loved in the beginning? Chuck Swindol says it all in the title of a book he wrote on the topic: Strike The Original Match.

3. What does this tell you about your investment in your spouse?

4. How important is family & friends to the choosing of a mate?
a. In our culture, we think it best to marry for love; of course, then we can’t seem to stay “in love” so we have a difficult time staying married.
b. We need to get advice from people who know us well.
i. They can see companionship between us.
ii. They can recognize a common calling, compability.

Finding the Love of Your Life

2008-04-21T21:48:00.001-05:00

or. Becoming like the one whom you would want to love for the rest of your life!

Finding the Love of Your Life: Part I

Context: Cain murders Abel, and is charged by God.
He is not killed but cursed and protected by God.

We have much to learn from this narrative:
* As Adam and Eve were cursed, they discovered that blessings accompanied those curses. We, too, will find that the hard things God sends our way are also accompanied by grace. Which of your difficult circumstances might be accompanied by blessing?
* As Cain held back the best of his crop, he put the lie to his offering of dedication. So we, too, are measured by our condition of heart, not merely by the merit of our behaviours.
* We are self-centred, as was Cain; being self-centred is not satisfying, we have a god-shaped vacuum that we cannot fill. We want and need the approval, the blessing of…
Someone who is important to me.
Someone who knows me.

We cannot find the approval, the blessing that we need from another human.

INTRODUCTION:
The top three questions I have been asked:
What’s God will for my life?
Should I marry this person?
Where did Cain find his wife?

Outline:
Gen. 4:17 Cain had marital relations with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was building a city, and he named the city after his son Enoch.

I. Cain found a woman to marry and produce children.
a. Interesting genealogy: his grandsons were the first metalsmiths, instrument-makers, etc., as well as being disreputable.
Lesson: everyone contributes.
b. Interesting question: Where did Cain’s wife come from?
i. No explanation is given in Scripture; that’s the right answer.
ii. Perhaps she was his sister: Whoa, what about incest?
a. Not mentioned here as incestuous.
b. Earliest prohibition called incest as that between parent and child.
c. Marriage between siblings was only forbidden in the Mosaic Law (Lev. 18, 20), centuries later, in dramatic contrast with the Egyptian practice among the Pharoahs.
IVP Hard Sayings of the Bible:
First, if the human race was propagated from a single pair, as we believe the evidence indicates, such closely related marriages were unavoidable. The demand for some other way of getting the race started is an unfair expectation.
In the second place, the notion of incest must be probed more closely. At first the sin of incest was connected with sexual relationships between parents and children. Only afterward was the notion of incest extended to sibling relationships.
By Moses’ time there were laws governing all forms of incest (Lev 18:7–17; 20:11–12, 14, 17, 20–21; Deut 22:30; 27:20, 22, 23). These laws clearly state that sexual relations or marriage is forbidden with a mother, father, stepmother, sister, brother, half brother, half sister, granddaughter, daughter-in-law, son-in-law, aunt, uncle or brother’s wife.
The Bible, in the meantime, notes that Abraham married his half sister (Gen 20:12). Therefore, the phenomenon is not unknown in Scripture. Prior to Moses’ time, incest in many of the forms later proscribed were not thought to be wrong. Thus, even Moses’ own father, Amram, married an aunt, his father’s sister, Jochebed (Ex 6:20). In Egypt, the routine marriage of brothers and sisters among the Pharaohs all the way up to the second century made the Mosaic law all the more a radical break with their Egyptian past.
The genetic reasons for forbidding incest were not always an issue. Close inbreeding in ancient times was without serious or any genetic damage. Today, the risk of genetic damage is extremely high. Since the genetic possibilities of Adam and Eve were very good, there were no biological reasons for restricting marriages to the degree that it became necessary to do later.

iii. She was created for Cain by God, as He had created Adam and Eve.
iv. For those Christians who accept evolution, Cain’s wife may have been one of many other humanoids, evolving toward full human form, as had Adam & Eve; of course, that raises more problems than it solves.
1. If Adam and Eve were the product of evolution, what made them distinct from the other hominids of the day?
2. If Adam and Eve were the first to evolve from a lower hominid, how did they find one another?
3. If this is what happened, then does that not require us to understand the Garden of Eden as only a metaphorical place? After all, why wouldn’t there be other such species, slightly lower, perhaps, who might find their way into the Garden?

II. Cain found a wife, though he was ill prepared to be a husband.
a. Remember that Cain had wrestled with God over his banishment.
i. Cain murdered his brother out of jealousy:
1. Cain had had the blessing of his Mum, Abel was named ‘Whatever.’
2. Cain was distressed by God’s rejection of his offering, compared to Abel’s.
3. God blessed Abel’s, not Cain’s.
4. That left Cain in blessing-deficit!
i. He’d had his mum’s.
ii. He missed God’s.
b. Cain now attempts to gain the blessing of God by taking a wife and producing offspring. The most obvious way to exhibit divine blessing was to “be fruitful and multiply.”
i. Cain found a wife and they multiplied.
ii. But the blessing was more precise than that:
1. Multiply AFTER YOUR KIND.
2. In Adam & Eve’s case, that would have meant godly offspring.
3. In Cain’s case, he reproduced himself biologically and morally, not a good thing.
4. Cain missed the point; sharing the external sign of obedience was not the same as the internal matter of obedience.
III. Cain has placed himself at the centre of his universe, rather than God.
a. He still needs the blessing of God.
b. He doesn’t know how to find it.
When sin entered the world, we became self-centred. Being self-centred does not satisfy the emptiness that we have.
c. Cain sought the blessing appropriate to the firstborn.
IV. What is the blessing of the firstborn? A blessing is not merely words!
i. Someone Important loves you.
ii. Someone Significant knows you.
iii. Someone Essential delights in you.
iv. Someone Central enjoys you.
v. Someone Powerful who embraces you.

Transition: There is nothing and there is no one who can make us whole and healthy besides God himself.
God uses friends, family, and partners to move us forward, to bring us happiness, but when we put one of them in that empty place in our souls, we make them an idol.

Isaac desired a wife, a wife he could not find. Finding a mate is a great thing.
Isaac’s brokenness was made plain by his helplessness in that quest. God directed his father’s servant to successfully find Rebekkah.

Gen. 2: It is not good for a man to be alone.

Prov. 18:22 He who finds a wife finds what is good
and receives favor from the LORD.

Jacob desired a wife; when he met Rachel, the fulfillment of his dreams seemed near.
Unfortunately, Jacob was seeking something more profound than merely a mate. He was seeking blessing, the sort of blessing that we all long for, but that can come only from God himself.
In Jacob’s case, God used his father-in-law, Laban, to highlight Jacob’s own brokenness. Jacob, who had deceived his own father to gain his father’s blessing, discovered that the blessing he had stolen was empty.
He is now deceived by his faith-in-law, who gave him Leah instead of Rachel.

Both of these characters were hungry for approval and blessing.
Both were looking for a mate to make them feel loved, secure, and significant., etc., all things that a first-born should know and experience.

Both were blessed by God, but they did not fully enjoy that blessing.

CONCLUSION
What about us? Many of us are looking for this blessing, this approval, this embrace, from a friend, a mate, a parent.
We are like Fievel: We are certain that there is someone OUT THERE, beneath the pale moonlight, THINKING OF ME and loving me tonight.

The only place you can find this blessing, this approval, this embrace is from God himself, no mere human can do this for you or to you. There is an experiential element to our salvation…

Rom. 8:15 For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.”
Rom. 8:16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.
This is our birthright. You can ask God for this confirmation.

When we come to faith in him, the scripture says that his spirit baptizes us into Christ.

When you come to that point, where you have set aside this self-centred quest, then you can say with the Psalmist…

Psa. 73:25 Whom have I in heaven but you?
And earth has nothing I desire besides you.
Psa. 73:26 My flesh and my heart may fail,
but God is the strength of my heart
and my portion forever.

That is wholeness, that is how healing feels.
That is the
Someone Important who loves you.
Someone Significant who knows you.
Someone Essential who delights in you.
Someone Central who enjoys you.
Someone Powerful who embraces you.

We go to the firstborn of all creation, we become part of his family. His family is the only one that consists of all firstborn children.

Heb. 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly,
Heb. 12:23 to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the judge of all men, to the spirits of righteous men made perfect,
Heb. 12:24 to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.

The only way we can be a part of this church of the firstborn is to have our names written in heaven by the Firstborn of many brothers and sisters, Jesus himself.
Col. 1:15 ¶ He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation.

Application:
1. If you never received this blessing from your family, know that most of us who did have functional families still missed out on this most intimate of blessings, this deepest sort of approval that comes only from God himself.
2. If you are married, you have probably made the mistake of looking for blessing, soul-affirmation from your mate; back off, drop the demands. Acknowledge to them now that it’s not his or her fault that you are yet unfulfilled.
3. If you are not married, don’t think that this longing is wrong, God did make you for himself; singleness is okay since Jesus.
4. If you expect to marry, don’t be discouraged at your progress; a close friend, a life-mate can help you on your journey, you don’t have to be perfect in order to marry.
We will address that more next week.

So, who IS the Love of your life???
Speak in your heart of hearts, now to…
Someone Important who loves you.
Someone Significant who knows you.
Someone Essential who delights in you.
Someone Central who enjoys you.
Someone Powerful who embraces you.

Cain & A Strange Grace

2008-04-21T21:44:00.001-05:00

ce East of Eden
Genesis 4 13 April 2008
Introduction:
We are mesmerized by evil; we love to watch horror movies, because something deep inside us loves to be frightened in the face of an insurmountable enemy. We are hopelessly captivated by the thought that Alien creatures might show up on Earth, that an invisible Predator might show up again, that the T1000 might remake itself.
Most horrific of all, the Godfather may well order the killing of his own brother; maybe his sister is next. No one is safe!
In politics, watch my cynicism here, we are mesmerized by the power of our leaders. We most want to follow their stories when they have been caught lying, or stealing, or being unfaithful to their families. We watch closely to see if they get what they deserve, we are anguished when they are re-elected by our stupid neighbours anyway!

LOOKING BACK: Cain and Abel: the painful results of self-absorption 4:1-7
Cain carried the DNA of his parents into life with his brother. His response to God and his murder of a brother demonstrate the radical consequences of selfish self-absorption.
We experience soul-deep self-absorption; how can we avoid such an outrageous outcome as this?
Application: Our “harmless” self-absorption distorts our perceptions and destroys those closest to us; someone must die!

TODAY: Cain and God: the mercy and grace of God East of Eden: 4:15-16

The wonder of grace: the same grace that causes us pain when we see others not receive all that they deserve, IS AVAILABLE TO US!

STORY LINE:
Cain deserved the death that he exacted from his brother, yet God showed him mercy and grace by preserving his life, providing a wife, and protecting him in a city of refuge.
He continues to live.
He finds a wife.
He finds a city of refuge and the protection of God.

Gen 4:1-16
That’s the story.
Now, what does this tell us about our world,
our life together,
and ourselves?
Key to understanding our world:
1. God calls the problem Sin—the first occurrence of the word:
What is SIN?
Cornelius Plantinga, Jr., Sin: Treating yourself as your own first cause, and God, therefore, as an accessory. You are god, your own joy and happiness is the end. At that end, you are demanding, God owes you! When he doesn’t deliver, you get angry.
More than merely naming sin, which had first occurred in the GARDEN of EDEN, now we have sin described.

Gen. 4:7 Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.”
a. “Crouching at the door” Sin hides itself:
i. The word is controversial; we don’t use the word much anymore, a SIGN of its CROUCHING NATURE.
ii. Zoomorphism: why does an animal CROUCH?
1. To hide itself.
2. To make itself seem unthreatening, reduce alarm.
3. To prepare itself to leap onto its unsuspecting prey.
Gen. 4:8 ¶ Cain said to his brother Abel, “Let’s go out to the field.” While they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.
b. Sin repeats itself.
i. One lie is not enough.
ii. One lie requires another.
iii. Not all addictions are sins; but all sins will be addictive.
Gen. 4:9 ¶ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” And he replied, “I don’t know! Am I my brother’s guardian?”

c. Sin becomes easier.
i. What seems horrific becomes normal.
ii. If you were angry and mistreated someone, you have to stay angry at them in order to justify what you have done.

Gen. 4:9 …Am I my brother’s guardian?”
d. Sin is self-defeating.
i. One lie leads to another
ii. Liars are most likely to be lied to.
iii. Brothers were meant for one another.

e. Can you recognize the beginnings of sin?
i. No mention of one being better than another.
ii. God says to Cain in v. 7, ‘sin is crouching at your door’
1. Sin always hides itself: crouching; either as a virtue or something not so bad.
a. Keeps itself out of sight.
b. Not big, but small.
c. Looks like it is sleeping, not dangerous.
d. Presents itself as something else.
2. Sin eventually uncoils itself to master you.
3. Sin is not just a choice, but a POWER
a. Sin desires to have you.
b. If you do sin, sin will do you.
c. Why does God speak of sin as if it were an agent?
d. Because it IS a power which grows in you and on you.
i. Those who gossip will become the subject of gossip.
ii. Those who hate will be hated.
Applications:
What are your ‘crouching’ sins?
“I’m not bitter, I just have strong moral outrage.”
The problem is not what is happening to you, but your response to that catastrophe.
If sin is your problem, you can master it.
If Abel is your problem, you can only kill him.
If your spouse is your problem, you can divorce, but that doesn’t deal with the real problem.
God calls the problem Sin—the first occurrence of the word:

2. God’s shows Grace toward Cain, even in sin, by his gentle intervention.
Gen. 4:6 ¶ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why is your expression downcast?
Gen. 4:9 ¶ Then the LORD said to Cain, “Where is your brother Abel?” And he replied, “I don’t know! Am I my brother’s guardian?”
Gen. 4:10 But the LORD said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying out to me from the ground!

a. God shows himself to be a careful counselor who applies both judgment and mercy.
i. Notice that God does not wait for sin to occur, he comes to Cain BEFORE THE MURDER.
ii. Notice that God comes to Cain BEFORE REPENTANCE.
1. He arrives before anyone calls; before the murder!
2. ‘His face fell’ before the murder.
3. God did not wait until the sin was committed; he warned.
4. God warns us through our consciences, through his Word, through friends who care enough to confront.
iii. AFFIRMS: God comes as a Counselor: full of questions, not as a teacher.
1. Questions of a counselor affirm the self.
2. Questions affirm their ability to understand, to ‘get it.’
3. V. 7—you CAN master it!
iv. God looked with favor on Abel, not on Cain.
1. Let great things happen to Abel?
2. Abel sensed God’s pleasure? The respect of God?
3. Cain got mad over Abel’s pleasure.
4. Name given because the namer discerned something:
a. Abel: worthless, a nobody.
b. Cain: productive
c. Eve was excited about Cain’s arrival, no mention of Abel.
d. Cain was the winner, Abel the failure.
e. When God favours the weaker one, Cain explodes.
i. Volf: Cain was angry because his identity was constructed in contrast to Abel.
ii. When Cain failed here, he had to exclude both God and Abel.
iii. The power of sin rests not on the urge of violence, but in the perverted self which builds its identity outside of God.
Application: in all things, sin is working and grace is working.

God calls the problem Sin—the first occurrence of the word:

God’s shows Grace toward Cain, even in sin, by his gentle intervention.

3. God’s intervention provides a careful sketch of his salvation.
Salvation—subtlety: cooperating with grace and escaping sin.
Notice that the offering here was a ‘dedication’ offering, a sign that all they possessed as well as their person, was devoted to God.

a. Heb. 11:4—Abel offered it in faith, Cain did not.

Heb. 11:4 By faith Abel offered God a greater sacrifice than Cain, and through his faith6 he was commended as righteous, because God commended him for his offerings. And through his faith7 he still speaks, though he is dead.

b. Faith in the grace of God, that some day He would send One to crush the serpent’s head/response in gratitude to the grace of God.
i. God cannot ignore the call of spilled blood.
ii. If God were to forget the death of the innocent, he would declare that a human life has not value.

c. The only other way to sacrifice to God is as a MEANS to the grace of God: get God to do what you want him to do.

This is resonant with the rest of the story:
• Joseph was hated by his brothers and sold as a slave.
• David was hated by Saul
• Stephen the religious leader was killed the jealous leaders.
• Jesus, the ultimate brother, was killed

All human blood cries out to God for justice.

Jesus’ blood cries out in a different way…
I have paid for their sins, it would be unjust for you to punish them, because you would be receiving two payments.
Jesus’ blood cries out for the Father to SAVE us, not to bring justice by destroying us.

Heb. 12:22 But you have come to Mount Zion, the city31 of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to myriads of angels, to the assembly
Heb. 12:23 and congregation of the firstborn, who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous, who have been made perfect,
Heb. 12:24 and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks of something better than Abel’s does.

Jesus’ blood cries out from the ground and says THEY MUST BE SAVED.

How do you become an Abel? Trust in the Greater Abel, whose life was lost for you, whose blood was shed for you and that blood speaks graciously, more graciously than the blood of Abel.

CONCLUSION
1. If you came to Cain in mercy, even before he repented, then how graciously will you come to us?
Jesus was consumed for our sin, so we don’t have to be.

2. The problem of grace: why does it hurt to see grace?
Our system of justice begins with us.
If this satisfies me, then justice is done.
If this does not satisfy me, then there is no justice.
The divine justice is centred on God.
Only God can know when true justice is done: he is just, and justice flows from him.
Only God has wisdom enough to recognize true justice, and has vision enough to see how to rightly implement justice.
We can choose to await his vengeance, his justice, his resolution.

The Curse of the Self-Absorbed

2008-04-21T21:40:00.000-05:00

The Curse of the Self-Absorbed
Or, Adam & Eve reproduce themselves 6 April

Cain and Abel: the painful results of self-absorption 4:1-7

a. First Story Line, 4:1-2: Eve’s utterance at the birth of Cain: I have birthed a man!
i. She gave birth to two sons.
1. Cain: either SMITH, or POSSESS, OWN

2. Abel: ephemeral, fleeting

4:1 “I have ‘cained’ a man, just like the Lord” OR “with the help of the Lord”

ii. Either the Lord did this, as he promised (3:15).

iii. Or, Eve did this,
1. matching the work of God with Adam,
2. countering her derived nature, as coming forth from the male Adam
iv. Probably, the latter:
1. In v. 25, Eve gives credit to God for bringing forth Seth.
2. Sara likewise attempted to control her world by producing an heir for Abram by her own handmaid, when she failed herself.
3. Here, Eve showed a second time in the story that she was self-conscious and self-centred.

v. Eve’s statement about Seth, v.25: to replace Abel, not Cain!!
1. She had lost both sons, one at the hand of the other, then the murderer was lost to her in his flight.
2. Perhaps Abel was her preferred son.
a. This would fit with the pattern of second-born as the child of blessing.
b. Jacob and Esau.
c. Ephraim and Manasseh

b. Second Story Line, 4:3ff.: The state of Cain’s heart:
i. Offerings were made.
ii. No explicit contrast is explained between the two brother’s offerings, but one was accepted and the other not.
1. One was fruit, the other flesh.
2. Both were labeled ‘offering,’ without distinction.
a. Though we know that brokenness in chapter 3 required not leaves, but flesh.
Sailhamer: that both offerings, in themselves, were acceptable—they are both described as “offerings” (minhah ) and not “sacrifices” (zebah ). The narrative suggests, as well, that they were both “firstfruits” offerings (mibbekoroth v.4); thus as a farmer Cain’s offering of “fruits of the soil” (v.3) was as appropriate for his occupation as Abel’s “firstborn of his flock” (v.4) was for his occupation as a shepherd.

3. Both seemed legitimate offerings.
4. Something was wrong below the surface.
b. Cain’s was rejected, Abel’s accepted.
i. God makes his rejection of one offering as clear as his acceptance of the other.
1. Abel: the fattest, the firstborn
2. Cain: “some of the fruit”
ii. Cain reveals the HIDDEN PROBLEM AND murders Abel.
1. The curse to the serpent and Eve: your offspring will be at war.
2. Here, Eve’s offspring are at war.
iii. God questions Cain, as he did Cain’s father, Adam.
1. Cain abuses language: AM I MY BROTHER’S KEEPER?
2. God reacts with a curse
a. As Adam was rejected from the garden to work the soil outside,
b. Cain will be rejected by the soil he had worked.
c. God was probing Cain’s heart.
i. Not about the offering.
ii. All about the heart.
1. God rejected Cain’s offering.
Sailhamer: 5-7: He was apparently less concerned about Cain’s offering than he was Cain’s response to the Lord’s rejection of his offering. Whatever the cause of God’s rejection of Cain’s offering, the narrative itself focuses our attention to Cain’s response. It is there that the narrative seeks to make its point.
2. Cain reacted to God’s rejection of his offering and reacted as if he preferred Abel and his offering.
a. Anger at God. V.4
b. Anger at Abel. V.8
c. Matt. 7:20—By their fruit you will recognize them.
Sailhamer: By stating the problem in this way, the author surrounds his lesson on “pleasing offerings” with a subtle narrative warning: “by their fruit you will recognize them” (Matt 7:20).
Conclusion
Cain carried the DNA of his parents into life with his brother. His response to God and his murder of a brother demonstrate the radical consequences of selfish self-absorption. We, too, experience soul-deep self-absorption; how can we avoid such an outrageous outcome as this?

Application:
i. We were built to live in an ideal world where all relationships were perfect, because God was in charge.
ii. In Adam and Eve, we have chosen to place ourselves in charge.
iii. This is the curse of self-centredness: psychologically, socially bad, but we are all self-centred.
1. Psychologically: nothing makes you more miserable than self-absorption.
a. Am I succeeding?
b. Am I failing?
c. Am I being rewarded?
d. Am I being treated justly?
e. When it’s all about me, it’s not about much.
2. Socially: nothing is more off-putting than having every conversation fold back into me and my concerns;
a. This is the source of all feuds.
b. This is why we have wars.
3. Physically: nothing is more all consuming than my own physical health; your well-being lives in my shadow.
a. My time becomes all encompassing.
b. My health, my eating, my satiation take first place.

Keller:
Every culture has a legend or story that a king or a prince will come and set things right; kiss us and wake us up from the sleep of death; free us from the prison tower.
Gospel: Jesus is that true King, who came first in weakness to die for us, but who will come back again in strength!
Tolkien: Lord of the Rings,
“The hands of the king are healing hands and thus shall the rightful king be known.”
The royal hands of Jesus will bring healing to all: Everything sad will become untrue; poverty, hunger, disease, death, disfigurement, will all be gone.
This is my real country, this is the land I’ve been looking for all my life.
All religions say that we will be saved out of this material world, or that it is an allusion, or that it will merely end.
The Bible says that this material world will be remade, fully restored.
We will not escape it, but rejoice in its renewal, forgiveness of sin, the renewal of our souls, the end of poverty.

The Blessing of a Curse

2008-03-30T17:25:00.001-05:00

What Did He Say?
Gen. 3:15-24
Foundation of Scripture: resonances reverberate throughout the Bible.
* Key to understanding our world. * Key to understanding ourselves.

Central Idea: God responds to the choices of Adam and Eve by blessing the man and the woman through curses.
This is a NONINTUITIVE truth that is a key to unlock life.
A. By cursing the ground where Adam is to work,
B. By cursing childbirth with pain, and promising hope through that childbirth.
C. By removing them from the Orchard of Eden.

God was merciful and gracious to the new sinners, even as he justly responded to their sin.

Gen. 3:14 The LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
cursed are you above all the wild beasts
and all the living creatures of the field!
On your belly you will crawl
and dust you will eat all the days of your life.
Gen. 3:15 And I will put hostility between you and the woman
and between your offspring and her offspring;
her offspring will attack your head,
and you will attack her offspring’s heel.”

A. By cursing childbirth with pain, and promising hope through that childbirth.
Gen. 3:16 To the woman he said,
“I will greatly increase your labor pains;
with pain you will give birth to children.
You will want to control your husband,
but he will dominate you.”

i. Increase labor pains:
1. Real pain.
2. Imagine a painless labor.
ii. Pain in giving birth to children
1. Real pain.
2. Real pain from the children.
3. Real pain for the children: conflict with the serpent’s offspring.
iii. Preoccupation with controlling your controlling husband.
1. Gen. 4:7 Is it not true that if you do what is right, you will be fine? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door. It desires to dominate you, but you must subdue it.”
2. Desire for domination now controls interaction between husband and wife.
3. Antidote comes from Eph. 5:
a. A husband is to love his wife to death, as Christ loves us to his death.
b. A wife is to seek the best for her husband.
c. Both of these attitudes & behaviours only come by means of the CONTROL by the Holy Spirit; 5:17-18
Eph. 5:17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is.
Eph. 5:18 Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.

Where was the blessing in this curse?
1. Eve was to have children; she would not be cut off because of her sin.
2. Eve’s offspring would continue to interact with the serpent’s offspring, but it would be strident, rather than cooperative.
3. Mystery is here: the offspring so important to this narrative resonates later with God’s promise to Abram that HIS seed would bless all.

By cursing childbirth with pain, and promising hope through that childbirth.
B. By cursing the ground where Adam is to work,
The ground will lose efficiency by producing thorns instead of fruit only. [woman will be painfully fruitful, man will be…]

Gen. 3:17 But to Adam he said,
“Because you obeyed your wife
and ate from the tree about which I commanded you,
‘You must not eat from it,’
cursed is the ground thanks to you;
in painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life.
Gen. 3:18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
but you will eat the grain of the field.
Gen. 3:19 By the sweat of your brow you will eat food
until you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust, and to dust you will return.”
Gen. 3:20 ¶ The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all the living.
Gen. 3:21 The LORD God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

Where was the blessing in this curse?
1. The work will be fruitful; life will be sustained.
In contrast to the destiny of the Greek mythological king, Sisyphus:
Wikipedia: Sisyphus was a character in Greek mythology. He was a king punished in the Tartarus by being cursed to roll a huge boulder up a hill, only to watch it roll down again, and repeat this throughout eternity.
2. His authority to name remains: “…named his wife Eve…” his destiny continues.
By cursing childbirth with pain, and promising hope through that childbirth.
By cursing the ground where Adam is to work,
C. By removing them from the Orchard of Eden.

Gen. 3:22 And the LORD God said, “Now that the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not be allowed to stretch out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live forever.”
Gen. 3:23 So the LORD God expelled him from the orchard in Eden to cultivate the ground from which he had been taken.
Gen. 3:24 When he drove the man out, he placed on the eastern side of the orchard in Eden angelic sentries who used the flame of a whirling sword to guard the way to the tree of life.

i. Now, Adam and Eve were “like” God.
ii. Eternal life in this state of fallenness would be good for no one.
iii. Adam is removed [“drove out”] from the orchard to till the ground of his origin.
iv. Guards prevented Adam’s return.
Implication: we long to live forever, regardless of our condition.

Where was the blessing in this curse?
1. Though we may not, cannot, know what is best for us, God intervenes.
2. God prevented the thorough ruination of the Garden and of humanity.
3. The longing for the Garden remains within us; we love what is good, beautiful, and satisfying.

For further reflection: Gen. 3:14-24 How to live in light of the Fall:
No 12 step process, but several irreplaceable elements:
1. God does not destroy his own people; his discipline is designed to RESTORE.
2. The Fall impacts ME; accept that in humility. My Soul requires major surgery, personal regeneration with the aid of the HS.
3. Acknowledge that the Garden is out of our reach, guarded by an angel, even though we long to return now.
4. BUT God IS doing his work of regenerating us, so that he can restore the Garden; at the end of time, he will complete the task in a spectacular, all-satisfying manner.
5. Seek justice, walk humbly with our God; show yourself not only involved but committed; do the work HE is doing, restoring the world.
6. GOSPEL: garments made from skin trump fig leaves! Leaves fade quickly, skins are more suitable to a hostile environment…
Gen. 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
Gen. 3:21 The LORD God made garments from skin for Adam and his wife, and clothed them.

a. Of course, skins implies that something else must have died to hide the nakedness of the couple.
These skins portend a divine solution to shame and guilt.
b. Much later in the story, the only MAN not shamed by the Fall had his garments taken away, leaving HIM naked for crucifixion.
c. Now, we enjoy the gift promised in Isa. 61.

Is. 61:3 and provide for those who grieve in Zion—
to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
the oil of gladness instead of mourning,
and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.
They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the LORD for the display of his splendor.

d. Gal. 3:27 For all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

6 April--Finding The Love of Your Life/Living With The Intermittent Love Of Your Life

Is. 61:10 ¶ I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God.
For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness,

Setting Things Right!

2008-03-28T14:58:00.000-05:00

Setting Things Right: The Cross of Jesus
23 March 2008

Question: why was the crucifixion and the resurrection necessary? Because we cannot fix ourselves.
I. We are broken and in need of repair. [shame]
Gen. 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

From sin to shame…
a. Shame is an emotion: …we are NOT what we are supposed to be. If allowed to soak in, it dyes the soul a dull gray.
Andrew Zantingh www.firsthamilton.ca
I am unworthy and unacceptable, I am inferior and inadequate.
I am seriously flawed, a fake and phony. I feel naked and ugly and vulnerable.

b. Shame leads me to compare myself with others.
i. Comparison with others leads me to feel shame.
ii. Shame is a never-ending cycle.
Lewis Smedes: “Compulsive Comparers.” Feelings of shame cause us to compare ourselves with others—to see how we measure up.

1. Positive comparison leads me to PRIDE.
If we compare ourselves with unsuccessful or insignificant people—it has a way of alleviating our shame for a moment. Bolstering some pride.

2. Negative comparison leads me to a sense of FAILURE.

If we compare ourselves with successful and significant people—it has a way of making us feel like failures. Everyone else’s sun darkens our day.

Conclusion: Indeed---People are Big factors in our shame---inevitably we compare ourselves to others (at times---compulsively so).

c. Our culture of shame impacts me.
i. Intrinsically—no one told Adam & Eve to hide.
ii. Extrinsically—I have no other model, so…
A world—according to Rom 12—is constantly seeking to
conform us to its ideal—its likeness
“squeeze us into its mold”—its mold of what it means to be acceptable
iii. Spiritually—this needs an Easter sermon!
There is the unhealthy shame that is shared in shame-based religions.

II. We have long tried to repair ourselves, long before there were self-help sections in our bookshops.
a. All our religious creations are attempts to attend to our shame.
Andrew Zantingh:
Based on prescribed ways to deal with our worthlessness---ways to become perfect—and therefore worthy of acceptance through personal effort.

b. Religions of all stripes and ethnic roots have given us steps to fix ourselves.
i. The five pillars of Islam
ii. The eight-fold path of Hinduism
iii. The ten commandments of Judaism.
iv. Even Christianity, have all been reduced to a set of rules.
v. Rules break us and highlight our shame.

And so, all religions have failed to remove the shame, have in fact ADDED to our sense of shame and despair; nothing has been repaired.
c. More recently, secularism has made a run at self-repair: the proposed solution has to do with…
i. Self-improvement by denying the validity of mind-draining religion.
ii. Self-improvement by attempting a secular morality.
iii. Atheism—we are alone, we do our best to pass on our genes.

III. Each of these efforts, religious and secular, has met with failure.
This is an ancient problem and from the beginning, the solution comes from God.

Gen. 3:8 ¶ Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God moving about in the orchard at the breezy time of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the orchard.
Gen. 3:9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?”
Gen. 3:10 The man replied, “I heard you moving about in the orchard, and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid.”
Gen. 3:11 And the LORD God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”
Gen. 3:12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave me, she gave me some fruit from the tree and I ate it.”
Gen. 3:13 So the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?” And the woman replied, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”
It was an orchard, but we only know of two trees within the orchard: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
A. Shame moves us to blame someone else, because we are not honest enough to face who we are and what we’ve done.
“the woman whom you gave me…”

B. If something goes wrong, it can’t be my fault, because I can’t endure any more shame.
“the serpent whom you created…”

C. The sin which causes guilt and shame is directly addressed by God.

Gen. 3:14 ¶ So the LORD God said to the serpent,
“Because you have done this,
“Cursed are you above all the livestock
and all the wild animals!
You will crawl on your belly
and you will eat dust
all the days of your life.
Gen. 3:15 ¶ And I will put enmity
between you and the woman,

D. There will be future generations.

E. The shame will be passed on to those generations.

and between your offspring and hers;
he will crush your head,
and you will strike his heel.”

Something wonderful is hidden here, in the details
F. God promises that Eve will have offspring that will crush the head of the serpent.

From an orchard dominated by TWO CENTRAL TREES, God promised that the cunning serpent would be dealt with by the woman’s offspring; that her son would crush his heritage. God reveals mercy and grace at the very point of failure.

What is grace?
God’s grace involves:
1) pardon---forgiveness from the wrong---God’s answer to guilt.
2) acceptance---being re-united with God and our true selves, accepted, held, affirmed and loved. God’s answer to shame.

OT Judaism was grace-based. While Israel was captive in Egypt:
* He gave them freedom when He led them out of Egypt.
* He gave them the law: The ideal way to know how live without guilt and shame in their relationship.
* He gave them the sacrificial system: The way he gave for imperfect people (he knew would fail) to remain forgiven and accepted.
Which points to the final sacrifice, which we celebrated Friday.

Jesus came—full of God’s grace and truth—meeting shame with grace:
Jesus was criticized for meeting and eating with sinners.

Grace-based faith finds hope in helplessness.
a. You must know that you are a sinner, and cannot help yourself.
b. Presumes a good God, who forgives.
c. Requires a payment for forgiveness.
i. We all understand that forgiveness is never free, not trivial.
ii. We all understand that someone pays.
1. We “forgive” a debt, means that we absorb the cost.
2. We “forgive” an offense, we accept the pain caused by the offense.
3. When God forgives, he takes onto himself the pain caused by our offense; somebody pays!

The problem of evil is fully resolved at the Cross.

How? All the wrong, the shame that came from eating from the Wrong Tree was placed on the shoulders of Eve’s son, Jesus, who hung on Another Tree. The weight of that shame, that evil, that guilt crushed him.
The One who deserved life died for all who deserved Death, so that we cannot deserve life, could share in HIS life.
Once it had done its work, Jesus overcame death, he was raised from the dead.

Today, it looks like Satan has crushed Jesus, hanging and dieing on the Cross.
That was Friday, this is Sunday.
We celebrate his Victory over sin and death, guilt and shame, by his resurrection from the dead.
He is alive today, giving us
pardon---forgiveness from wrong
acceptance---being re-united with God and our true selves, accepted, held, affirmed and loved.

The answer to our guilt and shame is grounded in the Resurrection of Christ, if you will personally respond in faith, claim it as your own.

Pathway: From sin to shame…
From shame to Guilt…
From guilt to the Cross…
From the Cross to freedom

PRAY WITH ME/PRAY AFTERWARDS

What Went Shamefully Wrong?

2008-03-16T12:19:00.003-05:00

What Went Shamefully Wrong?

Pathway: From sin to shame…
From shame to Guilt…
From Guilt to freedom

I. Sin…that awful word
a. Let’s define sin: anything that puts me in the place of God.
Genesis 3:1 ¶ Now the serpent was more crafty than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, “Indeed, has God said, ‘You shall not eat from any tree of the garden’?”
Gen. 3:2 The woman said to the serpent, “From the fruit of the trees of the garden we may eat;
Gen. 3:3 but from the fruit of the tree which is in the middle of the garden, God has said, ‘You shall not eat from it or touch it, or you will die.’”
Gen. 3:4 The serpent said to the woman, “You surely will not die!
Gen. 3:5 “For God knows that in the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
Gen. 3:6 When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.
Gen. 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.
i. God wanted for Eve what Eve wanted for herself.
Eve desired it.
It was beautiful for the eyes.
She wanted wisdom.
ii. The serpent challenged Eve to think that God did NOT want her to have what was good for her, beautiful and satisfying.

Is. 14:13 “But you said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
I will raise my throne above the stars of God,
And I will sit on the mount of assembly
In the recesses of the north.
Is. 14:14 ‘I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

Sin is putting myself in the place reserved for God alone.

b. Sin affects me:
1John 1:8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

c. Sin impacts every culture.
1John 2:16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the boastful pride of life, is not from the Father, but is from the world.

d. The culture of sin impacts me by…
i. Persuading me that I know what is best for me; God cannot be trusted.

From sin to shame…
II. Shame:
a. Shame is an emotion: …we are NOT what we are supposed to be. If allowed to soak in, it dyes the soul a dull gray.

Gen. 3:7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

Andrew Zantingh (7 excellent sermons on Shame vs. Grace) www.firsthamilton.ca
I am unworthy and unacceptable, I am inferior and inadequate.
I am seriously flawed, a fake and phony. I feel naked and ugly and vulnerable.

b. Shame leads me to compare myself with others.
i. Comparison with others leads me to feel shame.
ii. Shame is a never-ending cycle.
Lewis Smedes: “Compulsive Comparers.” Feelings of shame cause us to compare ourselves with others—to see how we measure up.

1. Positive comparison leads me to PRIDE.
If we compare ourselves with unsuccessful or insignificant people—it has a way of alleviating our shame for a moment. Bolstering some pride.

2. Negative comparison leads me to a sense of FAILURE.

If we compare ourselves with successful and significant people—it has a way of making us feel like failures. Everyone else’s sun darkens our day.

iii. Shame is relational.
Andrew Z.:
I raise this issue of comparison—because it puts us in touch with the relational character of shame.
Our sense of identity is formed in relationship. Who we are and how we feel about our-selves is shape, molded and influenced by the messages other people send. By their word, their faces, their gestures, their presence or their absence.
Other people are significant in instilling in us a sense of self-worth at our center.
Other people (parents/pastors/peers) are often the source of our healthy or unhealthy feelings of shame.
Conclusion: Indeed---People are Big factors in our shame---inevitably we compare ourselves to others (at times---compulsively so).

c. Our culture of shame impacts me.
i. Intrinsically—no one told Adam & Eve to hide.
ii. Extrinsically—I have no other model, so…
A world—according to Rom 12—is constantly seeking to
conform us to its ideal—its likeness
“squeeze us into its mold”—its mold of what it means to be acceptable
iii. Spiritually—Easter sermon!
There is the unhealthy shame that is shared in shame-based religions.

TRANSITION:
Romans: the world is trying to squeeze us into its mold: Compare ourselves to one another!
Comparison to others heightens my shame.
I need a different mold, THE ONE THAT GOD INTENDED:

Comparison to Christ lets me see what I AM SUPPOSED TO BE, that leaves me with NO HOPE!!!!
Comparison with Christ CAN lead me to faith…

From Shame to Guilt…
III. Guilt is that state of mind and heart where I KNOW that I cannot be what I am supposed to be.
a. Shame deceives me into thinking that if only…
i. If I only try harder.
ii. If I only had a little more time.
iii. If I only had better friends.
iv. If I only had had better parents.

b. Guilt convinces me that…My status before God is hopeless because I am helpless.
I CAN NEVER attain to Christ’s righteous despite more time, better friends, better family, etc.
COUNTERCULTURAL: HELPLESSNESS IS BLASPHEMY IN A SELF-HELP SOCIETY

Therefore, only God can intervene.

2. A Culture of true Guilt is a transparent one.
a. False Guilt is actually SHAME.
b. Shame avoids/Guilt confesses.
c. Shame denies/Guilt agrees.

3. Shame provides false hope/Guilt leads to true hope.
a. Forgiveness is available.
b. Humility is required.
c. Confession is essential.
d. Restoration is real.
i. Shame is a feeling; nothing can be done about it.
ii. Guilt is a status, which can be changed by divine decree.

Andrew Z.:
He took responsibility for our guilt. He bore the weight upon himself through his Son.
We read in Isaiah 53 that he made his Son to be a public guilt offering:
• Like a priest--God placed his Hand upon his Son.
• God put his hand upon his son—transferred our guilt on him
• God’s will was to crush him upon the cross for our cleansing.
• In order to make a sacrifice—that does satisfaction.
• In order to make reparation—to repair the relationship
• In order to make guilty people----ghost free!

Conclusion: But in order to becoming guilt free there is a high cost!
The pain of moving from avoidance to admission.
The price of going from private to public.

Psalm 130:1-8
Out of the depths I have cried to You, O LORD.
Lord, hear my voice!
Let Your ears be attentive
To the voice of my supplications.
If You, LORD, should mark iniquities,
O Lord, who could stand?
But there is forgiveness with You,
That You may be feared.
I wait for the LORD, my soul does wait,
And in His word do I hope.
My soul waits for the Lord
More than the watchmen for the morning;
Indeed, more than the watchmen for the morning.
O Israel, hope in the LORD;
For with the LORD there is lovingkindness,
And with Him is abundant redemption.
And He will redeem Israel
From all his iniquities.

Setting Things Right (Easter) 3/23
Text: Divine solutions to the problem of evil.

What Went

2008-03-16T12:19:00.001-05:00

What Went Wrong? Natural & Moral Evil

2008-03-11T20:13:00.000-05:00

I. What Went Wrong: Natural evil & Moral evil
Natural disasters
Boxing Day tsunami in 2004, 225,000 died in eleven countries
Katrina, more than 1,800 died in August 2005 in Mississippi and Louisiana
Kashmir earthquake, October 2005; 75,000 died in Pakistan and India

Moral disasters
The Somme, WWI; one million casualties combined.
Holocaust, WWII: six million Jews exterminated; many more “undesirables.”
September 11, 2001: 3,000 civilians killed by terrorists in NYC and Washington.

* Perhaps we might have quibbled about the definition of “evil” some time ago, in our post-modern way. In this century, the reality of evil is tangible, acknowledged by virtually everyone.
* Some have used the presence of evil as an argument to support atheism.
1. If evil exists, then either God does not, or.
2. God is either not good (else, he would prevent evil), or he is not powerful (unable to prevent evil).
3. Thus, a god too weak to prevent evil or too evil to so desire, is not God at all.

The Bible presents a very different explanation of the problem of evil.
A. The World was made well and good.
i. Gen. 1, 2: “and it was good.”
ii. “and it was good.”
B. The World remains essentially good.
i. Jesus walked the earth without suit armor.
ii. Jesus provided an ethic for dealing with the world as it is and as it will be.
C. The World is now morally broken and in need of repair.
i. Genesis 3:1-7
ii. Genesis 3:8-
D. The World is being reconstructed by the Creator God who made it.
i. Our moral problem was addressed directly by God in Genesis 3:9-15
ii. The shame of Adam and Eve was directly confronted by God’s seeking them out.
iii. The question of cause is highlighted by
1. God’s direct questions, “Where are you…Who told you…?
2. Many other questions were left unanswered!
a. Where did evil originate?
b. Why was a serpent in the Garden?
c. Why did the serpent choose to use its cunning in such a deceptive manner?
iv. The problem of human rebellion was
1. confronted by God
2. addressed by expulsion from the Garden.
a. The rebellion problem was treated with expulsion and curses.
i. Avoid the Tree of Life.
ii. Endure the curses for the serpent, the man, the woman, and their posterity.
1. Posterity includes us; the blessing of fruitfulness was not rescinded; yet…
2. A curse for the Posterity means that the brokenness runs through even the best of us, “and he died…” as we all do!
b. The wickedness of Noah’s time was treated with a torrential Flood.
c. The arrogance of Babel’s Tower was treated with confusion and dispersal.
3. What do we learn?
a. Satan, who introduces evil into the world, is important, but not all-important; ‘the devil made me do it’ is not an accepted excuse.
b. Human responsibility is highlighted, not diminished.
c. Human evil-doing is mixed up with the brokenness of the creation.
d. The eradication of evil in the world will not come as a mere spoken word; the process is much more complicated, because
i. The world is still mostly good.
ii. Humans will be the means of restoration.
1. Adam & Eve, Cain & Abel.
2. Abraham & Israel.
3. Jesus & the church.

N.T. Wright: "Evil and the Justice of God"
…the OT never tries to give us the sort of picture the philosophers want, that of a static world order with everything explained tidily. At no point does the picture collapse into the simplistic one which so many skeptics assume must be what religious people believe, in which God is the omnicompetent managing director of a very large machine and ought to be able to keep it in proper working order. What we are offered instead is stranger and more mysterious: a narrative of God’s project of justice within a world of injustice.

A Vision For Evangelism: Bearing Witness

2008-03-11T20:12:00.000-05:00

I. We bear witness to hope that is within.
I Peter 3:15
1Pet. 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;

II. We bear witness to the Lord who gives us hope.
1Pet. 3:15 but sanctify Christ as Lord in your hearts, always being ready to make a defense to everyone who asks you to give an account for the hope that is in you, yet with gentleness and reverence;

III. We bear witness to the Lord, so that the hearers might be granted repentance.
2Tim. 2:24 The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged,
2Tim. 2:25 with gentleness correcting those who are in opposition, if perhaps God may grant them repentance leading to the knowledge of the truth,

IV. We bear witness, stimulated and empowered by the Spirit of Christ.
Acts 1:6 ¶ So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”
Acts 1:7 He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or epochs which the Father has fixed by His own authority;
Acts 1:8 but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

…church historian Kenneth Scott Latourette:
"the primary change agents in the spread of faith...were the men and women who earned their livelihood in some purely secular manner, and spoke of their faith to those whom they met in this natural fashion."
--Kenneth Scott Latourette, A History of the Expansion of Christianity,
Volume I: The First Five Centuries, 116.,

Recovering from a serious illness, Phillips Brooks refused to receive any visitors, even his closest friends.
When the agnostic Robert Ingersoll called, however, the bishop did not turn him away. Ingersoll, conscious of the privilege, was curious to know the reason behind it.
Said the bishop, "I feel confident of seeing my friends in the next world, but this may be my last chance of seeing you."

--Phillips Brooks (1835-93), US Episcopal bishop—Massachusetts (b.1835-d.1893).
The Little, Brown Book of Ancedotes edited by Clifton Fadiman

A Vision For Worship 24 February 08 notes

2008-03-11T20:08:00.001-05:00

A few comments…
1. Tabernacle, feast of Tabernacles.
Tabernacles—in the wilderness, God dwelt with men-- “TABERNACLE”

Feast of Tabernacles—built outdoor tents, to commemorates God’s preservation when they were vulnerable in the wilderness

Temple—recently lost it’s appeal because God was no longer visibly present; rebuilt by Herod the Great as a political claim, overshadowed by cultic traditions that obscured God.
Now, the Temple is a shadow of Jesus!

Davis, John D., Westminster Dictionary
Bronze altar
fire continually burned, sacrifices evening & morning
Laver
water to wash hands and feet before entering
Screen
Table of the Bread of the Presence
12 loaves of bread, eaten by Levites
God sustains life with its necessities
Lampstand burned continually
Altar of incense-- (Ex. 30:1-10), symbolical of the adoration of God by His
people cleansed of sin
Veil
Holy Place
Holy of Holies
Ark--tablets, manna, Aaron’s rod
…God’s majesty is displayed in the grandeur required of His sanctuary. His holiness is expressed in the restrictions on access to His sanctuary. The divinely ordained sacrificial system shows that people can approach Yahweh only on the terms He appoints, and only as provision has been made to atone for sin.
But the central theme of the tabernacle accounts remains Yahweh’s desire to dwell with His people. Here the tabernacle takes its place in the unfolding drama of the Bible as a whole. Humanity’s unrestricted communion with God is forfeited by sin (Gen.3). The tabernacle testifies, however, to God’s continuing desire to commune with His people. Yet the communion made possible by divine grace and appointment in the tabernacle is in constant jeopardy because of human impurity and guilt. In the NT the theme is carried further. The language of the tabernacle is used to show how the Word of God became incarnate and ‘dwelt’ among us (Jn., 1:14). The consummation of the dine plan will be reached when the ‘dwelling [lit. ‘tent’] of God is with men’ (Rev. 21:3).

2. They were terrified by Jesus…
God the Father: Shut up and listen!
Silence is a skill we don’t have.

In each Gospel account, the disciples are terrified, afraid. [Mark 9; Luke 9]
Brightness in all accounts.

* If we are not terrified, we are merely singing, not worshiping.

Isaiah—his terror was responded to with ‘I’ll clean up Isaiah.”

Matthew—Jesus came and touched them, get up and don’t be afraid.

About their wanting to build tabernacles; Jesus said
NOT YET, THREE WORSHIPERS is not enough.

3. Drowsy disciples almost missed the sight of Jesus in all his beauty.
A little more detail in Luke…
Luke 9:32 Now Peter and his companions had been overcome with sleep; but when they were fully awake, they saw His glory and the two men standing with Him.
They were sleepy! Similar to the Garden drowsiness later.
Drowsy worshipers???

4. The impact of worship…What if we lived this out?
Lyrics would matter to us, melodies & harmonies would serve as delightful ways to float those words to the ears of God. We would be on a constant quest to say more clearly how great our God is, a constant search for new harmonies to reflect our corporate delight in Him.
Mercy, justice, delight, and joy would pervade all of Hamilton, a holy city, full of people whose joy would be undaunted. A place where merely uttering the Name of God would bring joy and laughter, music and dancing. A community with a passion for work and development of our garden.

5. Worship for those who don’t…
John Piper
The reason man was created in the beginning and the reason the church is being recreated in the end is for the worship of God. Missions therefore is neither God's primary end nor the primary end of the church. It is a means to the primary end of worship. Missions exists because worship doesn't. There will be no missions in the age to come. Worship will be our life. Missions is not our ultimate goal. It is a means to our goal.

6. Gospel—how is it that we can see God and not be afraid!
Awestruck, reverent, terrified, welcomed.

Heb. 4:14 Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession.
Heb. 4:15 For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.
Heb. 4:16 Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

If God says work is good, why does it feel so bad?

2007-11-17T20:59:00.000-05:00

We reflect God’s image in our work
18/November 2007

I. Work is painful because of the work beneath the work.
[this connects with the sermon on Rest, bringing that material back into play]

Work feels bad because…

Gen. 3:17 Then to Adam He said …Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you will eat of it All the days of your life.

A. I am working to meet my own EMOTIONAL needs; it’s a matter of status.
1. I work in order to gain the approval of others; they make my work ABOUT ME.
[For men: many of us are still working to please Dad, to gain his approval]

2. I work in order to prove myself: to show I’m not a bum.

B. I am working to get things the things I want, which always outnumber my resources; it’s a matter of wealth.
The guy with the most toys wins.

So, I feel that I am never making progress…

i. Don’t get entrapped by your money or your capacity for making money.
Luke 12:34 “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

ii. Don’t be deceived by the things you want.
Luke 16:15 And He said to them, “… that which is highly esteemed among men is detestable in the sight of God.

C. I am working for the wrong boss; it’s a matter of power.
Working with multiple masters: Luke 16:13 “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth.”

Transition: Work feels bad because of the WORK BENEATH THE WORK, we also struggle with…
II. The work within the work: allowing the thorns and thorny people to do their work on me.

Gen. 3:18 Both thorns and thistles it shall grow for you…

There is resistance to your work; how might a good God use that resistance for your good? The resistance I experience from my surroundings can leave me bitter and paralyzed, OR…

A. My persistence can be strengthened by the resistance from the material world.

1. My courage is stretched by the challenge that comes from a difficult task.
2. My character is deepened by the resistance from the earth.

B. My motives and needs are challenged by the response of people to my work.
1. I am not heard, therefore without status. STATUS
Others do not respect me; resist my hard work.

2. I am not effective, therefore without power. POWER
Work feels bad when others interfere with my work.

3. I am not rewarded, therefore deprived. WEALTH
Work feels bad when others take credit for what I do.

The goal, though is not status, wealth and power, but…
C. My frustration can be a pathway to significance.
1. Character
a. Paul—
2Cor. 1:5 For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ.
b. James—
James 1:2-3 Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces endurance.

2. Effectiveness
a. Peter
2Pet. 1:5 Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge,
2Pet. 1:6 and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness,
2Pet. 1:7 and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love.
2Pet. 1:8 For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

3. Reward
Jesus’ reward for faithfulness
Luke 16:10 “He who is faithful in a very little thing is faithful also in much; and he who is unrighteous in a very little thing is unrighteous also in much.

Matt. 25:21 “His master replied, ’Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

CONCLUSION:
So how do I work THIS WAY?
You go to the One who gave up His STATUS, WEALTH AND POWER for YOU and promises that, if you come to him…

Matt. 11:28 “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.

Next week: The work ABOVE the Work; finding satisfaction in your work.
Principles:

We glorify God with our Work

2007-11-17T20:56:00.000-05:00

We reflect God’s image in our work 11/11

But, the material world was not evil as the prevailing worldview said.

I. Genesis teaches that the world is good.
a. God made the world and called it good.
In contrast to the way the world was described as evil by other religions.
When we say we have a CHRISTIAN WORLDVIEW, this is what we mean! This is the PARADIGM Genesis provides.
i. He demonstrates that by planting a garden and tending it.
Gen. 2:8 The LORD God planted a garden toward the east, in Eden; and there He placed the man whom He had formed.
Gen. 2:9 Out of the ground the LORD God caused to grow every tree that is pleasing to the sight and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
ii. God formed Adam out of the ground!

II. Genesis teaches that work is noble.
a. God is a worker.

b. God placed Adam in the garden to do what God himself had already been doing; this was not BENEATH God!

i. The story of Genesis teaches that God made humans to work.
Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”
Gen. 1:27 God created man in His own image, in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.
Gen. 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”
Gen. 1:29 Then God said, “Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you;
Gen. 1:30 and to every beast of the earth and to every bird of the sky and to every thing that moves on the earth which has life, I have given every green plant for food”; and it was so.

ii. We are to work in Paradise!
Gen. 2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.

1. Notice that even menial work is good, it mimics God’s own work.

2. Though we might all be concerned about being high-borne, our earliest parents were arborists & gardeners! As Tim Keller says it: God dug a ditch to make a man!

3. This is a unique view of work in all of human history. Only European socialists in the nineteenth century, represented by Karl Marx, approached this high a view of work.

c. God defined the work Adam is to do.
i. Naming the animals: intellectual.
Gen. 2:19 Out of the ground the LORD God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the sky, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called a living creature, that was its name.
Gen. 2:20 The man gave names to all the cattle, and to the birds of the sky, and to every beast of the field, but for Adam there was not found a helper suitable for him.
ii. Gardening the garden: physical.
Gen. 2:15 Then the LORD God took the man and put him into the garden of Eden to cultivate it and keep it.
iii. Generally, “having dominion over the earth”: managerial.
Gen. 1:28 God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply! Fill the earth and subdue it! Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and every creature that moves on the ground.”

iv. Naming his wife, Ishah, then Eve: relational.

d. We are made to work like Adam worked.
i. We are sons and daughters of Adam and Eve, we are workers.
ii. Regardless of the kind of work we do.

What we sort of what must we do?
We can know the work we must do when we answer these three questions:
Who am I
Whom can I help?
Whom do I serve?

III. We can experience deep happiness in our work as we discover who we are:
a. We must have insight into ourselves.
what are my gifts, talents, abilities, and skills?
i. What are my gifts.
ii. What are my abilities, skills, and talents.
iii. What do I enjoy?
b. We must understand how to help those around us.
Ask this question: is my work helping?
i. Create art—which we have discussed and exhibited.
ii. Design a business that will help reduce the damage we do to the world.
iii. Invent a new product—designed to serve others.
iv. Bring order out of a chaotic business, such that jobs are secured, even added.
v. Cultivate a vision for your students to transform their view of life, knowledge, etc.
vi. Design a garden, or Clean up a yard, your own, perhaps a neighbour’s who would welcome the help.
Your design will guide your choices of work.

c. We must understand that God has a mission in mind for our work.
i. take care of the world you were given.
ii. take care of the people around you; they were given to you to look after.
iii. if your gifts make you lots of money, then give!
iv. if you are wealthy now because of your gifts, don’t wait until you have earned a fortune to give away; give yourself away now!
v. You are on a mission.
vi. John Coltrane: nunc dimitis
“A Love Supreme”

Next week:
9th sermon: If work is so good, why does it feel so bad?

7th Genesis Sermon: Creativity Glorifies God

2007-11-07T20:56:00.000-05:00

7th sermon: We reflect God’s glory by our creative behaviors 11/4
Central Idea: We reflect the image of God when we express our unique giftedness together.

The image of God/likeness of God is stamped within us all. Each person expresses that image, his likeness in unique ways.
The unique expression of the divine image…
1. God’s creativity is verbal and ours can be verbal.
a. And God said…
b. And Adam said…
c. David said…
d. Amos composed poetry.
e. Solomon collected Proverbs.
God’s creativity is verbal and ours can be verbal.
2. God’s creativity is musical and ours can be musical.
a. His creation sings and claps with delight.
i. The rivers “clap their hands”…
Psa. 98:8 Let the rivers clap their hands,
Let the mountains sing together for joy
Is. 55:12 “For you will go out with joy
And be led forth with peace;
The mountains and the hills will break forth into shouts of joy before you,
And all the trees of the field will clap their hands.

ii. The stars sang as he finished his work.
Job 38:4 ¶ “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?
Tell me, if you understand.
Job 38:5 Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know!
Who stretched a measuring line across it?
Job 38:6 On what were its footings set,
or who laid its cornerstone—
Job 38:7 while the morning stars sang together
and all the angels shouted for joy?

b. Psa. 96:1-4: “sing a new song…”
c. Eph. 5:18-20:
Eph. 5:18-20 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord;
always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father;

God’s creativity is verbal and ours can be verbal.
God’s creativity is musical and ours can be musical.
3. God’s creativity is visual, as our can be.
Ex. 31:3

God’s creativity is verbal and ours can be verbal.
God’s creativity is musical and ours can be musical.
God’s creativity is visual, as our can be.
4. God’s creativity makes systems that work, and so can we.
a. God made ‘systems.’
i. Land/land animals
ii. Sea/creatures that swim
iii. Heavens/birds that fly
b. We make “systems” as engineers and managers, bringing order out of chaos.

All of God’s creativity highlights his own glory, as Father, Son, and Spirit work together; not one of us alone is adequate to fully reflect that glory.
5. We reflect God’s glory as our creativity blends with that of others.
a. God gave remarkable instructions to Israel for their place of worship, the Tabernacle.
i. Colours
1. Tradition tells us that each tribe of Israel moved together following a color-coded banner, which corresponded to the colors of the jewels on the high priest’s breastplate.
2. Exodus 25: the Tabernacle was to be decorated with
a. Gold
b. Silver
c. Bronze
d. Purple from a snail.
e. Scarlet from holly plant worms.
f. Blue from a shellfish extract.
g. Sea-green onyx
ii. Aromas
1. Olive oil for the lamps
2. Spices: cinnamon, myrrh, frankincense
iii. Textures
Exodus 25:
a. Fine linen
b. Goat hair
c. Ram skins
d. Acacia wood

b. Sounds…symphonies of instruments: stringed, etc.
c. Singing with voices solo [Pavorotti, Robert Goulet] and in harmony.

In May 1993, I stood in front of my first Kandinski, in L’Hermitage, St. Petersburg, Russia. I was wondering through the galleries, taking in as much as I could in the few hours I had there. Not wanting to miss anything, I moved quickly through the galleries, until I sidestepped into a back hallway, leading to a stairwell; hanging on that obscure wall was a brilliantly-coloured Kandinski.

Conclusion
Back in university, I had a hard time paying attention in class. I’ve never done well when told to “sit down here and read this”. I was greatly challenged by physics and calculus, by organic chemistry and molecular biology, but my greatest enjoyment came from debating the War in Vietnam on the streets of Boston and by rehearsing Bach and Stravinksy with the men’s Glee Club.
The school was mostly male, so our fifty voices were joined to fifty female voices from Smith College. We first met in their campus chapel—fifty men, fifty women. We ran through some of the difficult pieces, testing, sampling, seeking the resonance of harmonies we had never heard. It was stunning. The genius of Stravinksi, the sweetness of Ives, the passion of Poulenc.
The crowning glory was Bach. Not just a Bach chorale. Bach’s Funeral Cantata, that revolutionary funerary piece in a major key. Bach didn’t fear death, he embraced death as the gateway into the divine presence.
I began to understand his German phrasings…In himm leben, leben, und sind wir…so lange er will.
Away from home, I left my family’s faith behind. I dabbled in atheism, verbalized agnosticsm, struggled to find my own view of life and the world.
We sang that cantata in Mt. Holyoke Massachusetts in the chapel balcony, with a few dozen folk taking it in from the pews on the floor below. The sound in that small chapel of 100 voices, singing their pleasure, transfixed us all. It was a perfect moment. The awesome wonder of that music, the power of those words, touched my soul and changed my thought.
The words? For the funeral service: IN HIM WE HAVE LIFE!!

Johann Sebastian Bach’s creativity had brought me back to faith; now it was my faith.

We were made for this. Can you hear the music? Someone next to you is humming, waiting for you to join in.
What, you’re not creative? Not alone, you’re not. You were made for us. Together, we transform chaos into order; we can splash the canvas with colour, with life. Life lived together. True fellowship composes symphonies, blends sounds without losing a single voice, paints vivid images of wonder and beauty, sculpts forms that draw us into them, slings out words that form thoughts in the minds of a reader who dares not be left alone.
This creativity is life together, this is what it means to be made in the image and likeness of God.

Communion:
Taste and see that the Lord is good.

We Glorify God With Our Words, OR Not!

2007-10-29T20:15:00.000-05:00

We Glorify God With Our Words

What would life be like if we could not communicate with speech?
What if God sent you a text-message?

God
10/28/07
“ily lets b bffls”

We reflect the image of God by our use of language, glorifying Him and strengthening one another, or not.

1. Language is an awesome gift.
a. Creation was accomplished by God’s Words.
i. And God said.
Gen. 1:3 Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.
Gen. 1:6 Then God said, “Let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.”
Gen. 1:9 Then God said, “Let the waters below the heavens be gathered into one place, and let the dry land appear”; and it was so.
Gen. 1:11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.
Gen. 1:14 Then God said, “Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night, and let them be for signs and for seasons and for days and years;
Gen. 1:20 Then God said, “Let the waters teem with swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in the open expanse of the heavens.”
Gen. 1:24 Then God said, “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind: cattle and creeping things and beasts of the earth after their kind”; and it was so.
Gen. 1:26 Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; and let them rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over the cattle and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.”

ii. The remainder of Genesis records what people said.
1. Gen. 2: Adam had the gift of language, as evident by his NAMING of the animals.
2. Gen. 2: Adam spoke to Eve.
3. Gen. 3: Adam did not say enough to Eve.
4. Gen. 3: Adam & Eve spoke to God.
5. Gen. 4: Cain spoke.
6. Gen. 11: People spoke among themselves.

b. The creation was made with full potency, declared with words.
Gen. 1:11 Then God said, “Let the earth sprout vegetation: plants yielding seed, and fruit trees on the earth bearing fruit after their kind with seed in them”; and it was so.
Gen. 1:22 God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.”
Gen. 1:28 God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

c. Speech is a uniquely human gift.
i. Serpent: how was it that the serpent could speak?
1. Some rabbis—perhaps all animals spoke then!
2. Serpent spoke as enabled by Satan.
3. Serpent was a visible manifestation of the Archangel Lucifer/Satan.
ii. What about Koko? [www.koko.org]
1. Many animals have a “language” to communicate basic needs and alarms, but humans have invented alphabets, writing,
2. Can a gorilla speak? No. Understand? Yes.
3. Does this not prove the rule?

For the believer…
d. Speech is a key sign of the Holy Spirit’s work within us!
Eph. 5:18-19 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord…

2. The purpose of the gift of Words
a. The purpose for the gift of speech to Adam…
i. Communicate with God.
ii. Communicate to animals: to “name” is to have dominion.
iii. Communicate with Eve et al.
b. The purpose for the gifts of speech all…
i. To speak the truth in love.
Eph. 4:15 But practicing the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into Christ, who is the head.
Eph. 4:25 ¶ Therefore, having laid aside falsehood, each one of you speak the truth with his neighbor, for we are members of one another.
Eph. 4:29 You must let no unwholesome word come out of your mouth, but only what is beneficial for the building up of the one in need, that it may give grace to those who hear.
Eph. 5:4 Neither should there be vulgar speech, foolish talk, or coarse jesting—all of which are out of character—but rather thanksgiving.

ii. To speak words seasoned with grace.
Col. 4:6 Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you should answer everyone.

iii. To build up one another: 21 “one anothers.”

iv. To reveal the state of our hearts.
1. James: compares to a rudder and a bit & bridle;
2. We use words to praise God.
3. We use our tongues to curse his people.

3. The misuse of the gift of Words…
a. Descendants of Adam & Eve used language to plot against God.

Gen. 11:4 They said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.”

Since then, we have shown similar trouble with our words…

b. We use language for good and for evil.
James 3:9 With it we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse people made in God’s image.

c. Our words reflect the condition of our hearts.
[Psychiatrist Paul Meyer: everything we say is true.]
Application: Listen to yourself for one day: you will self-discover what is in your heart.

Matt. 12:34 …For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart.

Luke 6:45 The good person out of the good treasury of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasury produces evil, for his mouth speaks from what fills his heart.

Transition: That’s the difficulty, we are all evil; our problem is…

d. We will be held accountable for all that we say.
Matt. 12:36 “But I tell you that every careless word that people speak, they shall give an accounting for it in the day of judgment.

If our words do indeed reflect the state of our heart:
And if we will give an account for every word:
Then…
4. The solution to this grave dilemma…

a. Own your words, “I did say that!”
Matt. 12:34 …For the mouth speaks from what fills the heart.

b. Glorify God with your words…
Col. 3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.

i. Calligraphers: illustrate!
ii. Linguists: analyse!
iii. Philosophers: experiment!
iv. Attorneys: argue!
v. Writers: write!
vi. Poets: compose!
vii. Speakers: communicate!
viii. Teachers: inform!
ix. Believers: encourage, speak mercy, bear one another’s burdens, exhort, admonish, teach, love…

Transition: This is all very difficult to do, BECAUSE…
James 3:2 For we all stumble in many ways. If someone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect individual, able to control the entire body as well.

c. Look to the Perfect Man, The Word.
They called Jesus “the Word” because he is the perfect expression of the Father.

John 1:1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.
John 1:2 He was in the beginning with God.
John 1:3 All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being.
John 1:4 In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men.
John 1:5 The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

i. The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
ii. When we give an account for every word, THE WORD will give an account for us!
1. Our Redeemer, Jesus.
Psa. 19:14 Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O LORD, my rock and my Redeemer.

Our Redeemer then becomes…
2. Our Advocate!
1John 2:1 My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. And if anyone sins, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous…
2:2 He is the offering for our sins; and not for ours only, but for all the world.

Conclusion:
We reflect the image of God by our use of language, glorifying Him and strengthening one another, or not.