Connect With One Another

This is the history of the heavens and the earth when they were created... And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. And man became a living being... And the Lord God said, "It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him."... And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam... and he took one of his ribs... Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. And Adam said, "This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man." Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh. And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:4–25)

God created us for connection, sin destroyed it, and Jesus came to restore it—and that restoration happens in the church.

Our Vision: Life in Connection

Every year I begin by talking about the vision of our church—why we gather and why we exist. Our vision, stated on the front of our bulletin, is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. If you've been part of Cross Connection for a while, you may even roll your eyes when I say it. I hope these words become so familiar that when someone asks, "Cross Connection—what's that about?" you can answer instantly: life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus.

Last week we focused on life in connection with God. Today we focus on life in connection with one another. And right here at the very beginning of the Bible, in the book of origins, the creation account gives us a wonderful truth.

God Never Intended That We Live Independently

The first point is this: God never intended that we live independently of one another. We see it clearly in verse 18: "And the Lord God said, 'It is not good that man should be alone.'"

We live in a culture that highly values independence. Our nation's founding came through the Declaration of Independence in 1776, so the idea is woven into the fiber of who we are as Americans. But independence does not mean living in complete isolation from one another. We are interdependent creatures.

This is confirmed not only religiously but scientifically. Psychology Today, in July 2003, wrote: "Friendship is a lot like food. We need it to survive... human beings have a fundamental need for inclusion in group life, for close relationship." The article went on to say that our lives function best when this need for closeness is met, and that "when our need for social relationships is not met, we fall apart mentally and even physically." The effects of isolation include increased risk of suicide, higher stress, elevated blood pressure, heart disease, stroke, sleeplessness, and depression.

It's amazing that after nearly 250 years of independence drilled into our mindset, we now live in a very lonely time. Research by Gallup in 2012 found that a third of Americans say they live a lonely life—even with text messages, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat, and every other platform. Though we feel connected at any moment through technology, we live in an isolated and lonely age, and the suicide rate has risen over the last twenty years, often tied to loneliness. Thousands of years ago God said it: it's not good that man should be alone.

God's Remedy: From One, Two, Made One

We were created to live in community, but at the beginning God made one man. So God set out to remedy the problem of aloneness. He caused all the beasts of the field to pass before Adam, and Adam's task was to name them. The whole point of this exercise was for Adam to see his need. As the animals passed by, he saw lion and lioness, male and female—every counterpart in God's design. But "for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him."

So the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, took from his side, and made the rib into a woman, bringing her to the man. When Adam saw her he said, in effect, "Whoa-man!"—"This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh." From one, God made two, for the purpose of joining them together as one. As Solomon wrote in Ecclesiastes, one is easily overtaken, two can withstand, but a threefold cord is not easily broken.

Once God joined the first man and woman together, He commanded them, "Be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28). As we sit here on January 10, 2016, there are more than 7.4 billion people on the earth. This may be the one command man has done a really good job of obeying. My wife and I have done our part—we have four.

Life Is Better Together

Why did God create two from one and command them to multiply? Because, in His infinite wisdom, God knows the second point: life is better together.

Someone always comes to me and disagrees, insisting they like to be alone. But they're the exception, not the rule. Researchers find that people left in solitary confinement over long periods go insane. We all know at an experiential level that life is better together.

Living here in Southern California, I've been to Disneyland more than a dozen times. After a while the Magic Kingdom doesn't have the same magic. But a couple of years ago my wife and I brought our two oldest kids, Ethan and Addison, for their first time, and it was as if I experienced it for the first time through them. My joy increased through their experience. I even waited in line over an hour for Peter Pan—what adult does that without kids? You eat at a great restaurant, see a great movie, visit a wonderful place, and you want others to experience it because your joy increases through theirs. God made us to live life in connection with one another.

Sin Destroyed Community

We know this is true biblically, scientifically, and experientially—yet we also know there is a disconnect, a brokenness, a division. That came about in Genesis 3 through the fall of humanity into sin.

God had commanded in Genesis 2:17 that they not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, "for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Notice that the last verse of Genesis 2 says, "they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed"—total oneness, nothing hindering, no separation, no shame. But in Genesis 3:7, as soon as sin entered, "the eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves coverings." They tried to cover the very nakedness that had been no shame before, because sin destroyed community.

Their oneness was lost. And sin still destroys relationship. Sin always brings division, always separates, always alienates, and always results in death in some form. Every one of us has experienced this—a broken relationship comes to mind: the divorce of your parents, a divorce of your own, an estranged friend, a brother or sister. Apart from a work of grace and forgiveness, it cannot be restored. I pray with people regularly, tears in their eyes, over the devastation of relationships broken by sin.

All 7.4 billion of us live on this side of Genesis 3, in a world of separation, alienation, and death. Yet inside every one of us is a desire for the restoration of oneness—a longing that reaches back to the beginning. We try to fix it: peace accords, the United Nations reconciling warring parties, every new president forming a team for "peace in the Middle East," every beauty queen wishing for "peace on earth." America itself is the great melting pot, people from all over the world trying to be one nation. But the unity we long for at the deepest level is impossible without Jesus.

Jesus Destroyed Sin to Restore Oneness

Jesus came to restore community. On the night He would be betrayed and arrested, He prayed a great prayer recorded in John 17. There God the Son prays to God the Father—two persons of the Trinity, one God in three persons.

In verse 11 He prays, "Keep through Your name those whom You have given Me, that they may be one as We are." And in verse 20: "I do not pray for these alone, but also for those who will believe in Me through their word." That's us. Jesus prayed for the church at Cross Connection two thousand years ago. "That they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me."

Five times in that prayer Jesus prays for oneness. And notice that this oneness is a witness to the world that He is God. Why? Because the world has tried for thousands of years to create oneness, with devastating consequences. Only God, who created humanity, can truly create oneness in humanity. So Jesus says, in effect, "Make them one, that the world may know You sent Me."

This is why division within the church is so destructive, and why we must fight against it. Every division is rooted in sin—gossip, anger, malice—the enemy trying to destroy and divide. When the world sees division in the church, it concludes the church is just like everyone else. So Jesus prays: make them one.

Turn to Ephesians 2:14: "For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity... so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross." This is the fourth point: Jesus destroyed sin to restore oneness. That's gospel—good news. The sin that destroyed our connection, Jesus destroyed on the cross. "It is finished." The veil in the temple was torn from top to bottom; now we have access to God in Christ Jesus, and we experience restored oneness among all peoples.

The Church Is God's Plan for Restoration

Where does that oneness happen? Within the body of Christ—the church. In Acts 2 we have the birth of the church. After Jesus ascended, 120 disciples were gathered in an upper room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit was poured out like a rushing mighty wind, and they spoke with other tongues. A crowd gathered, Peter preached the gospel, and "those who gladly received his word were baptized; and that day about three thousand souls were added to them."

"And they continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers... Now all who believed were together, and had all things in common... So the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved." God took people from different language groups and made them one. At first they were all Jewish, but soon the gospel moved to Samaria, and then in Acts 10 to the Gentiles. There is no Jewish church, Samaritan church, and Gentile church—there is one church, one body. No Armenian church, Russian church, German church—one church in Christ Jesus.

This is the fifth point: the church is God's plan for the restoration of community. Some thinkers ask what good the church does for the community. I think to myself—there would be no community without the church. It is here, within the body of Christ, that we fulfill the "one anothers" of Scripture and grow in our connection with one another.

Six Ways We Grow in Connection

Sin still enters because we're all still sinners, and it must be dealt with by grace and forgiveness. But here are six ways we grow in our connection with one another at Cross Connection.

A. Worship. The whole 75 minutes we put together on Sunday mornings is worship—in song, in sacrificial giving, in the study of Scripture—and we grow in connection with both God and one another. This is why Hebrews 10 says do not neglect the gathering together of the body of Christ. Many churches now livestream, and I'd love to sit on my couch with coffee too—but do not neglect gathering. You can watch a message on YouTube if you miss a service, praise the Lord, but YouTube is not where we grow in what God saved us for.

B. Bible study. We grow as we go through the Scriptures together—not only on Sundays, but with a group of two or three, a book of the Bible, a study online. Our men's and women's ministries, starting again in a couple of weeks on Tuesday mornings and Wednesday nights, are places we grow together in connection.

C. Learning together. When we gather, we hear the same message God speaks from His Word, growing and learning together, sharing a common experience that we can challenge one another about throughout the week.

D. Fellowship. Acts 2:42 says they continued in koinonia—fellowship, which means oneness, community, caring and sharing with one another. We're commanded to love one another (1 John 4:11), to stir one another up to love and good deeds (Hebrews 10:24), to care for one another (1 Corinthians 12:25), to comfort one another (2 Corinthians 13:11), to bear with one another (Ephesians 4:2), and to welcome and show hospitality to one another (Romans 15:7; 1 Peter 4:9). This is caring for and sharing with each other as the early church did.

E. Prayer. James 5:16 says pray for one another. This is why we have prayer cards every week. When a brother or sister shares a struggle, say, "Can I pray with you right now?" You don't have to be perfect at prayer—just pray. You'll get strange looks in Vons or wherever, with people steering their carts away from that aisle, but join together with one another in prayer.

F. Service. First Peter 4:10 says, "As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God." You grow in connection as you serve alongside others. That's why we constantly ask you to get plugged into a team and serve here at Cross Connection.

Connected Across the Miles: Brett and Kathy Holzer

With the remaining time, I want to introduce two servants partnered with us even though they live thousands of miles away—Brett (Bubba) and Kathy Holzer, who serve the Lord faithfully in Doro, South Sudan. We support them as missionaries, but we count them as friends connected to our church.

[Brett:] We are very connected with you as a church—through service, prayer, and fellowship. We are in Doro, South Sudan. Because of the very sin we heard about today and the breaking of community, leaders in the north brought war against their own people. These people have fled, and we are now surrounded by more than 135,000 refugees. We are able to be a witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and many Muslims are coming to Christ.

[Kathy:] It is a blessing to be here. We've lived two years of war ourselves—war in the north, war in the south—and yet we have peace in our hearts, knowing we are in the center of God's will. When we ask those coming to Christ what led them to leave Islam, they say two things: love and grace—two things they did not see in their own faith. We are seeing mass movements of Muslims to Christ. The Ngessana are the major refugee people group, with 90,000 in the camps who had never heard of Jesus. We both speak Arabic, and now we have three churches among them. This year they celebrated their very first Christmas, and in our church—mostly from the Nuba Mountains—58 people were baptized, many from a Muslim background.

We are thankful you are part of it, especially with the Talking Bibles. These are little audio Scripture units, made right here in Escondido on Grand Avenue, loaded with the Bible in Arabic. Faith comes by hearing, and the Word of God is going out in Arabic, and people are coming to know the Lord. We still need to raise about $12,000 for 400 more so we can take them back with us in April. Thank you for partnering with us—this is not something we can do alone, but as a community we are displaying the love of God to those who have not heard.

Closing Prayer

Father, we are so grateful to hear of Your great work among the nations and down in South Sudan. We pray Your blessings on this couple, on the work, on the whole SIM team. Lord, that there would be unity in that team, that it would showcase to Your people the ones You are calling to Yourself. We thank You for the testimony of those who celebrated Your birth for the first time, and for these newly baptized believers identifying with Your death and resurrection.

We pray for our friends here, that Your peace would be upon them, and for the practicalities of being on furlough. We pray, Lord, that You would provide the funds needed for that group of Talking Bibles and for the other needs while on furlough. More than anything else, we pray for Your peace upon them as they go forth. We praise You, Lord, and give You all glory for a church that rallies behind them. We pray for many more who will get behind this important work, for Your glory. We give this couple to You, in Jesus' name. Amen.