Connect With the World | Sunday, January 30, 2022

Then God saw everything that He had made, and indeed it was very good. So the evening and the morning were the sixth day. (Genesis 1:31) > > And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel. (Genesis 3:15)

From the garden of Eden to the tree of life in the new creation—how God's rescue mission makes you His ambassador to a broken world.

Made for Connection, Broken by the Fall

Nearly every year I begin by reminding you of our vision here at Cross Connection Church. Our mission is life in connection with God, one another, and the world through Jesus. As described in the opening chapters of Genesis, God made us for connection—with Him and with one another. But that connection was disrupted and destroyed by the fall in Genesis 3.

God had told Adam and Eve that in the day they ate of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, they would surely die. When they ate, they didn't immediately fall over dead, but there was a death—a spiritual death, a separation between them and God, and a separation between one another. So every one of us is born separated from God and one another after the fall.

This is why every person, whether they understand the theology of the fall or not, has an intuitive sense that the world is not as it should be. We all feel things could be or should be better. Paul describes this condition in Romans 5:12:

Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned...

The age-old question—why is there evil and suffering in the world?—is one many people wrestle with. Theologically, the answer is relatively simple: sin has brought about evil, suffering, and death. Whether it's malevolent evil at the hands of people, or the natural evil of storms, fires, and floods, these are all the result of a world under the curse and brokenness of sin.

The Bible's Beginning and End

This is not the world God intended, nor the world He desires. Just as His initial good creation had a garden with a tree of life in the midst of it (Genesis 2:9), God's ultimate master plan involves a restored garden with the tree of life in the middle of it. The first two chapters of the Bible look back to a beautiful creation; the last two chapters look forward to a similar picture.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth... And I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God... And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people..." And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away. (Revelation 21:1–4)

Turn one page further to Revelation 22:

And he showed me a pure river of water of life... In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life... The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no more curse... (Revelation 22:1–5)

The curse brought about by sin in Genesis 3 is completely done away with—the curse is reversed. So Genesis 1 shows us the beginning: a garden, the tree of life, perfect connection between God and man. That is destroyed in Genesis 3, and man is expelled. But the final words of the Bible give us a vision of the future where God and man are joined together once again, in a new heaven and a new earth, with the tree of life and no more curse, sin, or suffering. This is the alpha and the omega.

The Four Acts of God's Story

But that is not the world we currently live in. So the question is: how do we get from Genesis 3, where the fall happened, to Revelation 21 and 22, where we see creation restored?

This leads to what is sometimes called the overarching story, or metanarrative, of the Bible. It has four acts. We have already seen three of them: the first act is creation (Genesis 1–2); the second act is the fall (Genesis 3); and the final, fourth act is the restoration (Revelation 21–22). But there is a third act that takes up the whole Bible from Genesis 3 to Revelation 20—and that is the act of redemption. We are living in the third act right now.

At the time of the fall, God gave a prophetic promise as He spoke the curse over the serpent:

So the LORD God said to the serpent: "Because you have done this... I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." (Genesis 3:14–15)

This passage is called by scholars the protoevangelion—the first gospel. By the deceptive work of the serpent, sin entered the world, bringing separation, suffering, and death to all humanity. But God says, in effect, "I am going to bring about a resolution. I'm going to crush the head of the serpent, and I'm going to crush the work of the serpent—sin, suffering, and death." This is the first declaration of how God plans to bring redemption and restoration. The rest of the biblical narrative is the story of how God brings about the greatest rescue mission ever.

Tracing the Promise Through the Old Testament

God promised the coming of One born of a woman, a man, who would crush the serpent's head. I don't have time to go deep into the whole storyline, so let me summarize.

In Genesis 4, Adam and Eve have children. We're given only three names, because they are keys to the story. Their first son was Cain. Eve may have thought, "This is the one I have obtained from the LORD"—but Cain ended up murdering his brother Abel, manifesting the fallenness of the world. So Cain was not the one. Then they had Seth, and the story zeroes in on his line, because God has a specific purpose He is accomplishing through Scripture.

Follow the genealogy from Seth in Genesis 5 down to Noah, then through Noah's son Shem, until Genesis 11 introduces Seth's distant descendant Abram. In Genesis 12, God speaks to him:

Get out of your country, from your family and from your father's house, to a land that I will show you. I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great... and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed. (Genesis 12:1–3)

This is the Abrahamic covenant. The promise of Genesis 3:15 now zeroes in on Abram and his family. Abram is the first follower of God by faith—Genesis 15:6 says, "Abram believed God, and He accounted it to him for righteousness." And God made good on His promise. God later changed his name to Abraham, "father of many nations."

Think about it: this thousands-of-years-old document records God telling Abram his name would be great. Today Abraham is one of the most well-known figures in all the world, the father of the three monotheistic religions—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. More than half the people alive today look back to Abraham. If you question whether there are fulfilled prophecies in the Bible, here is one: God said it, and it has come to pass.

From Abraham to the Promised Land

Abraham had a son, Isaac, by miraculous means in his old age, and the promise passed to Isaac. Isaac had Jacob, and the promise continued through Jacob, whose name God changed to Israel. Israel had twelve sons, who became the twelve tribes, and God chose to continue the promise through one of them—Judah.

Follow the story down: Israel's descendants end up in Egypt at the end of Genesis. In Exodus, God redeems them out of bondage by the hand of Moses—a foreshadowing of the greater redemption to come. In Leviticus, they enter a covenant relationship and establish the tabernacle, where God meets His people through the sacrificial system—the beginning of a restored connection, though not yet perfect. In Numbers, they wander and drift and are brought back. In Deuteronomy, Moses gives his last message before he dies. Then Joshua leads Israel into the Promised Land, fulfilling God's promise to Abraham of the land of Canaan.

This may seem like a long, meandering story, but there is a point. The whole Bible is one continuous, interconnected story, all moving with the same theme, focusing toward the event where God brings about redemption so that restoration can come.

One Story, Forty Authors

What is absolutely amazing is that this continuous, interconnected story of creation, fall, redemption, and restoration was written by forty different human authors over a fifteen-hundred-year period, on three different continents, in three different languages, in sixty-six different books—and yet it is all one cohesive story. How does that happen? The only way is that it is divinely inspired. As 2 Timothy 3:16 says, it is God-breathed.

God promised in Genesis 3 a Man who would destroy the serpent and his works. He selected Abraham and his family, through whom that One would come. The whole Old Testament is the setup for one individual's arrival. After the thirty-nine books of the Old Testament, there's a period where God appears silent—and then come the Gospels.

The Man Arrives: Jesus

Matthew 1 tells of the arrival of a man named Jesus, whose coming the angel announced: "You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins." We're given His genealogy, tracing His lineage back through David, Judah, Jacob, Isaac, and Abraham; in Luke's Gospel, all the way back to Adam.

What did Jesus come to do? He tells us explicitly in His purpose statements:

The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

I have come as a light into the world, that whoever believes in Me should not abide in darkness. (John 12:46)

For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost. (Luke 19:10)

Jesus came to be the fulfillment of the redemption promise of Genesis 3:15. He came to give life abundantly, to seek and save the lost, to give His life a ransom, and to be a light to those in darkness. We were dead in trespasses and sins because of the fall, but God, rich in love and mercy, set out on a rescue mission—just as He sent Moses into Egypt to redeem His people, Jesus came to redeem us.

Sent on a Mission

So how do we get from Genesis 3 to Revelation 21 and 22? Jesus came in fulfillment of hundreds of prophecies, gave His life as a ransom on the cross, was buried, and rose again the third day for our justification. As 1 Corinthians 15 says, "He died for our sins according to the Scriptures."

After His resurrection, before His ascension, Jesus gathered His followers and commissioned them:

Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. (Mark 16:15)

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit... and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. (Matthew 28:19–20)

Thus it is written, and thus it was necessary for the Christ to suffer and to rise from the dead the third day, and that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in His name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Luke 24:46–47)

Peace to you! As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. (John 20:21)

After accomplishing His work of redemption, Jesus commissions us. And just before His ascension He said:

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth. (Acts 1:8)

The book of Acts is the early history of Jesus's first followers fulfilling His mission as He empowers them by the Holy Spirit. Acts ends in a strange way, without a clear conclusion—because the story continues. Down to this moment, the end of January 2022, we are still part of the story of the book of Acts. You are part of God's story, and you have a part to play.

You Are an Ambassador

What part does God desire us to play? Part of the answer is in 2 Corinthians 5:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation... Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. (2 Corinthians 5:17–21)

If you have been saved by Christ, you have life in connection with God and one another—and now you are an ambassador of God's kingdom, given the message of reconciliation. What does an ambassador do?

Years ago I was selected to help with a Billy Graham crusade here in San Diego, at what was then Qualcomm Stadium. At a luncheon, a man who had served with Billy Graham for decades told how he and Billy had dinner with an American ambassador in China. Billy asked the ambassador what exactly his job was. The answer stuck with me: he was there to make friends and to share the message—the "good news," if you will—of America in a nation that did not share America's mindset.

So what is your job as an ambassador of the kingdom of God? To make friends with people in your workplace, on your campus, in your neighborhood, and to share with them the message of reconciliation. You have been reconnected to God and to one another, and now you are on a mission. God has not only called pastors—He has called you, filled you with His Spirit, and connected you with people I may never meet, so that you can connect them with the good news.

How Are You Doing as an Ambassador?

As we close this Life in Connection series, here is the question: How are you doing in this work? What could you do to do it better, or to do it more? There will come a day when I give an account to God for how I have used my time, talents, money, and energy for His kingdom—because ultimately those things are His.

Because you are part of Cross Connection Church, you are already fulfilling this mission in many ways. As you pray for, support, and are part of this body, you support missionaries in China, the Philippines, Central and South America, Africa, Israel, Nepal, Indonesia, Burma, Jordan, Iraq, and Syria. Through Calvary Chapel and the Southern Baptist Convention's North American and International Mission Boards—with more than four thousand missionaries—you are reaching people and planting churches.

Let me share two ministries I have the privilege of serving on the board of. One is Enduring Word (enduringword.com), the Bible commentaries of my good friend Pastor David Guzik. Last year that website had 77 million page views—more than 211,000 a day, about 150 people every minute searching questions about God and the Bible and finding sound teaching. That commentary is being translated into Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic, German, and partially into Portuguese, Russian, Hindi, Farsi, French, Italian, and Urdu, with Japanese, Kurdish, Bengali, and Korean coming. The other is Blue Letter Bible (blueletterbible.com), which last year distributed content at more than 2 million page views a day—750 million page views in the year. That is part of what you are a part of.

Who Do You Connect With?

But the question remains: what part do you play personally? We did some research about our area. Within ten miles of this building live nearly a million people, and less than ten percent of them are reached by a Bible-teaching, gospel-focused church. That means more than 850,000 people within ten miles are disconnected from God—people you see at work, at school, at the gym, on the soccer field, at the store, and at the mailbox.

So who do you connect with regularly that needs to be connected to God, and how do you reach them? First, pray for them—commit to pray daily, write down their names, put them on a prayer card and we will pray with you. Second, be kind to them; let them see the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, self-control. Then invite them to church, share the gospel, and offer to pray for them. These are simple ways to begin engaging in the work God has called you to.

At the end of the day, it is this simple thing from Peter:

You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people, that you may proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light; who once were not a people but are now the people of God, who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. (1 Peter 2:9–10)

That's your task: proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light. Tell people about Jesus, who saved you from sin, death, suffering, and darkness, who found you when you were lost. You have been brought into connection with God and one another because of what Jesus did on the cross—and all you need to do is share that with someone else. I guarantee you know a lot of people who need to hear that good news.

Closing Prayer

Father God, I pray that You would give us a passion to share this good news with other people. There are so many we interact with daily who are far from You, feeling the effects of sin, suffering, and death, fearful of the unknown and of the judgment that comes after death. But God, You have given us the words of life and the ministry of reconciliation. I pray we would take that good news and share it today—someone You want us to talk to, text, email, or call and share with them who You are.

Would You enable and empower Your people, just as You said: "You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you, and you shall be My witnesses." Empower me and my brothers and sisters to share this good news with others—because this is the message people need, not a political, economic, medical, or technological message, but the life-giving gospel that started in Genesis 3 and is still being played out today, as we look forward to the day You will bring about the restoration. Until then, God, help us share this good news with others. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen.