Life Through Jesus

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth... Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness..." (Genesis 1:1, 26) > > 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... "Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." (Genesis 2:7, 16–17) > > And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed. (Genesis 2:25)

How the Bible's grand story—from a good garden to a restored creation—runs entirely through the redeeming work of Jesus.

A New Year and the Vision of the Church

Happy 2020 to you all. As we begin a new year here at Cross Connection, one of the things we like to do is talk about our vision as a church: life in connection with God, one another, and the world, through Jesus. Today we're talking about "life through Jesus."

For most of the last ten years we've worked through the whole of the New Testament, which we finished last year. That leaves the Old Testament—the first two-thirds of the Bible—largely unexplored in our recent studies. So in a few weeks we are going into the book of Deuteronomy and breaking into some of the prophetic books, and I'm really looking forward to that.

Hindsight, Vision, and Communion

I imagine many churches last week preached messages titled "Hindsight 2020," and a whole bunch this week will preach "20/20 Vision." As corny as those titles are, there's something true in them. We're going to partake of communion at the end of our message, and in hindsight we look back to the work Jesus accomplished on the cross—the bread representing His body broken for us, the cup His blood shed for us.

That act gives us clarity in the present, but it also gives us a vision for the future and a hope. A couple of weeks ago we looked at Jeremiah 29:11: "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you... thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." If you are a believer in Jesus, the Scriptures give you a future and a hope, and all of it is based on what Jesus accomplished in the past.

What "Life Through Jesus" Means

You don't have to attend Cross Connection long to learn our vision—we mention it almost every week. We want to live life in connection with God, one another, and the world, through Jesus. But what does that even mean? What does it look like to live that vision?

On the front of your bulletin, the words "life" and "through Jesus" are in orange, and that's intentional. The basis of connection with God and with one another is life through Jesus. When you receive life through Jesus, He makes it possible for you to have a vertical relationship with God and a horizontal relationship with one another. He unites us together as one, and our desire is that we would then extend that to the world. But all of it begins with experiencing life through Jesus.

God's Original Creation Was Very Good

This is how the story of the Bible begins, and according to what the Bible reveals, this is how the story of humanity begins. A good God created a good creation, and in the middle of it He formed a good garden and placed the first humans into it, Adam and Eve, from whom we believe we have descended.

There was something distinct about them. Genesis 1:26 says God made man in His image and likeness, and Genesis 2 says He breathed into man the breath of life so that humanity became a living being—a living soul. You were created in the image of God, meaning you have a consciousness different than the rest of creation and a connection to a spiritual realm that lies outside our ordinary senses.

We also bear that image in our procreative and creative capacity. God is a Creator, and He made you with creative ability. Look at the world around us—what started with rudimentary elements, through God's common grace in humanity, has become magnificent things. By now we should have flying cars; we don't yet, but I'm sure Elon Musk will give us that soon.

Why the Tree at All?

Some people read Genesis with a skeptical eye. Many in the American Church believe these to be historic events, that there really were two individuals in the Garden of Eden—and perhaps that's your view. Other Christians say these are metaphorical writings. However you look at them, they set the basis for reality as we know it.

The skeptic asks: if God did this, why did He allow the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which leads to so much trouble? Point number one, though, is what the text actually says: God's original creation was very good. Seven times in chapter 1 God says "it is good," and at the close He saw everything He had made, and indeed it was very good.

I want to suggest God allowed that tree because He was constrained by His nature. Some think God has zero limitation, but that's not how Scripture describes Him. God is truth and cannot lie. And 1 John 4 tells us God is love. Constrained by His nature, God would not create beings in His image and then force them to love and serve Him. To create within the constraints of love, He created the opportunity to choose—and therefore the tree.

Disobedience Brings Sin, Brokenness, and Death

Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?"... "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." (Genesis 3:1–5)

When the woman saw the tree was good for food, pleasant to the eyes, and desirable to make one wise, she took its fruit and ate, and gave to her husband, and he ate. Then their eyes were opened, they knew they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together. Previously they were naked and not ashamed; now, with their eyes opened, came shame. What was united—the two becoming one flesh—was disrupted and divided by sin.

Then they heard the Lord God walking in the garden and hid themselves. That's guilt. And the Lord called, "Where are you?" For many of us this morning, that's a good question. Where are you? Are you hiding from God, ashamed, filled with guilt?

Point number two: Man's disobedience brought sin, brokenness, and death to God's very good creation. When Adam and Eve ate, they didn't keel over dead on the spot, but a death took place—a separation, a division. The two who had become one were now separated; the vertical connection with God was severed. Romans 5 tells us through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and death spread to all humanity because all sinned.

A World That Ought Not to Be

This is the predicament every one of us is born into. We experience this brokenness very acutely. Even people skeptical of the Genesis account still recognize we live in a broken world. Ask any skeptic—someone who reads Richard Dawkins or Sam Harris—"Do you think the world is broken?" and they'll agree. And what's fascinating is that they also sense it ought not to be.

Most of us can remember when the brokenness of the world first dawned on us. For me it was the summer between fifth and sixth grade. An uncle I'd never met took his own life in Northern California, and I drove with my grandmother to the funeral. It affected me deeply, partly because he had a son my age. Just a few months later it hit again—a friend who sat right next to me in class died suddenly in an accident.

Have you ever stood at an open grave and watched a casket lowered into it? Something within you says, "This is not as it is supposed to be." Where does that come from? I suggest it's a recollection deep in our hearts of a world that once was and is no longer—and a desire for it.

This brings me to one of my favorite quotes, C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world." Within you, whether you admit it or not, is a desire for a world without death, brokenness, and suffering. That's why people are drawn into nursing, medicine, emergency services—to alleviate suffering. When an earthquake strikes Haiti or a tsunami hits Japan, tens of millions of dollars pour out to relieve people we'll never meet. You don't see chimpanzees grieving for elephants in Africa. But you do, because there's a sense in us that things are not as they should be.

God's Promise to Redeem and Restore

In hindsight we somehow remember a world that once was. But Scripture gives us the promise that we can also know that world as a future vision. That promise comes early, in Genesis 3:15—a prophecy of God dealing with the problem sin brought into the world.

Point number three: God has promised to redeem our sinfulness and restore our brokenness. This is the meta-narrative of the 66 books of the Bible—written over 1,500 years by 40 authors in three languages on three continents, yet a cohesive overarching story. It unfolds in four acts: creation (Genesis 1–2), fall (Genesis 3), redemption (Genesis 3 onward), and finally restoration.

Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away... And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, "Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them... And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying... for the former things have passed away." Then He who sat on the throne said, "Behold, I make all things new." (Revelation 21:1–5)

Isn't that good news? Who wouldn't wish for a day when every tear is wiped away, no sorrow, no crying, no pain, no death? You don't have to be a believer to want that.

And he showed me a pure river of water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding from the throne of God and of the Lamb... In the middle of its street, and on either side of the river, was the tree of life... And there shall be no more curse. (Revelation 22:1–3)

The last time we saw the tree of life was in Genesis 3. The curse of Genesis 3 is gone.

How Do We Get There?

The question is: how do we get from Genesis 3, the world as we know it, to Revelation 21 and 22, the world as we long to see it? For the answer, turn to John 1.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God... All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. (John 1:1–5)

The Word is not a thing; He is a person. Genesis tells part of the story; John gives us the rest. The Word, the true Light, came into the world He had made, and the world did not know Him, separated by sin.

He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name... And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:11–14)

The Word became flesh; Light came into darkness to bring life to those suffering the effects of sin and death. As John 3:16–17 says, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved."

Redeemed From Sin, Given Life in His Name

Point number four: The Word of God came to redeem us from sin and to give life through His name. That's why "life through Jesus" is in orange on the bulletin. How did He bring life? By taking our sin, guilt, brokenness, and shame upon Himself on the cross. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 5:21, "He who knew no sin became sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him." He takes your sin and shame and gives you His grace, mercy, forgiveness, and redemption.

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins... But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. (Ephesians 2:1–9)

Then Paul calls us to remember that we were once without Christ, aliens, strangers from the covenants, having no hope, without God in the world.

But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation... 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. (Ephesians 2:13–16)

Christ Restores Us to God and One Another

Point number five: Christ gives life and restores us to God and to one another. God created a very good creation; man's disobedience brought sin, brokenness, shame, and death—which we know all too well because we live in it daily. But Jesus came to bring restoration, redemption, grace, forgiveness, and mercy.

For some of you this is not new news; you know it so well you could preach it. But it's good to be reminded, and that's part of why we regularly partake of communion. The bread symbolizes His body broken for us, the cup His blood shed for us, for the remission of sins—so that we would remember. For others, perhaps this is the first time it has fully made sense. If so, I want to suggest God may be drawing you to put your trust in Him, because John 1:12 says as many as received Him, who believed in His name, to them He gave the right to be called the children of God.

Invitation

As Romans 10:9 says, "If you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation."

Maybe today is the day for you to put your trust in Jesus. You know the brokenness of this world, and you know in your heart a desire for a world without it, where every tear is wiped away—but you have not yet experienced the redemption of Jesus, so you have no hope of that future restoration. God wants you to know the redeeming grace of Jesus. If that's you, I'll trust that you'll respond as we pray, and then we'll prepare our hearts to partake of communion together.

Closing Prayer

Father, we thank You for the work of transformation You want to do in each of our hearts and minds in 2020—that it would be evident in the way we think, respond, speak, and walk day by day, that we would more and more take on the likeness of Your children, manifesting Your nature: love, joy, peace, gentleness, kindness, self-control. You have predestined us to be conformed into the image of Your Son, as Romans 8 says, so fulfill that in us. We are confident that He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the day of Christ Jesus. Accomplish that in us individually and as a church corporately.

We thank You for Your grace and for the forgiveness You give, that through Jesus we can have life through Your name. Once we have life through You, we can experience a restored connection with God and a restored connection with one another within the body of Christ. And Your desire in 2020 is that we would take that reality to other people in this broken and chaotic world. Prepare our hearts now, as we worship You, to partake of communion. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen.