God's Story, Our Story
CROSS CULTURE
Cross Culture Series part 1; God's Story, Our Story
Dr. David Platt
05/27/07
Well, if you have your Bibles and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Genesis 3. Go ahead and strap on your seatbelts – I didn't get to preach last week, so we got a lot ground to cover this morning. We're going do things a little different, though. I want to welcome you this morning, not just to worship, but to class. I am your professor, David Platt, and for the next few weeks, we're going do things a little different. I'm convinced one of the greatest inadequacies in the church is the fact that many – I would even say most Christ followers struggle with an inability and uncomfortability when it comes to sharing the gospel, sharing our faith, with other people. The majority of us in this room simply do not feel confident when it comes to sharing our faith with other people, and as a result, the majority of us in this room rarely (if ever) in our Christianity share our faith with somebody else outside of our families. And yet we've seen that in disciple-making, sharing the Word is the first component of what it means to make disciples of all nations, so we're commanded to share the Word.
So what do we do? One option is to have an evangelism class, but I know enough from history of evangelism classes that not a lot of people sign up for evangelism classes. Time, schedule, commitments – things just kind get in the way. So I'm going bring evangelism class to you, and for the next six weeks, we're going have a course in sharing our faith. We're going be serious about what it means to take the gospel that's been entrusted to us and share it with other people. So what you've got on the front page of your notes here is the syllabus for the course, okay? Some of you, it's been a long time since you've seen one of these. Some of you high schoolers are thinking, "I thought we got finished with these this last week." Well, they're back, okay? Here's the syllabus for the course, and I want us to run down this and give you an overview of where we're headed with this thing called cross-culture. You see at the top "The mission: The Church of Brook Hills exists to awaken the passion for the glory of God by making disciples of all nations. This is their overarching mission." This is where what we're gonna do ties in with where we've been the last few weeks, this series on awaken, awakening to the glory of God and worship that propels us to make disciples of all nations. So that's the mission.
The course purpose – now this is huge. Pay attention to this close. The purpose of this course is to equip, enable, and empower the people of the Church of Brook Hills to share the Word in any culture they live or serve in. Now, I want to take a step back for just a second here and acknowledge the fact that I've been a pastor for a little less than a year now, and I realize that with almost a year under my belt, I've still got a good bit to learn about what it means to be a pastor, what it means to lead the church, but over the last year, as I've looked at the contemporary scene, and particularly the mega-church scene, here's the way I see the situation: I see us building the church on a couple of things. Building the church on having a solid, rock-solid worship performance on Sunday mornings – now, this is admittedly simplistic but follow me. I think it's true. A performance on Sunday mornings and programs that can draw people to a particular location for Sunday morning one time a week, maybe even multiple locations, but if we have the quality performance and we have the right charismatic communicator, then we can bring people to church one time a week and they can come to faith in Christ and thus we can grow the church. And in that whole process, I think we create an unhealthy dependence on that charismatic communicator and that quality show and those quality performances, that we begin to think, you know, if the church would do the right stuff and put on the right show, then we'll be able to draw people in.
One of the underlying presuppositions here, though, is that the most effective way to reach people in Birmingham, for example, for Christ is to bring them into this building when I just don't think that's true. I think the majority of people who don't have a relationship with Christ are not running into this building every week. I don't really expect them to. However, there are 4,000 people who are gonna worship here this morning that are going to be rubbing shoulders with all of those people out in this community the next six days of this week. And so maybe, just maybe, instead of using our resources to have the best performance and the best programs that will draw the crowds to the institution of the church, maybe we should use our resources to build up the best people who will go out in this community and draw the crowds to the person of Jesus Christ. And so I want to say, as effective as some may believe that other strategy may be, I just don't believe it's what God is leading us to do at the Church at Brooks Hills. If I am equipped, enabled, and empowered to preach the Word and lead people to Christ, that's one thing; however, if 4,000 people are equipped, enabled, and empowered to lead people to Jesus Christ throughout this community, then we're gonna see God do amazing things, things that we never could have imagined in this particular location at this particular time.
I was having a conversation this last week with a good friend and a mega-church leader. We were talking about the worship series that we've been studying and I was talking about how our worship services at the Church at Brook Hills are really not designed around unbelievers, those who don't know Christ. They're actually designed around how we can most effectually magnify God's Word among God's people and engage people in the worship of God, and that worship fuels us in our mission. And he was kinda surprised – a little shocked, actually, by it and he said, "Don't you think that's counterintuitive?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, how is Brook Hills going to engage people who don't know Christ in Birmingham?" I said, "Well, our people are gonna do it all week long." And he said, "Well, if the primary purpose of your worship service is not to draw unbelievers to Christ, then how are those unbelievers gonna come to know Christ?" I said, "I think our people are gonna lead 'em to Christ," and he said, "Well, okay, say they lead 'em to Christ, then how are they gonna grow in Christ?" I said, "I hope that our people are gonna be equipped to make disciples and lead people to be a disciple of Christ." I looked at him, I said, "I really would like to see the people of God unleashed to fulfill the purpose for which they were created in the very mission of their lives without being dependent on the institution of the church to do the work for them." He was shocked. He said, "That's really interesting."
So I got in the car and, almost dumbfounded, I'm starting to think, "Have I just missed it? Am I just misleading these poor people called the Church at Brook Hills?" And then I was reminded of something that I want to reiterate to you this morning. I want to remind you that I believe in you. I believe in the people of God and I believe in the power of Christ at work in the people of God. And we are staking the success of our mission as a church, not on one charismatic communicator or not on one certain performance, but on you, all of us in this room, being equipped, enabled, and empowered to impact the world for the glory of Jesus Christ. People, not performances or programs. People are God's method for winning the world to Himself. So that's the driving purpose behind this course. We are gonna be equipped, enabled, and empowered. Sound good? Okay, here we go.
The objectives. Here's the takeaway from this course. By the end of this course, we will have a holistic understanding of the salvation God has given to us. Not only that, we'll also have a greater awareness of how the gospel relates to different cultures in the world and as a result – here's where it's all headed – we will be able to share our story and the gospel story in any context as we join with God in the work of making disciples of all nations. That's the takeaway. We walk through this over the next six weeks, then the takeaway is that every single one of us is going to be equipped to share our story and the gospel story in any context where we find ourselves in. The outline, here's the – where we're going over the next six weeks, just to give you a picture.
Week One, which is today, we'll examine the consequences of sin in Genesis 3 and understand how our story fits into God's overall story of salvation.
Week Two, next week, we'll explore Jesus' approach toward bringing the Father's salvation to the world and consider the implications for how we, too, can be involved in God's work just like Jesus was.
Week Three – pay attention close here – we will see how the gospel makes the guilty innocent before God and learn how to share the gospel in guilt-based cultures. Now, that may not make a lot of sense right now, but that's where we're really gonna get into the cross-cultural picture. Over the next few months, we've got approximately 1,500 people from this church who are going out into other cultures, sharing the gospel, on short-term mission trips. So I think it'd be wise for us to think through how the gospel relates to other cultures. If we're gonna make disciples of all nations, we need to know how to share the gospel in all nations. So this is where we're gonna begin to get into that.
Week Four, we'll see how the gospel provides power to overcome fear of God and learn how to share the gospel in fear-based cultures.
Then, Week Five, we'll see how the gospel brings honor to all who have shame before God and learn how to share the gospel in shame-based cultures. That'll make more sense as we go along, even today.
Then, Week Six, we will culminate our study by seeing that God has designed to use us to display His power and His glory in leading people to Christ.
That's where we're all headed. Now, here's the methodology, course-teaching methodology. This course will be composed of corporate worship, teaching from the Word, participation in in-class activities, okay? No spectators in class in this thing; we're gonna participate in some in-class activities together. And then, homework assignments. All right? Now, follow me here. I know that's not the part you're most excited about, when you signed up to come to worship this morning. Well, we're gonna have some homework that's gonna flow from this thing, and ultimately, the personal involvement of men and women in sharing the gospel. Textbooks? Of course, the Bible. Bring the Bible and then we're gonna have this book available or you could get it if you'd like it. This is a book that I read a couple of years ago. It's called Honor and Shame and I was traveling over to East Asia to do some training in evangelism with house churches, and I was reading this book and it's only about 100 pages long, but as soon as I read it, I thought, "If I ever have the opportunity to put a book in the hands of people who are going into other cultures to share the gospel, this is the book I would do it." This is really – it's a great book. Not necessary, but if you'd like to dive deeper, that's one resource you could go with.
All right – you ready? There's the syllabus. Let's turn it over to the other side and let's get started. There are cameras in the room that will be taking attendance every week, so just make sure you sit in the same – I'm just playing. Okay. Here we go. Here's the picture we're gonna start with. We're gonna start with a picture of God's story and how our story fits into God's story. In Genesis 3, the reason we're gonna start in this particular text, with the entrance of sin into the world, is because the entire mission of the church exists because sin exists. The mission of God is to address sin and all of its effects in different cultures all over the world, among all the peoples of the world. So we've gotta understand Genesis 3. If we don't understand Genesis 3, it's like trying to read a novel and skipping the first few chapters and then going on with the rest of the novel without having a foundation of everything else. Genesis 3 is huge. We will never understand why we need a savior, why that savior needs to die, rise from the grave, why that savior needs to come back, why that savior will ultimately destroy creation and create a new heaven and a new earth. Why will that happen? It's all contingent on understanding Genesis 3.
So let's start in verse 1. We're gonna read the first ten verses, get a picture of the entrance of sin into the world. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."' 'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 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. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.'"
Now let's stop there, and in the very first few verses of this chapter, I want us to see two components of God's story already beginning to come together. First of all, I want us to see creation's problem, and creation's problem is our sin. Obviously, sin comes into the world here, and I believe there are three primary effects, three primary consequences of sin in Genesis 3. The first one, we see in verse 7. Soon as they ate from this tree, it says 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. No. 1 effect of sin, we are guilty before God. They realized they were naked – it was deeper than just that. They lost their innocence at this point. All of a sudden, for the first time, they felt the sting of their consciences, and they knew the difference between right and wrong, and they knew they had done wrong, and they knew they were guilty before God. At this moment, guilt passed down to all mankind, all of us in this room have a knowledge of right and wrong and all of us know that at some point, we've done wrong. We're guilty before God.
Second, we have shame before God. So what did they do? It says they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden of the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Now, you compare that to the very end of chapter 2, verse 25, right before this chapter we read. It says the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. No shame, and all of a sudden when sin enters the world, here they are shamed before God, trying to cover themselves, afraid to even be in his presence, and their shame leads to blame. Adam blames Eve and really ultimately blames God, says, "This is the woman you put here with me that caused this to happen." And at this point, not just guilt, but we see shame entering into humanity. As a result of sin, we have shame before God.
Third, we are afraid of God. The Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" And he answered, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." Now, this is quite a reversal. They used to enjoy the presence of God. Genesis 2, they're enjoying His presence. Now they're terrified of His presence. Why is that? Well, look in chapter 2, verse 17. God said, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." No wonder they were afraid. They realized what they'd eaten and they knew that they had a lot of reason to fear. And so now the joy in God's presence has turned into terror in God's presence, so they're hiding. So here's the picture: Man and woman, they realize – sin enters the world, they realize at that moment they've done something wrong. They try to cover themselves in shame and they hid because they're afraid of encountering God.
I remember a few years ago, I went to spend a weekend at a monastery. It was a time in my life where I was making some decisions and wanted just some time away, and so this particular monastery that was near where I was living, you could just go and stay for the weekend and you could eat there and sleep there and just walk around the gardens. It was just a good time to get away and so I did. I got there, though, too late to attend the orientation where they tell you what parts of the monastery you can go in and what parts you can't go in. There's parts that you can be around the monks; there's parts that are just for the monks. And so that first morning I was there, I was wandering around the monastery, and I opened a door and walked into this beautiful courtyard. Had a fountain in the middle and plants and shrubs and bushes all around and it was just beautiful. I start walking around on the outskirts of the courtyard, and it was enclosed by buildings, and I look inside the windows that are surrounding the courtyard and I see where the monks eat and I saw where the monks study, their library. And it was about that time that I realized, "I don't think this is one of those places where I'm supposed to be."
It was at that very moment that, on the other side of the courtyard, a door opens and a monk walks in. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. Didn't want to get by the monk in the wrong place, and so I dove behind this bush. Unfortunately, a completely true story, I dove behind this bush, I was nestled in between a bush and column right behind me, and this monk – I could hear his footsteps, he's walking around the courtyard, and I'm just praying, I'm like, "Lord, I know he has spent a lot more time with you than I have, but I really would like you to get me out of this one." Just praying that he does not see me. And so he's walking just feet from me and I'm sitting there just sweating profusely. I'll be honest – I was just a little bit tempted to jump out and try to scare the guy, but I thought that might ruin his whole vow of silence thing, which I didn't want to go there, and so I just decided to stay put and finally, the monk left on the other side of the courtyard and as soon as he walked out, I bolted and got out of the courtyard. There was a sense in which instantly, I knew I'd done something wrong, I was ashamed, I hid behind this bush and afraid of what would happen if this monk – I don't know what he would've done to me but if this monk would've caught me.
So we've got the picture of all three in Genesis 3. We've got guilt, we've got shame, and we've got fear. And this picture is foundational for understanding the rest of the Bible. Because this is the position that all of us find ourselves in. And don't forget, in Genesis 3, it's at this point that God is completely just. He is completely right in leaving man in his guilt and leaving man in his shame and in leaving man in his fear. We cannot underestimate the power of the effects of sin in Genesis 3, or in our life, especially in a relativistic culture that we live in today that minimizes and tries to redefine sin, even saying it really doesn't exist. We'll never understand the picture of the rest of the Bible if we don't understand these facets, these consequences, of sin. So that's creation's problem. So what does the Creator do? What's the Creator's resolution? This is the picture of the story here. Creation's problem is our sin. The Creator's resolution is His salvation. I want us to see how even right here in Genesis 3, God begins giving us a picture that's gonna spread throughout the rest of the Bible of His salvation.
Now, it's at this point I want you to get your Bibles ready. We're gonna turn – for each one of these, I want us to see how God starts something here in Genesis 3 that he continues all the way to the end of the Bible. First of all, what does the Creator do? He seeks the guilty. Verse 10: "Where are you?" Verse 9: "Where are you?" This is a very easy way for Adam and Eve to get off at this point. They should be dead, they should be sentenced to death, but God comes seeking after them and for the first time, we see the picture of God the Father seeking after His children. It's a picture we see over and over and over again. Genesis 12, God is seeking after Abraham, even when he's an idolator. God seeks after Moses when he's a fugitive, fleeing in Midian. We see God seeking after Jacob when he's running from his sin. We see God seeking after Elijah when Elijah is literally running from God and the task God had given to him. We see Jesus coming up to tax collectors like Matthew in Mark 2:14 and saying, "Follow me." He's initiating relationships. We see Jesus (Luke 19:10), "My whole purpose was to seek and to save those who were lost." We see the seeking God, and he's seeking after the guilty.
Let me show you that. Turn over two books to the right to Leviticus 5. You might underline these verses or write them down. But basically, I want to give you a tour of what God does in response to our guilt, what God does in response to our shame, and what God does in response to our fear. Leviticus 5:5-6. This is the beginning of the people of God in the Old Testament. Listen to what God says. It says, verse 5, "When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him and for his sin." When anyone is guilty, here's what he needs to do. God is making provision for the guilt of his people.
Now, turn with me over to Ezra. You'll go past 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles, then you'll come to Ezra. Look at Ezra 9. Ezra is chronologically very close to the end of the Old Testament, though it's not – in the books, we've got a long way to go to get to Malachi. Chronologically, it's at the end of the Old Testament. So I want you to look at Ezra 9:6. Beginning with the people of God in the Old Testament, God is making a way to cover over their guilt. Look at what happens in Ezra 9:6. Do God's people still have a guilt problem? Listen to what he prays. He says, "O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our forefathers until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today."
Skip down to verse 13. The guilt continues. "What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this." Look at verse 15. "O Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence." Same problem in Genesis 3 still present. We've got guilt among the people of God and we've got God seeking after them, but there's still a guilt problem.
Now go to John 8. We've seen chronologically the beginning of the Old Testament and the end of the Old Testament. Look at John 8. Jesus comes on the scene. Now, how did Jesus and this guilt picture relate to each other? Look at John 8:46. Matthew, Mark, Luke, then John. Look at chapter 8, verse 46. Jesus comes on the scene in light of that Old Testament picture and what does he say? He's having a discussion with religious leaders who would come up with all kinds of laws and regulations they would follow to try to be innocent before God, try to be righteous, and what does Jesus say? Verse 46: "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me?" Jesus basically comes on the scene and says, "I have no guilt in me. You can't point to one thing in my life where I am guilty of sin." So Jesus has broken a pattern here. Then He dies on the cross, rises from the grave – turn over to John 16. What does Jesus do? He sends the Holy Spirit. What's the purpose of the Holy Spirit in the world? Look at John 16:8. This is Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit and He says, "When he comes [meaning the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit comes], he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." The spirit of God will convict people of our guilt. The reason we know right and wrong, the reason we have that sense of guilt, is because the Holy Spirit of God does that in us.
What we see later on, in the New Testament – we won't turn there just for the sake of time, but 2 Corinthians 5:21 – some of you may remember what this says – it says, "God made him who had no sin [who had no guilt] to be sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God." That word literally means innocent, right before God. Here's the beauty of all the Scripture from Genesis 3 on is God is continually, perpetually seeking after the guilty and He's taking our guilt, He has put it on Jesus Christ, and He has taken the innocence of Christ, who had no guilt, and He's put it on us, so that you and I can have the privilege of standing innocent before God, even despite our sin. It's an incredible story from cover to cover in Scripture, of God seeking the guilty.
Now let's come back to Genesis 3. Let's see the second prong of this picture. Not only does God seek the guilty, but he covers the shameful. He covers the shameful. We see in Genesis 3, the verses we read, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They're trying to cover over their shame, but they're not able to do it on their own; they need God to do that for them. So when you get to Genesis 3:21, what does it say? It says, "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and he clothed them." So God clothed, covered over, their shame. How did He do it, though? Don't miss it – this is subtle. He takes garments of skin. What we see for the first time is death is being introduced in the Bible here. The death of an animal. In order for a garment of skin to be on Adam or Eve, then some animal had to lose that skin. And so God takes an innocent animal, it's a sacrifice, to cover over the shame of Adam and Eve. That's a picture that continues. You get to the very next chapter, chapter 4, verse 3, Cain and Abel are bringing offerings to God. Listen to what it says in verse 3: "In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord." But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." The picture is of God accepting. Acceptable worship is the sacrifice of this animal that Abel brought.
You get to Genesis 8, just a few chapters over, Noah builds the Ark and survives the flood with his family and all these animals on board. It says in Genesis 8:20, after the flood, it says: "Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." What we see from the very beginning here, it just gets deeper in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It's God proscribing for His people to take animals and offer them as sacrifices to cover over the shame of His people's sin. And it happens over and over and over again throughout the Old Testament. Fast-forward with me to one of the prophets. Go to Isaiah. I want you to look at Isaiah 53. I want you to turn over to here. This is one of the most incredible pictures of God covering the shameful. What I want you to do – turn to Isaiah 53 and we're gonna look at verse 4. What I want you to do as we read these verses, I want you to think about the reversal here. Shame and honor. I want you to see how shame is put on the servant of God and honor is brought to the people of God.
This is an incredible, absolutely incredible text that's talking about Jesus. Listen to Isaiah 53:4. "Surely he [talking about Jesus] took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted." Who's receiving the shame here? Jesus is. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace [honor] was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned in his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth." Do you see the picture there? Shame poured out on Christ. What's the result?
Get one chapter over, chapter 54, verse 4. What does God say to His people? Listen to this – underline this: " Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth." Did you get that picture? God says you will not even be able to remember your shame because "I've covered over it." By pouring out His shame on Christ.
So fast-forward to the very last book in the Bible. Go to Revelation 19. This part of the storyline started back in Genesis, the same of God's people. Clothed in their sin and the shame that accompanies that. Look at Revelation 19:7. Here's a picture of all of God's people who trusted in Christ to cover over them, and listen to what it says. We studied this text a few weeks ago. "Let us rejoice and be glad" – Revelation 19:7 – "for the wedding of the Lamb has come" [the animal whose sacrifice made it possible for us to have our shame covered], "and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." Not dressed in their sin but dressed in His honor. You get over to chapter 21, verse 27, last verse of chapter 21 – listen to this – it's talking about heaven. Picture in Genesis 3, man covered in his shame. Listen to Revelation 21:27. "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." Don't miss this. In the very beginning of the Bible, God takes an innocent animal and uses its sacrifice to cover over the shame of His people. Thus begins a process where he does that over and over and over again through animal after animal after animal. Jesus comes on the scene in John 1:29 and John says, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Jesus sacrifices His life on the cross. The shame of our sin is put on Him so that we can stand without shame before God one day, dressed in the honor that he has bought for us. God is in the business of covering over our sin. He covers the shameful, He seeks the guilty.
Third, one more tour. He protects the fearful. Man is afraid of God, so what does God do? He protects the fearful. Come back to Genesis 3. We know that God had promised, man sinned, man ate from this tree, he would die. So you get to Genesis 3:20 and "Adam named his wife" – what? Okay, that was an easy one, all right? Class, are we still together? Okay. "Adam named his wife –"
Response: Eve.
Okay, all right, there. You coulda been asleep all to this point and you'd still be able to get that question, all right? "Adam named his wife Eve." Eve means the mother of all the living. Now that's a weird name to give the woman you think is to blame for this whole sin picture that's come in. Why would he say that? Why would he call her Eve? Because God had made a promise. This is what we studied, if you remember, when we studied this text last November. God had made a promise in Genesis 3:15 that through Eve would come one who have the power to crush evil and to crush Satan. Mother of all the living. I want you to see God protecting the fearful here. What does He do? It says in the verses that follow, verse 23 and 24, the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden. It even says, "After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the" – what? The tree of life. Why would He not want them to go into the tree of life? Because if they ate of the tree of life, it says they will live forever. God does not want His creation to live in this picture, guilt, shame, and fear before Him for all of eternity. And so He protects them from the Garden of Eden. They're not gonna eat from the tree of life. And what we see over and over again throughout the rest of Scripture is man afraid in the presence of God.
Write this down: Exodus 3:4-6. Moses comes in contact with a burning bush. He's a little freaked out by the whole picture, and he goes over to look at the bush and the bush starts speaking to him now. The bush says, "Take off your sandals." God says, through the bush, "Take off your sandals. The place where you're standing is holy," and God says, "I am the God of your father, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob," and at this – verse 6 says, "At this, Moses hid his face" in fear from the Lord. Afraid to look at God. Moses, afraid to look at God. Exodus 20:18. Right after God had given His people the Ten Commandments, it says they saw the smoke on the mountain and they literally begged Moses, "You talk to God for us – we're afraid to go anywhere near Him." Isaiah 6:1-8. Isaiah comes in contact with the presence of God, and what does he say? "Woe is me. I am miserable in the presence of God." Why? Because there's a fear in the presence of God. You even get to the New Testament, Hebrews 10:31, it says: "It's a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Because of our sin, we have reason to be afraid of His presence.
Fast-forward to the end, Revelation 6. Let me show you two texts in Revelation, show you a contrast here. God protecting the fearful. Look at Revelation 6:15. This is a picture of those who have not trusted in God, who have not received His salvation. Listen to this, Revelation 6:15 – see if this sounds familiar to Genesis 3. "Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?'" Fear of God. Hiding from God because of our sin. Thankfully, though, the story does not end here.
Fast-forward to Revelation 22. You've gotta see this in light of Genesis 3. Banished from the Garden of Eden; "Do not eat from the tree of life." So what does God do? Look at Revelation 22:1. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city." Listen to this: "On each side of the river stood the tree of" – what?
Response: Life.
It's back. From Genesis 3, it's back. Now the tree of life is "bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him." Underline these next five words: "They will see his face." Praise God that though, because of our sin, fear and terror strike us in His presence. He has protected us and is preserving us as we trust in Him for the day when, ladies and gentlemen, we will see His face, and we will find great joy in His presence, not terror. This is a good story. It's a good story. From our sin to His salvation; God seeking after the guilty; God covering over the shameful; God protecting the fearful. Now, all of those components are part of our salvation. I think we have a tendency to emphasize one over the other sometimes. I talk sometimes with believers, Christ followers, who know they're innocent before God but they still carry around the shame of their sin. Just can't seem to get free from that. Or people who have trusted in Christ to forgive them their sin, they know they're right before God, but they're still plagued by fears in this world. And all of them are part of our salvation. I think part of the reason we emphasize one over the other has to do with our culture. That's actually what's gonna vault us into thinking about the gospel in different cultures. But suffice it to say at this point that God's salvation, this picture of Him seeking after us when we were guilty and covering us in our shame and protecting us from fear of Him.
Now, with that picture, I want us to take a step deeper and I want us to see how our story fits into God's story. This is good. Follow me here. The greatest realization we can make in what we just studied in God's word is that we have a story that fits into this story. God's ultimate story of bringing us, man, from sin to His salvation. We have a story that fits into that. I want us to begin to make this story that we've seen in the Bible personal. Make your story personal. One of my favorite questions to ask folks is, "What's your story?" Especially Christ followers. You know, "What's your story? How did you come to faith in Christ? What is your story?" And I've asked that question many different times and heard countless different stories. And I wanna be just gut-level honest with you, if I can. I want to be delicate but honest. Most of the time when I've asked that question, the picture is not always pretty in the response that comes back. I've heard a variety of different stories from a variety of different people, and many times, the picture that is there is just, in a very nice way, appalling. What I mean by that is this: We have a tendency, all of us, to bumble and stumble through this circuitous trip down spiritual memory lane that somewhere along the way can tend to lose people, and I've heard some stories that if I was far from God and even had a tinge of interest in Christianity, after hearing that story, I might recommit myself to paganism.
Now, some of you think that that's too harsh, but I'm not gonna make any apologies at this point. We all need our bells rung on this one. We all need to be able to communicate our faith stories with clarity and with power to people who don't know Jesus Christ, plain and simple. If I were to ask you right now point blank in the next 45 seconds to a minute to give me a picture of what Christ has done in your life, would you be able to give me a clear, powerful, concise, beautiful picture of what Christ has done in your life? If not, why not? If we're gonna be good at anything, we need to be good at this thing. We need to be good at telling people what a difference Christ has made in our lives. So, let's all, including myself, let's all pick up our feelings off the floor and let's think about how we can make our stories count. Make our stories count. How has God brought you from your sin to your salvation? I want to give you a few things to think about. How can we make our stories count? If you've got a moment to share what Christ has done in your life, how can you make it count?
First of all, my encouragement is: Keep it brief. Keep it brief. We've got to avoid being long-winded here, okay? I want you to think about if you literally had 45 seconds to share your story, what would that look like? So that if you – you could share that if you were sitting at lunch or dinner or over coffee at Starbucks or you could share that walking down the hall at the office or walking through the neighborhood with your dog and you talk to a neighbor very quickly, that you could be able to share your story in a very concise, brief moment. So be brief. Second, keep it simple. Keep it simple. We don't need to go into a half dozen plot lines with 16 different main characters that get us lost in the whole picture; it's not necessary. We don't have to tell about all the books we've read and all the conferences we attended 12 years ago and all the aisles we've walked and all the angels who appeared in our bedroom – we don't have to tell all about all those things. Just keep it simple, okay? There's one story line, one plot line here. Three facets, very simple. First of all, simple description of who you were – who we were before we met Christ. Before we met Christ, "this is what my life looked like." Then the fact that we came into a relationship with Christ, sometimes (surprisingly) not even included in people's stories but a very important part of our story. And then third, a simple description of who we are after walking with Christ for a time. It's a simple before-and-after story. Very simple picture here.
We don't have to make it complex, we don't even have to be dramatic. In fact, I would say avoid the drama. Avoid the drama. We usually come down on either side of this spectrum right here: Either No. 1, we start going into all the experiences with drugs and alcohol and wild living and pagan rituals that we had before we met Christ that before long, the people we're talking to are not inspired by us; they're scared of us. That's not a good thing. Then on the other side of the spectrum, many of us came to faith in Christ when we were 5, 6, 7 years old. Unfortunately, we didn't have the opportunity to get involved in drugs before we came to Christ, and so we think, "I don't have a good story. I don't have enough drama in my story." I want to say, whatever side you're on, avoid the drama. Here's the deal: I want to free you up here. The story of God becoming a man and dying a shameful death on a cross, then rising from the grave to save all of us from our sins – that story's got enough drama in it already. Let God provide the drama and then you just kind of support, okay? Many times, when we include all our drama, it misses the drama of the real story. So avoid the drama; keep it simple. Keep it brief; keep it simple.
Third, keep it focused. Keep it focused. Don't forget, God is the hero of this story, not us. You're not the hero of the story. Everything doesn't hinge on your transformation. It hinges on what Jesus did to transform you. God, Christ, they're important in this story, so keep 'em there at the very center. Keep it focused. Next, keep it understandable. We've gotta put ourselves in the shoes of people who don't go to church, who don't know anything about Jesus, who don't know anything about God, and begin to think about how our story relates to other people in that kind of setting. It's at this point that I want to encourage you to avoid Christianese. Now, Christianese is this little secret language that you and I know that nobody else knows. It's all these terms that we use that everybody else in the world is clueless about. Now, I'm not saying that those terms aren't good – they're Biblical terms. But we need to think through what people hear when they hear the word "repent." They picture the guy with the picket sign walking up and down the streets. That's what they picture, so maybe we should think of another way to describe that or "accepting Jesus into our hearts." What is that about? You "walked the aisle and made Jesus your personal Lord and Savior." Excuse me? If we have an opportunity to share the gospel, the last thing we need to share is that "I invited the sovereign Lord into my soul, where He delivered me by His blood from the propitiation that separated me, in my depravity, from the glorious nature of Yahweh, God." That's not the picture we need to share with others when we have an opportunity to tell our story. Keep it understandable. Avoid Christianese.
And then, keep it humble. Keep it humble. This is huge. There's no quicker way to send a non-Christian, and unbeliever, to the hills than to, in a conversation, seek to establish the roles at the start, "I'm superior and I've got things figured out in my life; you're inferior and substandard to my way of life, and you need what I have as a result of that." That's not effective. I want to remind you, you have a story; you have a story for a reason. And I want to remind you, we're still on a journey. That's okay to still be on a journey and to admit that. Keep it humble.
Finally, keep it clear. Critical contrast. Think about it. What is the difference that Christ has really made in your life? "Well, how can I sum that up in 45 seconds, Dave?" Well, think about it. Even in Scripture, John 3, Nicodemus. What would his simple story of "the difference Christ has made in my life?" "I realized that I could start all over again. I could be born a second time based on God's love for me." That simple. John 4, Samaritan woman at the well. "He told me everything I ever knew and yet He loves me anyway." John 8, the woman caught in adultery. "When everybody wanted to condemn me, Jesus saved me. He accepted me when nobody else would." John 9. "I don't know a lot but I used to be blind and now I'm looking at you, and Jesus made the difference." It's that simple.
So, what is it in your life? Some of you have been plagued by fear all your life. Were plagued by fear. Fear you wore like a straightjacket. Fear in relationships with others, fear before God. When you met Jesus, His confidence began to come into your heart and it's changed everything about your outlook. Maybe you've struggled with a sense of loneliness, aloneness, you've grown up in a dysfunctional family or you've had a marriage that just didn't work out the way it was supposed to, and you found yourself lonely and isolated ______. Then you met Jesus and you realized you were adopted into His family and He was with you. He cared about you. Maybe you have been plagued by the shame of your past and things you've done in the past, and you were at a point where you had tried everything. You tried every method, every relationship, to try to overcome that past and you couldn't do it. When you met Jesus, you found out that you could forget about your past because He had done it for you. It changed everything about your freedom to move forward in the future.
I don't know what your stories are like, but here's the deal: We have had evangelistic fad after fad after fad in the church. It's the tract era (let the paper do it for you). It's the televangelist era (let Billy do it for you). It's the ______ ministry era and the how-can-we-bring-salvation-to-professionals and men and women and hurting men and hurting women and the poor and the rich and this program after that program and this program and I'm not saying all those things are bad. Please hear me. I'm not saying that all those things are bad. However, we've done all those things and still most of us feel inadequate when it comes to sharing the gospel. Then I go over to East Asia and we're talking about sharing the gospel and within a month, they lead 100 people to faith in Christ without any of those programs. And I can't help but to think that maybe, just maybe, God has already uniquely gifted every single Christ follower in this room to share your faith. He has given you a story that ties into His overarching story. So why not get a hold on our story, how that fits into God's story, and be freed up to share that with other people?
So, we head to our in-class assignment. Pull out your blue sheet right here. Okay, here's your blue sheet. This is where we're no longer spectators; we're participants. What you've got at the top is "My Story" and it's the story of my life. My goal and the goal I'm gonna challenge you with is to sum it up in less than 100 words. Listen to my story. This is a picture of me. I grew up in a home that was predominantly – that was Christian. My mom and dad, Godly, and so I didn't have some of the drama that we talked about. Listen to my story. There was a time in my life when my life could be summed up in one word: Do. I was convinced that if I could do enough right things, I could earn favor with God. Thought that if I strived hard enough, I could be accepted by Him. But then I was introduced to Jesus and I discovered that Christianity is not about what I should do, it's about what Jesus had done. He'd done the striving for me and all I needed to do was accept His free gift of grace. This one truth has revolutionized my life for all of eternity. If I could be honest with you, this is still my story. I still find myself trying to do the right things, trying to measure up to the standards that are set around me, and I still find Jesus reminding me that He desires to do the work for me, if I'll let Him.
This is my story. It's – I said 100 words or less – it's exactly 100 words. You would expect nothing less from me, okay? It's exactly 100 words. I hope it's simple. I hope it hinges on Jesus, the difference He's made in my life. I hope it's understandable. I hope I avoided some of those terms or concepts that maybe – not understandable to people. And it sums up the main difference Christ has made in my life. So, here's what I want us to do: I want us to hone in on our stories in this room. What you've got on the rest of the front of this sheet, it says "Your Story" and it has different headings that are listed there and places for you to write some things in. So, for the next few minutes, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you some time to write in these things. Just a guide to begin thinking through your story. And then – this is all leading to your homework, okay? So pay attention close. Your homework's on the back. It says, "Homework for This Week." Your homework is to write out your story in 100 words or less and then, after completing that exercise, to go on the web and turn your homework in, okay? So you gotta turn it in. You won't be graded, but you have to turn it in to get credit for the course, okay?
This is where we're headed. I want to give you some things to think through, how you can get there. I want to challenge each of us, as Christ followers, to do this as individuals; for parents, you have the opportunity to do this with your children, so that we can come back next week ready with our stories, and we'll have an opportunity even between now and then to share our stories with each other. There's a place where you can put on the website, if you would like or would not like, your story to be shared with anybody else. So you can keep it confidential if you'd like, but the whole goal is not to keep our stories confidential in this series. The whole goal is to want to tell others our story.
So, over the next couple minutes, I'm gonna ask Steven and the guys to come up and to lead us in song, and I'm gonna give you a few minutes to fill out the front part of this, and then after we've filled that out for a few moments, then we're gonna have a time where we celebrate God's story through communion. So, for the next few minutes, just take those first – the front part of that page and fill in some of those blanks and begin to think through your story. Then I'll come back up and lead us in our celebration.
CROSS CULTURE
Cross Culture Series part 1; God's Story, Our Story
Dr. David Platt
05/27/07
Well, if you have your Bibles and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Genesis 3. Go ahead and strap on your seatbelts – I didn't get to preach last week, so we got a lot ground to cover this morning. We're going do things a little different, though. I want to welcome you this morning, not just to worship, but to class. I am your professor, David Platt, and for the next few weeks, we're going do things a little different. I'm convinced one of the greatest inadequacies in the church is the fact that many – I would even say most Christ followers struggle with an inability and uncomfortability when it comes to sharing the gospel, sharing our faith, with other people. The majority of us in this room simply do not feel confident when it comes to sharing our faith with other people, and as a result, the majority of us in this room rarely (if ever) in our Christianity share our faith with somebody else outside of our families. And yet we've seen that in disciple-making, sharing the Word is the first component of what it means to make disciples of all nations, so we're commanded to share the Word.
So what do we do? One option is to have an evangelism class, but I know enough from history of evangelism classes that not a lot of people sign up for evangelism classes. Time, schedule, commitments – things just kind get in the way. So I'm going bring evangelism class to you, and for the next six weeks, we're going have a course in sharing our faith. We're going be serious about what it means to take the gospel that's been entrusted to us and share it with other people. So what you've got on the front page of your notes here is the syllabus for the course, okay? Some of you, it's been a long time since you've seen one of these. Some of you high schoolers are thinking, "I thought we got finished with these this last week." Well, they're back, okay? Here's the syllabus for the course, and I want us to run down this and give you an overview of where we're headed with this thing called cross-culture. You see at the top "The mission: The Church of Brook Hills exists to awaken the passion for the glory of God by making disciples of all nations. This is their overarching mission." This is where what we're gonna do ties in with where we've been the last few weeks, this series on awaken, awakening to the glory of God and worship that propels us to make disciples of all nations. So that's the mission.
The course purpose – now this is huge. Pay attention to this close. The purpose of this course is to equip, enable, and empower the people of the Church of Brook Hills to share the Word in any culture they live or serve in. Now, I want to take a step back for just a second here and acknowledge the fact that I've been a pastor for a little less than a year now, and I realize that with almost a year under my belt, I've still got a good bit to learn about what it means to be a pastor, what it means to lead the church, but over the last year, as I've looked at the contemporary scene, and particularly the mega-church scene, here's the way I see the situation: I see us building the church on a couple of things. Building the church on having a solid, rock-solid worship performance on Sunday mornings – now, this is admittedly simplistic but follow me. I think it's true. A performance on Sunday mornings and programs that can draw people to a particular location for Sunday morning one time a week, maybe even multiple locations, but if we have the quality performance and we have the right charismatic communicator, then we can bring people to church one time a week and they can come to faith in Christ and thus we can grow the church. And in that whole process, I think we create an unhealthy dependence on that charismatic communicator and that quality show and those quality performances, that we begin to think, you know, if the church would do the right stuff and put on the right show, then we'll be able to draw people in.
One of the underlying presuppositions here, though, is that the most effective way to reach people in Birmingham, for example, for Christ is to bring them into this building when I just don't think that's true. I think the majority of people who don't have a relationship with Christ are not running into this building every week. I don't really expect them to. However, there are 4,000 people who are gonna worship here this morning that are going to be rubbing shoulders with all of those people out in this community the next six days of this week. And so maybe, just maybe, instead of using our resources to have the best performance and the best programs that will draw the crowds to the institution of the church, maybe we should use our resources to build up the best people who will go out in this community and draw the crowds to the person of Jesus Christ. And so I want to say, as effective as some may believe that other strategy may be, I just don't believe it's what God is leading us to do at the Church at Brooks Hills. If I am equipped, enabled, and empowered to preach the Word and lead people to Christ, that's one thing; however, if 4,000 people are equipped, enabled, and empowered to lead people to Jesus Christ throughout this community, then we're gonna see God do amazing things, things that we never could have imagined in this particular location at this particular time.
I was having a conversation this last week with a good friend and a mega-church leader. We were talking about the worship series that we've been studying and I was talking about how our worship services at the Church at Brook Hills are really not designed around unbelievers, those who don't know Christ. They're actually designed around how we can most effectually magnify God's Word among God's people and engage people in the worship of God, and that worship fuels us in our mission. And he was kinda surprised – a little shocked, actually, by it and he said, "Don't you think that's counterintuitive?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, how is Brook Hills going to engage people who don't know Christ in Birmingham?" I said, "Well, our people are gonna do it all week long." And he said, "Well, if the primary purpose of your worship service is not to draw unbelievers to Christ, then how are those unbelievers gonna come to know Christ?" I said, "I think our people are gonna lead 'em to Christ," and he said, "Well, okay, say they lead 'em to Christ, then how are they gonna grow in Christ?" I said, "I hope that our people are gonna be equipped to make disciples and lead people to be a disciple of Christ." I looked at him, I said, "I really would like to see the people of God unleashed to fulfill the purpose for which they were created in the very mission of their lives without being dependent on the institution of the church to do the work for them." He was shocked. He said, "That's really interesting."
So I got in the car and, almost dumbfounded, I'm starting to think, "Have I just missed it? Am I just misleading these poor people called the Church at Brook Hills?" And then I was reminded of something that I want to reiterate to you this morning. I want to remind you that I believe in you. I believe in the people of God and I believe in the power of Christ at work in the people of God. And we are staking the success of our mission as a church, not on one charismatic communicator or not on one certain performance, but on you, all of us in this room, being equipped, enabled, and empowered to impact the world for the glory of Jesus Christ. People, not performances or programs. People are God's method for winning the world to Himself. So that's the driving purpose behind this course. We are gonna be equipped, enabled, and empowered. Sound good? Okay, here we go.
The objectives. Here's the takeaway from this course. By the end of this course, we will have a holistic understanding of the salvation God has given to us. Not only that, we'll also have a greater awareness of how the gospel relates to different cultures in the world and as a result – here's where it's all headed – we will be able to share our story and the gospel story in any context as we join with God in the work of making disciples of all nations. That's the takeaway. We walk through this over the next six weeks, then the takeaway is that every single one of us is going to be equipped to share our story and the gospel story in any context where we find ourselves in. The outline, here's the – where we're going over the next six weeks, just to give you a picture.
Week One, which is today, we'll examine the consequences of sin in Genesis 3 and understand how our story fits into God's overall story of salvation.
Week Two, next week, we'll explore Jesus' approach toward bringing the Father's salvation to the world and consider the implications for how we, too, can be involved in God's work just like Jesus was.
Week Three – pay attention close here – we will see how the gospel makes the guilty innocent before God and learn how to share the gospel in guilt-based cultures. Now, that may not make a lot of sense right now, but that's where we're really gonna get into the cross-cultural picture. Over the next few months, we've got approximately 1,500 people from this church who are going out into other cultures, sharing the gospel, on short-term mission trips. So I think it'd be wise for us to think through how the gospel relates to other cultures. If we're gonna make disciples of all nations, we need to know how to share the gospel in all nations. So this is where we're gonna begin to get into that.
Week Four, we'll see how the gospel provides power to overcome fear of God and learn how to share the gospel in fear-based cultures.
Then, Week Five, we'll see how the gospel brings honor to all who have shame before God and learn how to share the gospel in shame-based cultures. That'll make more sense as we go along, even today.
Then, Week Six, we will culminate our study by seeing that God has designed to use us to display His power and His glory in leading people to Christ.
That's where we're all headed. Now, here's the methodology, course-teaching methodology. This course will be composed of corporate worship, teaching from the Word, participation in in-class activities, okay? No spectators in class in this thing; we're gonna participate in some in-class activities together. And then, homework assignments. All right? Now, follow me here. I know that's not the part you're most excited about, when you signed up to come to worship this morning. Well, we're gonna have some homework that's gonna flow from this thing, and ultimately, the personal involvement of men and women in sharing the gospel. Textbooks? Of course, the Bible. Bring the Bible and then we're gonna have this book available or you could get it if you'd like it. This is a book that I read a couple of years ago. It's called Honor and Shame and I was traveling over to East Asia to do some training in evangelism with house churches, and I was reading this book and it's only about 100 pages long, but as soon as I read it, I thought, "If I ever have the opportunity to put a book in the hands of people who are going into other cultures to share the gospel, this is the book I would do it
Cross Culture Series part 1; God's Story, Our Story
Dr. David Platt
05/27/07
Well, if you have your Bibles and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Genesis 3. Go ahead and strap on your seatbelts – I didn't get to preach last week, so we got a lot ground to cover this morning. We're going do things a little different, though. I want to welcome you this morning, not just to worship, but to class. I am your professor, David Platt, and for the next few weeks, we're going do things a little different. I'm convinced one of the greatest inadequacies in the church is the fact that many – I would even say most Christ followers struggle with an inability and uncomfortability when it comes to sharing the gospel, sharing our faith, with other people. The majority of us in this room simply do not feel confident when it comes to sharing our faith with other people, and as a result, the majority of us in this room rarely (if ever) in our Christianity share our faith with somebody else outside of our families. And yet we've seen that in disciple-making, sharing the Word is the first component of what it means to make disciples of all nations, so we're commanded to share the Word.
So what do we do? One option is to have an evangelism class, but I know enough from history of evangelism classes that not a lot of people sign up for evangelism classes. Time, schedule, commitments – things just kind get in the way. So I'm going bring evangelism class to you, and for the next six weeks, we're going have a course in sharing our faith. We're going be serious about what it means to take the gospel that's been entrusted to us and share it with other people. So what you've got on the front page of your notes here is the syllabus for the course, okay? Some of you, it's been a long time since you've seen one of these. Some of you high schoolers are thinking, "I thought we got finished with these this last week." Well, they're back, okay? Here's the syllabus for the course, and I want us to run down this and give you an overview of where we're headed with this thing called cross-culture. You see at the top "The mission: The Church of Brook Hills exists to awaken the passion for the glory of God by making disciples of all nations. This is their overarching mission." This is where what we're gonna do ties in with where we've been the last few weeks, this series on awaken, awakening to the glory of God and worship that propels us to make disciples of all nations. So that's the mission.
The course purpose – now this is huge. Pay attention to this close. The purpose of this course is to equip, enable, and empower the people of the Church of Brook Hills to share the Word in any culture they live or serve in. Now, I want to take a step back for just a second here and acknowledge the fact that I've been a pastor for a little less than a year now, and I realize that with almost a year under my belt, I've still got a good bit to learn about what it means to be a pastor, what it means to lead the church, but over the last year, as I've looked at the contemporary scene, and particularly the mega-church scene, here's the way I see the situation: I see us building the church on a couple of things. Building the church on having a solid, rock-solid worship performance on Sunday mornings – now, this is admittedly simplistic but follow me. I think it's true. A performance on Sunday mornings and programs that can draw people to a particular location for Sunday morning one time a week, maybe even multiple locations, but if we have the quality performance and we have the right charismatic communicator, then we can bring people to church one time a week and they can come to faith in Christ and thus we can grow the church. And in that whole process, I think we create an unhealthy dependence on that charismatic communicator and that quality show and those quality performances, that we begin to think, you know, if the church would do the right stuff and put on the right show, then we'll be able to draw people in.
One of the underlying presuppositions here, though, is that the most effective way to reach people in Birmingham, for example, for Christ is to bring them into this building when I just don't think that's true. I think the majority of people who don't have a relationship with Christ are not running into this building every week. I don't really expect them to. However, there are 4,000 people who are gonna worship here this morning that are going to be rubbing shoulders with all of those people out in this community the next six days of this week. And so maybe, just maybe, instead of using our resources to have the best performance and the best programs that will draw the crowds to the institution of the church, maybe we should use our resources to build up the best people who will go out in this community and draw the crowds to the person of Jesus Christ. And so I want to say, as effective as some may believe that other strategy may be, I just don't believe it's what God is leading us to do at the Church at Brooks Hills. If I am equipped, enabled, and empowered to preach the Word and lead people to Christ, that's one thing; however, if 4,000 people are equipped, enabled, and empowered to lead people to Jesus Christ throughout this community, then we're gonna see God do amazing things, things that we never could have imagined in this particular location at this particular time.
I was having a conversation this last week with a good friend and a mega-church leader. We were talking about the worship series that we've been studying and I was talking about how our worship services at the Church at Brook Hills are really not designed around unbelievers, those who don't know Christ. They're actually designed around how we can most effectually magnify God's Word among God's people and engage people in the worship of God, and that worship fuels us in our mission. And he was kinda surprised – a little shocked, actually, by it and he said, "Don't you think that's counterintuitive?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, how is Brook Hills going to engage people who don't know Christ in Birmingham?" I said, "Well, our people are gonna do it all week long." And he said, "Well, if the primary purpose of your worship service is not to draw unbelievers to Christ, then how are those unbelievers gonna come to know Christ?" I said, "I think our people are gonna lead 'em to Christ," and he said, "Well, okay, say they lead 'em to Christ, then how are they gonna grow in Christ?" I said, "I hope that our people are gonna be equipped to make disciples and lead people to be a disciple of Christ." I looked at him, I said, "I really would like to see the people of God unleashed to fulfill the purpose for which they were created in the very mission of their lives without being dependent on the institution of the church to do the work for them." He was shocked. He said, "That's really interesting."
So I got in the car and, almost dumbfounded, I'm starting to think, "Have I just missed it? Am I just misleading these poor people called the Church at Brook Hills?" And then I was reminded of something that I want to reiterate to you this morning. I want to remind you that I believe in you. I believe in the people of God and I believe in the power of Christ at work in the people of God. And we are staking the success of our mission as a church, not on one charismatic communicator or not on one certain performance, but on you, all of us in this room, being equipped, enabled, and empowered to impact the world for the glory of Jesus Christ. People, not performances or programs. People are God's method for winning the world to Himself. So that's the driving purpose behind this course. We are gonna be equipped, enabled, and empowered. Sound good? Okay, here we go.
The objectives. Here's the takeaway from this course. By the end of this course, we will have a holistic understanding of the salvation God has given to us. Not only that, we'll also have a greater awareness of how the gospel relates to different cultures in the world and as a result – here's where it's all headed – we will be able to share our story and the gospel story in any context as we join with God in the work of making disciples of all nations. That's the takeaway. We walk through this over the next six weeks, then the takeaway is that every single one of us is going to be equipped to share our story and the gospel story in any context where we find ourselves in. The outline, here's the – where we're going over the next six weeks, just to give you a picture.
Week One, which is today, we'll examine the consequences of sin in Genesis 3 and understand how our story fits into God's overall story of salvation.
Week Two, next week, we'll explore Jesus' approach toward bringing the Father's salvation to the world and consider the implications for how we, too, can be involved in God's work just like Jesus was.
Week Three – pay attention close here – we will see how the gospel makes the guilty innocent before God and learn how to share the gospel in guilt-based cultures. Now, that may not make a lot of sense right now, but that's where we're really gonna get into the cross-cultural picture. Over the next few months, we've got approximately 1,500 people from this church who are going out into other cultures, sharing the gospel, on short-term mission trips. So I think it'd be wise for us to think through how the gospel relates to other cultures. If we're gonna make disciples of all nations, we need to know how to share the gospel in all nations. So this is where we're gonna begin to get into that.
Week Four, we'll see how the gospel provides power to overcome fear of God and learn how to share the gospel in fear-based cultures.
Then, Week Five, we'll see how the gospel brings honor to all who have shame before God and learn how to share the gospel in shame-based cultures. That'll make more sense as we go along, even today.
Then, Week Six, we will culminate our study by seeing that God has designed to use us to display His power and His glory in leading people to Christ.
That's where we're all headed. Now, here's the methodology, course-teaching methodology. This course will be composed of corporate worship, teaching from the Word, participation in in-class activities, okay? No spectators in class in this thing; we're gonna participate in some in-class activities together. And then, homework assignments. All right? Now, follow me here. I know that's not the part you're most excited about, when you signed up to come to worship this morning. Well, we're gonna have some homework that's gonna flow from this thing, and ultimately, the personal involvement of men and women in sharing the gospel. Textbooks? Of course, the Bible. Bring the Bible and then we're gonna have this book available or you could get it if you'd like it. This is a book that I read a couple of years ago. It's called Honor and Shame and I was traveling over to East Asia to do some training in evangelism with house churches, and I was reading this book and it's only about 100 pages long, but as soon as I read it, I thought, "If I ever have the opportunity to put a book in the hands of people who are going into other cultures to share the gospel, this is the book I would do it." This is really – it's a great book. Not necessary, but if you'd like to dive deeper, that's one resource you could go with.
All right – you ready? There's the syllabus. Let's turn it over to the other side and let's get started. There are cameras in the room that will be taking attendance every week, so just make sure you sit in the same – I'm just playing. Okay. Here we go. Here's the picture we're gonna start with. We're gonna start with a picture of God's story and how our story fits into God's story. In Genesis 3, the reason we're gonna start in this particular text, with the entrance of sin into the world, is because the entire mission of the church exists because sin exists. The mission of God is to address sin and all of its effects in different cultures all over the world, among all the peoples of the world. So we've gotta understand Genesis 3. If we don't understand Genesis 3, it's like trying to read a novel and skipping the first few chapters and then going on with the rest of the novel without having a foundation of everything else. Genesis 3 is huge. We will never understand why we need a savior, why that savior needs to die, rise from the grave, why that savior needs to come back, why that savior will ultimately destroy creation and create a new heaven and a new earth. Why will that happen? It's all contingent on understanding Genesis 3.
So let's start in verse 1. We're gonna read the first ten verses, get a picture of the entrance of sin into the world. "Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, 'Did God really say, "You must not eat from any tree in the garden"?' The woman said to the serpent, 'We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, "You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die."' 'You will not surely die,' the serpent said to the woman. 'For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.' When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 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. Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, 'Where are you?' He answered, 'I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.'"
Now let's stop there, and in the very first few verses of this chapter, I want us to see two components of God's story already beginning to come together. First of all, I want us to see creation's problem, and creation's problem is our sin. Obviously, sin comes into the world here, and I believe there are three primary effects, three primary consequences of sin in Genesis 3. The first one, we see in verse 7. Soon as they ate from this tree, it says 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. No. 1 effect of sin, we are guilty before God. They realized they were naked – it was deeper than just that. They lost their innocence at this point. All of a sudden, for the first time, they felt the sting of their consciences, and they knew the difference between right and wrong, and they knew they had done wrong, and they knew they were guilty before God. At this moment, guilt passed down to all mankind, all of us in this room have a knowledge of right and wrong and all of us know that at some point, we've done wrong. We're guilty before God.
Second, we have shame before God. So what did they do? It says they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden of the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. Now, you compare that to the very end of chapter 2, verse 25, right before this chapter we read. It says the man and his wife were both naked and they felt no shame. No shame, and all of a sudden when sin enters the world, here they are shamed before God, trying to cover themselves, afraid to even be in his presence, and their shame leads to blame. Adam blames Eve and really ultimately blames God, says, "This is the woman you put here with me that caused this to happen." And at this point, not just guilt, but we see shame entering into humanity. As a result of sin, we have shame before God.
Third, we are afraid of God. The Lord God called to the man, "Where are you?" And he answered, "I heard you in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked, so I hid." Now, this is quite a reversal. They used to enjoy the presence of God. Genesis 2, they're enjoying His presence. Now they're terrified of His presence. Why is that? Well, look in chapter 2, verse 17. God said, "You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die." No wonder they were afraid. They realized what they'd eaten and they knew that they had a lot of reason to fear. And so now the joy in God's presence has turned into terror in God's presence, so they're hiding. So here's the picture: Man and woman, they realize – sin enters the world, they realize at that moment they've done something wrong. They try to cover themselves in shame and they hid because they're afraid of encountering God.
I remember a few years ago, I went to spend a weekend at a monastery. It was a time in my life where I was making some decisions and wanted just some time away, and so this particular monastery that was near where I was living, you could just go and stay for the weekend and you could eat there and sleep there and just walk around the gardens. It was just a good time to get away and so I did. I got there, though, too late to attend the orientation where they tell you what parts of the monastery you can go in and what parts you can't go in. There's parts that you can be around the monks; there's parts that are just for the monks. And so that first morning I was there, I was wandering around the monastery, and I opened a door and walked into this beautiful courtyard. Had a fountain in the middle and plants and shrubs and bushes all around and it was just beautiful. I start walking around on the outskirts of the courtyard, and it was enclosed by buildings, and I look inside the windows that are surrounding the courtyard and I see where the monks eat and I saw where the monks study, their library. And it was about that time that I realized, "I don't think this is one of those places where I'm supposed to be."
It was at that very moment that, on the other side of the courtyard, a door opens and a monk walks in. I panicked. I didn't know what to do. Didn't want to get by the monk in the wrong place, and so I dove behind this bush. Unfortunately, a completely true story, I dove behind this bush, I was nestled in between a bush and column right behind me, and this monk – I could hear his footsteps, he's walking around the courtyard, and I'm just praying, I'm like, "Lord, I know he has spent a lot more time with you than I have, but I really would like you to get me out of this one." Just praying that he does not see me. And so he's walking just feet from me and I'm sitting there just sweating profusely. I'll be honest – I was just a little bit tempted to jump out and try to scare the guy, but I thought that might ruin his whole vow of silence thing, which I didn't want to go there, and so I just decided to stay put and finally, the monk left on the other side of the courtyard and as soon as he walked out, I bolted and got out of the courtyard. There was a sense in which instantly, I knew I'd done something wrong, I was ashamed, I hid behind this bush and afraid of what would happen if this monk – I don't know what he would've done to me but if this monk would've caught me.
So we've got the picture of all three in Genesis 3. We've got guilt, we've got shame, and we've got fear. And this picture is foundational for understanding the rest of the Bible. Because this is the position that all of us find ourselves in. And don't forget, in Genesis 3, it's at this point that God is completely just. He is completely right in leaving man in his guilt and leaving man in his shame and in leaving man in his fear. We cannot underestimate the power of the effects of sin in Genesis 3, or in our life, especially in a relativistic culture that we live in today that minimizes and tries to redefine sin, even saying it really doesn't exist. We'll never understand the picture of the rest of the Bible if we don't understand these facets, these consequences, of sin. So that's creation's problem. So what does the Creator do? What's the Creator's resolution? This is the picture of the story here. Creation's problem is our sin. The Creator's resolution is His salvation. I want us to see how even right here in Genesis 3, God begins giving us a picture that's gonna spread throughout the rest of the Bible of His salvation.
Now, it's at this point I want you to get your Bibles ready. We're gonna turn – for each one of these, I want us to see how God starts something here in Genesis 3 that he continues all the way to the end of the Bible. First of all, what does the Creator do? He seeks the guilty. Verse 10: "Where are you?" Verse 9: "Where are you?" This is a very easy way for Adam and Eve to get off at this point. They should be dead, they should be sentenced to death, but God comes seeking after them and for the first time, we see the picture of God the Father seeking after His children. It's a picture we see over and over and over again. Genesis 12, God is seeking after Abraham, even when he's an idolator. God seeks after Moses when he's a fugitive, fleeing in Midian. We see God seeking after Jacob when he's running from his sin. We see God seeking after Elijah when Elijah is literally running from God and the task God had given to him. We see Jesus coming up to tax collectors like Matthew in Mark 2:14 and saying, "Follow me." He's initiating relationships. We see Jesus (Luke 19:10), "My whole purpose was to seek and to save those who were lost." We see the seeking God, and he's seeking after the guilty.
Let me show you that. Turn over two books to the right to Leviticus 5. You might underline these verses or write them down. But basically, I want to give you a tour of what God does in response to our guilt, what God does in response to our shame, and what God does in response to our fear. Leviticus 5:5-6. This is the beginning of the people of God in the Old Testament. Listen to what God says. It says, verse 5, "When anyone is guilty in any of these ways, he must confess in what he has sinned and, as a penalty for the sin he has committed, he must bring to the Lord a female lamb or goat from the flock as a sin offering; and the priest shall make atonement for him and for his sin." When anyone is guilty, here's what he needs to do. God is making provision for the guilt of his people.
Now, turn with me over to Ezra. You'll go past 1 Samuel and 2 Samuel, 1 Kings and 2 Kings, 1 Chronicles and 2 Chronicles, then you'll come to Ezra. Look at Ezra 9. Ezra is chronologically very close to the end of the Old Testament, though it's not – in the books, we've got a long way to go to get to Malachi. Chronologically, it's at the end of the Old Testament. So I want you to look at Ezra 9:6. Beginning with the people of God in the Old Testament, God is making a way to cover over their guilt. Look at what happens in Ezra 9:6. Do God's people still have a guilt problem? Listen to what he prays. He says, "O my God, I am too ashamed and disgraced to lift up my face to you, my God, because our sins are higher than our heads and our guilt has reached to the heavens. From the days of our forefathers until now, our guilt has been great. Because of our sins, we and our kings and our priests have been subjected to the sword and captivity, to pillage and humiliation at the hand of foreign kings, as it is today."
Skip down to verse 13. The guilt continues. "What has happened to us is a result of our evil deeds and our great guilt, and yet, our God, you have punished us less than our sins have deserved and have given us a remnant like this." Look at verse 15. "O Lord, God of Israel, you are righteous! We are left this day as a remnant. Here we are before you in our guilt, though because of it not one of us can stand in your presence." Same problem in Genesis 3 still present. We've got guilt among the people of God and we've got God seeking after them, but there's still a guilt problem.
Now go to John 8. We've seen chronologically the beginning of the Old Testament and the end of the Old Testament. Look at John 8. Jesus comes on the scene. Now, how did Jesus and this guilt picture relate to each other? Look at John 8:46. Matthew, Mark, Luke, then John. Look at chapter 8, verse 46. Jesus comes on the scene in light of that Old Testament picture and what does he say? He's having a discussion with religious leaders who would come up with all kinds of laws and regulations they would follow to try to be innocent before God, try to be righteous, and what does Jesus say? Verse 46: "Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don't you believe me?" Jesus basically comes on the scene and says, "I have no guilt in me. You can't point to one thing in my life where I am guilty of sin." So Jesus has broken a pattern here. Then He dies on the cross, rises from the grave – turn over to John 16. What does Jesus do? He sends the Holy Spirit. What's the purpose of the Holy Spirit in the world? Look at John 16:8. This is Jesus talking about the Holy Spirit and He says, "When he comes [meaning the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit comes], he will convict the world of guilt in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment." The spirit of God will convict people of our guilt. The reason we know right and wrong, the reason we have that sense of guilt, is because the Holy Spirit of God does that in us.
What we see later on, in the New Testament – we won't turn there just for the sake of time, but 2 Corinthians 5:21 – some of you may remember what this says – it says, "God made him who had no sin [who had no guilt] to be sin for us, in order that we might become the righteousness of God." That word literally means innocent, right before God. Here's the beauty of all the Scripture from Genesis 3 on is God is continually, perpetually seeking after the guilty and He's taking our guilt, He has put it on Jesus Christ, and He has taken the innocence of Christ, who had no guilt, and He's put it on us, so that you and I can have the privilege of standing innocent before God, even despite our sin. It's an incredible story from cover to cover in Scripture, of God seeking the guilty.
Now let's come back to Genesis 3. Let's see the second prong of this picture. Not only does God seek the guilty, but he covers the shameful. He covers the shameful. We see in Genesis 3, the verses we read, they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. They're trying to cover over their shame, but they're not able to do it on their own; they need God to do that for them. So when you get to Genesis 3:21, what does it say? It says, "The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and he clothed them." So God clothed, covered over, their shame. How did He do it, though? Don't miss it – this is subtle. He takes garments of skin. What we see for the first time is death is being introduced in the Bible here. The death of an animal. In order for a garment of skin to be on Adam or Eve, then some animal had to lose that skin. And so God takes an innocent animal, it's a sacrifice, to cover over the shame of Adam and Eve. That's a picture that continues. You get to the very next chapter, chapter 4, verse 3, Cain and Abel are bringing offerings to God. Listen to what it says in verse 3: "In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord." But Abel brought fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering, but on Cain and his offering he did not look with favor." The picture is of God accepting. Acceptable worship is the sacrifice of this animal that Abel brought.
You get to Genesis 8, just a few chapters over, Noah builds the Ark and survives the flood with his family and all these animals on board. It says in Genesis 8:20, after the flood, it says: "Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it." What we see from the very beginning here, it just gets deeper in Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. It's God proscribing for His people to take animals and offer them as sacrifices to cover over the shame of His people's sin. And it happens over and over and over again throughout the Old Testament. Fast-forward with me to one of the prophets. Go to Isaiah. I want you to look at Isaiah 53. I want you to turn over to here. This is one of the most incredible pictures of God covering the shameful. What I want you to do – turn to Isaiah 53 and we're gonna look at verse 4. What I want you to do as we read these verses, I want you to think about the reversal here. Shame and honor. I want you to see how shame is put on the servant of God and honor is brought to the people of God.
This is an incredible, absolutely incredible text that's talking about Jesus. Listen to Isaiah 53:4. "Surely he [talking about Jesus] took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted." Who's receiving the shame here? Jesus is. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace [honor] was upon him, and by his wounds, we are healed. We all, like sheep, have gone astray. Each of us has turned in his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And who can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the living; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the rich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth." Do you see the picture there? Shame poured out on Christ. What's the result?
Get one chapter over, chapter 54, verse 4. What does God say to His people? Listen to this – underline this: " Do not be afraid; you will not suffer shame. Do not fear disgrace; you will not be humiliated. You will forget the shame of your youth and remember no more the reproach of your widowhood. For your Maker is your husband – the Lord Almighty is his name – the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth." Did you get that picture? God says you will not even be able to remember your shame because "I've covered over it." By pouring out His shame on Christ.
So fast-forward to the very last book in the Bible. Go to Revelation 19. This part of the storyline started back in Genesis, the same of God's people. Clothed in their sin and the shame that accompanies that. Look at Revelation 19:7. Here's a picture of all of God's people who trusted in Christ to cover over them, and listen to what it says. We studied this text a few weeks ago. "Let us rejoice and be glad" – Revelation 19:7 – "for the wedding of the Lamb has come" [the animal whose sacrifice made it possible for us to have our shame covered], "and his bride has made herself ready. Fine linen, bright and clean, was given her to wear." Not dressed in their sin but dressed in His honor. You get over to chapter 21, verse 27, last verse of chapter 21 – listen to this – it's talking about heaven. Picture in Genesis 3, man covered in his shame. Listen to Revelation 21:27. "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life." Don't miss this. In the very beginning of the Bible, God takes an innocent animal and uses its sacrifice to cover over the shame of His people. Thus begins a process where he does that over and over and over again through animal after animal after animal. Jesus comes on the scene in John 1:29 and John says, "Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Jesus sacrifices His life on the cross. The shame of our sin is put on Him so that we can stand without shame before God one day, dressed in the honor that he has bought for us. God is in the business of covering over our sin. He covers the shameful, He seeks the guilty.
Third, one more tour. He protects the fearful. Man is afraid of God, so what does God do? He protects the fearful. Come back to Genesis 3. We know that God had promised, man sinned, man ate from this tree, he would die. So you get to Genesis 3:20 and "Adam named his wife" – what? Okay, that was an easy one, all right? Class, are we still together? Okay. "Adam named his wife –"
Response: Eve.
Okay, all right, there. You coulda been asleep all to this point and you'd still be able to get that question, all right? "Adam named his wife Eve." Eve means the mother of all the living. Now that's a weird name to give the woman you think is to blame for this whole sin picture that's come in. Why would he say that? Why would he call her Eve? Because God had made a promise. This is what we studied, if you remember, when we studied this text last November. God had made a promise in Genesis 3:15 that through Eve would come one who have the power to crush evil and to crush Satan. Mother of all the living. I want you to see God protecting the fearful here. What does He do? It says in the verses that follow, verse 23 and 24, the Lord God banished them from the Garden of Eden. It even says, "After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the" – what? The tree of life. Why would He not want them to go into the tree of life? Because if they ate of the tree of life, it says they will live forever. God does not want His creation to live in this picture, guilt, shame, and fear before Him for all of eternity. And so He protects them from the Garden of Eden. They're not gonna eat from the tree of life. And what we see over and over again throughout the rest of Scripture is man afraid in the presence of God.
Write this down: Exodus 3:4-6. Moses comes in contact with a burning bush. He's a little freaked out by the whole picture, and he goes over to look at the bush and the bush starts speaking to him now. The bush says, "Take off your sandals." God says, through the bush, "Take off your sandals. The place where you're standing is holy," and God says, "I am the God of your father, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob," and at this – verse 6 says, "At this, Moses hid his face" in fear from the Lord. Afraid to look at God. Moses, afraid to look at God. Exodus 20:18. Right after God had given His people the Ten Commandments, it says they saw the smoke on the mountain and they literally begged Moses, "You talk to God for us – we're afraid to go anywhere near Him." Isaiah 6:1-8. Isaiah comes in contact with the presence of God, and what does he say? "Woe is me. I am miserable in the presence of God." Why? Because there's a fear in the presence of God. You even get to the New Testament, Hebrews 10:31, it says: "It's a dreadful thing to fall into the hands of the living God." Because of our sin, we have reason to be afraid of His presence.
Fast-forward to the end, Revelation 6. Let me show you two texts in Revelation, show you a contrast here. God protecting the fearful. Look at Revelation 6:15. This is a picture of those who have not trusted in God, who have not received His salvation. Listen to this, Revelation 6:15 – see if this sounds familiar to Genesis 3. "Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and every slave and every free man hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. They called to the mountains and the rocks, 'Fall on us and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb for the great day of their wrath has come, and who can stand?'" Fear of God. Hiding from God because of our sin. Thankfully, though, the story does not end here.
Fast-forward to Revelation 22. You've gotta see this in light of Genesis 3. Banished from the Garden of Eden; "Do not eat from the tree of life." So what does God do? Look at Revelation 22:1. "Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city." Listen to this: "On each side of the river stood the tree of" – what?
Response: Life.
It's back. From Genesis 3, it's back. Now the tree of life is "bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him." Underline these next five words: "They will see his face." Praise God that though, because of our sin, fear and terror strike us in His presence. He has protected us and is preserving us as we trust in Him for the day when, ladies and gentlemen, we will see His face, and we will find great joy in His presence, not terror. This is a good story. It's a good story. From our sin to His salvation; God seeking after the guilty; God covering over the shameful; God protecting the fearful. Now, all of those components are part of our salvation. I think we have a tendency to emphasize one over the other sometimes. I talk sometimes with believers, Christ followers, who know they're innocent before God but they still carry around the shame of their sin. Just can't seem to get free from that. Or people who have trusted in Christ to forgive them their sin, they know they're right before God, but they're still plagued by fears in this world. And all of them are part of our salvation. I think part of the reason we emphasize one over the other has to do with our culture. That's actually what's gonna vault us into thinking about the gospel in different cultures. But suffice it to say at this point that God's salvation, this picture of Him seeking after us when we were guilty and covering us in our shame and protecting us from fear of Him.
Now, with that picture, I want us to take a step deeper and I want us to see how our story fits into God's story. This is good. Follow me here. The greatest realization we can make in what we just studied in God's word is that we have a story that fits into this story. God's ultimate story of bringing us, man, from sin to His salvation. We have a story that fits into that. I want us to begin to make this story that we've seen in the Bible personal. Make your story personal. One of my favorite questions to ask folks is, "What's your story?" Especially Christ followers. You know, "What's your story? How did you come to faith in Christ? What is your story?" And I've asked that question many different times and heard countless different stories. And I wanna be just gut-level honest with you, if I can. I want to be delicate but honest. Most of the time when I've asked that question, the picture is not always pretty in the response that comes back. I've heard a variety of different stories from a variety of different people, and many times, the picture that is there is just, in a very nice way, appalling. What I mean by that is this: We have a tendency, all of us, to bumble and stumble through this circuitous trip down spiritual memory lane that somewhere along the way can tend to lose people, and I've heard some stories that if I was far from God and even had a tinge of interest in Christianity, after hearing that story, I might recommit myself to paganism.
Now, some of you think that that's too harsh, but I'm not gonna make any apologies at this point. We all need our bells rung on this one. We all need to be able to communicate our faith stories with clarity and with power to people who don't know Jesus Christ, plain and simple. If I were to ask you right now point blank in the next 45 seconds to a minute to give me a picture of what Christ has done in your life, would you be able to give me a clear, powerful, concise, beautiful picture of what Christ has done in your life? If not, why not? If we're gonna be good at anything, we need to be good at this thing. We need to be good at telling people what a difference Christ has made in our lives. So, let's all, including myself, let's all pick up our feelings off the floor and let's think about how we can make our stories count. Make our stories count. How has God brought you from your sin to your salvation? I want to give you a few things to think about. How can we make our stories count? If you've got a moment to share what Christ has done in your life, how can you make it count?
First of all, my encouragement is: Keep it brief. Keep it brief. We've got to avoid being long-winded here, okay? I want you to think about if you literally had 45 seconds to share your story, what would that look like? So that if you – you could share that if you were sitting at lunch or dinner or over coffee at Starbucks or you could share that walking down the hall at the office or walking through the neighborhood with your dog and you talk to a neighbor very quickly, that you could be able to share your story in a very concise, brief moment. So be brief. Second, keep it simple. Keep it simple. We don't need to go into a half dozen plot lines with 16 different main characters that get us lost in the whole picture; it's not necessary. We don't have to tell about all the books we've read and all the conferences we attended 12 years ago and all the aisles we've walked and all the angels who appeared in our bedroom – we don't have to tell all about all those things. Just keep it simple, okay? There's one story line, one plot line here. Three facets, very simple. First of all, simple description of who you were – who we were before we met Christ. Before we met Christ, "this is what my life looked like." Then the fact that we came into a relationship with Christ, sometimes (surprisingly) not even included in people's stories but a very important part of our story. And then third, a simple description of who we are after walking with Christ for a time. It's a simple before-and-after story. Very simple picture here.
We don't have to make it complex, we don't even have to be dramatic. In fact, I would say avoid the drama. Avoid the drama. We usually come down on either side of this spectrum right here: Either No. 1, we start going into all the experiences with drugs and alcohol and wild living and pagan rituals that we had before we met Christ that before long, the people we're talking to are not inspired by us; they're scared of us. That's not a good thing. Then on the other side of the spectrum, many of us came to faith in Christ when we were 5, 6, 7 years old. Unfortunately, we didn't have the opportunity to get involved in drugs before we came to Christ, and so we think, "I don't have a good story. I don't have enough drama in my story." I want to say, whatever side you're on, avoid the drama. Here's the deal: I want to free you up here. The story of God becoming a man and dying a shameful death on a cross, then rising from the grave to save all of us from our sins – that story's got enough drama in it already. Let God provide the drama and then you just kind of support, okay? Many times, when we include all our drama, it misses the drama of the real story. So avoid the drama; keep it simple. Keep it brief; keep it simple.
Third, keep it focused. Keep it focused. Don't forget, God is the hero of this story, not us. You're not the hero of the story. Everything doesn't hinge on your transformation. It hinges on what Jesus did to transform you. God, Christ, they're important in this story, so keep 'em there at the very center. Keep it focused. Next, keep it understandable. We've gotta put ourselves in the shoes of people who don't go to church, who don't know anything about Jesus, who don't know anything about God, and begin to think about how our story relates to other people in that kind of setting. It's at this point that I want to encourage you to avoid Christianese. Now, Christianese is this little secret language that you and I know that nobody else knows. It's all these terms that we use that everybody else in the world is clueless about. Now, I'm not saying that those terms aren't good – they're Biblical terms. But we need to think through what people hear when they hear the word "repent." They picture the guy with the picket sign walking up and down the streets. That's what they picture, so maybe we should think of another way to describe that or "accepting Jesus into our hearts." What is that about? You "walked the aisle and made Jesus your personal Lord and Savior." Excuse me? If we have an opportunity to share the gospel, the last thing we need to share is that "I invited the sovereign Lord into my soul, where He delivered me by His blood from the propitiation that separated me, in my depravity, from the glorious nature of Yahweh, God." That's not the picture we need to share with others when we have an opportunity to tell our story. Keep it understandable. Avoid Christianese.
And then, keep it humble. Keep it humble. This is huge. There's no quicker way to send a non-Christian, and unbeliever, to the hills than to, in a conversation, seek to establish the roles at the start, "I'm superior and I've got things figured out in my life; you're inferior and substandard to my way of life, and you need what I have as a result of that." That's not effective. I want to remind you, you have a story; you have a story for a reason. And I want to remind you, we're still on a journey. That's okay to still be on a journey and to admit that. Keep it humble.
Finally, keep it clear. Critical contrast. Think about it. What is the difference that Christ has really made in your life? "Well, how can I sum that up in 45 seconds, Dave?" Well, think about it. Even in Scripture, John 3, Nicodemus. What would his simple story of "the difference Christ has made in my life?" "I realized that I could start all over again. I could be born a second time based on God's love for me." That simple. John 4, Samaritan woman at the well. "He told me everything I ever knew and yet He loves me anyway." John 8, the woman caught in adultery. "When everybody wanted to condemn me, Jesus saved me. He accepted me when nobody else would." John 9. "I don't know a lot but I used to be blind and now I'm looking at you, and Jesus made the difference." It's that simple.
So, what is it in your life? Some of you have been plagued by fear all your life. Were plagued by fear. Fear you wore like a straightjacket. Fear in relationships with others, fear before God. When you met Jesus, His confidence began to come into your heart and it's changed everything about your outlook. Maybe you've struggled with a sense of loneliness, aloneness, you've grown up in a dysfunctional family or you've had a marriage that just didn't work out the way it was supposed to, and you found yourself lonely and isolated ______. Then you met Jesus and you realized you were adopted into His family and He was with you. He cared about you. Maybe you have been plagued by the shame of your past and things you've done in the past, and you were at a point where you had tried everything. You tried every method, every relationship, to try to overcome that past and you couldn't do it. When you met Jesus, you found out that you could forget about your past because He had done it for you. It changed everything about your freedom to move forward in the future.
I don't know what your stories are like, but here's the deal: We have had evangelistic fad after fad after fad in the church. It's the tract era (let the paper do it for you). It's the televangelist era (let Billy do it for you). It's the ______ ministry era and the how-can-we-bring-salvation-to-professionals and men and women and hurting men and hurting women and the poor and the rich and this program after that program and this program and I'm not saying all those things are bad. Please hear me. I'm not saying that all those things are bad. However, we've done all those things and still most of us feel inadequate when it comes to sharing the gospel. Then I go over to East Asia and we're talking about sharing the gospel and within a month, they lead 100 people to faith in Christ without any of those programs. And I can't help but to think that maybe, just maybe, God has already uniquely gifted every single Christ follower in this room to share your faith. He has given you a story that ties into His overarching story. So why not get a hold on our story, how that fits into God's story, and be freed up to share that with other people?
So, we head to our in-class assignment. Pull out your blue sheet right here. Okay, here's your blue sheet. This is where we're no longer spectators; we're participants. What you've got at the top is "My Story" and it's the story of my life. My goal and the goal I'm gonna challenge you with is to sum it up in less than 100 words. Listen to my story. This is a picture of me. I grew up in a home that was predominantly – that was Christian. My mom and dad, Godly, and so I didn't have some of the drama that we talked about. Listen to my story. There was a time in my life when my life could be summed up in one word: Do. I was convinced that if I could do enough right things, I could earn favor with God. Thought that if I strived hard enough, I could be accepted by Him. But then I was introduced to Jesus and I discovered that Christianity is not about what I should do, it's about what Jesus had done. He'd done the striving for me and all I needed to do was accept His free gift of grace. This one truth has revolutionized my life for all of eternity. If I could be honest with you, this is still my story. I still find myself trying to do the right things, trying to measure up to the standards that are set around me, and I still find Jesus reminding me that He desires to do the work for me, if I'll let Him.
This is my story. It's – I said 100 words or less – it's exactly 100 words. You would expect nothing less from me, okay? It's exactly 100 words. I hope it's simple. I hope it hinges on Jesus, the difference He's made in my life. I hope it's understandable. I hope I avoided some of those terms or concepts that maybe – not understandable to people. And it sums up the main difference Christ has made in my life. So, here's what I want us to do: I want us to hone in on our stories in this room. What you've got on the rest of the front of this sheet, it says "Your Story" and it has different headings that are listed there and places for you to write some things in. So, for the next few minutes, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna give you some time to write in these things. Just a guide to begin thinking through your story. And then – this is all leading to your homework, okay? So pay attention close. Your homework's on the back. It says, "Homework for This Week." Your homework is to write out your story in 100 words or less and then, after completing that exercise, to go on the web and turn your homework in, okay? So you gotta turn it in. You won't be graded, but you have to turn it in to get credit for the course, okay?
This is where we're headed. I want to give you some things to think through, how you can get there. I want to challenge each of us, as Christ followers, to do this as individuals; for parents, you have the opportunity to do this with your children, so that we can come back next week ready with our stories, and we'll have an opportunity even between now and then to share our stories with each other. There's a place where you can put on the website, if you would like or would not like, your story to be shared with anybody else. So you can keep it confidential if you'd like, but the whole goal is not to keep our stories confidential in this series. The whole goal is to want to tell others our story.
So, over the next couple minutes, I'm gonna ask Steven and the guys to come up and to lead us in song, and I'm gonna give you a few minutes to fill out the front part of this, and then after we've filled that out for a few moments, then we're gonna have a time where we celebrate God's story through communion. So, for the next few minutes, just take those first – the front part of that page and fill in some of those blanks and begin to think through your story. Then I'll come back up and lead us in our celebration.
CROSS CULTURE
Cross Culture Series part 1; God's Story, Our Story
Dr. David Platt
05/27/07
Well, if you have your Bibles and I hope you do, let me invite you to open with me to Genesis 3. Go ahead and strap on your seatbelts – I didn't get to preach last week, so we got a lot ground to cover this morning. We're going do things a little different, though. I want to welcome you this morning, not just to worship, but to class. I am your professor, David Platt, and for the next few weeks, we're going do things a little different. I'm convinced one of the greatest inadequacies in the church is the fact that many – I would even say most Christ followers struggle with an inability and uncomfortability when it comes to sharing the gospel, sharing our faith, with other people. The majority of us in this room simply do not feel confident when it comes to sharing our faith with other people, and as a result, the majority of us in this room rarely (if ever) in our Christianity share our faith with somebody else outside of our families. And yet we've seen that in disciple-making, sharing the Word is the first component of what it means to make disciples of all nations, so we're commanded to share the Word.
So what do we do? One option is to have an evangelism class, but I know enough from history of evangelism classes that not a lot of people sign up for evangelism classes. Time, schedule, commitments – things just kind get in the way. So I'm going bring evangelism class to you, and for the next six weeks, we're going have a course in sharing our faith. We're going be serious about what it means to take the gospel that's been entrusted to us and share it with other people. So what you've got on the front page of your notes here is the syllabus for the course, okay? Some of you, it's been a long time since you've seen one of these. Some of you high schoolers are thinking, "I thought we got finished with these this last week." Well, they're back, okay? Here's the syllabus for the course, and I want us to run down this and give you an overview of where we're headed with this thing called cross-culture. You see at the top "The mission: The Church of Brook Hills exists to awaken the passion for the glory of God by making disciples of all nations. This is their overarching mission." This is where what we're gonna do ties in with where we've been the last few weeks, this series on awaken, awakening to the glory of God and worship that propels us to make disciples of all nations. So that's the mission.
The course purpose – now this is huge. Pay attention to this close. The purpose of this course is to equip, enable, and empower the people of the Church of Brook Hills to share the Word in any culture they live or serve in. Now, I want to take a step back for just a second here and acknowledge the fact that I've been a pastor for a little less than a year now, and I realize that with almost a year under my belt, I've still got a good bit to learn about what it means to be a pastor, what it means to lead the church, but over the last year, as I've looked at the contemporary scene, and particularly the mega-church scene, here's the way I see the situation: I see us building the church on a couple of things. Building the church on having a solid, rock-solid worship performance on Sunday mornings – now, this is admittedly simplistic but follow me. I think it's true. A performance on Sunday mornings and programs that can draw people to a particular location for Sunday morning one time a week, maybe even multiple locations, but if we have the quality performance and we have the right charismatic communicator, then we can bring people to church one time a week and they can come to faith in Christ and thus we can grow the church. And in that whole process, I think we create an unhealthy dependence on that charismatic communicator and that quality show and those quality performances, that we begin to think, you know, if the church would do the right stuff and put on the right show, then we'll be able to draw people in.
One of the underlying presuppositions here, though, is that the most effective way to reach people in Birmingham, for example, for Christ is to bring them into this building when I just don't think that's true. I think the majority of people who don't have a relationship with Christ are not running into this building every week. I don't really expect them to. However, there are 4,000 people who are gonna worship here this morning that are going to be rubbing shoulders with all of those people out in this community the next six days of this week. And so maybe, just maybe, instead of using our resources to have the best performance and the best programs that will draw the crowds to the institution of the church, maybe we should use our resources to build up the best people who will go out in this community and draw the crowds to the person of Jesus Christ. And so I want to say, as effective as some may believe that other strategy may be, I just don't believe it's what God is leading us to do at the Church at Brooks Hills. If I am equipped, enabled, and empowered to preach the Word and lead people to Christ, that's one thing; however, if 4,000 people are equipped, enabled, and empowered to lead people to Jesus Christ throughout this community, then we're gonna see God do amazing things, things that we never could have imagined in this particular location at this particular time.
I was having a conversation this last week with a good friend and a mega-church leader. We were talking about the worship series that we've been studying and I was talking about how our worship services at the Church at Brook Hills are really not designed around unbelievers, those who don't know Christ. They're actually designed around how we can most effectually magnify God's Word among God's people and engage people in the worship of God, and that worship fuels us in our mission. And he was kinda surprised – a little shocked, actually, by it and he said, "Don't you think that's counterintuitive?" I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, how is Brook Hills going to engage people who don't know Christ in Birmingham?" I said, "Well, our people are gonna do it all week long." And he said, "Well, if the primary purpose of your worship service is not to draw unbelievers to Christ, then how are those unbelievers gonna come to know Christ?" I said, "I think our people are gonna lead 'em to Christ," and he said, "Well, okay, say they lead 'em to Christ, then how are they gonna grow in Christ?" I said, "I hope that our people are gonna be equipped to make disciples and lead people to be a disciple of Christ." I looked at him, I said, "I really would like to see the people of God unleashed to fulfill the purpose for which they were created in the very mission of their lives without being dependent on the institution of the church to do the work for them." He was shocked. He said, "That's really interesting."
So I got in the car and, almost dumbfounded, I'm starting to think, "Have I just missed it? Am I just misleading these poor people called the Church at Brook Hills?" And then I was reminded of something that I want to reiterate to you this morning. I want to remind you that I believe in you. I believe in the people of God and I believe in the power of Christ at work in the people of God. And we are staking the success of our mission as a church, not on one charismatic communicator or not on one certain performance, but on you, all of us in this room, being equipped, enabled, and empowered to impact the world for the glory of Jesus Christ. People, not performances or programs. People are God's method for winning the world to Himself. So that's the driving purpose behind this course. We are gonna be equipped, enabled, and empowered. Sound good? Okay, here we go.
The objectives. Here's the takeaway from this course. By the end of this course, we will have a holistic understanding of the salvation God has given to us. Not only that, we'll also have a greater awareness of how the gospel relates to different cultures in the world and as a result – here's where it's all headed – we will be able to share our story and the gospel story in any context as we join with God in the work of making disciples of all nations. That's the takeaway. We walk through this over the next six weeks, then the takeaway is that every single one of us is going to be equipped to share our story and the gospel story in any context where we find ourselves in. The outline, here's the – where we're going over the next six weeks, just to give you a picture.
Week One, which is today, we'll examine the consequences of sin in Genesis 3 and understand how our story fits into God's overall story of salvation.
Week Two, next week, we'll explore Jesus' approach toward bringing the Father's salvation to the world and consider the implications for how we, too, can be involved in God's work just like Jesus was.
Week Three – pay attention close here – we will see how the gospel makes the guilty innocent before God and learn how to share the gospel in guilt-based cultures. Now, that may not make a lot of sense right now, but that's where we're really gonna get into the cross-cultural picture. Over the next few months, we've got approximately 1,500 people from this church who are going out into other cultures, sharing the gospel, on short-term mission trips. So I think it'd be wise for us to think through how the gospel relates to other cultures. If we're gonna make disciples of all nations, we need to know how to share the gospel in all nations. So this is where we're gonna begin to get into that.
Week Four, we'll see how the gospel provides power to overcome fear of God and learn how to share the gospel in fear-based cultures.
Then, Week Five, we'll see how the gospel brings honor to all who have shame before God and learn how to share the gospel in shame-based cultures. That'll make more sense as we go along, even today.
Then, Week Six, we will culminate our study by seeing that God has designed to use us to display His power and His glory in leading people to Christ.
That's where we're all headed. Now, here's the methodology, course-teaching methodology. This course will be composed of corporate worship, teaching from the Word, participation in in-class activities, okay? No spectators in class in this thing; we're gonna participate in some in-class activities together. And then, homework assignments. All right? Now, follow me here. I know that's not the part you're most excited about, when you signed up to come to worship this morning. Well, we're gonna have some homework that's gonna flow from this thing, and ultimately, the personal involvement of men and women in sharing the gospel. Textbooks? Of course, the Bible. Bring the Bible and then we're gonna have this book available or you could get it if you'd like it. This is a book that I read a couple of years ago. It's called Honor and Shame and I was traveling over to East Asia to do some training in evangelism with house churches, and I was reading this book and it's only about 100 pages long, but as soon as I read it, I thought, "If I ever have the opportunity to put a book in the hands of people who are going into other cultures to share the gospel, this is the book I would do it