A CHURCH FOR THE CITY: GENESIS 4 TRANSFORMED BY THE GOSPEL: LIFE, CITY, WORLD We are beginning what is perhaps

our most important series. I say that for two reasons. First because through the past year our understanding of vision, mission and calling has become sharper and clearer. It is Transformed by the Gospel: Life, City, World. Second important reason is because Im calling all of us who call Pacific home to a commitment. Heres this vision Gods given us as a church will you link arms with the people beside you and say I believe this vision honors Jesus and I commit myself to it. Let me try and put this commitment into perspective. When Sandi and I first landed on the ground of Yaletown to plant a church we had big dreams, faith in a big God and not a lot else. In the early days it was just about connecting with people and building a core so that we could actually have a kingdom of God presence in downtown Vancouver. The question in those days was are you breathing and do you have a pulse. Good. Join us. But heres the thing. Were a church plant. Were on this amazing mission from God and we want to be clear and committed to the mission that God has given us. And so at the end of this series were going to ask you, Are you in. Does this vision statement: Transformed by the Gospel: Life, City, World give expression to the kind of faith community that God is calling you to invest your life in? We hope that it does and that we can link arms together in what is often called covenant community and look each other in the eye and say Im in. Now let me just add an addendum. Some of you are at a point of investigation. Thats always true in a church plant or church thats invitational and inclusive. If youre seeking to understand who Jesus is were glad youre here and I hope that the next few weeks gives you clarity as you take this journey. Were not pressuring anyone. Were saying lets be clear on what were about and lets get on with this great mission of God. Thanks for indulging me but lets jump in. As we think about A Church for the City Id like you to look with me to Gods Word inGenesis (really). Were beginning in the Gospel of Mark in March but I want us to understand how much our vision and mission is rooted in the movement of God through the history of our world. Read Genesis 4:8-17 The Bible isnt a collection of disconnected stories. Primarily its a single story telling us whats wrong with the human race, what God has done about it and how history is going to turn out in the end.

Thats why when we unpack our vision we turn back to Genesis. Our calling, our vision is apart of the movement of God in human history and where does that calling, where does that vision begin? Or let me ask like this, Does it begin with the good things you and I do in the world, or in our city? Lots of people get jazzed these days about justice and helping the poor and serving others and so we should but is that where Gods life transforming calling begins? I would humbly submit, no and a thousand times no. Let me explain. Some of you may be familiar with G.K. Chesterton. The Times newspaper once asked him and several other prominent authors to write essays on the subject "What's Wrong with the World?" Chesterton answered succinctly: Dear Sirs, I am. Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton Let me show you why that humble response is one that should be at the forefront when faced with the question, Whats wrong with the world. As dive into Genesis 4 this text might have raised more questions for you then it answered. Just consider. Heres Adam and Eve. And they have two sons, Cain and Abel and Cain kills his brother and flees out into the world. And what do we read? Cain is afraid. Hes afraid that people will harm him. Uhmm what people? And Cain lay with his wife. Where did she come from? And he built a city. Really? Who lived there? If you take the text seriously and historically as we do at Pacific there are all sorts of possibilities but whats important to understand, even as you personally approach the Bible, is that Biblical narrative is incredibly selective and spare with information. For instance if you read what we call the Gospels, the biographies of Jesus: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John you soon discover that Mark, the shortest of the four is very brief with explanation, where Luke may describe what appears to be the very same incident with much greater detail, which can be unsettling. But, the reason a Biblical writer doesnt include all the information is that it doesnt help him get his point across. The point of Genesis 4 is to teach us certain things and if it leaves out information that we would like to know its only because its not necessary to understand the point. So we need to come to the Bible looking for what the Lord, the ultimate author wants to tell us and wants us to understand. So what should we understand from Genesis 4? There are actually three things that lie at the very heart of our vision statement Transformed by the Gospel: Life, City, World. We see the Ruin of Cain, the Culture of Death and the Future City of Grace.

So think with me today about the Ruin of Cain and how that ruin begins to help us understand and value Gospel Transformation as it applies to our life. The first thing that happens when Cain kills his brother is that God asks him, Cain, where is your brother? Not that God doesnt know but he asks Cain. And Cain gives a very cold, heartless kind of answer and says, how do I know? Am I my brothers keeper? And then God comes back and asks, What have you done? Listen. Your brothers blood cries out to me from the ground. Now you might think that Gods question may be followed by Him striking Cain to the ground. In other words if youre that callous, fine, Ill take your life. But notice that God doesnt do that. God is doing absolutely everything he can to give an opportunity for Cain to repent. To confess what He has done and to turn to God for forgiveness. Why? Martin Luther has a great definition of this thing that we call sin. He wrote in latin, homo curvatus in se, which literally means sin is man curved in on himself. We have lots of definitions of sin but the biblical definition is sin is always focusing on your self. Always choosing yourself over God or others. Always putting yourself in the center. What this means is that yes we do bad things but its more than that. And whats so profound about a biblical definition of sin is that sin determines that even when you do good like help the poor and enter into friendships and join together in worship and study the Bible its actually always about you. Sin determines that you relate to God and other people to further your own agenda. And thats why as soon as something becomes costly, a relationship with God or other people, were out of it. Why? Because even when it looks like were serving God and other people were actually serving ourselves. Thats how insidious sin is. But repentance goes to the root of that. It means you get out of yourself. You take yourself out of the center and you begin to experience the favor of God and heal the blindness and the hardness and the pride that sin brings into your life. And therefore there is nothing more important than repentance. Look what Cain does. In a sense he is crying and he says, My punishment is more than I can bear. This is the tragedy. There is a kind of sorrow, there is a kind of sadness Im so sorry for what Ive done, that is just as self absorbed, just as self centered as the sin that you are crying about.

Think about this. Cain is not crying out, Oh, what it cost you God! Or what it cost my brother Abel. Im haunted by the image of my brother lying there in his own blood! You might expect that but instead Cain is saying Im really upset about what is going to happen to me. Hes sorry for the consequences hes going to experience for his sin, not for the sin itself. Hes obsessed with the cost, not to God or others, but to himself. Cain shows us that there is a kind of sorrow or a kind of repentance of crying over what you have done that makes you more self absorbed and self centered than ever. It makes it worse. So heres the point of why repentance is at the heart of the ruin of the human race. If repentance was so important that God was giving Cain every opportunity and, if repentance is something that is so easy to miss and to think that you are doing it when you are not, then you should do everything to foster the skill of repentance. When people point a finger at you or come to you and say youve done this wrong what is our first instinct? What do you mean? You dont understand! How dare you! Youre one to talk! Take a look at your own life! Instead the first thing our hearts should be saying is maybe. If repentance is that important, that vital and difficult then we need to be a community that helps each other repent, that repent very quickly and that freely admits what we have done wrong. At the heart of the ruin Cain we see that the heart of the ruin of the human race is the inability to repent. This is why in the vision that God has given us when we seek the renewal, the transformation of the City and the World we actually start with ourselves. G. K. Chesterton answered the question, Whats wrong with the human race? with the answer, I am. The Gospel which is the good news of who Jesus Christ is and what He came to do has to be applied personally. The transformation, the renewal begins, the match is lit when the reality of Jesus life, suffering, death and resurrection becomes personal. When you and I encounter Jesus personally that changes everything. In fact that very act of faith in Jesus and applying the Gospel to ourselves becomes the least selfish thing that we can do. We faith becomes personal, when we realize that Jesus didnt only die universally for the sin of the world but that He died for me, for my sin there is a transformation and renewal that begins to take place in our lives that actually drives out into the world. Then and only then does our seeking the renewal and transformation of the city and the world have any lasting, eternal transformative value.

To passionately embrace Pacifics vision is to recognize that this is personal. Personal because when we apply the Gospel to ourselves we are finally able to get our eyes off of ourselves and enter into our city and world in a way that truly helps others and that is actually in the stream of what God is already about in building His kingdom.