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NewCity Orlando Sermons
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NewCity Orlando Sermons
Seeing Everyone Enjoy the King | Genesis 4:26
Pastor of Formation & Mission Benjamin Kandt continues our Advent series, Seeing Everyone Enjoy the King, preaching from Genesis 4:26. Pastor Ben unravels the cultural mandate seen in Genesis 4:17-25, highlighting humanity's quest for security and civilization despite the fall. Cain’s city-building, alongside the cultural contributions of his descendants, paints a complex picture of human creativity shadowed by rebellion and sin. Yet, in this tapestry, we find a thread of hope through characters like Seth and Enosh, reminding us of the divine promise and our destiny.
In this context, he then explores the extraordinary power of prayer, drawing inspiration from the stories of Abraham and Moses. Their stories teach us about the intimacy and authority that comes through a deep connection with God. From calling upon the name of the Lord in times of trial to witnessing the fervent prayers that sparked the Hebrides revival, Pastor Ben offers a heartfelt invitation to embrace prayer as an active expression of faith. This Advent, as we long for spiritual awakening, we are invited to join together in seeking a transformative experience of God’s presence in our communities.
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damien. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1:At this point, I'm going to invite you to join with me in a prayer of illumination and a reading of God's word. We believe that God's word defines reality for us, and we believe that we need the Holy Spirit to open our eyes, and so let's ask him for that together. Promise, savior, as we remember your first advent and wait for your return, help us to see your glory and love through the reading and preaching of your word. Through Christ, our Savior, we pray Amen. Our scripture reading is a long one from Genesis 4.26. Please remain standing, if you are able. At that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. This is God's word. Thanks be to God. You may be seated. You made it. Well done, super proud of you.
Speaker 1:So we are in the second week of Advent and our Advent series, as you'll be able to see behind me here, is Seeing Everyone Enjoy the King. That's an acronym for what SEEK stands for. You heard Kenny at the beginning talk about SEEK first. This is the third year in a row that we have left one year and entered into another year in extraordinary united kingdom-focused prayer. But this is the first year that we're ever doing something called SEEK week, which is where we're consecrating the first 168 hours of 2025 to the Lord for the purpose of gospel expansion in our city. It's not a new city thing, it's actually. Seek is a network of churches and pastors and Christians and ministries across Orlando, a growing network, who are all agreed that the way God works in the world, it's always preceded by extraordinary united kingdom-focused prayer. That's true in biblical history, that's true in church history. Whenever a move of God, a pouring out of his Holy Spirit what some people call revival whenever that happens, it's always preceded by the people of God gathering for extraordinary united kingdom-focused prayer. Why Towards what end? To see everyone enjoy the King. That's why Seek Orlando exists, that's why we're doing Seek First, that's why we're doing Seek Week.
Speaker 1:And then, to give you some rationale, we have an Advent series called Seeing Everyone Enjoy the King, and so I want to look at that. What does that actually mean? What is the role of prayer in the coming of God's kingdom? And I want to look at Genesis 4, 26 in order to do that. So if you have a Bible or a device, go ahead and open up or turn on to Genesis 4, verse 26. We're going to look at more than just that one verse, but that verse really is shaping this entire sermon.
Speaker 1:So I have three points, and it's essentially this one scripture. Point one is at that time, point two is people began to call, and point three is upon the name of the Lord. Okay, why? What are we after here? Well, let's look at at that time. This construction in Hebrew actually is a signal. It's signaling something new, something climactic, something shifting. And so then the question would be what time? What time is it? What's really going on?
Speaker 1:And the only way you can understand that and this is just a principle for reading the Bible is that context is king, context is king. So you've got to understand that verse in the light of it's, the chapter and the book that it's in. And so, if we just back up, even to yesterweek's sermon, damian told us about how God created man and woman in his image, which means that your dignity, your design and your destiny is to be kings and queens in this earth. That's what it means to be human. And God designed us that way and he gave us a mission, and the mission was to share in his reign and rule over all of creation. The way that God says it in Genesis 1, 26 and 28 is that we were given this task to be fruitful, multiply and fill the earth, and then to have dominion, to rule, to subdue, to work and to keep. I'm going to summarize those twin themes that run from Genesis to Revelation. I'm going to summarize those twin themes under these two words womb and work. Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth the woman primarily leads out through her womb and work till the soil. Bring fruit from the ground the man primarily leads out in his work. That's the way that Genesis 1, 2, and 3 is going to kind of develop those twin themes.
Speaker 1:But something went wrong In Genesis 3,. What happens is that the serpent comes in the snake in the garden and basically tells them hey, you can get what you want on your own terms, you don't need God. And so we who were made to be kings and queens, end up grasping and clutching for what was already ours. It's a good design, or a good definition, rather, of sin. And so in Genesis 3, the people go astray and towards the end of Genesis 3, we see a judgment pronounced by God, a curse as a result of that rebellion. And what is it? On the woman's womb and the man's work? And we see the woman's womb that there's going to be pain in bringing forth children being fruitful, multiply, filling the earth. The commission is still there. It's just going to be painful. Now we see the man actually in his work as he's bringing forth fruit from the ground, fruit from the womb, fruit from the ground. There's going to be pain and toil, thorns and thistles. There's a curse of the man's work in the woman's womb. This is what Genesis 3 shapes up to look like. But there's a hint of hope because it's not just the man and the woman who experience judgment, it's also the serpent. So if you have a Bible or device, you just flip back a page to Genesis 3.15. This is going to be a key passage to understand what's going on in our text today.
Speaker 1:Genesis 3.15,. This is the Lord saying to the serpent and he says this I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring. That word is seed, between your offspring or seed and her offspring or seed, he shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel. Scholars call this the proto-euangelion, the first gospel. This is a declaration of good news in the midst of judgment. Bad news it's happening right here. This is a significant promise that God is making to the first humans that will carry on throughout the rest of human history that the serpent's head will be crushed. It will happen. Someone will come. There will be a seed from which you will be crushed. It will happen. Someone will come. There will be a seed from which you will be restored back to paradise. There is hope that this will not always be this way. You won't always live east of Eden.
Speaker 1:And so the legitimate question when we get to Genesis, chapter 4, is who will this be? Who's the coming seed? Who's the coming offspring? Who's the snake crusher? And so when we get to the end of Genesis 3, verse 20, you can see that I think Adam is believing the promise of God, because he says this in verse 20, the man called his wife's name Eve because she was the mother of all living. He's believing the promise. He's saying the offspring of the woman will come. My wife is the mother of all living. From her will come this serpent-crushing seed.
Speaker 1:Then you get to Genesis 4, verse 1, and it says this Now Adam knew Eve, his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying I've gotten a man, with the help of the Lord. And again she bore his brother, abel. Now pause there for a moment. At this point in the story, if you're Adam and Eve, you're wondering which one is it? Is it Cain? Is it Abel? Who's going to crush the serpent's head? How are we getting back to paradise? What's it going to take to get back into Eden? That's the question that they're asking. But if you keep following through, if you know the story of Cain and Abel, it doesn't go well. We know Abel's not the seed, he's not the snake crusher, because he gets killed by his brother. But what about Cain? Maybe God's still got a plan for Cain.
Speaker 1:And so we get to verse 17 of chapter four. It says this Cain knew his wife and she conceived and bore Enoch. When he built a city, he called the name of the city after the name of his son, enoch. Now here's something significant Cain was cursed for killing Abel. He was cursed to be a wanderer, and that was what God spoke over him. And what did he do immediately after he stopped wandering, he built a city. He urbanized in order to create security for himself. This is significant because just because of the fall in Genesis 3 doesn't mean we lost our commitment to womb and work. This still happens. It's called the cultural mandate. It's still playing out to this day.
Speaker 1:But look at the rest of this text. Here, in verse 19, it says that one of Cain's descendants, lamech, took two wives. That's the first time of polygamy in the Bible and there's just this principle Whenever there's polygamy in the Bible, it doesn't go well. The Bible's not condoning it, it's condemning it through the narrative. It's showing you this is not a good idea. So what happens when Lamech takes two wives? It says this the name of the one is Ada and the name of the other is Zilhah. Ada bore Jabal and he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have livestock. Okay, this is significant.
Speaker 1:I said a moment ago some version of baby making and culture making is how God plans to use work through people to bring his kingdom here on earth. So what's happening in the text? There's baby making happening and there's culture making happening. You see, immediately Cain's descendants start doing things like building tents and caring for livestock. They're actually doing the things necessary to sustain a civilization, to live in the city that Cain built.
Speaker 1:Well, look at the next text here. It says in verse 21,. His brother's name was Jubal, so Jabal and Jubal, he was the father of all those who play the lyre and pipe. So really early on in the story of God, people are already making music. People are already entering into the arts. People are already making music. People are already entering into the arts, into craftsmanship, into ways of bringing beauty out of chaos. This is good actually. This is humans being humans. This is culture making core to our calling as human beings.
Speaker 1:Look at the next verse. It goes on Zillah also bore two ball cane. He was the forger of all instruments of bronze and iron. You see, in the text here now we've got people taking material like bronze and irons and shaping them into technologies and tools and instruments, and so human beings cannot help ourselves. We are, by default, culture makers. It's going to happen. It's core to God's plan for us in the world.
Speaker 1:But here's the problem the human hand is always guided by the human heart. The human hand is always guided by the human heart, and so Cain and his line, his seed, his offspring, are in rebellion against God. Which is why, in the very next verses, look with me at verse 23,. Lamech said to his wives, plural, ada and Zillah hear my voice, you, wives of Lamech, listen to what I say. I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain's revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech's revenge is 77 fold. Okay, do we see what's happening here? Metal working becomes weapon making. Plows, scythes, tools for tilling the soil, bronze and metal instruments are now used to create swords and spears to kill people. To create swords and spears to kill people.
Speaker 1:What was baby making has turned into revenge taking the human heart is always guiding the human hand, and so when we make culture, which is core to who we are, it's guided by a heart either in rebellion against God or in willing submission to God. And so I started this by saying what time is it in our text when it says at that time? Look with me again at the text, verse 25. And Adam knew his wife again, and she bore a son and called his name Seth. You see in the narrative what's happened in your mind is you see the story? You see that if baby-making and culture-making is going to bring the kingdom here and crush the serpent. If it's going to happen, maybe this is how it's going to work. Maybe it's through Cain's line and their incredible industriousness and the arts and technology and animal husbandry and all these things that they're doing. Maybe that's the way that the kingdom is going to come. Maybe that's how we're going to crush the serpent's head.
Speaker 1:Andy Crouch has my favorite definition of culture. He says culture is what we make of the world, and he means that both what we make of the world materially, of the world and he means that both what we make of the world materially, as in what we shape the world into, but also what we make of the world meaningfully, the stories we tell, the music we make. And you see culture making happening in this text. But when we get to the point of our text, our sermon text today, you can see that there's this hesitancy about whether or not womb and work are really going to bring us back to Eden, like we all long for. That's what time it is. So let's look at our text again.
Speaker 1:In verse 25, it says this and Adam knew his wife again and she bore a son and called his name Seth, for she said God has appointed for me another offspring, or seed. That's the word from Genesis 3.15. I think this is more evidence that they believe the promise. God has appointed for me another offspring instead of Abel, for Cain killed him To Seth also. A son was born and he called his name Enosh. Now I feel for Seth and Enosh, because you know the phrase like that's a face only a mother could love. Enosh's name means man, but it also kind of means mortality, weakness, frailty. Seth means appointed. Enosh means mm, I don't think this is theilty. Seth means appointed. Enosh means I don't think this is the dude. And so Eve is looking at her baby, her grandbaby, enosh, and going yeah, that's not the one, he's not the snake crusher. I don't know what she saw, I truly don't, but for some reason she is losing confidence in this as the source of the snake crusher. And we find ourselves at our text at this point. It says in the end of verse 26,.
Speaker 1:At that time, at that time, people began to call upon the name of the Lord. That was a lot, but it was giving you context to see what time is it it's time to stop trusting in human means. What time is it it's time to stop trusting in tech and education and arts and craftsmanship to bring us back to the garden. What time is it? It's time to look outside of ourselves, because all we have to offer is human weakness, and we need our impotence to be bound together with God's omnipotence. And so what do people do? They call upon the name of the Lord. They start to pray, and that's point two here. People began to call. People began to call.
Speaker 1:This is maybe about 250 years-ish from the birth of Cain to the birth of Enosh. Okay, so there's a gap in there, and what's happening is, I think, the people who are calling in the name of the Lord are beginning to realize that they're not getting back into Eden anytime soon, that they live east of Eden and this is where they are. They're in exile from the place they were designed to be, and so they begin to be sensitive to this, aware of this. And it's always in waiting, right, 250 years of waiting. God uses waiting in our lives in order to cultivate desperation in our hearts.
Speaker 1:Paul Miller has this great picture. People come to him. He wrote a great book on prayer called A Praying Life. People come to him often and say Paul, how can I have a better prayer life. And he said I can tell you one thing here it is If you were to take that feeling of desperation, that pit in the stomach that you get sometimes, and if you could distill that into a liquid and every time you wanted to pray you just took a shot of desperation you'd have an amazing prayer life.
Speaker 1:The people in our text that are calling upon the name of the Lord, at that time they're feeling desperate, they're feeling weak. They don't think baby making and culture making is gonna bring the kingdom anymore. So what do they do? They call upon the name of the Lord, they begin to pray, they begin to ask God to do for them what they cannot do for themselves.
Speaker 1:About 10 years ago I was in seminary and I wrote a paper on this text, and my paper was in our class on ecclesiology, which is the study of the church, and I argued this is when the church began, this is the study of the church. And I argued this is when the church began. This is the beginning of the church. So you all, new City, who are the church here in Orlando, the church of Orlando that's gathering together on Seek First and Seek Week, like we are the church. This is our story. This is where we began, right here, genesis 4.26. The church began when it stopped being individuals, but a people calling upon the name of the Lord. So I'm saying it wasn't Pentecost in Acts 2. That's not when the church began. The church began way back here, when people started taking up the promises of God and calling upon the name of God.
Speaker 1:You could find a better definition of the church than this? But this is a really simple and robust one. What is the church? The people who call upon the definition of the church than this, but this is a really simple and robust one. What is the church? The people who call upon the name of the Lord. That's what the church is. That's the people of God. Throughout history. It's the defining characteristic of who we are. As the people of God, we call upon the name of the Lord. We ask God to do what he's promised to do. That's significant because there's a book on this verse called Calling Upon the Name of the Lord by Gary Miller. It's a great book.
Speaker 1:If you want a book on prayer biblical understanding of prayer, this one's excellent, and in there he says it like this when this phrase is used in the Old Testament, because it starts here, calling upon the name of the Lord, and it's picked up and reused a lot throughout the Old Testament. And when it's used, he argues it is asking God specifically to do one thing to come through on his promises, to come through on what he said he would do. That's what it means to call upon the name of the Lord. God, you said now do what you promised to do, do what you promised us. And so, in this way, all prayer is what Eugene Peterson calls answering God. God goes first he speaks and then we simply answer him. We simply receive what he said and then respond in prayer. We receive the promises, we respond in prayer. This is how the Christian life works the promises we respond in prayer. This is how the Christian life works.
Speaker 1:My first discipler, my sister Shannon, told me that faith is giving all that I know of myself to all that I know of Jesus. I love that definition. I think it's so helpful. So then the question would be what did they know of themselves and what did they know of God in Genesis 4.26? Well, what they knew of themselves is we can't. What they knew of God is you can, and it caused them to pray. What they knew of God, really what they had to base their faith, their calling upon the name of the Lord on, was Genesis 3.15. You promised that there would come a snake crusher, somebody who would destroy evil in your world and renew your creation. You promised God. Now do it, do what you said you would do. You see, the kingdom comes through prayer. This is where it starts, right here, in Genesis 4.26. We call upon God's name. We say you promised, now come through on what you promised. That's a very biblical and Christian definition of prayer.
Speaker 1:Now, as the story of Scripture develops, something really remarkable happens. Authority and intimacy are inextricably linked. Let me just trace this out a little bit. Abraham is known throughout the story of Scripture as the friend of God. I don't know of a more intimate word to describe between Abraham and Yahweh, the Lord, than he's his friend. And what does that mean? How does that play out? Well, as the Lord is about to go, destroy Sodom and Gomorrah, what does he do? He goes. Should we tell Abraham what we're about to do? You know our buddy, our pal, our friend. This is Genesis 18, 19, this area. And the answer is yes, we totally should.
Speaker 1:And what does God permit Abraham to do, try to talk him out of it. What is going on? The sovereign God of the universe is inviting Abraham to come and to speak to him about his decisions that he's making. Yes, why? Because authority flows from intimacy. Abraham's been invited into the counsel of God, and so Abraham's legitimately arguing with God, saying, hey, don't do this, it's not a good idea. And he's the Lord's telling him. Well, listen, this is the situation he's like. Okay, I understand that, and they kind of have this back and forth and throughout the story of Scripture. Then you get Moses, who is described as the man who speaks with God face to face, as a man speaks with his friend. Few people had more authority in the story of Scripture than Moses. Why? Because authority flows from intimacy.
Speaker 1:I'm hop, skipping and jumping here. You could go through the prophets, you could go through King David, you could go through on and on and on. But let me just jump to the New Testament. Jesus in John 15 looks at his disciples. He says no longer do I call you servants, now I call you friends. Why, jesus? Well, he goes on. He says because I have revealed to you, I have disclosed to you all of the things that I'm about to do. What does that mean? God invites you in to participate, to partake in his work in the world. If you have intimacy with God, he gives you authority to work out in the world. Why? Because God's design making you kings and queens is for you to become the kind of people he could entrust with his power. And how do you become those kind of people? Intimacy, familiarity, friendship with God. Just like you, you invite your friends, hopefully, to speak into the life decisions that you make. God invites us, as his friends, to speak in the decisions that he makes when he rules the world.
Speaker 1:We've got a term for that prayer. This is the incredible privilege of what it means to be kings and queens ruling in this world under God's authority as the king, the sovereign over the universe. This is the role prayer plays in this. So what does this look like in practice for you? What does this actually look like? Let's just say you're coming into the end of this year feeling exhausted, worn out, burnt out.
Speaker 1:It means taking the promise in Matthew 11, 28. Jesus, you said come to me and that you would restore my soul, you'd give me rest, you'd give me your yoke, you'd slow me down to the pace of grace. Will you do that for me? Do you see what's happening? You're calling on the name of the Lord, you're taking his promises in Matthew 11, 28, and you're holding him to it. You said Lord, it says that the people of God talk to God throughout the story of Scripture. Let's just say you've got some people in your life that don't know Jesus and it burdens you, or maybe that are going wayward, or maybe making they're just, they're far from God, alienated from God. You go to him, maybe with some other people, and you take up 2 Peter, 3, 9, and you say Lord, it says here that you don't want anyone to perish. You're patient, you're slow. Why? Because you're longing for people not to perish, to grant them repentance so that they can come home. If that's true and I believe it is because you said it do what you said. This is what it looks like to call upon the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Some of you in here feel overwhelmed with decisions you have to make. Maybe it's parenting. You're like I don't know what to do in this new age and stage Like this is crazy. We need, like, an iOS update. This isn't working for us. You go to God and you call upon the name of the Lord, using James 1.5. It says that he will give wisdom to those who ask and he gives it generously, with zero condemnation. He's not like you, idiot. Why are you asking me again? He goes yes, wisdom, you need it, I've got it, have at it. You take up James 1.5, and you come before the Lord with that promise and you say I'm calling on you, lord. You said, come through on what you said.
Speaker 1:Some of you in here feel a sense of injustice. You look around Maybe it's in your own life, maybe it's in the city around us, maybe it's in your workplace and you take up Psalm 37, the city around us, maybe it's in your workplace. And you take up Psalm 37, verse 28, where it says the Lord loves justice. So simple, lord. This is true. You love justice. Why do you tolerate injustice? You can hear where lament comes in here now, and so you say, lord, bring justice to this situation. It's not fair. Bring justice, you love it, make it happen. Calling on your name right now, some of you in here might feel a sense of disappointment. Or let's just say you're in a circle with somebody who's feeling disappointment unmet desires.
Speaker 1:Elizabeth Elliot says suffering is when you have what you don't want or when you want what you don't have. You have somebody in your life who's suffering in that way, with disappointment, and you go to them and you open up Psalm 27, verse 13, which says I believe that I will look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. And you take that prayer and you bring that promise with them and you bring them into the presence of God with you and you say listen, I believe this God, I with them, and you bring them into the presence of God with you and you say listen, I believe this God, I believe that we will look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living, not just there and then in the new heavens and earth, but here and now. Lord, bring this promise to reality. That's what it means to call upon the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1:Some of you in here experience temptation to compromise or maybe you already have and you're wondering what you do. The pressure to give in to temptation is so strong and maybe you confess that to people around you, the people who show up for you. And you take up Psalm 121, where it says he will not let your foot be moved. You say, god, don't let my foot be moved. I'm walking, but I feel like the path I'm walking is treacherous right now. Hold me up, don't let me slip, lord.
Speaker 1:Finally, some of you in here, you experience loneliness, and I'm aware that this season heightens loneliness for many of us. There was a song that I liked when I was in my teenage years that says of us. There was a song that I liked when I was in my teenage years that says have you ever been alone in a crowded room? Some of you feel that in the holiday season, you feel alone in a crowded room, or you're not even in the crowded room, and you're just alone, period. And what do you do? What do you do with that loneliness? Well, first I would say, bring it into community, tell somebody, invite them into it.
Speaker 1:But Hebrews 13 says I will never leave you nor forsake you. God, is that true? Have you never left me nor forsaken me? It doesn't feel true right now, but I know that my feelings are not the barometer of what is true, and so I'm going to hope that, just like the sun can be hidden by some cloud cover, in the same way your presence is out of my awareness right now, and I'm trusting that. Be above the clouds, beyond the clouds, you really have never left me, nor forsaken me.
Speaker 1:This is what it means to call upon the name of the Lord. God, you said, this is who you are. God, you said, this is what you would do, and you take those things before him and you ask him. You ask him to be who he says he is, which is super honoring to God. It's super honoring to God. God, you said. And he goes you're right, take me at my word. And so, when we find ourselves calling upon the name of the Lord, we're taking seriously who he is and what he's promised to do. And that brings us to our third point.
Speaker 1:What does it mean to call upon the name of the Lord? Let me ask you what's in a name? Why do humans name everything? We name each other, we name our boats, we name our cities, we name God. Why is it that first-time parents, especially, are in so much agony over the name of their first child, usually? Why is this? Why is it that names are so significant to us?
Speaker 1:What makes it such that, when we think about, or if you reflect back on, even the Holocaust. One of the things that they did was so heinous was they stripped people of their names and they gave them numbers instead. So heinous was they stripped people of their names and they gave them numbers instead. What happened in that moment? Why would they do that? Well, because we know that core to what a name is is your identity, it's who you are. But it's not just this internal sense of identity, it's actually this external, it's reputation, it's who you're recognized, as People know you by your name, if they know you. This is what's in a name. It's reputation, it's honor, it's all these things are kind of wrapped up together. And so what's in a name? When we call upon the name of the Lord, we're receiving God's character, we're saying this is who you said you are, and we're responding in prayer, holding him to be that person, to be who he said he is.
Speaker 1:And so many of us live and grew up in a context which people now are calling cultural Christianity, which means that Christianity has just seeped into American or Western culture so much that it's hard for us to get outside of a Christian framework, even if we're not Christians. So let me just give you the smelling salt of what other people relate to their God, like there's a prayer from around the time of Moses, and it's a prayer to every God. I've read another one before. This is actually a different one. You're welcome. New Akkadian prayer today. This is the prayer to every God. Now contrast this with what I've been saying this whole time.
Speaker 1:Quote the God whom I know or do not know, has placed suffering upon me. Although I am looking constantly for help, no one takes me by the hand when I weep. They do not come to my side. I utter laments but none hears me. If you don't have this book, that's your life.
Speaker 1:If you don't have what the Bible, what we call revelation, god's self-disclosure, if you don't have that, you're aimless. You're wandering in the dark. You cry out to a God, prayer to any God, every God, whichever God, but you have no confidence of who that God is or how that God's going to act towards you. Which is why, if you ever take Christian prayer, it's always responsive, it's always answering God, because God has gone first. If you ever come to a prayer meeting with me, I can promise you there's going to be an open Bible, most likely. Why? Well, because we take what God says about who he is and what he's going to do, and we bring those words back to God so that we're not just wandering in the darkness. I can't pray for more than like 10 minutes without the Bible open in front of me. Some of you are like. I hope you feel relief in that, because this is the way it was meant to go.
Speaker 1:It's a dialogue between God. He speaks and we respond. This is what it means to call upon the name of the Lord. God goes first, even in our text, if you go back to Genesis 3. In Genesis 3, 9, it says this this is after Adam and Eve rebel, but the Lord God listen to this language called to man and said where are you? You see, we believe that God calls upon us far earlier than we ever call upon him. We believe that it takes God to know God. We believe that unless God graciously discloses himself to us, we would never know how to draw near to him. So if you have ever called upon the name of the Lord, or if you're in any way inclined to call upon the name of the Lord, it's because God called your name out first. That's what's happening in the text here, and so God reveals his name and his people respond in praying to that name, to that God, to be who that God says that God is.
Speaker 1:So let's go back to our promise in Genesis 3.15, this seed of the woman that would crush the head of the serpent but whose heel would be bruised. That promise really isn't fulfilled for anywhere, at minimum 4,000 years. It's a long time to be calling upon the name of the Lord, but when we get to our Christmas passages, you read Matthew 1, let's just say you skip past the genealogy because it's boring, but don't skip past the genealogy. It is boring, I'm sure, but it's actually full of richness and brilliance if you pay attention. Why? Because Jesus is the seed. Going back, going back, going back, luke 3 says Jesus is the seed all the way back to Adam. That's why the genealogies are in there throughout the whole story of Scripture is because we're seeing whose offspring is going to come and crush the head of the serpent. And so we get to Matthew 1 and we read through this genealogy linking Jesus back, back, back, back back, and then we get to this point where he's going to be named Jesus back, back, back, back, back, and then we get to this point where he's going to be named Angel comes to Joseph and tells Joseph what he's supposed to name this boy that's going to be born of a virgin. What does he say? If you want to flip there, you can.
Speaker 1:In Matthew 1. Famous Christmas passage. It says this in verse 21, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which means God with us. So which is it, jesus or Emmanuel? Yes, jesus is his mission. His mission is for the Lord to save. That's what it means. Jesus means Yahweh saves Yeshua, but he's also Emmanuel. That's his identity. He's God with us.
Speaker 1:The fulfillment of Genesis 3.15 is in Jesus, the one who saves, and Emmanuel, god with us. God will come and actually bring his people back back into restored paradise. That's why, when Jesus is hanging on the cross, he looks to the thief next to him and says today you will be with me in paradise. That's the word for Eden. And so Jesus is this coming, one who comes in an unexpected way. Why? Because Jesus is born from the womb of a teenage virgin and then Jesus dies through the work of Roman execution. Nobody would have ever expected womb and work would shape up like that, and so this is why john calvin says it like this Through the gospel, our hearts are trained to call on god's name Because we have a name jesus, yeshua, emmanuel, god with us, the one who saves.
Speaker 1:We have a name to call upon. This is why, in acts 2, quoting Joel 2, it says everyone, very inclusive, everyone who calls in the name of the Lord shall be saved. A couple chapters later, in Acts 4, it says this there is salvation in no one else, very exclusive, only Jesus. There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved. Why Philippians 2 puts it like this? Because he became a servant to the point of death. Therefore, god has highly exalted him and given Jesus the name that is above every name, so that the name of Jesus, every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God, the Father. This is what it means to call upon the name of the Lord.
Speaker 1:But then something really weird happens to this promise in Genesis 3.15. In Romans 16.20,. Paul quotes it and he says this to the Romans. He says this the God of peace will soon crush Satan under your feet. What I thought Jesus was the snake crusher. Why would the God of peace which I think is a funny irony the God of peace will crush Satan under your feet. How does that work, new City? What does that mean for you and me? Well, if you belong to Jesus, then he is the head and you are his body. You are the feet under which the serpent's head will be crushed. The fulfillment of the promise is not yet the evil. One's still doing work in our world. He's been crushed, and yet not crushed. And so how do we share in that? What does it look like for us to join in our big brother's mission of serpent crushing? First and foremost, calling upon the name of the Lord. Calling upon the name of the Lord Jesus in extraordinary united kingdom-focused prayer is how the kingdom comes. Let me close with a story.
Speaker 1:Duncan Campbell was a Presbyterian evangelist in Scotland and he tells the story about a revival that broke out in some islands off of Scotland called the Hebrides, and as these people were gathering together during the evening, gathering around fire pits to pray, to seek God. They were taking up a promise of God, isaiah 44, which says this I will pour water upon him that is thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. They were taking God at his word, calling on his name. Night after night they were doing this and as they did it they were saying God, this is a promise that was made by a covenant-keeping God. Now come through on it, fulfill the promise, pour out on thirsty ground. And so Duncan Campbell. After months of them praying like this, we're just doing Sikh week. Y'all we're junior varsity. They were going for months, okay, night and day, praying.
Speaker 1:Duncan Campbell joins one of their meetings and while he's in the room, about 1 am sounds like Sikh first in some ways, right At 1 am, he tells this young boy to get up. I love this. God always works in powerful ways through young people. He tells this young man to step up and he says I want you to pray now, and this is the young man's prayer. I love this. This is calling upon the name of the Lord par excellence.
Speaker 1:Listen, quote Lord, you made a promise. Are you going to fulfill it? We believe that you are a covenant-keeping God. Will you be true to your covenant. You have said that you would pour water on the thirsty and floods upon the dry ground. I do not know how others stand in your presence, but I know my own heart, I know where I stand and I am telling you now that I am thirsty. Oh, I am thirsty for a manifestation of your right hand. Lord, before I sit down, I want to tell you that your honor is at stake. That's how you pray.
Speaker 1:Young man sits down and the house begins to shake. Campbell says you could hear the dishes in the kitchen rattling in the cupboards. One of the elders that was there looks at Duncan Campbell and says I think it's an earthquake. And he smiles and says I think so too. Pronounces the benediction number six that you're going to get at the end of this and walks out. And this is what he says quote the town was alive with an awareness of the presence of God.
Speaker 1:You can look up the Hebrides revival. Things that flow out from that revival is remarkable. Oh, what would happen if New City and the Church of Orlando calls upon the name of the Lord and says we're thirsty, lord, send water, send your spirit on dry ground? And we begin to shake in this house and we begin to see a city that's alive with an awareness of the presence of God. Let's pray, father, we love you. We love that you are a covenant-keeping God. We love that prayer is not twisting the arm of a reluctant God, but laying hold in the heart of a willing God. We praise you for that. And so here we are, your people calling upon your name, asking you to fulfill your promises. It's in Jesus' name, and for his sake, we pray Amen.