Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.44 – November 2008

 

Letting the Water of His Goodness Flow

 A Sermon by Rev Sjirk Bajema

on Heidelberg Catechism, LD 40

Scripture Reading: Genesis 4:1-11

 

Congregation of our Lord…

The Lord saw right through Cain. He looked at his heart. He perceived what was about to happen. He knew he was going to kill Abel. He even says it to Cain in Genesis 4:6-7. “Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? If you do what is right, won’t you be accepted? But if you do not do what’s right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.”

Brothers and sisters, young people, what has happened to the fountain of the first family? Cain and Abel were sons of Adam and Eve. The family which had been the purest fountain of the family in Paradise before the fall into sin was now terribly poisoned. So quickly, it seems, love turns to hate. Haven’t we seen that ourselves? A relationship appeared to start off well. But something else inside grew and grew. That evil thing was allowed to grow so much that one day it took over that whole body!

Now, it may have started off so small. How quickly it grew, though! You see, it’s all very well having a fountain to pour water into a garden, but that garden won’t have anything growing unless the water is good.

What the water can easily become…

We know that when the water in rivers can become stagnant and a danger to health. Like those South Island rivers of New Zealand on the news over the past few years, or the Murray River in Australia. What comes from those rivers can be very unsafe. So as we consider the sixth commandment — as we look at “You shall not murder” — let’s see, in the first place… WHAT THE WATER CAN EASILY BECOME.

Our reading from Genesis 4 showed in a devastating way how soon murder came into the world after Adam and Eve sinned. More than the actual murder itself, however, we must be aware of what the Bible tells us was already happening before. How does any murder begin? Do we suddenly have someone dead with no apparent forethought or logic whatsoever? In fact, it’s quite the opposite. In a homicide case, the police will go to some lengths to establish the motive behind a murder. That gives them the start to what happened, and with this beginning they can properly fill in all those other pieces of the crime as well.

Answer 106 shows where it begins. There we confess that Scripture teaches that an actual murder comes out of a deliberate, calculated act. Hebrews 12:14-15 points to this when God’s people are warned, “Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy; without holiness no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one misses the grace of God and that no bitter root grows up to cause trouble and defile many.”

The key here is to avoid someone becoming increasingly embittered, so defiling others. As soon as you have one rotten apple in a barrel, it won’t be long before others will be rotten too! Congregation, it begins within. It could only be one fleeting moment when we allow that wrong thought about someone else. We didn’t challenge the temptation. We let it take hold. It took root — and it was bitter!

And let’s not be so naive as to think it easily goes away. Perhaps if it is tackled in the early stages hatred can be dealt with. But once it’s entrenched, what a motivation hate can be! As a wise believer said once, “If Christians spent as much time showing love as they did planning evil, what a difference in the world there would be!”

He’s right! How many Christians aren’t right now hating those they’re living right next to — yes, even wishing them dead — because the devil’s attacking them so sharply on this very point! He’s going to do whatever he can to stop the precious gospel message — the water springing from eternal life, the good news — from refreshing the minds and souls of those who don’t believe. And if we don’t deal with anger, we’re letting him do that! Instead of doing what James writes in his letter, chapter 4, submitting to God and resisting the devil, we become taken over. From our motive it grows into method. We don’t only find the thought appealing, we also begin to plan how it could be done. From wondering what a relief life would be without a particular person, we start thinking about how that might happen.

We might think it’s all just frivolous thoughts, but they create a whole different way of looking at things in our minds and hearts. For in our hearts we displace that person. You don’t want him or her! Within that water flowing from the fountain one bacteria may not seem so much. Yet it multiplies. Given the right conditions it grows very fast! Whether we realise it or not, Christians are exactly those people Satan attacks most of all. We’re part of Christ’s Body! And if he can manipulate the Christian family and the Christian church to fight against itself, he’s in his element. WHAT THE WATER CAN EASILY BECOME.

It’s very appropriate that, having stated the family as the fountain of life in the fifth commandment, the Lord gives this next commandment to specifically protect life. The saying is true that while there is life there is hope — and it’s equally true that physically water is the source of life. Our bodies are largely water; water nourishes the plants; it satisfies the thirst of animals, and us; water keeps us clean; and the list goes on. Friends — doesn’t the creation around us literally shrivel up and dry without the relief of rain? And what life there is when it does fall!

Wherever you find a list of what really matters to keep life going, water is right at the top! So either way — physically or spiritually — protecting life is important. This commandment against murder is important exactly because what is essential before the remaining commands is the life to be able to do them! Take away life, and you take away the very means for us to praise God in all these ways! When a person is murdered, a person who was created for exactly that purpose of praising God, he cannot fulfil his purpose!

We were created to perfectly image God before the rest of creation! But our sin broke the purity of mankind bearing God’s image. We are shattered and distorted. We are like a broken mirror presenting a broken image. In Jesus Christ, however, the broken mirror has been thrown out altogether! The polluted water which was slowly yet surely sending us all to that painful death was flushed out. You see, right at its source the water was changed. Inside our hearts — our souls — His righteousness became ours by faith.

Except when it flows from God’s Son…

Congregation, we’ve come to the second aspect in this Lord’s Day. >From WHAT THE WATER CAN EASILY BECOME we realise EXCEPT WHEN IT FLOWS FROM GOD’S SON. Jesus once described the Holy Spirit as the living water that he would give to all who came to him. The work of the Holy Spirit is like water flowing from Jesus, God the Son.

Though don’t just take my word for it. The effect of this living water can already be seen in changed lives, in believers whose life’s flow has become so changed at its source within that they’re the most beautiful garden without! The opposite of the killing attitude, where words and looks can kill, is that peace-loving attitude, which makes life bloom all around the place where we’re planted. That’s the most vivid witness to those around us.

This is what it means to live, in the words of Answer 107, by loving our neighbour as ourselves, by being patient, peace-loving, gentle, merciful, and friendly to him, and by protecting him from harm as much as we can. Then we do good even to our enemies — to that very person who had made it quite obvious they hated you intensely! And you do it because it’s not you doing it! These are the fruit of the Spirit which flow from the goodness of God’s Son.

Someone once described how much we need someone different inside us with this delightful illustration, “If you had Rembrandt in you, just think what a painter you would be! If you had Beethoven in you, imagine the kind of music you could write! If you had Christ in you, consider what sort of life you could lead, and how magnificently you could love!”

Dear believer, you cannot have the talents of Rembrandt or Beethoven in you. But you can have Christ — and you can learn to love with His splendid, searching love. Christ can be so deeply formed within us that we’ll love eagerly and we’ll love completely all those He places on our way. Then we won’t ever have to say, “Get out of my way!” because instead you’ll say, “Can I serve you my Lord’s way? As Paul said in Ephesians 5:2, we’ll live a life of love just as Christ loved us and gave Himself up for us.

Congregation, with our eternal position in mind; with the full blessing restored in Christ Jesus, let’s see consider Question 105 of the Catechism. How does your response to your Saviour in the sixth commandment show in your everyday life? Well, one thing’s for sure, we think about others. In fact, this Answer is so comprehensive — so total — that we can almost say we’ve put ourselves in their shoes! And, you know, we do! As we show the difference Jesus makes, it also means being like Him in getting next to others.

What we do naturally is to go against our neighbour. We feel hurt, we react. And inside we simmer. Then our thoughts over time become words and looks and gestures, and even actions, against that person. Everything in connection with that person becomes seen in a reactive, negative light. The Gospel challenges this. The Lord says, instead, in the words of Leviticus 19:17-18, “Don’t hate your neighbour in your heart. Rebuke your neighbour frankly so you won’t share in his guilt. Don’t seek revenge or bear a grudge against one of your people, but love your neighbour as yourself. I am the LORD.”

That’s proactive — not reactive! That’s positive — not negative! Turning the other cheek isn’t letting someone get away with a crime, rather it turns his evil back on himself. You don’t continue that wrong. You break the cycle of hate! That’s something we do need to realise about the Old Testament. Some Christians have painted it very darkly, as though it is about strictly living by a set of rule and regulations — and that’s it! But the example they use to show this, that rule about taking “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth,” is actually much more merciful than the “two eyes for an eye, and the two teeth for a tooth,” which is the “natural” way we think. Besides, “eye for eye and tooth for tooth” is not meant to regulate personal relationships. If you look at where these rules are set forth in the Old Testament, they are always guidelines for the courts, not for personal interactions.

God’s justice sets the basis for our being able to get on together. That’s why Answer 105 concludes, “Prevention of murder is also why the government is armed with the sword.” The apostle is clear about this principle in Romans 13. And then there’s our Lord Jesus Himself, who, to a very tricky question thrown at Him about state-church relations, said in Luke 20:25, “give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.”

Christ didn’t muck around. He showed perfectly what each of us should be willing to die for. And he gave us the great example himself. Why was he crucified? Because He did the exact opposite to what we, in our sinful natures, had been doing for thousands of years. His attitude was the complete reverse to how we instantly react, as our feelings overwhelm us in a flurry of self-righteousness.

Friends, there is the God-Man who was other-righteous. There on that bitter and most painful cross, hanging between heaven and hell, is the One who put away every single thought for revenge. He cries out, in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing.” Why? Because we were all innocent? Because we had all made accidental mistakes, not really meaning to put God Himself to death? No, people of God; Jesus cries out these words because there might yet be life, and life in all its fullness, for us. He pleads with His Father that He might hold back His justice so that His flock would be brought safely home. Dear Christian, is that how we follow the Good Shepherd today? Do we so love our neighbour that we want him desperately to see how special He is in God’s sight?

You know, this commandment is really the greatest evangelistic method the church possesses. When believers already live heavenly lives here below, we cannot help but show that there’s a lot more our unbelieving neighbour needs to know.

Let it be, congregation, as what a believing friend of mine did when he was suddenly and viciously verbally attacked in a most publicly embarrassing situation over such an insignificant thing. Oh, how an unbelieving friend with him felt the anger rushing in; oh, how he wanted to hit that man down, because he humiliated his friend so! But the believer simply said, “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.” And he turned away.

It was the most powerful witness to his unbelieving friend. Though, that’s not where it ended. The one who so bitterly attacked him became his friend, too. And who knows how the Lord may have worked in his heart through one Christian following his Lord’s sixth command?

Amen.