The third message in the “Swimming Lessons” series builds upon the previous two, by continuing to chart the descent of human culture into greater and greater brokenness. In this message, Pastor T. C. shows how human culture disintegrated from the original “Garden Culture” to Cain killing his brother Abel. But, the shattering of shalom isn’t confined to individuals. After God marks Cain for his own protection, the story says Cain built a city. Our judgment of and violence toward one another is externalized into social systems which take on a life of their own. Social systems then internalize values into those who participate in the system.

The church is the externalization of the Holy Spirit among Jesus’s disciples. Rather than living into the “City of Cain,” we are called to live into the New Jerusalem even now, as a foretaste of the Age to Come.