00:00:00.000 - 00:00:36.080

The following message for the... Our Father, we thank Thee for the joy of our believing and the happiness of our faith, and we pray that what is said now will be said and heard in spite of the preacher's sins because of Thy grace. It's in Your Son's name that we pray, Amen. I prefer to travel on the ground. I heard about an ocean liner that was going across the sea and

00:00:36.080 - 00:01:00.400

ahead in one of the entertainment lounges a magician, and he was doing tricks each night for the entertainment of the passengers, but it so happened that right there the captain's parrot sat on a stand to one side of the stage, and every time the magician would do a trick, the parrot would say, "So what?" which sort of took a luster off the trick, you see, a luster off the show, and

00:01:00.400 - 00:01:34.520

it went on and on and on, and then one night quite tragically the ship hit an unexploded World War II mine, and it sank instantly. One minute it was gone. Everyone lost except for two. There was a spar floating, and at one end was the magician and the other end was the parrot. For five days they floated, and finally on the fifth day the Easter parrot turned and looked at the magician

00:01:34.520 - 00:02:04.560

and said, "All right, I give up. Where did you make it disappear to?" So I will sail, but I don't like to sail. Same way about airplanes. Going to some of the places I've had to go to talk, I have flown on some amazing airlines. I remember once in Mexico. When you got on this plane, you had to have exact change. Now the inside of the train, the chain, the inside of the plane was all one

00:02:04.560 - 00:02:29.640

compartment. There was no bulkhead between the cockpit and where the passengers were, so you could see right in, and the first thing I noticed was along the dashboard was a whole long row of plastic saints, and right in the middle of them was Saint Christopher, and he had his hands over his eyes like this. I said to the stewardess, "This seat belt won't go around me. Can you give me an

00:02:29.640 - 00:02:54.000

extender?" She said, "Certainly," and she handed me a ball of string. The fellow next to me said, "Are you nervous?" I said, "No." He said, "Well, if you're not nervous, would you please let go of my knee? You're cutting off my circulation." I think the climax came when we're up about 30,000 feet, and we could hear all the radio conversation between the ground and these pilots because no bulkhead, and the

00:02:54.000 - 00:03:23.240

message came up from down below, "Please give us your height and position," and the captain responded, "Five foot eight, and I'm sitting in front." So I will fly, but I don't like to. I like to travel on terra firma. I like to go by car or by train. I like the solidity of roads and of bridges. I've always been especially fascinated by bridges, whether it's the Firth of Forth Bridge, which

00:03:23.240 - 00:03:52.120

goes across that mighty span in Scotland, or the George Washington Bridge that takes you across to Manhattan Island, or the Golden Gate Bridge, which opens out onto the distant Pacific, or the Walt Whitman Bridge, which takes you down to the Jersey Coast. I like those bridges. They're strong, they're graceful, and they're trustworthy. And Jesus is the one who built the bridge from life to life, from

00:03:52.120 - 00:04:17.040

the temporal to the eternal. There's a basic principle that they follow when they build a bridge, and that is that you start at both ends simultaneously. They don't build a bridge from one end across like this. They start at both ends, and then they meet one day in the middle. The scriptures say of Jesus, "Jesus knowing whence he came and whither he was going." In other words,

00:04:17.040 - 00:04:42.960

understanding his origin and his destiny, the beginning and the end. This is Christ. This is the builder of bridges for us. When Paul talks about Christ as the bridge builder, in the passage read in your hearing just a few moments ago, he uses three word pictures. The first one is of a seed. The seed is thrown into the ground, it decomposes, but then after it dies, up comes the

00:04:42.960 - 00:05:06.080

flower. The second word picture he uses is from the world of history, and he talks about Adam, who was the first man made out of the dust of the ground, you will remember. And he says that Christ is a new Adam, a new beginning. He's made not only out of the dust of the ground, but the dust of the stars. You see the beginning and the end. Here's both ends of that bridge. And in the third picture

00:05:06.080 - 00:05:32.680

he uses is a sort of an evolutionary one, in that it begins by suggesting that we have a physical body, but it moves on to say that we also have a spiritual body. When Jesus suffered on the cross, he suffered physically, but in his resurrection body, his spiritual body, as you know he could go through doors that were locked and all kinds of things. A spiritual body can do those kinds of

00:05:32.680 - 00:06:02.160

things. So this Christ who promises us eternity, who promised it to us in our hearts and also in our futures, this Christ has made the journey himself from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven, from heaven to earth, and from earth back to heaven again. He starts from both ends. I've always been fascinated by the moon. The moon, I think most people think is much smaller than it

00:06:02.160 - 00:06:23.280

actually is. It's about a quarter of the size of the earth. And you know it produces no light on its own, just as the earth doesn't. It reflects the light of the sun. We didn't really know a great deal about the moon until January the 20th, 1969, when we landed astronauts on it for the first time. And of course in their many journeys back and forth, we have learned more and more

00:06:23.280 - 00:06:57.680

about this celestial satellite. Well, Christ in a sense is an almighty astronaut, in that he has gone from heaven to earth and from earth to heaven. And with that, he has ended any tyranny of the temporal. From life to life, Christ is the bridge. Both ends are his. He starts with us here and he leads us to hereafter. Now what is more, this master bridge builder calls us to build bridges

00:06:57.680 - 00:07:28.200

as he has built a bridge. The Apostle Paul, after talking about how Christ is the bridge builder by using those pictures I alluded to a moment ago, goes on to say this, "Therefore brethren, we must always be abounding in the work of the Lord." What he's saying you see is Easter is not only a proclamation, it's also a call. We are supposed to live a life which testifies to the fact that we

00:07:28.200 - 00:07:52.280

believe with all our hearts in that bridge and that we have a vision, a spiritual knowledge of what is at both ends of it. Halford Luckett was for many years the professor of preaching at Yale University and on one occasion he told about a man who would head out every morning all dressed up, he was a salesman, he'd go out very enthusiastically and aggressively and he'd come back at night and

00:07:52.280 - 00:08:20.520

he'd be very discouraged. And his wife would say, "Well, how did it go today?" And he'd say, "Well, there's not much movement in the market." So happened that this man sold bridges. He sold and built big bridges. And his wife said to him, "Look, why are you building those kind of things and selling those kinds of things? Why don't you sell razor blades or socks or band-aids? People

00:08:20.520 - 00:08:40.520

need those all the time. Just sell something that's very simple and then you'll be able to sell a lot of them and we will live more comfortably and all the rest of it." Now, there's a certain amount to be said for what the wife suggested. But the husband never accepted her suggestion because every night when he would go to bed he would think to himself,

00:08:40.520 - 00:09:10.400

"Someone has to sell and build big bridges. Yes, somebody has to sell aspirin, but we also need someone doing cancer research." In a planet like ours, which is on the edge of shaky disaster because of environmental problems and the like, it's not enough for us to simply stand back and spend all of our time looking for lost golf balls. We are to be giving ourselves to some

00:09:10.400 - 00:09:43.160

pointed purpose. It's very easy these days to sell a gun or a bomb, but it's hard to sell the idea of a sacrificial piece. You can sell videos and six-packs without any hardship whatever, but what the world needs is Bibles and the water of life and that's what we're called upon to sell. It's very easy to peddle immediate pleasures rather than eternal goods. And so that means,

00:09:43.160 - 00:10:12.320

as we take up our task of proclaiming this bridge building and by that proclamation building our own, we become part of what I call the fellowship of the seventh mark. We're not called upon to have our hands pierced with nails. We are not asked by God to have our feet lacerated with spikes. We never receive any order or command to put on a crown of thorns or to stab ourselves or let someone

00:10:12.320 - 00:10:43.960

else stab us in the side. Those six marks are not intended for us. They were born by Christ and out of them our salvation is assured. But we are to carry the seventh mark and the seventh mark was the bruise on his shoulder from carrying that cross. We are called upon to take up the cross and to follow him. A mother said to her son one morning, "Son, get up. It's time to go to school."

00:10:43.960 - 00:11:10.600

He said, "I don't want to go." She said, "Now you have to go to school." He said, "I don't want to go." She said, "Well, why don't you want to go?" And he said, "Well, none of the kids like me and none of the teachers like me and nobody pays any attention to me." She says, "Son, you still have to get up and go to school." And he said, "Why?" And she said, "Because you're the principal." Well,

00:11:10.600 - 00:11:40.040

there are times when we will be unpopular and we will be ignored and no one will seem to be paying any attention to what we have to say, but we are building the greatest of bridges. We are building the bridge which goes from both ends and we must always be about that mission ministry, putting up bridges like Christ's. Now, these bridges that we build, of course, must be very dependable bridges.

00:11:40.040 - 00:12:12.160

That's the reason Paul goes on to say here that we are not only to be active in the work of the Lord, but what we do we are to do with a steadfast and immovable manner. Steadfast means literally to be firmly based. And immovable, the word Paul uses here, stands for trustworthy. These bridges that we build are to be solid and dependable. I think of this verse every time I'm in San Francisco and

00:12:12.160 - 00:12:39.640

I take that little boat ride around the harbor. You pass under the Bay Bridge, not the Golden Gate, but you pass under the Bay Bridge, and there are these great concrete foundations on which that bridge stands. Now, each one of these concrete foundations, each one of them, contains enough cement to make a sidewalk six inches thick and three feet wide from the earth to the moon and

00:12:39.640 - 00:13:07.640

back again. That's how firm those foundations are. Also, that bridge is hinged to the earth. All great bridges are. You see, when there's an earthquake or something of that kind, the tectonic plates under the surface of the earth move. Now, if that bridge is rigid, it's going to snap. But if it has hinges, then you see it will fluctuate with the movement of the tectonic plates, and that makes

00:13:07.640 - 00:13:35.080

it a lot more safe. Those kinds of bridges are also built with movable joints so that as the weather causes the bridge to extend itself, to expand, or to contract, it will be able to do that without in any way imperiling itself or those who are traveling on it. Now, that's the kind of bridges we're to build. Not just locked into yesterday, but hinged bridges that are ready

00:13:35.080 - 00:14:01.800

to move. Joints that are movable, ready to adjust to the times in which we find ourselves. We are never to allow our witness to become a weak and insipid thing. Did you know that every time they start to paint the Golden Gate Bridge, they start at one end and they paint the whole way across. That takes one year. And when they get to the other end, they pick up their paint cans and go

00:14:01.800 - 00:14:29.720

right back and start it all over again. They are never finished painting that bridge. Their witness, you see, the beauty of the bridge is always kept there for everyone to see. I got a letter this last week from a young man, a son of this church, Jeff Hatton, and he's in a place called Kazakhstan, which is part of the old Soviet Union. I couldn't even find it on a map, I don't believe. And he's

00:14:29.720 - 00:15:02.160

over there proclaiming the good news that Jesus built a bridge from life to life eternal. And at the end of his letter, Jeff says, quoting the Apostle Paul, "Our weapons are not the weapons of the world, but they have divine power to demolish evil strongholds." That's steadfast, you see, immovable. Now, we are not always going to succeed. There are tough times. We don't win

00:15:02.160 - 00:15:26.880

every battle into which we enter. And we must not despair when that happens. You know, when the IBM company decided to go into the photocopier business, they hired one of their up-and-coming young executives to set up and conduct that whole program. And they entered in with their photocopier and it was a complete flop. And the company lost $11 million. And Tom Watson,

00:15:26.880 - 00:15:48.800

who was at that time the president of IBM, called that young executive into his office. And as he was talking with him, he noticed that this young man wasn't paying very much attention to him. So he said, "Listen, why aren't you listening to me? Why aren't you paying attention to what I'm saying?" And the young fellow said, "Well, you just called me in here to fire me anyway." And Tom

00:15:48.800 - 00:16:22.800

Watson looked at him and said, "Fire you? We just paid $11 million to advance your education." Well, just so, when we do fail, God, you see, uses those experiences to teach us, costly as they might be. He corrects us. He guides us. And he promises us that though we may lose some of the scourges along the way, the final victory is ours. That's the important thing to hold on to. That this bridge

00:16:22.800 - 00:16:52.400

of Christ and the bridges we build in proclaiming the gospel of Christ, these bridges lead to inevitable victory. Paul, in the passage before us this morning, puts it this way, "We know that in the Lord our labor is not in vain." We have a young architect in the church by the name of William Deiter, and he's the one that talked to me about the architectural aspects of erecting a

00:16:52.400 - 00:17:20.240

bridge. I didn't really know anything about it. And in the course of his telling me these things, he used a word I'd never heard before. It was the word "camber." A camber refers to the curve or to the arch in the span of the bridge. And that camber must be designed in such a way that that bridge can carry the maximum amount of weight that it might ever be called upon to carry. You

00:17:20.240 - 00:17:48.240

don't build it to carry anything less than it might be called upon to carry. You build it to carry anything that is going to go across it properly. You build it so that it will not fall because that which is on it is greater than it is. Well, just so. That's the way we're to build, with bridges that have that kind of strength. The bridge that Christ built has lasted 2,000

00:17:48.240 - 00:18:20.040

years, and the bridge that we proclaim when we plant it in the hearts of other people will last long enough for them to move to that place which is theirs forever, the resurrected life of glory. We live in a very negative time. I watch the news sometimes and I listen to all this doom, death, and destruction that these commentators... I sometimes think that if Thomas Edison invented

00:18:20.040 - 00:18:54.360

the light bulb today, Dan Rather would begin the story on CBS with these words, "Today, tragedy struck the candle industry." That's the way they seem to be. They always talk about things in the worst of all possible ways. My friends, it is never as dark as some people think it is. You ever been to a sunrise service on the edge of the Grand Canyon at Easter? Starts in the total

00:18:54.360 - 00:19:26.680

darkness. Can't see a thing except maybe a few stars. There's a reporter assigned to go out there. He was an unbeliever. And the sun came up, and he saw that sun begin to spill down into that canyon. Took 150 million years to build that canyon. Must have been a government job. And he watched that light go down into that canyon. And he saw the black dissolve away. And he saw all the

00:19:26.680 - 00:20:00.120

blazing colors of the stone called to life. And as he saw this, there was a kind of exploding vision within his heart. And he realized that this is the light which God has stored up for people, no matter how dark they might think their days are or will be. Christ's bridge goes to glory. He is headed for the light. And we are not to build in vain. We are to build for the light also. Used to

00:20:00.120 - 00:20:40.520

be that the oldest joke that was ever told in New York City was, "Hey, buddy, would you like to buy the Brooklyn Bridge?" That's not really a joke anymore. Because we need people who are ready to sell and build big bridges. We must answer the call of Easter, the command of Christ. We must build those spans which will bridge the chasms of conflict that rip our planet to pieces. And we do

00:20:40.520 - 00:21:26.320

this with the gospel. I think we ought to run an ad in the newspaper which says, "Wanted salesmen and saleswomen to be sellers and builders of big bridges. No immediate salary, but a large commission." God makes this promise to us, that for those who sell and build big bridges, there will be a magnificent glory. My friends, God never denies any man or woman peace except to give him

00:21:26.320 - 00:22:06.960

or her glory. So it is Easter and Christ is risen. And with Paul we say, "Therefore, brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor will not be in vain." Let this church be known as a place. Let the people who are in this church this day, as they go out into the world, be known as those who build and sell bridges to eternity. The only bridges that

00:22:06.960 - 00:22:46.600

span the space between here and glory. Pray with me. Our Father, we thank Thee for the joy of our faith. We thank Thee for the glee we can have over glory. And we thank Thee, too, for the privilege of carrying the message to others. And we pray that Thou wilt make us great bridge builders. In our moments of defeat, remind us of the ultimate victory which is ours. We will be taught by Thee,

00:22:46.600 - 00:23:18.200

we will yield ourselves to Thee, we will be directed by Thee, so that we ourselves will come to know glory, and so that someday when we stand there in the kingdom of heaven at the side of our Lord and Savior, some who have walked across the bridge that He built and we built with Him, some will walk up to us and say, "I am here because of Christ, but I know Christ because of

00:23:18.200 - 00:23:37.220

you." That will be heaven indeed. Amen. [BLANK_AUDIO]