The Grand Story Various Texts

One question I like to ask people is what is your favorite story? Everybody loves stories, and it's an enjoyable question to ask and I have done this before and I've received many different responses.

If you ask a typical American you would get a wide range of answers. And I made a list of popular stories that would be like that you would be likely to hear. These have captured the imagination of our culture.

Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Flies, The Wizard of Oz, Gulliver's Travels, Pilgrim's Progress, Moby Dick, Huckleberry Finn, The Great Gatsby, To Kill a Mockingbird, The Brave New World, Catcher in the Rye, Charlotte's Web, The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars, Star Trek, and many more and we could keep going.

These are books that have been read over and over again by millions and in some cases hundreds of millions. And these are movies that different generations fall in love with. Have you ever wondered why we love stories so much?

I think for a few reasons. One, it is an escape from reality. Life is hard, and we like to get away by reading a good book or watching a good movie. Secondly, we like to imagine ourselves in the story.

It motivates us in our own life. Thirdly, we desire a greater world out there. We see all the problems in the world and we want something. We want to see something better. However, I think the main reason we love stories is because we're in one.

That's right. You are in a story. You are in the greatest story ever written. Have you ever thought about that? The author of this grand story is God. Stories like the ones listed above are tiny reflections of the grand story.

This is the story you are in and as you read the Bible, you will see that this is not a fictitious world. This is not Narnia. This is not Middle Earth. This is not Never Neverland. This is not a galaxy far far away.

It is planet Earth. It's the real world. When you read the Bible, you're reading about the real world. And in this story, there is good and evil, the victorious and the defeated. And your destiny hangs in the balance depending on how you live and the choices that you make.

The choices that you make have eternal consequences. Where you will spend eternity depends on Your response to what the Bible calls you to do. Will you go to the forever world or will you end in destruction?

These are the two options. The purpose of this sermon this morning is to show you how you can be certain that your story will end well. And the way that it will end well is if you are allied with and belong to God's Son Jesus Christ.

The Overarching Story of Scripture and Our Only Hope in Jesus

And now this morning what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through kind of the overarching narrative of Scripture and Next week, we're going to start Genesis. We're going to go through chapters 1 through 50 but today I want to just go through the overarching narrative of Scripture and Showing you here that that that you are in this story.

And so our main point this morning is that our only hope is Jesus. Okay, so in this story, our only hope is Jesus and there are three reasons why. And you'll see this in your outline. The first reason why is that God created you and you will answer to him.

God created you and you will answer to answer him. The Bible makes the clear claim that God created all things. Genesis 1 1 we'll look at in a couple weeks in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

He creates all things and the evidence is all around us. We live in a logical universe and when I say logical what I what I mean is things make sense. There's no signs of this world being an accidental place.

This world makes sense. This universe makes sense and the universe is logical because God is logical. Things work the way they are supposed to and you see this in the laws of nature. The universe is orderly because God is orderly.

Since the beginning of creation we have had 24 hour days and 365 days in a year and this never changes. We don't need to wonder in 2018 in the year 2018 if we're gonna have shorter days. It's just a given.

We're gonna have 24 hour days and it's always been this way. The earth takes about 365 days to do one lap around the Sun. It's always been this way. God's orderly mind set it up this way and The universe is beautiful because God is beautiful over this last summer.

We looked at the attributes of God and one of the attributes we looked at was the beauty of the Lord. Now we live we live in an interesting place. Bran and I have gone to some shops around here and I saw this pillow and it said Minnesotan.

That pretty much captures it right? We're kind of on right on the border here. And so here in Minnesotan.

We have.

Trees and lakes and rivers and hills and and Lake Superior is only a couple hours north of us. We've we enjoy this area because and we see God's beautiful creation everywhere around us. Genesis 1 explains that God created plants and land animals fish and birds.

And when you look at these these animals what you see is a great diversity if you ever go to a zoo. It's it's incredible when you see elephants and lions and tigers and zebras and Then and then the fish different types of fish.

It's incredible to see the variety In God's infinite wisdom. He designs all these creatures who are so beautiful and different and As beautiful as all of these Creations. His most wonderful creation is you.

And I'm not here to boost your ego, but it's true God's most wonderful creation his greatest creation is.

You.

God created you he created the human race and God's creation of man is utterly unique from the rest of his creation and. This is so because God created man in his own image. Genesis 1 27 says that God created man in his own image in the image of God.

He created him. Male and female he created them. So so you are unique from the rest of creation. No, no other creature can make this claim, but you you are created in his image. Now to be created in his image means that you are like God.

God is so very different from us in so many ways, but in some ways we are like God. God thinks you think. God communicates you communicate. God creates and Mankind procreates through the ability to populate the earth with children.

Man also shows his his creative nature in the ability to invent. It's always remarkable if you drive into Minneapolis or st Paul and you see these huge buildings all this architecture and you think how in the world did they do that?

Man is mankind is able to do that because God made them to do that. Animals can't do that, but but humans can. So this this ability ability to be creative this ability to invent is is in one way in which?

We are created in the image of God. Mankind has also been able to accomplish some great things in world history. I mean look at the pyramids Stonehenge Ancient Colosseum's the seven wonders of the world the printing press.

Vehicles and airplanes and then in the 20th century television and computers the internet was invented. It's incredible that you can have a device where you can have access to everything in the palm of your hand.

Your phone you have internet you have a camera. I mean GPS you have Facebook. You could you could do a little bit of everything on your phone. What mankind has been able to accomplish through the through the creativity that God has given is is amazing.

It is also evident that man is made in God's image because man was given the ability to rule to reign. This world is unmistakably run by humans. We were made to rule. Genesis 126 says that God said let us make man in our in our image after our likeness and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and Over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.

So you were made to rule you are a remarkable creation of God. The human race is able to do these great things because God created the human race with this capacity. Animals can't do what you do because they are not created in God's image.

All of us have had different pets probably at one time or another in our life and in my family. Has has had several dachshunds if my dad has had a probably about five different dachshunds in his life going back to his childhood.

And maybe you've seen the most recent one who's come to visit a few times. But I grew up with a dog named little red. He lived to be 16 years old. And I can I can say this with a hundred percent certainty that we never had one deep conversation, okay?

It was all about food, and it was all about survival for him. Where where I? Pondered the meaning of life, and I pondered deep things. I and I was concerned with my relationship with God. He was not and there's a reason for that.

He's not created in the image of God. Animals don't have this capacity to worship like we do. They don't have a Complex mind like we do their mind is much more simplistic than ours. And that's because they're not created in God's image.

But we are and since God created you this means you are responsible to him. He is your authority.

He owns you and.

You will give an account to him one day. Hebrews 9 27 says that it is appointed for man to die Once and then. And then comes judgment, okay, so every one of us will answer back to God. He calls you to love him and to honor him as he rules over you.

A revelation 411 Says that worthy are you our Lord and God to receive glory and honor and power for you created all things and by your will They existed and were created. But we do not give God the honor that he deserves.

Mankind has not submitted to God's rule and this is a major problem. The human race has decided to reject God's authority and run life his or her own way and We will be judged for turning against God.

So this is the first reason why our only hope is Jesus. God created you and you will answer to him. The second reason that our only hope is Jesus is that you have rebelled against him and As I as I alluded to just a few a few seconds ago God created mankind to be sub rulers under him.

Okay, not rulers over him, but sub rulers under him. The first two chapters of Genesis, which we're gonna spend some time on in the coming weeks. This is mentioned. There is no sin and there's no evil in the beginning of God's creation and we'll see that in the first two chapters of Genesis.

Everything runs the way that it should.

And.

This is because mankind rules under God's authority. Then comes Genesis chapter 3 in the Garden of Eden. This is where Adam and Eve committed the first sin in human history. You know, I'm gonna read this account here.

Genesis chapter 3 verses 1 through 7. Listen closely here or for or follow along with me. Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman did God actually say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden and the woman said to the serpent We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden.

But God said you shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden. Neither shall you touch it lest you die. But the serpent said to the woman you will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened and you will be like God knowing good and evil.

So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food and that it was a delight to that to the eyes and That the tree and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise she took of its fruit and ate and She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate.

Then the eyes of both were opened and They knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. Okay, so so the serpent here Satan is not mentioned by name, but we can it's pretty easy to draw this code conclusion.

This is this is the devil who is deceiving them. So Satan deceives Adam and Eve and they give in. The sin committed here was rebellion. They were told by God their authority. Not to eat from the tree.

And what did they do? They went against his authority. They rebelled against him and ate from the tree. Have you ever asked the question? What is sin? I just mentioned it's rebellion is one way to define it.

You know, it has also been called missing the mark it's been called spiritual adultery it's been called idolatry. All those things are true when we talk about sin. But I think a simple definition of sin is that it's a rebellion.

It's a rebellion against God. To rebel is to go against someone's authority and when we sin against God, I think I think there's a Distinction between a soft rebellion and a hard rebellion and what I mean by that is that a soft rebellion would be getting angry when you don't get your way a Hard rebellion would be like an atheist who doesn't even acknowledge that God exists and they shake their fist at God.

That would be a hard rebellion as a believer. You can still commit sins of soft rebellion. Unbelievers are in a state of soft and hard rebellion against God. But I think believers aren't believers are not in the hard rebellion stage where they're shaking their fist at God because because obviously you believe in God, it's just that.

Certain times we we have a little bit we have rebellious attitude against God and we have to admit that Rebellion started in the Garden of Eden when Adam and Eve went against his authority. And you may ask how is this relevant to me?

This is this is a good question to ask how in the world is Adam and Eve sin relevant to me after all I wasn't the one who did it, right? Romans 5 12 says that sin came into the world through one man and Death through sin and so death spread to all men because all sinned when Adam sinned.

He represented the entire human race. Okay, so it was as if the entire human race sinned because he was our representative. And this this is what we call original sin or inherited sin. This means that when he sinned all of his joke all of his children, okay.

We are all of his children all of his children would be sinners. Also, this sin is passed down from generation to generation. Everybody has the predisposition to sin and For every parent here, you know that this is true.

You never need a teacher your child to do bad. They already know how to do that. You need to teach them to do good. That's what they don't know how to do. And it's because we are sinners by nature.

Now.

Ancestry has become really popular recently, I my mom has gotten really Interested in in ancestry ancestry .com and she's actually traced my my father's mother's line Back probably about 1 ,500 years.

And and so he just keeps going back and back. One of the lines goes only goes like 150 years and then that line goes like 1 ,500 years. But if you were to trace every one of our ancestries back, we would all go back to the same two people.

We would all go back to Adam and Eve and what's fascinating is that a human DNA. We only have a 0 .1 Difference from all the humans in the world and that's because we all have the same parents. We all go back to Adam and Eve.

There's a popular belief among secular scientists that the human that the human race started in sub-saharan Africa with about 10 ,000 people because they think there's so much diversity that it couldn't have come from two people all this diversity.

But actually the studies have shown that there's actually very little difference between any of us. And that's because we all came from the same parents. It makes perfect sense and so We all can trace our sin back to Adam and Eve.

You will never meet a human who doesn't sin. There is an exception to this and I'll mention that in our next point but but it's true every human you meet sins and Throughout human history people are sinners by nature and by choice.

Okay, so we're born sinners and we choose to be sinners. You are born you were born a rebel to God and without God's intervention in your life. You will continue down that path people don't get better off of personal Personal change in their life just on their own there has to be a change that God gives you.

To bring about this change in your life, and we see people go down the wrong path. And they just continue to go down the wrong path. People just don't get better on their own and God has to intervene in their life for that to change.

And so you were born a rebel to God and without God's intervention in your life. This is going to happen and Think about how the different ways that you and I have sinned in our life sins of anger pride jealousy coveting lustful thoughts.

Stealing Dishonesty and the list goes on and on and you have these sinful patterns because you are a sinner. And these acts of sin are not the primary problem. But they are a symptom of the problem and this is very important.

I learned this just just a few years ago. This has been very important for me that we oftentimes think of sin as as breaking rules. You know, okay theft murder adultery. Greed, you know, whatever it might be, you know, we cross the line.

That is the symptom of a problem the problem, but it's not the root problem. The root problem is the heart. My old pastor always said and I've said this before the heart of the matter is the heart is the matter.

It all goes back to the heart.

Mark.

721 through 23 says. For from within out of the heart of man come evil thoughts. Sexual immorality theft murder adultery coveting wickedness deceit sensuality envy slander pride. Foolishness all these evil things come from within and they defile a person.

Okay, so they so. Your sinful acts are a symptom of the deeper heart issue that you have. And what comes from the heart is rebellion and then the sim and then the symptom of the sinful acts.

Romans.

3 10 through 18 paints a bleak Picture of mankind and it's interesting because a lot of these these universities and in our world higher education they. They think that man is inherently good. The Bible has the exact opposite opinion of man that that man is inherently Evil and when I say evil, I don't mean like like horns and a pitchfork like like Satan.

I mean like it Selfishness. We have this predisposition to always go our own way to to put ourselves above God. So in that way we are we are born evil. So let me let me read here Romans 10 3 10 through 18.

None is righteous. No, not one. No one understands. No one seeks for God. All have turned aside. Together they become worthless. No one does good not even one. Their throat is an open grave. They use their tongues to deceive the venom of asps is under their lips.

Their mouth is full of curses and bitterness. Their feet are swift to shed blood in their paths are ruined in misery in the way of peace. They have not known there is no fear of God before their eyes.

If you look at human history Paul's right. I mean think of how. Think of like World War one. World War two millions in millions of bloodshed and for what? Because of sinful motivations. I mean, I mean there are just causes in war.

But but some people are brought into war because there's evil on the other side. All you have to do is look at human history to see this. You might say, you know, you know what? I'm a pretty good person.

You know, I don't get in trouble. I do pretty good overall, but if you honestly evaluated yourself, you will find that what the Bible says about you is true. The human race does not give God the honor that he has do and mankind does not live under God's authority.

Isaiah 53 -6 says that every one of us all we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way and the Lord has laid on him Jesus the iniquity of us all. The human race has not lived under God's authority but has attempted to run life their own way and.

And all of us come into this world in this position and there are people today who think that that God doesn't even exist. But then and then there are people who live like he doesn't exist. Okay, so there's people who Intellectually say he doesn't exist and then there's people who functionally practically live like he does not exist.

And this is all over the place in every one of us sees this and People think that if they're a good person God will have to let them into his kingdom. But as you are in this state of rebellion against God, he is not pleased by your good works.

Isaiah 64 6 says that your works are his filthy rags before God. But once you become a follower of Christ, then God looks at you and is pleased with your works because the Holy Spirit's work in your life.

Let me let me give this a little illustration. I think I think of a criminal who's a rebellion running against the law and As they run against the law they committed some act. Maybe they maybe they stole a large amount of money from someone and The person who stole the money sees sees an elderly lady walking across the street or attempting to and he says you know I'm gonna help this lady across the street.

And so he's helping her across the street. This criminal is helping her. And also the authorities catch the man in the act. Doing this good deed because obviously helping this lady across the street. That's a good deed.

He's doing a good thing. But do you think do you think the authorities are gonna be impressed with this because he just stole Thousands of dollars from someone else. What are they gonna do with this man?

Are they gonna let him go because it was good deed. Of course not they're gonna arrest him and he's probably gonna go to jail for the crime that he committed. And so that's what our acts are like apart from God our righteous acts.

Our world still very much feels the effects of what took place at the Garden of Eden. Society is a mess. People's lives are a mess. I mean our country has almost 20 trillion in debt. How does that happen?

Someone someone made a mistake along the way and then it and then more mistakes happen and then more mistakes happen. We can't even run our own finances. Well, and the and the depressed the depravity of the human race can be clearly seen.

19th century poet Robert Brownian became a Christian because he saw the clear evidence of sin in all people everywhere that that he saw and He said the Bible has to be true. Because of he read the Bible and then he looked at the world and he said, okay this fits and that persuaded him.

So we need to we need to open our eyes to see our fundamental problem our fundamental problem is sin and Your rebellion is separated from you you from God and as a rebel you are cut off from fellowship with him.

And the way out of it is to submit to God's rule and God's plan and God has made a way for you to be Reconciled to him and we've been. I've been stressing this a lot over the summer about how we are reconciled to God.

This is the second reason Jesus is our only hope you have rebelled against him. The third reason that Jesus is our only hope is that Jesus alone reconciles you to him. Jesus entered God's story 2 ,000 years ago and it's an important point to make here is that that was not the beginning of Jesus.

Okay. He had a pre-existence. He goes back into eternity past because he is God himself.

But.

But God became a man in the person of Jesus 2 ,000 years ago. The Bible is a historical book with historical figures. For example when Jesus was born. It says that Caesar Augustus was was the emperor of the Roman Empire and Luke later explains all of the political leaders in the region at that time.

In Luke 3 1 and 2 it goes through the list it says Caesar was there Pontius Pilate Herod Philip the Tetrarch Annas and Caiaphas. And so it goes down a list of historical figures in secular history and biblical history to line up because the Bible is a historical book.

So Jesus is a real historical person and the entire New Testament is about him. There is plenty of evidence To back this up to That not only was not only does the New Testament talk about Jesus, but there are other Sources outside of the New Testament that talk about Jesus as well.

And so no no credible historian questions this and The best sources about Jesus are the Gospels. I know some of the ladies in the churches read a gospel Matthew Mark Luke and John those are the best sources about who?

Jesus was and so if there are any sources that came later that say something different about Jesus. Those are false because they do not line up with what the four Gospels say. Now the New Testament explains why this man is the most talked-about person in history.

There literally was no one like him. A time magazine came out with the top hundred the top 100 most influential people in the history Of the world in the last 50 year and they came out about 50 years ago I think and Jesus was number one the most is the most influential person in the history of the world.

There literally was no one like him. People knew there was something special about him when he came into this world miraculously. Jesus was born of the Virgin Mary. Luke 135 Describes how this happened.

It says the angel answered her the Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will Overshadow you. Therefore the trap the child to be born will be called holy the Son of God. The virgin birth is significant because Jesus was kept from sin by the Holy Spirit as he was born as I already mentioned.

Everyone every one of us was born into sin. Jesus was not born into sin. Jesus lived a perfect life in order for Jesus to be able to pay for our sins. He had to be perfect and he was. Jesus lived like humans are supposed to live he lived under God's rule.

Everything he did was honoring to his father in heaven and after 30 plus years of time on earth of perfection Jesus went to the cross and One thing we saw this past summer is that God is a just God. He always does what is right?

And we saw that. Every sin will either be paid for at the cross of Jesus Christ or in hell. Those are the two places where every sin is paid for at the cross. God treated Jesus as your sins deserve so that everyone who would believe in him would have eternal life.

Romans 3 24 says that Jesus was offered as a as a propitiation for our sins and that's not a word you hear every day. Propitiation what it means is that God's wrath? Instead of it being on us. It was turned toward Jesus and instead of having wrath towards us.

He has favor toward us. That's what that word propitiation means. Second Corinthians 5 21 says that he made him to be sin. Who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God? Jesus died the death that we deserve and God counts it as as as if we were the one who paid the penalty.

That's the that's the that's the best news there is. That's why they call it the good news. That's the greatest news in the world. We don't have to pay for the sins that we deserve to pay for because Jesus did it for us.

And what's fascinating here? Is that in order for Jesus death to be sufficient to pay for your sins? Jesus needed to be God. Okay, he needed to be a human and he was and he needed to be God. A Third party could not pay for the sins of the world.

The conflict in the world is between God and mankind. And so you see that you see how Jesus has a foot with God and a foot with mankind. He although he's 100 God and 100 man and So he can't he resolves the conflict between God and man as God and man.

Okay, 100 God 100 man and So God offers up God to pay for our sins. So it's remarkable when you think about that. And the Bible makes it clear that Jesus is fully God. John chapter 1 1 through 3 says that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He was in the beginning with God all things were made through him and without him was not anything made that was made. And obviously when Jesus died on the cross if he had stayed dead, that wouldn't be good news.

But because he's a living Savior, he's able to save us on the third day Jesus rose from the dead and if you Sincerely trust in Christ you will go to heaven to be with God when you die. Obviously, we know we know that the body stays here, but your soul goes to be with God and Then in the future You will share in a resurrection.

Like the resurrection that Jesus had your soul in heaven will be reunited with your body. And then you will live on this new world forever. This is the story that you're in. This is God's story and you live in it.

And so my question to you is with the knowledge that you have what have you done with this news with this story? Many of you have trusted in Christ, but if you have not I encourage you to do so. Where will you spend where you will spend eternity forever hangs on what you do with Jesus?

Okay, because what you do with Jesus you do with God. Romans 10 9 and 10 Says that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead. You will be saved.

Romans 10 13 Anyone who calls upon the name of the Lord will be saved. Now if you have trusted in Christ you are you are and if you have not trusted in Christ You are still in your rebellion, and you are on the road to hell.

Scott and his wife are here visiting us this weekend and yesterday. We went to Interstate Park. And we were standing on the cliff. And when I preached to you I don't want to preach a feel-good sermon because every one of us is standing on that cliff and Any one of us could step over that cliff and enter God's presence at any moment.

And so it's so important for every one of us to be ready to meet God and we meet God. Safe if we have our refuge in Jesus Christ so so so Preaching has an urgency to it. Every every sermon preached has an urgency to it because as your pastor.

I am preparing you to meet God and I'm preparing myself to meet God too. We're all in this together. And I talked about this new world that that's coming one day where there will be no sin Satan will be gone.

And in in everyone who has trusted in Christ will populate this new place. It says here in Revelation chapter 21 verses 3 and 4. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying behold the dwelling place of God is with man.

He will dwell with them and they will be his people and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes and death shall be no more. Neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain anymore for the former things have passed away.

Think about how horrible some things in life are there that's gonna be history forever. I mean think about what happened in Houston recently. This is natural this horrible natural disaster. I'm think about the challenges you face in your own life.

That's gonna be history. When Jesus comes back or in this future world when he brings this history to a screeching halt. Okay, so our only hope is Jesus and we looked at three reasons why God created you and you will answer to him.

You have rebelled against him and Jesus alone reconciles you to him. So Eureka remember the story that you are in and may it cause you to run your race well for Christ's sake on earth. In this way you will be prepared For the never-ending chapters of this story where you will be in God's presence forever.

2nd Peter 1 11 says there will be there will be richly provided for you in entrance Into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. So as I wrap up this sermon here next week, we're gonna jump into Genesis and Some of you saw the sermon calendar it's gonna take us 18 months.