FHBC Sermon Notes

Every one has a story.  We live in a time, because of technology, is seems everyone is encouraged to share their story. Facebook, twitter, Instagram, blogs. But what happens when my story is overshadowed by someone else's story.  The fact is if everyone has a story, then yours isn't the only one. We may want ours to be "the" story, but we soon realize that others story's are bigger than ours, more important.

Yet, here we read the account of God's story, of His Story. This is the most important story, but we are not simply pushed aside by it.  In fact, it is in His Story, God's story, that we find our story.  Our story is part of God's.  What a awesome privilege it is to consider our part in God's story.  As believers, we stand where a lost world can not, with the understanding from God's mouth, his Word, and why we live.

So let us look at three movements we see in God's Story. 

God is in the beginning, has always existed. He is eternal, has always existed and always will.  We are so used to have a beginning and the end. Here is the great wonder of this thought though, our story, is his. Since God created, made all of creation, then we must realize that as part of creation, we are in fact part the story God is telling.

Now during the times this was written, the concept of a single creator seemed ridiculous.  *In the light of the cross, yes we see that now, but consider that in fact this pluralistic understanding of creation and deity frankly isn't so foreign to our culture.  Everyone has a voice we say.  All voices are worthy and equal we say.  But we soon realize that this only makes 6 billion little gods to worship.*. But our story is not our own, our voice is not our own.  It is more significant, not less for this reason. 

Because God has created then all his has done, all we do is tethered to his purposes. Note to how central man is to this story, for the making of creation ends with the making of man and woman.  God makes us in his HIS image, a singular privilege, so that we may have fellowship with Him.   Secondly, he gave man dominion over the earth.  We consider all this and what do we do now.

We do as the Psalmist (ch. 104) and we "Bless the Lord", we give him praise, we proclaim Him as sustained of all.   

But… man rebels, looses that dominion, and breaks that fellowship with God. But God destined man to have a relationship with him, and he did not give up.  Is this part of the story we are introduced to a new character, a serpent, who in Revelation 12 we discover the identity.  That is Satan.  He is a liar that tempts and leads Eve to distrust the word of God, and to elevate her own desire over God's, to make her voice more important.  She and Adam eat the forbidden fruit and desire their will over God's.

We read in Genesis of how wonderful the Garden of Eden was, and we must think, "That is not my life.  My life is much harder." How do we understand all the suffering we see in the world.  We understand from Genesis 3 and beyond that it was man's rebellion, our sin that has brought this about.  Sin has infected the human race.  First we see Cain murder his brother, then Laben boast of killing a man, of the wickedness throughout the time of Noah, and then the pride of man as he tried to build and create his own way to heaven in the Tower of Babel. 

Are we so different.  We want our story to our story.  We want to be in control, we want authority.  We don't want God taking over.  But this is complete foolishness. We are part of His Story, we cannot make is our own.  The consequence for seeking our own path was death.  The flood in the time of Noah is a picture of what will come at the end of time.  This is why our lives seem so out of control, because God in his perseverance has not brought the final judgment.  In that day, if we choose ourselves, then God's story will in that day put and end to ours.  But the story of God, and the sin of man does not end in Genesis. There is a way…

God does not abandon creation.  In the day Adam and Eve ate that fruit they died spiritually, and in God's grace God kept them from dying on the spot.  He gave them time.  He reached our even to Cain, protecting him from His own wrath is the same way.  Why… Why, does he do this?  **For his own good pleasure.**

It is for this reason that the Bible does not end there. God makes all of history, the story of how God will make a people for himself, that he will redeem the world.

We see two hints of this in this passage: 

1) Right after Adam and Even sinned, God declares that one of their descendants will crush the head of the serpent that tempted them.  The serpent would face the wrath of God.  And this is the *proto evangelion*, the first gospel, the declaration that Jesus, God's son would save us from our sin, from the judgment to come.

 

2) Chapter 7:7-23. The rainbow.  Even though God judged the whole earth, he made a way for our salvation.  He saved a people for himself.  He blotted out so much: all the creatures, all the people.  Except for all those that were in the Ark.  God made of way.  Jesus is the ark of our salvation, our place of safety, who bore our sins, that we may be saved.  In Jesus we are saved. Amen. Amen. 

 

This day we have a choice - live our own story and die.  Or live His Story, God's story, and living eternally in the great and glorious presence of God. **Our Story is His Story**