Epic - Eternal Love Series

I. Introduction

A. Life is a story

a. But not just any old story.

b. Life is an epic adventure being written by a master author.

c. And that author is not us.

d. Although we often try to take over, and when we do that we always mess up the story.

B. God is writing an awesome story and he wants us to be a major character in that story.

C. Let me ask the men a question.

a. You come home from work after a long day, you walk in the house, you sit down to rest for a minute, and your wife cozies up to you on the couch.

b. Then she whispers in your ear, “Honey, will you take me to see a movie tonight?”

D. What is the first thing you say?

a. What kind of movie is it?

b. You know what the answer is going to be.

E. Men and women tend to fall on opposite sides of the spectrum when it comes to stories don’t we?

a. Women tend to like the sappy love story.

b. Men want the epic battle.

F. I’m going to tell you ladies a secret.

a. Men don’t really mind the sappy love story.

b. As long as there’s a villain to defeat and an epic battle to fight.

G. I’m going to tell you men a secret.

a. Women don’t really mind the epic battle.

b. As long as there’s a sappy love story in there somewhere.

H. That’s why epic movies sell the most tickets.

a. They tell the whole story.

b. Life isn’t just a sappy love story.

c. Neither is it just an epic battle.

I. Life is the story of a villain who’s out to destroy us, an epic battle in which we face off against him, a hero who steps in to save the woman he loves.

a. By the way we are all the damsel in distress.

b. The hero is Jesus.

J. This month as we explore the epic adventure that is our life story we’re going to look at each of those things.

K. But this morning, we’re going to talk about the love story, because it all really starts there.

a. Every great story has a love story, and our story is no different.

b. But our love story started way before we were ever born.

c. In fact it started way before even Adam and Eve.

II. The Love Story

A. God is Love

a. In 1 John John doesn’t say to us God is a God who loves, although that is true.

b. He doesn’t say God shows or displays love, although that is true too.

c. He says simply and yet profoundly, “God is love.”

d. Love is who God is; it is his very nature.

e. That explains a lot of things.

i. It explains why God hates sin, because sin separates us from his love.

ii. It explains why the Bible says God is a consuming fire who is passionately, jealously in love with us

iii. Not jealous in a petty middle school boyfriend kind of way.

iv. But jealous in that he has a passionate desire for the very best for us.

v. Like a parent for his child.

f. God is love.

B. We Were Lovingly Made

a. One of the greatest fallacies we can ever fall to is the erroneous thinking that God needs us.

b. God does not need us.

c. God did not need the world.

d. Before the universe was created God existed in a perfect fellowship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

e. He needed nothing.

f. He wanted for nothing.

g. Yet he chose to make the heavens and the earth, and to put Adam and Eve in the garden.

h. Why? Because the Bible says God loved us before He even knew us.

i. And even though he knew that Adam and Eve would betray his love He made them anyway.

j. Because God’s love is not arbitrary.

k. God’s love does not depend on whether or not we love him back; he loves us anyway.

l. That’s the story of the Bible.

m. The story of a God who loves zealously and passionately even when the lover he is chasing continues to scorn Him and betray Him.

n. It’s the story of the God who loves us and longs for us to love Him back, even though He doesn’t need our love.

C. We Were Lovingly Redeemed

a. This is the most amazing part of the story.

b. And it’s the part of the story we least deserve.

c. That the maker and Creator of all that is would descend into the world He created.

d. That He who is very God would become Very man.