INTRODUCTION
• SLIDE #1
• A boy was asking his father how women came into being, so the father picked up the bible and it said, “: “God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep and he pulled out his brains and made the woman.” Oh, wait son, this is your mothers bible!
• I want to welcome you to FCC today as begin our journey through The Story!
• I hope you have read chapter 1, if you do not have a copy of The Story, we will get you one after the service free of charge!
• As we go through The Story together, I pray that for some of us for the first time we will understand how we fit into God’s Story and that we will understand the important part we play.
• Today we are going to embark on a 31-week journey together as we seek to find out how we fit into God’s Story!
• SLIDE #2
• The beginning of our story begins between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers in the Garden of Eden.
• Inside the front cover of your copy of The Story, you will find this map and you can draw a tree to represent this beginning.
• Later in our message when we talk about Noah, you can draw a boat a bit North of Assyria to represent Noah.
• We begin with the Beginning, the beginning of life as we know it.
• The beginning of our journey through the story of the Bible is important; it is like the beginning of an action-packed movie.
• If you miss the opening minutes of a movie with its fast-paced scenes, you will not understand the rest of the story. It is the same with the Bible’s grand Story.
• The Story opens with a “big bang.” Not the “big bang” of evolutionary theory, but the “big bang” of the revelation of God Who is the main character of the Grand Story.
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
I. The Bible Story opens with the “big bang” of creation.
• Look at the opening words of the Bible. There was a “Big Bang”, but not the Big Bang some espouse.
• SLIDE #4
• Genesis 1:1 (NIV) In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.
• The opening verse of the Bible introduces us to the Story’s main character: God.
• The “Big Bang” is not an impersonal accidental explosion, but rather the creative nature and purpose of a personal God!
• The “Big Bang” of creation is presented poetically and artistically!
• I just want to show you Genesis 1:3 as an example.
• SLIDE #5
• Genesis 1:3 (NIV) And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
• This is how creation happened, God spoke it out of nothing and then something appeared! It was not accidental explosion in which order came out of chaos.
o Days 1, 2, and 3 are places created by God.
Day 1—Light and Dark
Day 2—Sky and Water
Day 3—Land
o Days 4, 5, and 6 those places are filled with the things the places were created for.
Day 4—Sun and Moon/stars
Day 5—Birds and Sea creatures
Day 6—Animals and human beings
• Then we see the BIG BANG of creation concludes with God’s core passion: human beings!
• God’s core passion is people made in God’s image.
• SLIDE #6
• Genesis 1:26–27 (NIV) 26 Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 27 So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.
• When God created everything else, there is no mention of Him creating it in His image; that privilege was saved for mankind. YOU are created in the image of God.
• Can you fathom how much you mean to God? Our children as special to us because they are made in our image, we can see ourselves in them. Even children you adopt even if the physical attributes are not shared, they have you in them.
• All the beauties of creation are secondary to YOU! This truth us a self-esteem builder. This is what gives real self-esteem to a person, knowing that God loves and values them!
• God’s supreme passion is to be with us at ALL costs, even at the cost of His Son Jesus!
• SLIDE #7
• Next we see…
II. The Bible Story continues with the “big bang” of the Fall.
• All is well in the garden, God created man, then He put man to sleep and took the rib that used to hold our stomachs in and made woman.
• God placed Adam and Eve in charge of everything.
• But at some point, it was not enough. Adam and Eve decided to rebel against God!
• One of the beauties of humanity as well as one of the curses is the fact that God created Adam and Eve with the FREEDOM AND POWER TO CHOOSE.
• God does not force love because forced love is not real love. God desires His creation to love Him, but He desires a true love.
• The story of the fall is a story of two trees.
• The ‘tree of life” and the “tree of the knowledge of good and evil”. These trees present an opportunity for choice with Adam and Eve.
• SLIDE #8
• Genesis 2:9 (NIV) The LORD God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground—trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food. In the middle of the garden were the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
• Genesis 2:17 (NIV) but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat from it you will certainly die.”
• Eventually over time, the temptation was too great for Eve to endure.
• In Genesis 3, we learn of the fall of mankind.
• SLIDE #9
• Genesis 3:1 (NIV) Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
• The rest of Genesis 3 is kind of ugly, Eve KNEW she was not to partake of the fruit, yet she did it.
• Then she drug Adam into her sin.
• Then when God confronts Adam, he blames God for giving him Eve.
• Adam and Eve rebelled against God when they ate from the forbidden “tree of the knowledge of good and evil” and God’s vision to be with His people was ruined.
• The rest of the Bible is about God’s pursuit to get us back!
• Next we see…
• SLIDE #10
III. The Bible Story reports the “big bang” of sin’s damage to the human race.
• Because Adam and Eve chose a different vision than God’s vision, sin became part of their spiritual DNA and they produced more sinners.
• When you look at Genesis 4-9 you can see the downhill slide of mankind away from God. Sin was infusing itself into the human race.
• We read all the bad things that happened as a result of Adam and Eve’s rebellion against God. It affected every aspect of their lives and they have and one son kill another son in the story of Cain and Abel.
• We take sin for granted, but it has far reaching effects. It separates us from God.
• Sin brought in death. Because of Adam and Eve’s sin we will all die physically (unless the Lord returns first.). Spiritually we die to God when we commit our first act of rebellion.
• Over time God had enough, the human race was getting so depraved He decided to start anew, but He saw a glimmer of hope.
• WE need to remember that God is always looks for a reason TO SAVE us not condemn us.
• He found that reason in Noah!
• God chooses Noah to build the ark and God is going to hit the “reset” button with the human race by washing everything except what was in the ark away.
• God was bring judgment against mankind.
• The flood erased the wicked human race, but even after that catastrophic event, it did not erase the desire to son from Noah and his family.
• SLIDE #11
• Genesis 9:20–23 (NIV) 20 Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. 21 When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. 22 Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father naked and told his two brothers outside. 23 But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s naked body. Their faces were turned the other way so that they would not see their father naked.
• When you read more you will see more things that start to happen after the flood.
• Sin still has a foothold, it is amazing that God has not wiped it all out and started 100% anew.
• But unless the freedom of choice is taken away, we would find ourselves going down the same path again.
• It seems when you look around that all is lost, but fear not because…
• SLIDE #12
IV. The Bible Story offers a salvation clue even in the midst of the opening “big bang.”
• Back in Genesis 3, Adam and Eve hid from God because they realized they were naked. They became aware of their nakedness because of their sin.
• SLIDE #13
• Genesis 3:10–12 (NIV) 10 He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.” 11 And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?” 12 The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”
• When they sinned and they were ashamed of their nakedness they made clothing out of fig leaves to cover their nakedness.
• Now after God confronted them, He did something.
• SLIDE #14
• Genesis 3:21 (NIV) The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
• God took their fig leaf fashion and God in what would be the first recorded death in the Bible, killed an animal and made clothing out of the skins for them.
• The clue that we can unveil is that for God to restore the vision that human beings are His supreme passion will require the shedding of blood.
CONCLUSION
• From the creation story we discover the value of all human beings.
• God wants to be with you!
• Think about that. YOU!
• God wants to personally be with you!
• At great cost to God, God has done everything possible to get you back.
• YOU are valuable.
• True, lasting self-esteem begins by believing what God says about you!
• You are the point of The Story. When God replaced Adam and Eve’s fig leaves with garments of skin, he gave us a clue as to how far he would go to fulfill his supreme desire to restore a relationship with us.
• Even when we are ashamed and feeling vulnerable, he covers us in order to restore our relationship with him, but covering us requires the shedding of blood.
• We are invited to soak in the fact that the God of the universe wants to be with us more than anything on earth, literally.
• Next week Chapter 2!
