Through The Bible - Genesis 1-3 Series

(The video of this sermon can be seen by going to ... www.cowetanazarene.org/videos.html)

My calling as a Christian is to live the kind of life Jesus of Nazareth has laid out for me, showing His love and grace in everything I do, say, and think. That is such a huge task for me, I often fail to some degree or other. But because of His great love for me, He has offered me a full pardon for everything I do wrong and for everything I do that is not quite right.

My calling as a preacher is to give you the information that is found in the Bible so that you can know God and live for Him, too. That, also, is a daunting task, but one that I will try to live up to with all my heart, soul, and mind.

That being said, let us begin at the beginning of the Bible, in the Old Testament. Many people are afraid of the Old Testament because they do not know who’s who or what’s what. But once we learn about the people and the places, it actually draws us into the story by giving us reference points we can understand so we can then put the pieces together properly.

When we understand who Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were, and when we can tell the difference between a Hittite and a parasite, the story of God starts to become a living adventure. We will get to know that these were real people and real places and then we will realize that these things actually took place in human history and were not just a bunch of “once upon a time” fairy tales.

You have heard many people say that the Bible was just written by men. That is true, but these men wrote what God had inspired them to write. They had allowed God to work in their lives in the most powerful of ways, and they became the human instruments used in telling others the story of our Creator.

This series of sermons will take you from GENESIS all the way through REVELATION, and will take a long time to complete. I will include many pictures as aids to help you get acquainted with the material we will be covering and intermixed in with these sermons, will also be sermons on the relevant events that happen from time to time.

This coming year will be full of information that you will find not only interesting, but intriguing as well.

So, sit back, relax, and get ready to hear the most exciting story you have ever heard; and the most exciting adventure you will ever have the ability to witness. Get ready to hear the wonderful story about your God and how He took a desolate desert land full of wayward people and turned them into His very own, and how He did it.

(Show picture the expansive deserts of Israel with ancient people if you can. This may help your congregation have a feel for how Israel was then, and what the people looked like and did then, also.)

The first theme of the Bible is that God is present, and He is present in the lives of those people He created. He is working in everything we do, continually giving us the call to come back to Him. And that leads to the second main theme of the Bible; the theme of redemption. God offers us complete redemption if we will allow Him to be the authority in our lives.

Some have referred to this theme of redemption as the thread that is woven through the entire Bible, starting with the fall of Adam and Eve, and continuing to the life and ministry of Jesus Christ - and then on through the End Times. It has to do with the provision of salvation. It shows how we made a choice to turn our backs on and reject God as our leader, but that He continues to love us with a love so great we cannot understand. And through that love, He has made a way for us to come back to Him and not be accountable for the things we have done that are against His nature.

In understanding the Bible, it is a must that we have a basic understanding of the Old Testament so that we will be able to understand the New Testament. The New Testament tells us about redemption of sin, a sacrifice made in love, and the gift of atonement to bring us back in line with God. All of which have their beginnings and roots in the Old Testament.

I am praying that God will use these studies to speak to your hearts and challenge you to walk even closer with Him that ever before.