The Story - Chapter One

The Story is a 31 chapter narrative that goes through the entire Bible.  This is my sermon from Chapter 1 which was preached on September 9th 2012.  How it is written here and how it was actually delivered differ in many places.  In other words my sermons are never preached word for word.

THE STORY CHAPTER 1 CREATION: THE BEGINNING OF LIFE AS WE KNOW IT


The Adam and Eve transition video has been shown. I walk out on stage. There is an apple on the table. Balls of various sizes are on the floor.

God. Welcome to the story. The main character in our story is God. He is also the script writer. I don’t know about you but I love a good story. As a child of older parents I grew up listening to stories that my parents and their friends would tell. I grew up in Western Montana and my dad and his friends were loggers and construction workers and they knew how to tell a story. A guy said one time that if Garrison Keillor were go into a bar in Montana and listen to the stories he would quit his day job, because he couldn’t compete. And I believe that. My dad, who at age 16 logged in Oregon and then joined the Navy to go to war in the pacific and then came back and was a foreman on road construction crews that built roads in the mountains of Oregon, Idaho, Montana and Wyoming, was a master story teller. He told what you could call semi-true stories. They were mostly true but also had enough baloney in them to keep you guessing and hanging on every word. My dad had lived through the great depression, World War II and I was fascinated by his stories of those times. I often wondered what it would have been like to live in those times. I would try to place myself mentally in those places and try to imagine my parents as young people. Stories were large part of my growing up. This morning we are going to begin to tell the story, and it is not a semi-true story. It is a completely true story, there is no once upon a time, or this really happened here. No this is a true story. In fact it is the most fascinating, it is the greatest story ever told. And you have a part in that story. God wrote the script and you and I are actors. And if you and I are going to play our part well we need to learn the script. This is what we will be doing. Our script, like most scripts starts at the beginning.



We start first with God. Notice I said we start. God on the other hand doesn’t have a start, a beginning. God is eternal. Eternal doesn’t just mean that he never has an end, but that he never had a beginning either. That is hard for us to conceptualize, because you and I do have a beginning, and so for the sake of understanding, we start at the beginning of creation. Some have referred to it as the big bang; however it happened, it was big and it happened with a bang, but we are not talking about an impersonal accident here; instead we are talking about God acting as a poet and as an artist. Any of you who have hiked through the mountains or in the Grand Canyon are who have witnessed creation in all its beauty know that creation is the work of an artist. In the story we see God painting and writing, and in six days he creates a masterpiece.



Notice that there is an order to how God works. On days one, two and three God creates places. Day one he creates light and darkness. Day two he creates the sky and the waters. Day three he creates land and vegetation. God creates the background on the canvass like a great painter. If you have ever watched someone paint you can appreciate this. They fill in the background with color and then they start adding the detail. That is what God starts doing on day four. If you look at the chart you see the sequences. Day four God puts in the sun and the moon and the stars. As you see I put some balls out there to roughly estimate the planet sizes. (Explain them) Looking at these is truly amazing when you see the size of earth compared to everything else. We are a pretty small planet. As they say sometimes great things come in small packages.



Then on day five he fills the sky with the birds and the waters with sea creatures. Then on day six he fills the land with animals and last of all he creates us, humans. The creation of man is God’s crowning achievement. We hear this in God’s own words, “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our own 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.” So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” God blessed them and said to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over living creature that moves on the ground.” Where God had created other animals and things he gave them life, when he created man he gave him his own breath, he created him in his own image. In other words God’s core passion is people because they are made in God’s image. We are, you and I are God’s core passion, we are why everything else was made. Think about that for a second. All the beauties of the creation are secondary to you. You are the most important thing in the universe to God. Talk about self-esteem, we have God esteem. And as we will see in the rest of the story, God’s supreme passion to be with you at all costs.



So here we have this beautiful creation, we have the planets in their orbits, and we have birds in the air, fish in the sea and animal on the ground. We have plants and trees and a garden where man and woman live in perfect harmony with God. Everything is perfect. And it would be nice to conclude this story this morning with and they lived happily ever after. I mean this is the greatest story ever told, so isn’t that how it should end? Adam and Eve continue to have the perfect relationship with God and with each other, they have children and populate the earth, and all their children are perfect too and you and I when we come along well we live in a perfect world as well, but the story this morning doesn’t end that way. Far from it. No this is not the end of the story, this is just the beginning. The story continues with well an apple, or some sort of fruit we really don’t know. It continues with the big bang of the Fall. A bang this is still resounding throughout the world. We are still suffering the consequences of it this morning.



Now some people question why the fall had to happen. Couldn’t God have stopped it from happening? And why of all things that tree? You have heard of the tree right? In the midst of the Garden where God had put Adam and Eve to live He put a tree called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And he also put another tree there, called the tree of life. He told Adam and Eve the garden is yours, take care of it and eat of the fruit of the trees, but don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, because if you eat of that tree you shall surely die. Eat of everything else, just not that tree. So why would God do that? Well here is the funny thing about God. Some of you may have grown up with this image of God as some sort of mean judge or enforcer, or someone looking over your shoulder waiting for you to mess up. That may have been an image put there by a parent or a pastor or a grandparent. But that is really not the God that The Story describes. The God in the story is a loving God who wants to have a loving relationship with the people he created. And if you are going to have a loving relationship with someone you have to give them the freedom and power to choose to love you back or to reject you. If there is no ability to walk away to reject the other person that is not really a relationship that is just one person controlling the other, using them, it’s really an abusive relationship. God is not going to force his people to love him. He gave Adam and Eve the choice and he gives you and me the choice still today.



To fully understand what’s going on here we first have to understand Adam and Eve’s nature. You and today because of what happened with this apple have a sinful nature. We will get to that later, but we sin not only in things that we do or don’t do, but in our thoughts and desires as well. In fact we are so filled with sin that we can’t help but sin. We can’t stop ourselves. If we had been Adam and Eve in our current state we would have been doomed from the start, but Adam and Eve were not sinners, they had a perfect nature, they had the ability to not sin. They had the ability to avoid temptation and always do the right thing. They were the perfect creation of God. Therefore their rebellion is a deliberate choice, with forethought. They knew what they were doing and did it anyway. They gave into the temptation to be their own God. Remember Satan’s, the snake’s temptation, God knows that if you eat the fruit you will be like him and Eve took the apple and ate and gave some to Adam who also ate. With this sound (Crunch) Adam and Eve rejected God and died spiritually and became separated from God. And when God found out he threw them out of the garden and told them that they were cursed and that the ground was also cursed because of them. So much for living happily ever after. So much for the nice fairy tale. No this part of the story ends in betrayal, spiritual death and disaster. Adam and Eve had replaced God with themselves.



That’s how the grand story that we are embarking on for the next nine months starts off. It is the basis for the rest of the story. In fact the rest of the story is really about God’s pursuit to get us back. There is a huge transition in the story here. The first three chapters are like part one of the story and then from the middle of Genesis 3 to Revelation 22 is part two. First part thrown out of the garden separated from God, part two God comes after us, trying to find us, trying to bring us home to be with him. The impact of Adam and Eve’s sin was huge. They were not just filled with sin; their spiritual DNA was changed; now sin was part of their life and because of that new spiritual DNA their offspring were born with sin as well. Sinners produced sinners and the world became a completely different place.



As the generations pass and the world population grows it becomes more and more corrupt. The Story says, “The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that ever inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled.” God looks at the world he has created and the people he has created and he is greatly dismayed. The perfect thing that he had created had become ruined. He decides it is time to start over and he resolves to wipe out everything but a small portion of people and animals and he looks around he sees a man named Noah. The story says, “Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked faithfully with God.” God decides that he is going to start over with Noah and so he calls him and tells him to build an ark to save his family so that God can do a do over. Here is a strange thing in the story, this shows the difference in the thinking that goes on in God’s upper story compared to the thinking that goes on in our lower story. God in the upper story does something here that he never does again, he actually chooses the best person for the job. As we will see in the rest of the story God chooses people that at times were the least qualified for the job. In our lower story, our day to day lives, God’s actions sometimes don’t make sense. We wouldn’t choose the people that God chooses, but here with Noah we are on the same page. This is the man for the job. God tells Noah build an ark, and he gives him exact instructions on how to build it. He tells him what kind of wood to use and what length it should be and then he tells him to gather two of every kind of animal plus additional animals for food. Sounds like a simple story, but I want you to look outside for a minute. He told Noah to build the ark in a setting much like this. No ocean nearby, no massive waterways that we know of. He is in a desert! There is no indication that there had ever even been rain before, much less something called a flood. On top of that he told Noah, hey when you’re not building the ark, I want you to out and preach to everyone around you that they need to repent or I am going to flood the earth. Now here is the most interesting thing, according to the timeline it took 120 years to do this, it took him that long to build the ark. So Noah I want you to build an ark in the middle of nowhere, you are going to have to find your own gopher wood and no one is going to help you except your sons, who are probably going to think that you are nuts, as is the rest of the community and while you are doing that, and working your day job mind you, I want you to go knock on doors and explain to people that you are building an ark in the middle of the desert because a flood is coming and tell them they need to repent. I am sure this made Noah Mr. popular, more likely the crazy man that lives down the street.



In the face of all of this Noah builds this Ark, most people think it was more of a barge than a ship and he loads all the animals and his family upon it and God closes the door and it begins to rain. And it rains for 40 days and 40 nights. Does that number remind you of anything? Yesterday we finished our 40 days of prayer for The Story. We prayed up a storm that The Story would bring many people back into a relationship with God. God here uses that same 40 days to restore things on earth so that he can continue to have a relationship with mankind. We will find out later in the story that 40 days is always a time of great significance. So for forty days it rained and springs of water came up from the ground and the whole earth was flooded and every living thing on it was destroyed. All the people, all the animals, everything except for Noah and his family and the animals with them in the Ark. Finally the rain stopped and slowly after many months the water receded and dry land appeared and Noah and his family and all the animals were allowed to leave the ark.



The minute they stepped outside they encountered a whole new world. Everything was gone, the earth itself had been deeply changed by the waters and they find themselves alone in this brand new world. It’s now their job to start over. From eight people and the animals left on the ark, they were going to have to repopulate the world. It sounds like something out of a really bad end of the world movie, but this was reality. Imagine that you and your family the only ones left on the planet and it is your responsibility to repopulate it. It is a new beginning, a brave new world. The first thing that Noah does is build an altar to the Lord and he offers God sacrifices upon it to thank him for saving them. The first thing Noah and his family do in this new world is worship God. Sounds like a really good start doesn’t it? So maybe this is the happily ever after ending that we want right? Noah and his family worship God, reproduce and their children worship God and everything is perfect. I mean God had wiped out the evil human race in the flood and now Noah and his family are worshipping him. (Take a bite of the apple) but that sound could still be heard. Yeah, the sinful human race had been wiped out but sin was still around. Noah, though a righteousness man was still a sinner and so were the members of his family. Sin had survived the flood on the ark as well. It had stowed away in Noah’s family during the voyage. Even though this new life started with worship, it wouldn’t be long before sin raised its ugly head. In fact not long after, Noah get’s drunk and falls asleep, the story says, “Noah, a man of the soil, proceeded to plant a vineyard. When he drank some of its wine, he became drunk and lay uncovered inside his tent. Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his two brothers outside. But Shem and Japheth took a garment and laid it across their shoulders; then they walked in backward and covered their father’s nakedness.” Ham gets in trouble here because instead of covering his father’s shame he goes and tells others about it. Sin was still around in all its naked evil. So the story continues with man’s sin and God’s pursuit of him. If the story sounds like a mystery novel, well in some ways it is a little. It is a bit of a mystery story and like any good mystery novel the story contains clues. In this morning’s chapter of the story there is a salvation clue even in the midst of the opening big bang. Remember back for a moment after Adam and Eve sinned. One result of their sin is that they become aware of their nakedness. Embarrassed they cover their nakedness with fig leaves. God sees this and takes away the fig leaves and instead covers Adam and Eve with the skins of animals. There is the salvation clue. Nothing had ever died until now. In the perfect world there was no death, because there was no sin. Adam and Eve were vegetarians until after the fall. For the first time Adam Eve saw an animal physically die, they saw blood being shed. And that blood was shed so that their nakedness, their sin could be covered. The clue, for God to restore the vision that human beings are His supreme passion it will require the shedding of blood.



There is an upper story and a lower story in this chapter today. God created the world with the grand vision of dwelling together with us in the world. It is God’s supreme passion to be with you. For that to be a real relationship God gave us freedom of choice. Adam and Eve choose to eat of the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil, thus ruining God’s vision of dwelling together with us. Sin was deposited permanently into the nature of Adam and Eve, a deadly virus separating them from a holy God. The rest of the story, the entire Bible in fact, tells us of the relentless pursuit of God and the extent to which he will go in order to get us back. The flood was God’s first attempt. But it doesn’t work because it doesn’t deal with sin. Sin goes into the ark with Noah and it disembarks with him. The point of the story. Well you’re the point of the story. You sitting here in this room this morning. You are the point of the story. From the creation story we discover the value of 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. God loves you. 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 this 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.



There will be much more shedding of blood before this story is over. All of it will point forward to the ultimate shedding of blood that would happen thousands of years later on a cross in a place called Calvary. But we are getting ahead of ourselves a little. Next week in the story we get another picture of that great clue of the shedding of blood. It’s a picture you won’t soon forget. It’s the picture of a building of a nation; it is a picture of a fulfilling of a promise, a promise that is still ours today. So join us next week when we meet a couple of senior citizens who are told it is time to start a family and build a nation.