We are invited to see the Bible not as a collection of disconnected facts or rules, but as a continuous, epic narrative. This story begins with creation and moves through humanity's struggles and God's persistent faithfulness. Understanding it as a story helps us engage with its characters, conflicts, and ultimate resolution in a more profound way. It’s a journey that unfolds, revealing God’s character and His plan for humanity. [45:14]
Genesis 1:1-3 (ESV)
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
Reflection: If you were to describe the Bible to someone who had never encountered it before, what aspect of its "story" would you highlight first to pique their interest?
From the very beginning, the narrative reveals a God who is not only powerful but also inherently good. He speaks creation into existence, and His assessment of His work is that it is "good." This goodness flows from His very being, demonstrating that everything that originates from Him is also good. This foundational truth sets the stage for understanding His intentions and character throughout the unfolding story. [50:50]
Genesis 1:31 (ESV)
And God saw everything that he had made, and behold, it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day.
Reflection: In what specific ways can you observe or experience God's inherent goodness in your life today, even amidst challenges?
The story introduces a crucial element: choice. God created humanity for relationship, and true relationship requires freedom to choose. The prohibition regarding the tree of the knowledge of good and evil wasn't arbitrary; it was an invitation to trust God's goodness and sovereignty. The decision to disobey, to remove God from the equation, is identified as sin, with the natural consequence of separation and death. [53:55]
Genesis 2:16-17 (ESV)
And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Reflection: When faced with a decision where you feel tempted to rely on your own understanding or desires rather than God's guidance, what internal dialogue do you have?
Even in the immediate aftermath of humanity's fall, a promise of hope is given. God declares an enmity, a conflict, between the serpent (Satan) and the offspring of the woman. This sets up the central conflict of the entire story: the battle between good and evil, and the eventual triumph of God's chosen one who will crush the serpent's head. This is the foundational plotline for all that follows. [57:33]
Genesis 3:15 (ESV)
I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.
Reflection: How does the ancient promise of enmity and the eventual crushing of the serpent's head offer you a sense of hope when you witness or experience the effects of evil in the world?
The narrative continues to reveal God's persistent mission to reconcile humanity to Himself. From Abraham's covenant to Noah's ark and beyond, God is actively working through chosen individuals and lines to bring about His redemptive plan. Despite human tendencies to stray and remove God from the equation, His faithfulness remains, demonstrating that the story is ultimately about His pursuit of us. [01:08:01]
Genesis 12:1-3 (ESV)
Now the Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, and from your relatives and from your father's house to the land that I will show you. And I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”
Reflection: Considering God's ongoing mission to reconcile the world to Himself, where do you sense He might be inviting you to participate in that mission in your daily life?
The congregation is invited into a fresh reading of Scripture: not as an assortment of prooftexts or a self-help manual, but as one sweeping narrative that begins “in the beginning” and traces God’s rescue mission through history. The story opens with a pre-creation God who speaks the universe into being, whose intrinsic goodness shapes the world and whose communal nature is seen in the divine plural “let us make.” Humanity is created in God’s image to steward creation and to live in relationship with its Maker—relationship that requires genuine choice, which explains the presence of the forbidden tree.
From that hopeful beginning the plot quickly darkens. The cosmic enemy enters in the form of a serpent, temptation severs the human reliance on God, and the fall fractures the created order. Genesis 3:15 is presented as the story’s main plot line: ongoing enmity between the serpent and the woman’s offspring, with a promised bruising of the serpent’s head that anticipates a deliverer. The narrative then traces the fragile preservation of that line—Cain and Abel, Seth, Noah and the flood, Babel—and the repeated human impulse to “remove God from the equation,” which produces destructive autonomy and judgment, yet never succeeds in derailing God’s intent to bless the world.
Out of the dispersed nations the storyline narrows again to Abram, where covenant promises of land, offspring, and blessing refocus hope on one family through whom the whole world will be blessed. God’s mission is emphasized: to reconcile a broken creation by writing a redemptive plot that includes flawed, fragile people and steadfast divine initiative. Practical implications are woven through the exposition: Christians are to read the Bible as an unfolding drama that shapes identity and expectation, to notice where habits or idols replace God in daily life, and to join the communal work of embodying God’s reconciling purpose. The service closes with an invitation to small groups that will unpack the meta-narrative, individual reflection questions, and pastoral prayer for those carrying burdens, all anchored in the conviction that God is authoring a story far greater than any single episode.
``But god, we thank you that you are writing a story that is bigger than us, it's bigger than our problems, and it involves us, but it's not about us. It's about you and about your glory. And so as we continue to unpack this big story, would we see how each episode points to you and ultimately Jesus and the person at work as he comes to reconcile and fix what was broken in the fall?
[01:12:16]
(21 seconds)
#StoryBiggerThanUs
``And if he dies on a boat in the desert, I die and I'm eternally separated from God. If he dies with a childless couple, I'm in trouble. But if somehow God is writing a story and more comes, well then maybe there's hope for you and there's hope for me and that's what we're gonna pick up. And we're gonna realize that God is on a mission and he's writing a story and he's writing our story too.
[01:08:58]
(25 seconds)
#HopeInGodsStory
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