Pastor Carl Begining of the STORY
In In the the Beginning GOD… Genesis 1:1 (page 1 of The Story).
With those Words God opens the Story, the bible. And like every great novel, the author starts by telling the story and introduces us to the characters.
The whole Cast of the Upper Story was present at the Creation!
If you have your book you can open it to page 1. In these first 3 verses God introduces the three main cast of characters in the UPPER Story. I have highlighted them for us.
Genesis 1:1-3 (NIV) 1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 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. 3 And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.
The First two, GOD the Father, and the Spirit of God are fairly obvious, but the third isn’t quite as easy to see. Look at the phrase, And GOD said,
How does God create the heavens? Words. He speaks, Let there be light. And light appears.
Psalm 33:6 (NIV) By the word of the LORD were the heavens made, their starry host by the breath of his mouth.
God creates the earth and the heavens with WORDS. Fast forward to the Gospel of John, John open His Gospel like this:
John 1:1-5 (NIV) 1 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. 4 In him was life, and that life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.
Notice how John’s gospel starts with the same words that the Story begins, in Genesis. In the beginning. John is taking us back to where the Story Begins, to re-introduce the Second person of the Trinity, God the Son, “THE WORD” which was (verse 2) with God in the beginning, verse 2, skipping down 12 verses later,
John 1:14 (NIV) 14 The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.
Christ, the SON of God, is the WORD of God, but at Christmas the WORD, Christ took into His Divinity, perfect flesh, and became a baby like us, and lived among us.
Here is how the writer of Hebrews expresses this second person of the Trinity,
Hebrews 1:1-3 (NIV) 1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe. (The SON of God made the universe.) 3 The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
The truth: Christ, the ETERNAL SON of GOD, was present at the Creation, with GOD, the Father, in the Beginning….
Proverbs 8:27-31 (NIV) 27 I was there when he set the heavens in place, when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep, 28 when he established the clouds above and fixed securely the fountains of the deep, 29 when he gave the sea its boundary so the waters would not overstep his command, and when he marked out the foundations of the earth. 30 Then I was the craftsman at his side. I was filled with delight day after day, rejoicing always in his presence, 31 rejoicing in his whole world and delighting in mankind. After he had provided purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty in heaven.
How awesome is that. God the Father, God the SON, and God the Holy Spirit were all present at Creation. All the cast of the Upper Story are introduced in these first three verses of the Bible.
Christmas is the story of God leaving His perfect Upper Story eternal life and coming down.
Why would God step outside of HIS perfect UPPER Story and come down into our LOWER Story? God wants to _with us_!
He doesn’t send someone else. The Second Person of the Trinity, who is equal with God the Father, comes to be with us. And he doesn’t just show up to hang out with us, and then leave. He comes to be like us, so that by His innocent, bitter suffering, death and resurrection from the dead, he can win us back, because…
When Man fell into sin making us _UnFit___ for a relationship with God, God sent His Son to re-create us in His image.
The Bible, and the “rest of the Story” is all about the passion of God to get us back.
How do we know? In the third chapter of the bible, God tells the story of mankind’s fall into sin. Here is Adam and Eve in Perfect Paradise. The weather is perfect. It never rains. They have all the food they could ever want or need. The conditions are perfect. There is no sickness, no arguing, no coveting, no stealing, life is perfect in paradise. Until, the next cast of characters steps into THE Story. Satan, a.k.a., the Devil. THE Thief, as Jesus called him in John 10:10
John 10:10 (NIV) 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
In Genesis 3 we read the sad, terrible part of the story, how satan enters the garden, tempts Eve to distrust God, and Eve (and Adam) go their own way, rather than following God’s Word and trusting His promises. Sin enters the world and with sin’s entry comes sin’s consequences.
Romans 5:12 (NIV) Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned--
Adam and Eve would pass SIN DNA to their children, and every child born will bear this sin DNA, which explains why even though parents never teach their children to sin, sin starts showing up early in life. Have you noticed? Wait till you read about Cain and Abel, the first kids. But God isn’t ready to throw in the towel. If you want to see the worst words of the bible you will ever read, you will find them on page 8 of the Story near the top
Genesis 6:5-6 (NIV) 5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain.
WOW! The LORD was grieved that He had made man. But remember…this is God’s Story. This is the True Story of God’s love.
John 3:16 (NIV) 16 "For God so loved the world… Jesus said.
God loves mankind. God didn’t make us to abandon us to our sin. God refuses to permit the sin that entered the heart of man to prevent us from having a relationship with GOD.
In your Story, Skip back to page 6 at the bottom,
Genesis 3:21 (NIV) 21 The LORD God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them.
Have you ever wondered where the LORD finds skin to cloth Adam and Eve? He doesn’t go to his local tannery. He takes animals He has made, that he called good, and kills them so that God may cover up Adam’s and Eve’s sin. That’s love. That’s the LOWER story of God’s love.
BUT we can’t afford to miss the Upper Story of God’s grace and love for Adam and Eve, and for you and me. Remember this is our STORY too. God made us to be with us. And even though sin has infected our hearts, God is prepared to find a covering for our sin, so that He can be with us, even if He has to kill that which is precious to HIM.
Already, in the Garden, in the LOWER Story of God’s grace, mercy and love for Adam and Eve, we see a glimpse of THE UPPER Story, OUR STORY in coming of Jesus Christ into our world to become….
John 1:29 (NIV) “…the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!
The shed blood of Jesus is God’s means to cover our sin ONCE and for ALL.
In the Creation we see how amazing, how majestic, how glorious our God truly is, but in the cross we discover…We are God’s crowning achievement re-created in Christ.
For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. Ephesians 2:10 (NLT)
IN the Cross we discover just how much God loves us.
John 3:16 (NIV) 16 "For God so loved the world…that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.
It’s a great story and we’re just getting started. Let’s pray: Lord bless our journey together through the Story, your praise, honor and glory and our blessing and joy in Jesus’ name. Amen.