The Story

Pharoah wasn’t the Problem

October 30, 2021 — Leave a comment

And Moses said: “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. … Now choose life.”

This weekend we’ve read Chapter 6 of The Story together, and it’s a doozie, isn’t it? It’s absolutely jam packed, one stunning thing after another.


God had kept his promises, He had shown his glory in bringing his people out of Egypt, and being among them in powerful ways like no one had ever imagined before. He promises to provide, called them to be his people, and asked in response that they would be holy – set apart – so that all the world would see his goodness and mercy and come to worship Almighty God alone.
For a year they camped out, learning what this holiness was all about, learning to trust God and worship Him. And then – this was it, the moment they were waiting for. It was time to enter the Promised Land. God was driving out their enemies before them… but that wasn’t enough to settle their rumbling bellies. They had set out to enter the land promised to their ancestors, but all they could think about was the great selection of produce back in Egypt; God is right there with them, but they’d happily trade God in for some quail, or cucumbers, or leeks, or melons. They would trade in God’s presence for a good meal.


And it’s funny how the memory becomes selective, isn’t it?


“Think of the great food we ate at no cost! It didn’t cost us anything!”.
Well, no, it didn’t cost you anything because you were slaves! We humans have this ‘skill’ to cling to something bad while talking ourselves into thinking it’s better than it was, don’t we?


And the rest of the chapter just went downhill from there. There’s a leadership battle, as Moses’ brother and sister become jealous of his position. The scouts sent ahead to check out the promised land don’t trust that God will help them in battle, so they spread a false report, and the people lose heart, right at the doorstep of their new land – they plot to replace Moses, saying they’d rather die in the wilderness than face the Canaanites.


And finally, that’s where God says “fine, I’ll do as you wish”.

Isn’t it strange how we tend to have learned that wandering in the desert to die was a punishment that God inflicted; but when we read the story and see the bigger picture, what we find is that it was something much sadder. Wandering in the desert until they died rather than facing their enemies wasn’t something God cooked up out of nowhere – no, it was exactly what they had asked for.


Moses, too, you might remember, had become fed up for having to nurse his people along like infants, and prayed that God would let him die rather than bear the complaints of his people. And, at the entrance into the promised land, rather than simply praying for water, he chose to be dramatic and strike the rock to make it look like a great magic trick so the people would stop complaining and trust him: but that’s not the kind of trust – or the kind of leadership – that God desires.

It was jam packed, wasn’t it! And there was more: more complaining, poisonous snakes, disease, politics, a talking donkey, and all the young men running off to worship another god because that god had pretty women working in its temple.

And so, the big point today is simply this: Perspective matters.

On the one hand we could say “is God angry? Why is He treating His people this way? I thought he loved them?”

But when we zoom out, when we know the whole story, we see just how inappropriate a question that is. God – the merciful and just, forgiving rebellion, but letting sin have its consequences – is recklessly patient. A dozen times He could have said, no, you know what, there’s a more obedient, less-stiff-necked option somewhere else; a dozen times He could have said ‘if you don’t want to be my people, then fine, go your own way’. But God sticks with them.

The problem though, when we zoom out, is that instead of using the law to become more like God, they’ve become more like pharaoh, haven’t they?

Every time they’ve seen God’s glory, they dug in their heels and hardened their hearts, choosing to focus on a problem rather than God’s solution.

Every time they experienced God’s forgiveness, rather than repenting – changing direction, fixing the problem, and doing things differently – instead they said, “oh good, God forgave us… but what about those cucumbers!” Or, “ooh, there are pretty women in that temple!”.

Perspective matters. And, if we look carefully, there’s a common thread woven throughout this story – and it’s one that applies directly to us today.

Pharoah wasn’t enslaving them.


Now, sure, when they were crying out in Egypt making bricks without straw, Pharoah sure looked like the problem. But that problem was dealt with. The Egyptians weren’t chasing them. They were free people now.

Pharoah sure looked like the problem at the start, but now it’s clear: they weren’t slaves to pharaoh. They’re slaves to sin. They’re slaves to the hardness of their own hearts. They’re slaves to selective memories, longing for what they don’t have, while happily throwing away the solutions that God has put right in front of their faces.

They thought they wanted freedom. But what they really craved was familiarity. They wanted a pot of meat and some melon slices, even if it meant back-breaking slave labour in the heat of the Egyptian sun.

And the same happens to us, far more than we realize.
We like to have a focus, a figurehead for our problems. But, how often is part of the problem just the simple fact that we will gladly choose what is familiar over what will make us free?

And, in this chapter of Israel’s history, we see another common thread that applies only too easily to ourselves.
God’s bright future was clouded out by regret.

God had so much prepared for them. And He was ready and willing to make it happen – all they had to do was follow. But, at every turn, rather than seeing all that was laid out in front of them, they were focused in the wrong direction. They wanted to go back, rather than move forward.

And how often do we do the same thing?

Now, this is a serious thing – it’s not something to take lightly at all. We’ve all have real hurts in our past; some of us have had real tragedy, real and lasting trauma. But God calls his people forward. And whether it’s 12 steps or 40 years of steps, the way through the valley of the shadow of death isn’t to stand still and stare at it, but to faithfully take that next step, one step at a time, one day at a time, accepting that God does have a better and brighter future prepared, but it means being ready to look forward rather than cling to the things that are behind.

And that links to the third common thread I see in this story, and which I know applies only too well to my own life.
God’s people talked themselves out of trusting.

Now don’t get me wrong, talking is good.
But they were on the threshold of the promised land. They were right on the verge of the best thing they could ever imagine, the greatest fulfilment and glory and provision that God had prepared.

And 12 went in to scope it out. It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. Everything they hoped for.
But, they were afraid. And that fear spread faster than any disease. Soon enough, all but two of those scouts had exaggerated, making the Canaanites out to be giants like Jack and the beanstalk, and then more false reports – fake news – spread, and before you know it, the people had talked themselves out of the solution that God had provided for them.


Now, I don’t want to get political or anything, but who here know someone who has talked themselves out of the solutions offered by science and medicine in this pandemic?

How many of us know someone who has talked themselves out of getting the help they need? Of talking to a counselor or going to a group, or taking that scary leap to do something new, to take that God-given opportunity to be forgiven and become a new creation as we follow where God leads?

See, I set before you life and prosperity, death and destruction

Pharoah wasn’t the problem. They wanted familiarity over freedom. God’s bright future was clouded by their own regret. And they talked until they talked themselves right out of trusting the solution God had provided.


And the saddest thing in all of this: this was their choice.
“See, I set before you life and prosperity, death and destruction… choose life.”

Is the Lord’s arm too short to provide all we need? No! Precious Lord, reach out and take my hand, right? Lord, I need you; every hour I need you.

We are God’s people, grafted into Israel by faith, adopted into the family of God as we are made a new creation as we pass through the waters of baptism.

We need to stop believing our doubts; instead, we need to go forward in faith, offering ourselves wholly to God, promising, committing to serve Christ to the end, knowing that he goes before us as our friend and master, so we don’t need to fear the battle or cling to any regrets from the past.

May God give us grace to go where he leads, and may he, who alone can change a heart of stone into a heart of flesh, give us the strength and courage to follow Him. Amen.

True Thankfulness is Expressed as Trust.

October 10, 2021 — Leave a comment

The Story Chapter 4 (Exodus 1-7; 10-17)
2 Corinthians 9:7-11
Matthew 6:25-34

On this Thanksgiving Sunday, we’re called to express our gratitude for all that we have, and more importantly, we’re called to remember that it’s all a gift from God: all I have needed, thy hand has provided, right? 

But for me, as we go through our second Thanksgiving in a global pandemic, and having read together this weekend the remarkable story of God’s deliverance of his people from slavery in Egypt, I have to admit: I’m thinking a little differently about Thanksgiving this year. 

It’s easy to preach that Thanksgiving is about the virtue of gratitude.  But, I don’t know if it struck you like it struck me and my kids as we read Chapter 4, sometimes we just don’t know how thankful we should be.  Sometimes I know I find myself a lot like those Israelites – crying out to God for help, God responds, but instead of thanking Him and trusting in His plan, I find something else to complain about, and, like Jacob’s descendants being led out of Egypt, sometimes I maybe even wish that God hadn’t answered my prayer.

As they say, hindsight is 20/20, and that’s true in the Christian life as well. 

Just as the Israelites’ grumbling through the exodus becomes evident as we read it after the fact, self-awareness and recollection are God-given tools to open our eyes to the way He answers prayer.

Unless we stop to see how one prayer has been answered, we end up like those slaves, flip-flopping back and forth, praying for freedom, and then wishing they were slaves again; praying for God to protect and provide, but when He does, they respond by anxiously wondering who will protect and provide next time.

Trusting the God who Delivers

The first, and maybe the biggest point that should be jumping off the page as we read The Story together is this: God will make a way.

What we’re seeing is that God always keeps his promises.  The issue, though, is that we too often think his promises are for our personal gain.  Now I know some preachers have conned a lot of people and made themselves very rich by saying that God promises health and wealth and prosperity.  But you’ve read it: is that what God promises? 

God promises to crush the serpent’s head.  God promises to provide what we need.  God promises to use those who are obedient to His call to bless the whole world and reconcile them to himself.

No, God isn’t in the business of setting us up to depend on ourselves.  He told an old childless man squatting on someone else’s land in a tent that he would be the father of kings; he gave a young boy a dream that would protect his entire family, but only after he remained faithful through 20 hard years in a foreign land; and now He has indeed made Abraham’s descendants very numerous, thousands of people, but lest they depend on themselves, they find themselves in a foreign land, oppressed by a fearful king who is scared by how resilient this people is, even as slaves.

In that we see that God will always make a way.  But, especially at Thanksgiving, we have to accept that God’s not blessing us for our own benefit.  God blesses us to show forth his glory.  God blesses us so that all people will see and know that He is the Lord, that the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob is the Creator, who loves us enough to seek us out while we’re still sinful rebels, and desires nothing more than for us to turn from our wickedness and live to his glory.

God will make a way – but it’s always to his glory, and our response must always be to show the world how good he is.

Grumbling

The next thing that leaps off the page, though, is grumbling.  And grumbling is a lack of gratitude.

We all knew the Israelites grumbled in the desert, but until you read Chapter 4 this weekend, did you realize just how much they grumbled?  Eye opening, isn’t it!

But how often do we fall into the same boat? 

They wanted to be free, but they didn’t really want to be free.  They wanted their own land, but they missed how easy it was to get food and water when they were slaves.  They wanted God to lead them, but complained and wanted to turn back when He didn’t lead them in the direction they wanted to go.

As Paul said in our Epistle today, “God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work”. 

God will provide, but the good works we do with what he gives are up to us.

Will we take what God has given and give glory to his name?  Or will we gladly take what he has given, and then grumble because our hearts still aren’t satisfied? 

I’ve caught myself this week: for 18 months I’ve prayed daily that God would protect our town from this virus – and he has.  I’ve prayed daily that we would work together for the common good.  But have I praised him for his protection?  Or, instead, have I been quick to express my exhaustion and become a little complacent – which doesn’t serve the common good, and to find myself anxious as our case count begins to climb.

Jesus says, “do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about the body, what you will put on”.  If God has provided thus far, now’s not the time to question his provision and protection; now’s the time to work together for the common good as much as we did in the beginning, and most importantly, to give God the glory, because it’s in times like these, times when we learn that health and strength are gifts, that God uses you and me to draw our friends, families, and neighbours to Himself, that they too may trust in him and see his glory revealed.

God will make a way, but Grumbling is a lack of gratitude for the ways God has turned the world’s evil into good.

Faith in Action: Gumption

Instead, we need to have Gumption. 

Yes, putting our faith into action, whether it’s the exodus from slavery in Egypt, or the second thanksgiving in a pandemic, requires good old-fashioned gumption.  Perseverance, endurance, resourcefulness, initiative, imagination, wisdom, understanding, practicality, mettle, nerve, courage – all synonyms for good, old-fashioned gumption. 

Four chapters in – and each with a lifetime of experience – we know God is for us.  We know God provides, that he will work through whatever mess we’ve found ourselves in, if only we trust that his ways are higher than our ways.

But God expects our commitment.  He provides all we need, but then he expects us to follow through, to follow where he leads, whether that’s with a pillar of cloud and fire, a still small voice, or hiss promises patiently tucked away in our hearts.

Exodus tells us that God has a systematic way of dealing with the competition.  Those 10 plagues aren’t random – each plague is set against one of the false gods of the Egyptians, as their gods of the Nile, of crops, of livestock, of medicine, of fertility, of the sun, and of procreation are all proven to be subject to God Almighty. 

And so, part of our Thanksgiving recollection must be asking ourselves: what false gods do we worship? 

Where do we place our trust?  In the economy?  In our ability to work?  In democracy and good government?  In self-sufficiency and individual rights and freedoms?  In the pride of believing that all that we have comes from our selves? 

It’s worth thinking about, because we know God is in the business of casting down false idols, and in my own life, as I wander through this pandemic time, I see God calling me to turn away from all those good things in which I put too much trust, and to instead trust him with gumption, to trust him boldly, knowing he’s going to reveal his glory, and he’s going to provide for my every need, if I follow him in faith.

True Thankfulness

I want to leave you with this observation.  I’ve always limited “thankfulness” to gratitude, to stopping to say “thank you” for what I’ve received. 

But as I’ve read chapter 4 this week, I think there’s more to it.  Taking a break to say thank you isn’t what God desires.

True thankfulness is expressed as trust. 

True thankfulness is trusting that God will make a way, as he has before.

True thankfulness is giving up on grumbling, and trusting that God knows best.

True thankfulness is having the gumption to say “all I have needed, his hand has provided”, so I will go where he leads me, because he will never forsake me, his grace is sufficient for my weakness, and he will finish what he started.

True thankfulness is expressed as trust.  And may God give us the grace to be truly thankful.  Amen.

God Builds a Nation

September 26, 2021 — Leave a comment

The Story chapter 2, Genesis 12-36

Genesis 12:1-3; 15:3-6
Galatians 3:16-18, 27-29
Mark 3:31-35

Last week, we saw that, in God’s unchanging “Upper Story”, a good God created a good creation where people made in His Image enjoyed beautiful, healthy relationships with God the Holy Trinity, with each other, and with all of creation. 

But, because no relationship can be forced, there’s the possibility that we can say no.  And when we did, what did we find?  Sin changes everything.

But as we read Chapter 2 this weekend, we see another aspect of God’s eternal plan revealed to us: what sin changes, only faith overcomes.

Our relationship with God was severed by sin, and there’s no way to get that back – no amount of sewing fig leaves or making sacrifices or doing good deeds can undo what was broken.  There’s no way to get it back… except by faith.

We were created to be a family – brothers and sisters, children of God Our Father.  But, our relationships with each other were destroyed, utterly broken by blame and jealousy and envy, picking sides and choosing favourites, lying, cheating, and stealing to the point where no one can trust another.  And there’s no way to get it back… except by faith: by the faith to actually believe and live as though we are brothers and sisters, children of Our Heavenly Father.

And we were created to be in relationship with creation, to rule over it in the same way that God lovingly rules over all things.  But instead, we war against creation, and our bodies bear the consequences as we wear out and return to the dust from which we were made.  But there is a way to overcome that broken relationship with creation, to find re-created and restored life beyond the grave.  And what’s the only way to get that back? By faith!

Yes, God’s grand story shows us that what sin changes, only faith overcomes.

God Wills to Build a Nation

In Chapter 2 you read the story of Abraham, the one through whom God would build a nation – a holy nation.

But it’s a surprising story, isn’t it?  Maybe you’ve been taught (through Sunday School songs about “Father Abraham” and his many sons) to see Abraham as a great and mighty figure, the patriarch over God’s chosen kingdom.  But when you actually read it all laid out, it’s not that simple, is it?

We often think of faith as something we choose: the choice to be here this morning, the choice to repent of our sins and see ourselves through God’s eyes, the decision (as the song says) to “follow Jesus” (no turning back, no turning back).  But those are all responses.  The eternal, unchanging truth that we see in Abraham is that God reaches out; God calls out to each and every one of us first.

God offers us faith; we then decide if we will allow that faith to fill us: if we want to be faith-filled, faith-full.

God calls us.

And the glorious truth we see in Abraham is that God’s purposes, God’s desire, God’s covenant is not conditional.  We don’t often stop to think in these terms.  But God doesn’t say “if you will follow me I will make you a great nation.”  He doesn’t say “if you will follow me, the whole world will be blessed through your line”.  He doesn’t say “if you will follow me, I will send my Son to take flesh through your descendants so that sin and death can be defeated.”

No.  What does God say?  God says, “I will.”  God calls Abram and reaches out with the gift of faith, because God has a plan – the same plan from the beginning.  Abram just has to choose how he will respond; will he spend his life being fueled and filled by that faith, or will he spend his days running from and fighting against the relationship that God desires?

And God is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

There’s not a single person who isn’t made in the Image of God, created to reflect His glory, and share in the life and love of the Trinity.  There’s not a single person you know whom God isn’t calling, whom God isn’t offering that gift of faith.  The question is whether they, whether we, say “yes, fill me.  I want to be full of faith, I will, I choose to be faithful”, or whether we run from that call and go our own way.

God calls Abram, and God’s decision is to use Abram to make for himself a holy people, a nation through whom the rest of humanity can see God’s glory, and be saved from sin by the gift of faith.

Drawn Together for a Purpose

In that we see another big, universal, unchanging truth.  God calls us individually, but not for our own sake. 

And that’s a hard idea, because sin changed everything.  Sin made us individualistic; we were created for relationships with God, others, and creation, to be part of something much bigger.  So when God calls each of us, it’s not so we can be glorified individuals.  He calls us, and his purpose is to restore those relationships; not just so I can be holy and I can live forever, but that I can be part of a holy people that lives forever in relationship, reflecting the Image of God to each other, and the glory of God back to the source of life and light Himself.

God calls us, he offers the gift of faith, and he’s drawn us together for a purpose.

But it’s the choice, that response, that desire to be filled by faith – to be faith-full – or not, that changes how it plays out.

It’s a fabulous calling… but how did it work out for Abraham and this chosen family?

  • Scripture tells us Abraham picked up and moved alright, but He didn’t quite trust that God would protect his life, and lied twice, saying his beautiful wife was his sister for fear he’d be killed.
  • He didn’t quite trust God would do what seemed impossible in his wife’s old age, so he went to bed with his maid.  And Sarah gets jealous to the point that the maid and her son are sent out into the desert with nothing but some bread and water.
  • Issac, the promised child, finally comes, and there begins the story of a dysfunctional family of epic proportions.  Mom has a favourite kid, Dad has a favourite kid, and the two play off each other with elaborate hoaxes to trick one into inheriting God’s blessing. 
  • Jacob gets the blessing, but is afraid his brother wants to kill him, so he runs away from all that he inherited – only to fall in love with his first cousin… except then his uncle tricks him, so he ends up marrying not one, but two of his first cousins.
  • He finally patches things up with his brother, and goes on to have a dozen kids of his own… but what does he do?  Well, this child of promise follows in his parents’ footsteps, and picks a favourite son again!  How does that play out?  As you’d expect!

God made a decision; God made an unbreakable promise; God had a purpose to bless all of humanity through Abraham’s family line. 

Did he do that because Abraham was the best choice?  Because he was strong and mighty?  Because he had built himself a nice empire in a good land?  Because he was patient and had good child-raising skills?  No, not at all.

Not at all.  This family was a total mess.  Sure, Abraham wanted to be filled-with-faith, to be faithful, but if you want to see the effects of sin in a human life, look at Abraham, look at Isaac, look at Jacob!  Yes, God called Abraham, but we overlook that between Genesis 12 and Genesis 23, God calls Abraham 10 times, because Abraham needs it! And Jacob, who is to become the patriarch of all Israel, just can’t understand God’s grace until God finally wrestles him to the ground and pins him with his hip out of joint.  Then he understands God’s grace… only to go and play favourites with his sons, repeating his own parents’ failure.

The point is this: God uses broken people to fulfill His unbreakable promises.

It’s the idea in one of my favourite “motivational” posters: “when God put a calling on your life, He already factored in your stupidity”.  It sounds harsh… but read your Bible!  It’s true!

Not so different from ourselves.

But… God called them.  And he called that family for a purpose, drawing them together for a purpose.

And, because God is unchanging, the same is true for us.

God called a man, took him away from any chance he had for worldly power in his hometown, told him he would have countless offspring and be the great-grandfather of kings… and sent him to live in a tent as a squatter on someone else’s land.  God doesn’t call the equipped, he equips the called.

And, seriously, look around.  We’re the inheritors of that promise.  We, along with our brothers and sisters at the Pentecostal and Roman Catholic churches,are the ones through whom all of Fort Smith is to be blessed and called back into relationship with God.

But look at us.  We’re a lot like Abraham!  We’re a congregation that’s past childbearing years; most of us are retired, we don’t have influence or worldly power.  Every time I hold an event, even yesterday, someone who has been in town for years said they had no idea we were here.  Like Abraham’s family, we’re richly, richly blessed, but in the eyes of the world, we’re ‘small, and of little account’.

But God has called us.  God made a decision.  God has said “you are my son; you are my daughter; I am your Father”. 

And he calls us and equips us individually, but not for our own sake.  We are children of Abraham’s promise; we have inherited by adoption God’s blessing to Abraham – yes, you are the one through whom God wants to bless the world and draw all people to himself. 

…And that sounds ridiculous, but believe me, it’s no more ridiculous than telling an old man in a tent that he’s going to be the father of kings; and whatever you’ve done, however you’ve been unfaithful, you probably haven’t pretended your wife was your sister, slept with your maid because you were impatient with God, and sent your mistress and son to wander in the desert, so believe me, if God can use Abraham, God can use you.

Because the bottom line is this: God’s calling is not dependent on our performance.  God offers faith.  Our job is to decide if we want that faith to fill us, if we will and desire to be faith-full.

My brothers and sisters – for that’s what we were created to be – sin changes everything.  But what sin changes, faith overcomes.  And, by faith, it’s through you that God wants to bless the world with eternal life.

May God draw us ever closer, and equip us for the work he’s given us to do.  Amen.

The Beginning of Life as we Know It

September 19, 2021 — Leave a comment

The Story Chapter 1: Genesis 1-8.
Lessons read in worship:
Genesis 1:1-4, 26, 31a
Romans 8:19-25
John 1:1-14

Well today, obviously, we’re starting at the beginning – not just the beginning of The Story, but the beginning of everything: the creation of the universe.

And this is where we first have to come to terms with a few things.  First, we have to realize – we have to be ready to accept – that God’s revelation of himself in scripture was given to us for a purpose.  Scripture, God’s Word written, is a love story, and it has to be, because God is love. 

That means, right off the bat, we have to accept that the Bible was never intended to be a science textbook, nor a history report, nor even a straightforward instruction manual for how to live – in fact, in the first chapters, we learn more about how not to live, rather than finding any examples to follow.

No – it’s the story of the overflowing love of the Trinity: the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit who together say “let us create”.

Now, there are faithful Christians who say “yes, and all that happened in one week” – and sure, God could have created it all in one week or one day or one in instant if he wanted.  But there are also faithful believers, in every age, going right back to ancient Israel who said ‘the point here isn’t about time’ – after all, the Church has always been quick to point out that you can’t have a 24-hour day if you don’t have the sun and moon to keep track of time. 

No, the point is that in an ongoing fashion, in phases, God’s Will unfolded to create the entire universe out of infinite nothingness, and it starts with a spark, with a flash of light – heat, energy – as the universe begins to spring into being.

And as this grand “Upper Story” is unfolding, what’s the first thing that we can say?

God created, and it was good.

Creation is a positive thing; it is a constructive thing; it is a process that gives life, that shares life, that encourages life, that values life, as the one overflowing Source of Life creates out of love.

It’s good. It’s life-giving.  But then what happens?

…We could say “sin happened”.  That’s the easy, expected answer – and yes, sin changes everything.  But you read it yourself: what changes everything?  The knowledge of evil.

Everything was good when we only knew good.  But once we have an alternative, once we have a reason to doubt, it all goes down the drain, because we become obsessed. 

We question God’s motives.  We become jealous and ashamed and suspicious and play the blame game, as our knowledge of evil, our choice and desire and appetite to know what is bad, and destructive, and life-sucking brings those things into being. 

We were created in God’s image, with the ability to shape the world around us, to take part in that work of creating; but we chose to invoke God’s curse, to know death instead of life, to know work instead of freedom, to know pain instead of joy.

But did you pick up on the biggest change of all?  Sin destroyed relationships.

Once we know manipulation and jealousy and doubt, the relationships that we were created to enjoy are broken.  Our relationship with God is severed: we want to hide from God in our shame rather than walk in his presence.  Our relationship with each other is crushed, as we can no longer trust each other, and have to devote our energy to work and toil rather than the joy of life.  And our relationship with creation is broken, as we experience the hostility of nature, and find ourselves unable to live in harmony with the world around us.

God created, and it was good, but we wanted to know evil too; we wanted to test and make sure that ‘good’ really was good, and so we knew evil.  And just like light and darkness can’t be in the same place, we became obsessed – consumed – with that evil.

But God had a plan.

God, the Holy Trinity, was unwilling for us to know their eternal life in such a sad and sorry state.  Could you imagine – an eternity of this?  It’s hard for us to fathom, but God knew that once we’ve rejected the good, once we’ve turned down the offer to share in God’s creative, life-giving work, once we’ve rejected life, death is the only alternative. 

But, as you’ve read, for God the Source of Life, death doesn’t have to be the end of the story.  With God, death can be redemptive; death can be the path to life.

When those first people went astray, they found themselves ashamed.  It’s a funny image really – people who have never had to work for anything in their lives playing with leaves trying to put together some clothes because they were ashamed of their own bodies.  But leaves aren’t going to cut it.  No, God himself kills – sacrifices – the first animal, as that animal’s skin covers their shame, and becomes the protection they need for life in a hostile world.

So, through all these details in this Lower Story of the beginning of humanity, we see the big picture, Upper Story plan hinted at: God hasn’t given up.  God’s will was to create humanity in his image that we might finally share in the overflowing love of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  And, in spite of us, he’s going to do that.

But, eternal life, when you’re obsessed with evil, would be an awful, heinous thing.  It takes death – the shedding of blood – to hit reset and open the path to make a new choice, to choose life instead.  But God’s love is such that He’s willing.  God wants us to spend eternity with him so much that even when we choose to hide from him, he’ll pitch his tent and move in among us.  If we choose death, if we choose the path that destroys relationships with God, each other, and creation, He will seek us out to offer us, once more, while there’s breath in our lungs, the opportunity to rebuild those relationships – to be made right in God’s eyes, to learn to live together as brothers and sisters, and to live in hope of re-creation shared by everything that God has made.

God created and it was good.  But we wanted to know evil, and choose evil, even though it leads to death.  But, from the start, God had a plan: that through death, he would offer us the chance at redemption.

And the last point we need to take away from Chapter 1 is this: when, in what you read, did God finish his work?  He didn’t.  No, when things were good, before we chose evil, he rested.  But from that day until this, God hasn’t stopped working.  God the Creator isn’t finished – no my friends, he’s just started!  He’s still equipping and providing and creating the opportunities for us to choose life through death, for us and all creation to be restored in his image.

In your bulletin, I put (in red) the words of William de Witt Hyde that we’ll sing later today:

Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal may ever shine afar —
the will to win it makes us free.

-William de Witt Hyde

“Since what we choose is what we are,
and what we love we yet shall be,
the goal” – God’s will that we should be redeemed and restored, to know and share in his life and love – that goal “may ever shine afar –”

And what makes us free?  “the will to win it makes us free”. 

God’s not done, He, through all of human history, is working towards the same goal that Father, Son, and Holy Spirit set at creation, but because you can’t force a relationship, we have to want – we have to will – to reach that goal, with God’s help.

Finding our place in God’s Story

And so, we find ourselves, our own lower stories in God’s grand Upper Story.  And, my brother and sisters – for that is what we were meant to be – our task, the key to “reverse the curse” is simply to align our will to God’s will.  God has a purpose, God has a plan; we chose the broken relationships, but He chose a path, a plan, a story that leads to redemption.  All we have to do is find our place in that story, and trust in the one who is the source of it all: the One God to whom be all glory, now and forevermore. Amen.

“Every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, of who you are, into something a little different from what it was before. With all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature; either into a man that is in harmony with God, and with others, or else into one that is in a state of war with God, and with others. 

To be the one kind of creature is joy and peace; to be the other means madness, rage and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”

–C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

The Story Begins

September 16, 2021 — Leave a comment

Today, as you know, we begin something new.  This is the start of The Story.  Now, I know you’ve been hearing bits and pieces about The Story for months, but here it is: beginning today, this whole church – and, in fact, a few of our friends from the other churches in town – are going to spend the next 31 weeks learning the story of God’s redemption, the story of God’s unchanging, unshakable love for us.

Now I know some are thinking, “oh that’s nice.  Yes, that’ll be good for those people who are newer to church, who didn’t have Sunday School when they were little.”  But this really is something for everyone.

You see, stories are important.  Humans were made to tell stories – you don’t see a mama dog sitting down her pups to tell them about how it felt when she saw you for the first time at the animal shelter.  It’s a nice thought, but telling stories is one of those things that make us unique.  And, of course, we know and we believe that the reason people aren’t quite like other animals is that we are made in the Image of God. 

Storytelling isn’t just something for children.  No, we tell stories every day so that we can make sense of the world.  Stories help us know other people’s character, as we learn how our family, friends, and neighbours acted in a situation.  Far more often than we might even like, we’re bombarded by news stories.  And they are stories – even the barest of facts are strung together so that we can make sense of them, so that we can make up our minds about who was right and who was wrong, as we learn how actions and decisions and events in other places have an effect on us.  If you watched the debate the other night, what you saw there in it’s grandest form is this act of human storytelling, with each party leader narrating their version of how our nation got here, who the good guys and bad guys are, and where they’d like the next chapter to go.

Stories are essential to being human.  Each family has a story, and we’re wired to share it.

So why do we – who are already in church – need to take 31 weeks to learn the Church’s story? 
Isn’t that preaching to the choir?

Maybe not.

Why we need The Story: The Facts

Play along with me… if you have a Bible in your house, raise your hand.

            Great – now, who has two Bibles in their house?  Three?  Four?

Now, who here – either as a child in Sunday School, or as an adult on your own – learned about Adam and Eve?  Who knows the story of Abraham?  What about Moses?  Ok, what about Rahab?  And Ruth?  King David?  Solomon? 

Who knows about Mary and Joseph riding to Bethlehem?  Who’s heard of Pentecost?  Who has heard that Jesus will come again?

Alright… that’s great.  Now: who knows how it all fits together? 


What’s Abraham’s role in the Christmas story? (He has a big one!)
What does Rahab hiding Jewish spies on her roof have to do with Pentecost?

Right. 

So the most recent statistics show that 41% of practicing Christians who have 4 or more Bibles in their homes confessed to researchers that they never read them.  41% — and that’s those who told the truth!

As we’ve been saying for two years now, our job is to reach out – to let people, our family, friends, and neighbours, know about the love and mercy and healing found in Jesus.  But the main reason we’re all so hesitant to do that is, simply, we don’t know what to say.  We’re all able to speak about our families, we all have opinions and some of us could go on all day about politics or what’s happening in our world, but along with that, we need to learn The Story – our story – so that we know our place in it, and just as importantly, so we can invite others to find theirs.

The Unchanging Story of God’s Redemption

Now, there’s another problem worth thinking about.

Yes, the Bible is the story of God’s redemption of the world.  But… isn’t it old? 
Like, very old?  Sure, there’s stuff we can learn, but is it really fair to say that this book from long ago is my story or your story or our story? 

And, that, my friends, is one of the key issues: we’ve been taught to read the Bible in chunks, like it’s a newspaper, where you can read the headlines that catch your attention, but skip over the others, learning a bit along the way. But the Bible isn’t meant to be a history book, a raw collection of facts.  No, the Bible is… a love story, one unfolding account of the Creator of the Universe overflowing with love so that God creates everything that is so that he can invite us into relationship with Himself.  It’s the story of the source of life being so abundant and gracious and merciful that He’ll do what it takes to let us share in that abundant life, if only we’ll choose it.

And, the amazing part that too many of us weren’t taught is that your Bible has a gap. 

The Bible isn’t just long ago and far away – we’ve come this far (the last of the Pastoral Epistles), but we haven’t yet reached the end.  We’re still living the story, it’s still playing out around us.

So there’s a crucial reason that these ancient words still matter.  Yes, the story started long ago; yes, we come and go, like the grass; yes, kingdoms rise and wane; but what about God? 

(Maybe the kids can help us with their memory verse today:  Does Jesus or his love for us change?  “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever”. Hebrews 14:8) 

That’s the amazing message of The Story.  The times change, the characters change, the locations change, but through it all, in every time and place, God doesn’t change, and his purpose to invite us to share in his abundant life hasn’t changed from the moment that first atom sparked into being. 

Today’s lessons are the perfect example.  Numbers 21: God’s people wandering in the desert, having a hard time trusting him.  Just a chapter earlier God had provided food and water for them, and here they are grumbling because the food is worthless – who cares it filled their bellies and didn’t cost them anything, they just weren’t satisfied.  They start to curse God, who removes his protection from them, and the realities of desert life set in – poisonous snakes crawling everywhere.  But what’s the solution?  To lift up the thing they’re afraid of, face it head on, and trust in God.  Or, as Paul wrote in First Corinthians 1:18-24, or Jesus said in today’s Gospel (John 3:13-17), the solution is… the cross. 

You see, the times, the places, the characters change; but God remains the same.  Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. 

As we go through this year together, what we’ll find is that there are two “levels” to the story that we share.  To keep things straight, we’re going to call them the “Upper Story” and the “Lower Story”. 

The Upper Story is the overarching narrative tying it all together.  It’s those things we miss when we’re caught up in the weeds, but where we see God working all things together for good in the big picture.  The Upper Story is where we learn that God is revealing himself to us, and his one plan since the beginning of creation is, simply, to create an eternal people to live with him forever.  That’s the overarching story that we’re living in, because we’re still in that gap.

The Lower Story, then, is how we see God working in ordinary people’s lives.   One of the challenges for us this year is perhaps to undo some of what you learned in Sunday School.  We’re not looking at scripture to find heroes doing incredible things – that’s to miss the point.  No, scripture shows us the stories of ordinary people, people who make bad decisions, get angry, have doubts, but many of whom decide in faith to become part of God’s great plan.  And, as we see God at work in those lower stories of ordinary people, I know for sure that we’ll be better equipped to see God at work in our own lives.

Stories are important. 

We need to know this story, because what God’s doing in your life might seem mysterious, but guess what – it’s no mystery!  God doesn’t change! His desire for you is the same as it is for all people, to invite you to a relationship with him, to learn to reflect his love, to stand in the face of the things that scare us – whether it’s a snake or a lifeless body on a cross – and acknowledge that our only hope is to trust in the one who never changes.

At the same time, I know – I’m absolutely sure – that you’re going to discover something as we walk together through the lower stories.  Guess what: we’re not all that different.  You, me, the annoying neighbour, people around the world, and the people on the pages of scripture.  There really isn’t anything new under the sun, and there’s great encouragement and freedom that comes with learning that no, whatever you and your family are going through isn’t new, you’re not alone, and more importantly, whatever you’re facing won’t thwart God’s plan, if only we learn to trust in his big picture.

We’re made to tell stories.  This year, we’ll tell ours.  May God give us the grace to see how we fit into His, for he’s the same, one God, yesterday, today, and forever.  Amen.