#1 - God Speaks to His People
Genesis 1:26-31 - Victory Fellowship
February 26, 2023 - Rev. Roderick Grabski
1st Sunday of Lent – Healing Service
I. A Story and a Story Teller
A. We All Have a Story
We all have a story. You know the chapters and the characters in your story. You know the moments of heartbreak and the moments of glory. Your story is important.
B. We All Are a Part of a Bigger Story
I was a part of story bigger than myself. (Teaching 6th grade Sunday school – went to see Sarah’s grandma– her reaction)
G.K. Chesterton said, “I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.”
Many of you are familiar with J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam find themselves two young Hobbits in the scariest place they ever dreamed of, with the task of saving the world. Here Sam says, “I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”
Sam could not have asked a better question. Sam assumes that there is a story, that there is something larger going on. John Eldredge in his book Epic says that the question “What sort of tale have I fallen into?” may be the most important question of our lives.
C. Life as Story
We experience life as a story. We wish we were given a blueprint at the beginning, a map of what will happen when and where, but instead we experience life like a story. We turn the next page and see what is there.
It unfolds whether we want it to or not, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow. And we find ourselves in the middle of it just like we did when we were kids and pretended we were a part of some suspenseful adventure with love, heartbreak, and the unknown. Now we are living it: lives of love, heartbreak, and the unknown. And many of us, if we stop, might need to ask like the young Hobbit. What sort of tale have we fallen into? How did I get here? Is this really it?
D. Living in the Middle of the Story
Part of living in the middle of the story means that you can’t skip ahead to the last chapter to see how things end. That means we often live in mystery not understanding how everything happening might fit together in a bigger picture.
In the classic TV show I Love Lucy, husband Ricky will come in almost every show in the middle of the story, in the middle of the event, or the middle of a catastrophe, and say Lucy, “You’ve got some ‘splaining to do!”
Often in life, when a surprising page is turned—we lose our job, the kids move away, our spouse dies—and if there is a storyteller, we would say, “You’ve got some explaining to do! I don’t get it; I don’t see how it all fits together.”
II. The God Story
If life is a story, there must be a storyteller, and I think most of us are wondering, how does my story connect with God’s story? Over the next seven weeks I want to invite you to look at the greatest story of intrigue, suspense, betrayal, adventure, hope, and life. It’s the story of God’s people, and that means it’s a story you are in.
If you are like me, you can look at the Bible, a big book, and hear the names Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph, David, Isaiah, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and think, how does it all fit together? Is this one story or a collection of hundreds? Does the God of Adam have anything to do with the God of Abraham, and do they have anything to do with Jesus?
A. It Is All Connected
The answer is an amazing “Yes.” The Bible is the story of God and His people and of God’s relentless love and longing for relationship with His people. We will look closely to see what threads run throughout. Threads run from Genesis to Jesus and then straight to us.
We will see that the Bible is not a haphazard collection of cute bedtime stories, but instead it is the Word of God speaking to us a connected story of hope for our lives. We will discover that there are threads of meaning and purpose in the story of the Bible, threads that lead to Jesus that lead to us, taking us from haphazard lives to meaning-filled lives, from accidental existences, to purposeful existence.
As we hear these amazing stories, and then discover we now live in God’s Story, we will say, “I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into.” We may even say to the storyteller, “You have some explaining to do!” And the story goes on.
III. We Start In the Beginning
Where does any good story start? With “Once upon a time,” or “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” or “In the beginning.” Our story starts there: “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”
A. God is the Main Character
When I watch a Denzel Washington movie or a Helen Mirren movie, and I know they are the stars, the movie doesn’t begin for me until I see them; I’m thinking about them. When are they going to burst onto the scene? So a good story introduces the main character in the beginning; you can’t get to the story, or fully appreciate the story until you are introduced to and appreciate the characters, notably the main character.
And let’s make no mistake about this story we are looking at, though we will look at some incredible characters, and even ponder our place in the story—the main character is God. In fact we get the word God in the fourth word of the story. In the beginning God. That tells us a lot about the origin of the world, the origin of our species. In the beginning God. He is the principal actor, the main character; God is the one we need to get to know to get this story.
We learn a few things about God that are essential for understanding the whole story.
B. God is Extremely Powerful
All powerful, omnipotent—however you want to say it—God creates out of nothing.
C. God Creates in His Own Image.
Crucial to this story is the understanding that we are not robots; we are not programmed to one thing or another; if we are created in the image or likeness of this incredible God, then something of the power, creativity, care, authority, responsibility, imagination and vision of the all-powerful God is found in us. So no wonder we write stories, and create things, and love children, and dream, and desire a story that is bigger than us.
The Chief Storyteller made us like himself, and so we get to join in the things that God has done and what God is doing.
D. God Speaks to His Creation.
God begins conversation, relationship, with that which God has created.
IV. Thread #1: God speaks to His people because God desires relationship with them.
We will see all throughout the story God speaking to Creation. Why? Because God desires relationship with them. This is the first of several threads we explore that run throughout the God Story. God is consistent in this desire for relationship with us, his creations.
So I’m inviting you to open your heart to hear the voice of God whispering, maybe speaking, maybe shouting to you - your connection in the Story. God is speaking to you.
The story that you have been longing to have, that began in the imagination and fairytales of your heart as a child, your desire for adventure, and relationship, and excitement and love, is not a childlike thing to be dismissed. It is the echo of the greatest story that has ever been told - bouncing off your heart. It is the thread of God’s love pulling you into the story.
PRAYER and ANOINTING with Oil
SONG: Word of God Speak
Genesis 1:26-31 NLT
26 Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” 27 So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. 28 Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.” 29 Then God said, “Look! I have given you every seed-bearing plant throughout the earth and all the fruit trees for your food. 30 And I have given every green plant as food for all the wild animals, the birds in the sky, and the small animals that scurry along the ground—everything that has life.” And that is what happened. 31 Then God looked over all he had made, and he saw that it was very good! And evening passed and morning came, marking the sixth day.
