I love stories. I don’t consider myself a natural story teller, but I wish I were. Do you ever have a friend who tells a story and it’s just spell binding, your so drawn in, it’s so interesting, and by the end, you realize it’s the story of your friend tying her shoelaces? I’m not that kind of storyteller, but I do love good stories.
Today we’re inundated with stories. When you hear a radio ad or watch a tv commercial, that’s a story. The story goes a bit like this. Feeling depressed? Sad? Anxious? We have the solution! We have the fix to your need. For only 17 payments of $32.99 each, we’ll give you this stainless steal back-scratching sport. With this back-scratching spork, you will feel better, be happier, and be enriched as an individual, but we’ll have your money.
Movies take the same concept and expand it to 90 minutes. A protagonist, the hero, is confronted with an inciting incident, with conflict, with a need they have to face. They’re forced to either enter into the story to overcome the challenge, or to run away. But once the character chooses to go forward, the story begins to unfold as the hero encounters conflict, rising action, overcomes, has momentary rest, and then is confronted with more conflict, building and building to the ultimate climax of the movie, followed by the resolution. This is what we call a story or narrative arc.
One of the reasons I like The Lord of The Rings, Star Wars, and the Marvel Universe is they take standalone stories and show how they fit into a larger narrative, into a story of epic conflict and scale. Now imagine for a moment, you’re a character in your favorite story. This could be your favorite book, movie, or tv commercial. Just imagine you’re now in the story! For me, that means I have a lightsaber, a ring that turns me invisible, and I shoot webs out of my wrists. How would you feel in your story? Excited? Panicked? Hopeful? Wondering if the story will play out for you as it plays out for Luke Skywalker or Frodo?
Today I want to tell you about a grand story arc that you’re a part of, a story much bigger than your favorite tv commercial, your favorite movie, your favorite book. This is the story of everything and it’s found in the pages of the Bible. This story is imagined by God, written by him, and set in motion, all by him.
1. The story of everything begins in Genesis.
God is the author of everything that’s happened since before day one, not chance, not evolution, not aliens from another universe. God wrote this story and you and I are experiencing a little bit of it right now. Today, I’m going to give you an overview of how the story began. Genesis means “beginning.” We need to understand the beginning of the story so that we understand chapter two, the book of Exodus.
A. God starts the story really good. (Gen 1-2)
God created everything perfect and good. Animals and people and the whole world was at peace with itself. God called everything he made “good” but when he made the first humans, he called them “very good” (1:31). We were so good he gave us the task of going out and making more good things, more good creations. In Genesis 1:28b, God said, “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it…” (NIV®) In other words, get out there and fill my creation with my goodness and beauty, men and women made in my image (1:26-27). But something bad happens…
B. We introduce hostility into the story. (Gen 3-11)
The serpent enters the garden of Eden, Satan comes to paradise to tempt the first two people, Adam and Eve. They believed for a moment that God might not be good or have their best interests at heart. In that moment, they disobey God, and everything falls into sin and brokenness.
We, not God, introduced hostility into our relationship with God and with other people. The consequence of our sin is death. We were supposed to live forever, but now we die. Genesis 3:19 says, “By the sweat of your brow you will eat your food until you return to the ground, since
