The Message of the Bible: God's Story

parallel with our house fellowships to go through the book of Genesis in this next week. And what I wanted to do today, I actually was going to do this last week, which is because the circumstance is like, I didn't, but I'd like today to look at the story of the whole Bible, to kind of put this thing back up as a way back and look at the message of the Bible, the story of the Bible. Other people don't realize the Bible is actually a story, it's a narrative, it is primarily narrative. Although it has several different genres of literature in it, and the genre is just a type of writing, when you watch TV and you turn the channel, you know pretty quickly what genre of program it is that you are watching, whether it's a sitcom or whether it's a movie or whether it's some other kind of stupidity that's being broadcasted into your home.

You basically know, you understand genre in that sense. The genre is just the type of literature that we have in the Bible. A lot of people don't understand that this is a story. In fact, the first major section of the Bible is just pure narrative from Genesis through Esther. It's the story of God. It is not like other religious books, like the Quran or any other religious book. It is not the story of man trying to find God, it is the story of God. It's the story of God's creation and his finding man and his work. And so today, what we want to do is look at this big story, and to put it into terms that we'll see as we begin to look at the book of Genesis, the very beginning of this story, where it fits.

In this story, there are four chapters, as you'll notice in the notes that are in your bulletin, there is creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. The divine protagonist in this story is God himself. God is the primary person of this book. I heard this past week, I think it was Jerry Bridges, in fact, I didn't hear him, I read an interview that he did, and he was talking about the fact that in most churches today in America, you would never know that the church is meets primarily to look at who God is, because all of our advertisements, all of our packaging has to do with what the church can do for man. We talk about being a place where people can really fit in and feel good and become part of a community and have their needs met and participate in important things, but we rarely talk about the fact that the church of Jesus Christ is a place where you can find God, that God is at the center of everything.

He is the divine protagonist of this story, the antagonist is Satan. The agonists are God's people, and the resolution plot of this story is redemption and reconciliation. God, this story and the major bulk of it is about the redemption that comes through the redeeming God in the person of his son, and so we want to look at this. First of all, notice if we can make this work, which we are not being able to see, I knew one of these days, I would fall prey to technology. Chapter one, creation, is primarily given to us in Genesis chapter one and two, and that's where we are going to begin next week looking at in your house fellowships, you are beginning to look at this book, and you see the story, how the story begins, it is a profound narrative, and that's what it is, it's not a scientific treatise that was sent into a journal, a scientific journal somewhere, it is a narrative, it doesn't tell us about secondary causes, it tells us about the creator.

We discover there many important things about God, when it tells us that in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, we discover in this narrative that God is before all things. We discover that God is the cause of all things, and that God is the purpose of all things, and that God is above all things. That's the most important thing for us to learn, is God is above all, he's the ruler of all. In fact, in the book of Revelation, one of the verses that you have to do that for me, the one of the verses that you are memorizing, if you are coming on Sunday evenings, and we are learning a way of sharing the gospel, coming at it from a slightly different approach, then maybe you are used to, we begin first by memorizing this verse, and so we are all going to say this together, because I know you have all memorized it, and a new American standard version, revised edition, worthy are you, come on, let's go, all of you, worthy are you, our Lord and our God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and because of your will, they existed and were created, Revelation 4.11.

What an astounding statement, it's so absolute. God is the origin and originator of all things. Now humanity is the crowning glory of the Creator's work. That is the importance of that account. It's not, to be honest with you, you trying to figure out if these are literal 24-hour days, or whether they are day ages, or something else, it is the fact that God is the Creator. He created all things, and the crown of this creation is man, because he creates man in his image. In the image of God, he creates him, and therefore we are those, because we are created in the image and likeness of God, we are those with whom he could commune. We are those in whom he could delight. We are beings who could know the sheer pleasure of the presence and fellowship of the living God.

Click that. Notice this, again. The crowning glory of God, the Creator, we enjoy in that account, and we see man kind, and I'm going to use man, I'm going to use it in the old way, before the feminist movement, which has helped us in some ways, and done great damage in other ways, but before the feminist movement, it didn't offend anybody for you to say man, or to say to a group of mixed, both men and women, you guys, that wasn't offensive. I know it's offensive today. I'm not trying to be offensive. Cecil, please don't leave. I'm not trying to be offensive, but if you are offended, please forgive me. Man was created, man kind, male and female, in the image of God, they enjoyed the vision of God.

They were able to see God as he truly was. Secondly, they possessed the image of God. They were created in the image of God to reflect who God is. In fact, it's interesting in the account in chapter 2 that it was man, male, and female together that constitute the image of God. There is something about the fact that God did not create simply one that reveals the image of God. Just as God throughout all eternity has enjoyed fellowship between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit when He created man, man and woman together constitute the image of God. The third thing is that we live in the presence of God. That's the glory of Eden. You ever notice, the account goes along that God creates man, and then He develops a He produces a garden.

A walled garden is the idea. A place on the earth where man is going to dwell, and He takes man, and they create it outside the garden, and He puts him in the garden, and in the garden is where He creates the woman, and gives him this realm in which they are going to experience the presence of the living God. Again, man is created to worship God and rule over God's creation under God's authority. That is the purpose of man. That is the clearest teaching of that passage as He is describing man in His role in this world. That God creates Him in His image. He creates Him to rule over the creation, but worship and submit to Almighty God. He rules under the authority of God. We see this picture. This is a little illustration that's used in this two ways to live, approach to witnessing, and it pictures God as king, and that's what the crown is about.

It pictures the world that God created, and man, under God, ruling under the authority of God as vice-regent. In other words, God assigns Him. It gives Him this assignment. You rule over all, and you worship Me. In fact, we are told in the book of Hebrews that He actually creates the angels in order to empower man and enable man to be helpers to man to accomplish this purpose for which He was created. But something happened. The fall turns everything upside down. Man ignores God and worships creation. That's the astounding thing in the fall. The thing that caused the fall was man instead of submitting to the authority of God. By the way, there are a lot of people today. If you tell them that God considers them to be His enemies, that they are the enemies of God.

They're quite surprised. They don't feel like the enemies of God. They've never done anything to God. They're not angry at God or anything like that in many cases. They simply ignore Him. The fact that God claims that He has authority over all doesn't mean anything to them. Look, you leave me alone. I'll leave you alone. That's the mindset. But what happens is because God created man to be under His authority and to rule over His creation under His authority, He turns the world upside down. And so instead of worshiping God, He worships creation. In fact, turn with me to Romans chapter one. Let's look at Romans chapter one and listen to this account. By the way, Romans chapter one, two, and the first part of chapter three is a very vivid description of the fall and its consequences.

What happens at the fall and as it progresses, what develops among humanity? Why there is such a need for salvation from this condition that we are in? Romans chapter one, verse 22, professing to be wise, they became fools. Talking about mankind as a result of the fall. Professing to be wise, they became fools. What is the foolishness? They exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and forfeited animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lust of their hearts to impurity so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. Now notice the progress in verse 24, as they turn away from God and elevate creation. First of all, they make gods out of man.

And then they make gods out of birds, things that fly. And then they make gods out of forfeited animals like the golden calf. And finally, they make gods out of crawling creatures. You see the movement downward? You see how man instead of worshiping God and ruling over creation, he has turned things upside down. And instead he worships the creation and he ignores God. Next slide. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the creator who is blessed forever. That's the fall. The fall has turned everything on its head. Very interesting when you read the first chapter of the book of Colossians. It is a marvelous picture of the fact that Jesus Christ has turned everything back the right position, that God is on the throne, that God man is ruling over the universe.

And he is ruling over all of creation as man was created to do and God is worshiped. He is reconciled according to Paul, all things to himself, he is put everything right with God. In fact, in the eternity future everything is going to be in its proper place. Even hell is going to be in its proper place. All those who will not vow the need to living in true God and the person of his son is going to be put away from the presence of his power and his glory. Now this really is a threefold calamity keep going. And that is first of all, you are getting good at this now. First of all, we lost our vision of God. We were created to see God and to understand God and to know God. But now man in the fall could no longer discern his nature and his character.

In fact, he began to project his own guilt and his own hostility onto God. God did this. God is to blame. You hear people say that today. People that are angry with God. That's because they project onto God their own fallenness. And since the fall of man, man has been asking why did he make me like this? If God is holy and God is omnipotent, why is there evil in the world? Why has God made me like this? Paul asks the question in Romans 9.20. Why is God so cruel, men say? The reason for that is they are projecting their own image. They have made everything in life a God rather than to bow to the one true and living God. Why is God hidden? Why have we lost our vision? Second Corinthians chapter 4.

Why don't you turn there? Let's look at this with our eyes. Second Corinthians chapter 4 verse 4. Notice what Paul says. Verse 3 says, and even if our gospel is veiled, this pronouncement and announcement that there is salvation in Christ Jesus, that there is reconciliation in life in Christ Jesus, he says, if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In whose case the God of this world, this is an expression that's used by Paul to refer to Satan, in whose case the God of this world has blinded the minds and the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. We lost our vision. And so mankind doesn't see God as he truly is, but he projects upon God, his own distorted picture.

It's interesting, and the prophets God has said to show himself to men, according to their character, to the pure, he shows himself pure, to the twisted, he shows himself twisted. Man was created to reflect God, and now because he has turned away from God, when he thinks about God, what he projects upon him, he is his own, the effects of his own fallenness. The second thing is that he distorts the image of God. The image of God has been distorted by the fall, instead of being loving, generous, self-giving, thoughtful, and merciful as God is, and we were to reflect to this whole universe in our creation. We became miserly and selfish and unloving and spiteful, and we have Auschwitz and the killing fields, crime in the streets, all that we see, the effects of man's fall, all around us.

At times, it gets overwhelming, and people think, how in the world can we exist in a world like this? Let's go to California, and they find out when they get to California, it's just like California, it's just like every other part of the world, it's filled with sinners. We were created to bear the image of God, and yet we bear the image of the evil one, the Bible says. And in third, we were expelled from the presence of God, in a place of communion with a creator which we were created for, that's our purpose, is to commune with God, and that's the reason that a person will never come to rest, truly rest in life. And we'll never come to settle down and rest in life until he experiences fellowship and communion with his creator.

That's why we were created, but we became rebels, and lost, and cast a drift. We broke God's laws, abused God's creation, suffered all the awful consequences of this rebellion, and of our fallenness, and brokenness, and alienation, and loneliness, and pain. We really are a people in pain. The reason one of the best professions you could get into today, if you want to be successful in our part of the world, because there's so much of fluency, has become a counselor. Get an education, and counsel people in their pain, and loneliness, and lostness, and all that, and they'll pay you lots of money to try to find solutions to their pain. And the drug companies are obviously making billions and billions of dollars, simply trying to give peace.

All those peace pills that you can buy at the drug store will not produce peace. Oh, they'll dull the pain, the experience of the pain, but they won't bring peace. Because as that Monday Prophet Bob Dylan said, there'll be no peace, and wars won't cease until he returns. It's true. It's not until we again enter into the presence and communion with God that we will ever find rest. You ever wondered why creation ends with a day of rest? Why did God's the account of creation end with a seventh day, a day of rest? It's because that is what God has invited men to enter into his rest, and you will never enter into rest, until you enter into communion with God through Jesus Christ. And so man was guilty, enslaved to sin, found ourselves unwilling, and unable to come to the living God for life and restoration, to find rest in him.

We passed on our brokenness in the form of every kind of broken relationship with one another that you could ever think of. It's amazing when you look at the statistics of relationships in our culture today. It's astounding, and we're not even shocked by it more. It doesn't shock any of us that more marriages fail than succeed. Why in the world do we keep trying? And more marriages fail than succeed. The divorce rate in the church is higher than outside the church. Does that shock you? One of the reasons for that is people outside the church cohabitate without getting married, and so they go through several relationships before they enter into marriage. Why is that? Because we are falling. And the effects of the fall distort God's purpose and plan and perfection.

An amazing thing is man and his fallenness does not on his own seat, God. The Bible pictures us, and our fallenness is a racist sheet going astray. As a young son who abandons and hates his father and takes everything that his father will give him and goes off and lives on his own, and ends up eating in the pig pin. That's our fallenness. You know, it's amazing how in our fallenness and brokenness and pain, we don't naturally turn to God. Hit that again, again. Listen to this quote. Just in terms of allocation of time resources, religion is not very efficient. There's a lot more I could be doing on a Sunday morning. I didn't make this up. Now, I'm not going to wait a minute, second, don't turn it yet.

I don't want to tell you who this is before I say to you that I know a lot of Christians who have the same attitude, don't you? You may be one. In all reality, you will come to church as long as you don't have something more important to do. Right? It's true. I'm not beating up on anybody, but it's just flat true. And you're thinking, well, the only reason you show up every day is because they pay you. I showed up before they serve family. Now notice who said this. Richest man in the world. He's a successful man in America, brilliant man, efficient man. He knows how to gobble up the market like nobody else. He's probably one of the most hated men in his own industry because he takes everybody's business.

He doesn't waste time. Who wants to waste time to worship? This is a quote from Jeremiah, the prophet, during the Babylonian captivity of Israel. They were in Babylonian captivity because they had the mindset of Bill Gates. They said, we have more important things to do than to worship the true and living God. And so God put them into Babylonian captivity. And this is the word of explanation for my people, have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, to queue for themselves, sisters, broken sisters. Sisters aren't Christian women. Sisters are vessels to hold water, containers. They queued for themselves, sisters, broken sisters that can hold no water. He's talking about their idolatry.

They need life. They need rest. They need someone to bind up their brokenness. Where do they go? They go where some of you go to their idols instead of the only one who can make them whole. They run to their idols. Because of that, they went into captivity. The third chapter, after this dark chapter, is the chapter of the story called redemption. And redemption is the longest part of the Bible. The longest part of the Bible has to do with God's work of redemption slowly, but surely he unveils and works out his plan of redemption for man and his lostness. The holy and just God, whose moral perfection's burn against sin and unrighteousness is also a God that's full of mercy and love and faithfulness.

John 3.16 says, for God so loved the world. Who in the world is that world? Well, hyper Calvinists say that's the elect, which makes no sense at all in that verse. Can't be the elect, for God so loved the world, but who is this world? Is it the planet? Is it the globe we live on? The God so loved this planet? No. The context of the gospel of John, the world, is this humanity that is that war with God. It is a humanity that hates God. It's a humanity that hates God by totally ignoring him and worshipping the creation of the Creator. It's a humanity that loves dogs more than they love God. God so loved that world. That's the amazing thing to me about John 3.16. I've heard it said that Americans spend more money on dog food than they do on missionaries.

Isn't that fascinating? Do you give as much to support the work of the gospel around the world as you do to support your pets? Please don't answer. That's a rhetorical question. I don't want to know. I just assume you don't. Isn't that amazing? God so loved this world, a world that was a war with him. God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten sign that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. That's redemption. The story of redemption runs through the all-escripture begins in Genesis 3.15. We have an announcement in a very cryptic way of the gospel that the seed of the woman is going to bruise the head of the serpent. The seed of the woman we discover is the seed of Abraham and the seed of David and the seed of Mary is Jesus.

Jesus came into this world and by his death on the cross he bruised the head of Satan. He put him down. He took away what he had stolen, what he had usurped. In this story of redemption runs throughout the scriptures. It begins very early in the Bible. The God showing how he's going to restore our lost vision, renew us in the divine image of God and reestablish our relationship and bring us back into the presence of God. It begins very early and it runs throughout the Bible. In Genesis chapter 12, after this foundation 11 chapters, the first beginning of the Bible, we have the creation and the fall and the consequences of the fall. If you read Genesis chapter 4 through 11 and you see the effects of the fall in a very vivid way.

But in chapter 12, God calls a man. God chooses a man, Abraham. And he enters into covenant with Abraham and he is seed. And he gives the promises to Abraham that he is going to bless all the nations through Abraham and his seed. And then he begins to tell the story. The rest of the book of Genesis is the story of Abraham, his son Isaac, his son Jacob, and Jacob's sons and especially Joseph. The story of God's covenant keeping character as he deals with these men. And what we discover, they're men just like us, men and women just like us. Fallen, flawed, failing, totally ill equipped to accomplish any great thing. And yet God demonstrates to us in those chapters chapter 12 through 50 that he is capable of using flawed people to accomplish his good purpose.

At the close of the book of Genesis, Joseph says to his brothers who had done an evil thing. If you don't think this is evil, you must be evil. They sold their brother into Egyptian bondage. They started to kill him but they thought why killing when we can sell him. I've thought that about horses before. Why kill him if you could sell him? And so they sold him and Joseph at the close of the book of Genesis says, you men it for evil. The God men it for good to save many lives. And so God shows us in those stories in the book of Genesis how he can work his work of redemption even through fallen and faltering people. The book of Exodus we have the first prophet shows up Moses. God's first prophet shows up to the people of God because they had now entered into Egyptian slavery.

They were slaves. How could the slaves of Egypt be the people of God through whom God is going to bless all the nations? And so God sends a prophet, the prophet Moses. Moses comes down to Egypt, leads them out. He becomes a picture of their savior and protector. He becomes a picture of Jesus Christ. And he delivers them. And he delivers them out of bondage in order to bring them into promise land. So we have Exodus and Leviticus and Deuteronomy that tell us the story of God bringing them out and forming them into a nation. And then in the book of Joshua, Moses is taken off the scene in Joshua. He leads the people in taking possession of the promise land, the base of operation which God is going to use to accomplish his purposes in and through Israel.

But just like us, they had idolatous hearts. And so as he brings them into the land these are shepherds. They're used to raising sheep. And as they come into this agricultural land where they're going to have to plant crops, raise crops. They begin to doubt God's power and ability to help them in the land. And so they turn to the gods of the other nations around them, the gods of fertility like Bale and Astra. Because they won't trust God. Like us. We have needs in our life. And we think, well God doesn't know how to deal with those needs. I need an expert. I need somebody who's a professional who can deal with that problem. And so they fall again and again and again. The book of Judges is just repetitious rounds of oppression and rescue by the hand of God.

You know it gives you hope. I mean you read it and it's depressing. But at the same time it gives you hope. Like I just say, you know what? God's people have always been like me. They've always been failures and faltering and blowing it and having to be delivered again and again and again. How many of you here have been delivered a thousand times? See, all of you race your hand. You actually know something. The rest of you have been delivered more than that, but you don't know it. Because he's delivering you every day. Over and over and over again, doesn't he? That's how he did the nation of Israel. And then in first and second Samuel, God sends another great prophet Samuel and Samuel comes and anoints the ideal king David.

David is the picture of the one who's going to be the ultimate king who's going to sit on a throne. In fact God makes covenant with David and says one of your descendants is going to sit on the throne of my kingdom and he will reign forever and ever. And of course that seed of David is Jesus Christ. Second kings and first and second chronicles, you read it and things go bad again and again and again and they end up in captivity and in their captivity. And in this continual process of failure and rescue and failure and rescue finally they go into captivity and God sends the prophets. Isaiah through Malachi are the prophets that God sends to speak to his people because of their failure and falling and coming under the curse that God had promised or them if they failed.

And so they bring words of judgment, but at the same time they bring words of promise. God promises to rescue them at their lowest point. Isaiah 40 is an amazing passage, it's pretty familiar to most of us turn back to Isaiah 40. This is a word to the children of the people of Judah in Babylonian captivity and it looks like there's no hope they'll never be delivered and yet you have these kinds of words of promise that he promises them in Isaiah 40. That he is going to deliver them and set them free. Listen to this verse 27, why do you say, oh Jacob, an assert, oh Israel, my way is hidden from the Lord and the justice do me escapes the notice of my God. Do you not know? Have you not heard the everlasting God, the Lord, the creator of the end of the earth has not become weary or tired?

You know, that's good news, by the way. I would guess that most of you, if not every Christian who's been a Christian for any length of time, have gone through those periods of time where you wonder, you really wonder, have I just about worn out my welcome with God? I've gone back so many times and fallen into this same sin over and over and over again. Surely God is getting tired. God doesn't become weary or tired. His understanding is inscrutable. He gives strength to the weary and to him who lacks might, he increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired and vigorous young men stumble badly and now he describes them being taken out of Babylonian captivity and being brought back into the land of promise, back to where God had manifested his presence.

And notice what he says. These incredible words, it's the description of the Christian life. It's the description of what it's like to follow Christ. He says, yet those who wait for the Lord, they rest in the Lord, they exercise faith in the Lord, will gain new strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They're going to soar like the eagles and says, but then they will run and not get tired and finally they will walk and not faint. In this room we could categorize every Christian in here. You're either in the flying stage, you're like eagles or you're like those who run and don't get tired or you're like those who walk and don't faint. That's the order of the Christian life. That's why some young Christians, when they're still soaring like an eagle and they're so upset with these people who are just walking.

What they don't realize is that these people are walking have covered a hundred times as much territory as they have. Because when you're in the flying stage, you're usually flying in circles. But oh, it's glorious. It is glorious. God, the great deliverer, has come to deliver his people. In the end because of their constant faithfulness, God judges his people with the curses that he promised them. They go into captivity, but he promises them about the future. A new son of David will come. There will be an outpouring of God's spirit into the people's hearts so that they really know God and they have fellowship with God and they have a heart to obey God. He's going to do something glorious. And finally, just before the last scene of the story, we're told of the greatest event of all.

The great final son of David is none other than God himself and get this. God creates us in his own image and after his likeness. And because of the fall in our fallenness, in order to save us, God takes on our likeness. He becomes like us. He's not amazing. Paul says that he came in the likeness of sinful flesh. If Jesus was sitting in this room this morning and he didn't have the scars and he was dressed like the typical American, you wouldn't recognize him. Of course, he's in and out, but when he was in his humility, you wouldn't have known. He was the son of God. He had no aura about him. He didn't shine. He became one of us. He laid aside his glory. Philippians 2 says he emptied himself, took on the form of a slave, went to the cross, suffered in our place, took the penalty of our sin upon himself, and with his horrible death and then for our sins and then his powerful resurrection, he came out of the tomb, he defeats all the gods of this world that man has created.

John Calvin said, man's heart is an idol factory. How many idols have you created in your life? Isn't it amazing the things that you put in the place of God? Isn't it amazing those things in your life that if you don't have them, you practically go crazy with anger or depression or something else? That's an idol. There's something in life that controls your emotions. If you have it, you're happy, if you don't have it, you're angry or depressed or sad, that's your idol. Jesus is coming to defeat all the idols. Jesus is coming and guess what's going to happen to you? What's going to happen to you is you are going to come into a state where you are content with God. I bet you if I had a sign of sheet and said, I'm going to have a course on teaching you how to be content with God.

No matter what you have or don't have, I wouldn't have many people sign up for it. But that's going to be one of the greatest transformations of your life. When you enter into the presence of God, when you have finally been conformed to the image of Christ and you can rest in the presence of God and be content with God. In fact, I hope he never brings it up. Don't you? I hope God never brings it up that I lived so much of my life controlled by idols of the heart, by greed and other things instead of being controlled by the contentment that God brings into my life. When you really survey your life, you realize there's only been those, there have been events in your life where you were overwhelmed with God's provision and you were so happy and so fulfilled and so resting in His presence.

It didn't matter how much money, how many cars, what kind of house, none of that mattered because you were full and content with God and God alone. And remember those days, you remember those times you've had many of them probably. But so much of our life, we've not been content because we have other gods. And Jesus is coming to destroy all the gods that we have created and we will be content. We will be content. The heart of the story is this, that a loving, redeeming God in His creation began first of all to restore our lost vision. In Jesus Christ, we plainly see the true God. Secondly, he came to renew the image of God in us. Romans 8.29 says that through Christ, God is changing us. He is transforming us into the image of His own son.

We are becoming like Christ in our character. First Corinthians 3 says that when we gaze into the face of Jesus Christ, we are being transformed from glory to glory. What a revelation that's going to be, what a redemption. And then the third thing is he reestablishes the presence of God through his spirit. We have begun to experience the presence of God, not like it's going to be in the future, but in a glorious way, the spirit of God is here. And he's here to mediate the presence of Christ. He's here to make God real to us. That's why he has come. And sometimes in those lonely, dark times, when it seems like there is utter darkness around you, the spirit of God comes and sheds light. I got a call on Friday morning this past week, Mike Kelly, who's preached for us, and I told you his wife, had the cancer had returned, and that it was interliver and they gave her a short time, maybe three or four months to live.

And he called me this last Friday, it only been a few weeks, and told me that she passed away on Thursday evening at nine o'clock. And as he began to tell me, I just was overwhelmed by it, and I felt she's 46 years old, three children, a beautiful woman. And those of you who know her, she's just such a general spirit, and she passed out of this life into the presence of Christ. Here's a young man, 46 year old man, who's lost his wife in the middle of life, and things could seem so dark. It's amazing how the spirit of God brings light into those situations. There's so much light as he talked to me, and if he encouraged me about the goodness of God, the faithfulness of God. And only the Holy Spirit can do that.

He is restoring and renewing and reestablishing the very presence of God in our lives. The ultimate revelation of God is this, and this is astounding to me. I hope you get the import of this. What is the ultimate revelation of God? It is this that he is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You know, there's a lot of titles of God in the Bible. Many different titles, a lot of songs written about the names of God and the titles of God. This is the ultimate revelation of God. He is the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. You want to know God, look at Christ. Jesus Christ has revealed who God really is. And that's who he is. This is God's story, the story of the unfathomable love and grace and mercy and forgiveness.

Manifested in his son. That's how it also becomes our story. Because when we come into relationship with his son, we are included in this story of redemption. The story tells us that we deserve nothing and get everything. That we deserve to be wiped out and obliterated and removed from the face of the earth. That's what God says in Genesis chapter 6. But what we get is his tender embrace. What we deserve is rejection and judgment, but what we get is adoption. Adoption is that part of salvation that work of the Spirit based upon the crosswork of Jesus Christ where you are made sons and daughters of God. And the Spirit comes to live within you and he is called the Spirit of Adoption. And in your heart, he moves you to cry out, Abba Father.

You know what that means the most? It means the most when you are in a place like the Garden of Gethsemane. When did Jesus cry out, Abba Father? When he was cast headlong on his face in the Garden of Gethsemane and he cried out, Abba Father. You see you have been adopted, not rejected, through Jesus Christ. This is the story of the Bible. This is God's story. And at the same time, it's our story when we enter into it by faith in Jesus Christ. There's one last chapter. It's the chapter we call consummation still being written in a sense because we're still seeing it unveiled in history. But we know how the final chapter turns out when God has already set in motion. We're told through the resurrection of Jesus Christ that this is the picture of the last day.

This is the illustration of what it's going to be like. Jesus incarnation and death and resurrection and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit guaranteed that there's a day of resurrection coming. It's a story of hope. There's an end, a glorious conclusion of this story. This is not like the unending story. This is a story that has a culmination to it. And we're headed for that day. John, chapter 11, verse 25 and 26, Jesus says to Mary at the tomb of Lazarus. Her brother has died. He's laying in the tomb and she is saying his body is rotting already. Don't take the stone away. We will smell the stench. Jesus says, don't you remember I told you? He raised up. She said, I know you'll be raised up on the last day.

And Jesus said, I am the resurrection and the life. And then he proved it. He proved it. Anybody can say that. Anybody can claim that Jesus demonstrated it. And he raised Lazarus from the dead. And then the ultimate expression of it, the ultimate demonstration of it was he was raised from the dead himself and ascended to the right hand of the father because he was life itself and the grave couldn't hold him. There's no grave that could hold his body back. This is what the final episode, the book of Revelation is all about when you read it. Don't get all sidetracked by all the... My grandson calls him Monos. He can't say Monsters. He calls him Monos. Don't get sidetracked by all the Monsters. This is the story of the culmination.

The Jesus is coming back. There is a resurrection day coming. We will be delivered from our sinfulness completely. We'll have pure hearts. Don't you wish you had a pure heart. Aren't you glad God's changed your heart and you no longer hate him but you love him but don't you wish you had a really perfectly pure heart that you never handkered after sin in any form. Don't you wish you love God perfectly. I'd like to come in an article to you in the last... ...Gray School of Theology Messenger. It's written by one of my students. The paper he wrote for me in sociology about glorification. And I had to put it in the newsletter because it's the only paper I have ever read over 25 years of teaching.

I've never read a paper that caused me to cry. I read this paper and I bawled because I was so taken up with the reality. There's coming a day when he's going to take all this sin and shame and brokenness and failure away and foolishness out of my life. Don't you want that? Maybe you don't feel as much of a fool as I do. Maybe you don't feel as broken and as damaged and as deficient as I do. He's coming. He's going to change us. We're going to enter into his presence. The Bible says in Hebrews that we can come before God with boldness and freedom of speech and sometimes we think about that. Do you have boldness and freedom of speech when you really recognize who God is? Well guess what? You can because of Christ but there's coming a day when you're going to be comfortable in the presence of God.

You ever thought about that? That's what rest is. You're going to be comfortable in the presence of a holy God. First, Timothy 6 says, no. He goes in light which no man can approach. If you think you could feel comfortable in the presence of God at this moment physically, you're kidding yourself because most of you would be consumed. But there's coming a day when you will be able to. He's going to complete this work. And then in Revelation, chapter 21 and 22, I'm not going to take the time to read it. I was going to read this at the end. You read it today. Chapter 21 and 22. Notice the parallel between that chapter, the New Jerusalem that comes down. Notice the parallel between the New Jerusalem and the Garden of Eden.

Everything that was lost and destroyed and taken away from us when Adam and Eber cast out of the Garden is restored a hundred times over in the New Jerusalem. And he describes that city in such vivid terms. It's 1500 miles square. Now that city wouldn't fit into Canaan, Palestine, in the Holy Land. It won't fit. It's going to cover it all up if it comes down and sets there because it's 1500 miles square. But what's the point? It's massive and glorious. And all that we lost in the fall is going to be restored. God is going to dwell among us people. The river of life is going to flow out from under the throne. The tree of life is going to bear fruit every month of the year. There's going to be abundance and glory and rest.

We're going to actually experience what we were created for the presence of God, the vision of a renewed vision of God and restored image of God and a fully experienced presence of God. Finish that off there. God's image is going to be fully restored. God's vision is going to be completely renewed and God's presence is going to be joyfully experienced. However, you experienced unlimited joy. And I don't know how you do. I don't know if you dance and shout or if you sit very still, if you get loud or get very quiet. But one thing for sure, when we enter into the presence of Christ, we're going to have run unrestrained joy. It's going to be a blessed time. What a day that will be. Mike was telling me that the last few minutes of Marsha's life after he had had a real panic attack because she was drowning and they were trying to make her comfortable.

And then he got her settled down him and his son. And he said he sang to her the last 15 minutes of her life. He sang to her about Christ and about heaven. I might feel no, please make sure they sing. Oh, I want to see him look upon his face there to sing forever of his saving grace. What a day that's going to be. That's what the Bible is about. The Bible is all kinds of wonderful information on how to deal with your marriage and raising your kids and handling your money and all those things. But that's not the main theme. This is simply a case book to figure out all your problems. This is the story of Almighty God. It's the most important story. The only meta-narrative that's true. The only story that says it all and it's all true.

Would you stand with me? The closing prayer will fellowship. Almighty God. You who are the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who has revealed himself perfectly in his son. We worship you. We apologize for the fact that we don't know how to worship as we are. And we do understand that all of life is worship. The way I lived yesterday was supposed to be worship and tomorrow is supposed to be worship. And yet we have gathered together as a group to worship you corporately. Father, we confess that it's not perfect. It lacks so much. And yet we have such a deep desire to worship you and you only to fulfill our obligation before you to rule over your creation that you put under us and to worship you.

Forgive us for worshiping creation and ignoring you. I pray that this very week we would be so conscious and so aware of the fact that we were created to be worshipers of the one true and living God. The God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ and help us father to fulfill that task. Be glorified and ask by pray. Bless your word. Make it penetrate the deepest recesses of our hearts. We pray and help us to live a life that glorifies you. Amen.