Sermon Transcript
Well, good morning everybody. I hope that you’ve already had a good morning and this is just going to add to what God’s doing in your heart. If this is the first Sunday you’ve come on one of these Bible Storyboard Sundays, we would love to get you caught up and we’re not going to be able to completely get you caught up this morning, but you can do a couple things. You could drop by the table over there. There are some notes from the first 2 weeks.
Even if you weren’t here for one of the 2 weeks, pick up the notes so that you can go to the website BibleStoryboards.com and you can begin to pick up what you haven’t, you know, been able to experience in this 3-part series. But today we’re gonna finish the series. We’ve looked at 10 storyboards that have storyboarded the storyline for us of the Old Testament scriptures. One of the stories that you find in the Old Testament is a story about a man who was told by God to marry a woman who was a prostitute. An arranged marriage, you might say.
And some of us would say, you’re kidding, God arranged for a guy to marry a prostitute, a harlot, a woman of the night? I mean, doesn’t that rather seem odd? It probably seemed odd to him, wouldn’t you think? I don’t think that when he put together his list of qualities I’m looking for in a wife, that this was probably one that was on that list. You know, I want her to be a prostitute, a harlot, I want her to be a woman of the night.
I don’t think those values are probably on his list. But nonetheless, God told this man to marry this woman. I kind of wonder, you know, what his parents thought about the whole thing too. You know, we’ve been praying for you to marry somebody special, and here she is. His name— do you know his name?
His name was Hosea. And do you know her name? Her name was Gomer. So I doubt it that his parents were praying, oh God, send our son a Gomer someday. You know, Gomer, are you kidding?
You know, really? We’re going to get married? But anyway, and some of you are thinking, that’s why arranged marriages just don’t work out, you know, type of thing. So here you have this man who’s told by God to marry this woman, this prostitute. She has a different whole value system.
They got married. He went ahead and he married her, and evidently things went along okay. They had 3 children, so you can just imagine, you know, all that was connected to raising those 3 kids, taking them to Hebrew school, dropping them off at rugby practice if they, you know, played rugby, I don’t know, or, you know, being the team parents to the team and bringing refreshments and all the rest of that. All we know is that somewhere along the way she had some kind of a midlife crisis and she was unfaithful to her husband. She ran off with other lovers.
So if you’re the husband at this point, you’ve got to believe that you’re experiencing some pain from what has transpired, the abandonment. He’s left with the kids possibly. Probably some anger in there, maybe even some anger toward God, right? I mean, come on, God, you’re the one that arranges marriage. This wasn’t my big idea all along.
You know, she wasn’t on the list and all the rest of it. So maybe some anger toward God, maybe ended up in therapy in Jerusalem. We have no idea, you know, what exactly happened with the whole situation. But we do know this: God paid a second visit to him. And on this second visit, this is what Hosea said God said.
Hosea chapter 3, verse 1. I’ll just read it in The Message translation. Then God ordered me, start all over. Love your wife again, your wife who’s in bed with her latest boyfriend, your cheating wife. Now let me ask you a question.
If God comes to you, you’ve already given this thing your best shot, right? With this woman who now has run off, she’s living with other lovers. If he comes to you and he says, let’s, let’s Let’s try it again, okay? What are you thinking at this point? A lot of different emotions, probably.
Some of us are thinking, I think I’ll go find a different god on this one, or whatever it is, you know. I don’t know if God’s speaking to me. Maybe that’s what you’d be saying at this point. How did Hosea respond? Well, if you look at verse 2, it says, Hosea 3:2, I did it.
I did it. I paid good money to get her back. It cost me the price of a slave.
It cost him something. Cost him something, no doubt, in humility. It cost him some reputation. You’re doing this again, Hosea? It cost him the price of a slave.
I think that’s fascinating that he actually, you know, puts it in that kind of context, as if maybe he was thinking, I’m saving this money for a slave. This is good money, you know, and I’m going to use this to buy her back. I don’t know about that. Maybe there was some tension in all of that. But the bigger question is simply this: why?
Why would God ask Hosea to marry her? She runs off. And then why would he ask Hosea then to get back together with her again, to go after her, to buy her back? We’re actually told in Hosea chapter 3, verse 1, the last part, it says, love her the way I, God, love the Israelite people, even as they flirt and party with every god that takes their fancy. It’s almost as if God wants Hosea to be an object lesson, an illustration, if you will.
He wants Israel to see through Hosea the prophet how he loves them, these people who have run off with other lovers. He wants them to see— and these are some of the terms we’ve been using in this series— he wants them to see that his love is undeserved.
He wants them to see that his love is unending. He wants them to see that his love is unimaginable. I mean, you mean God would love me even though I’ve abandoned him, I’ve forsaken him, I’ve run off with other lovers? Are you kidding me? He would still love me?
Yes, it’s unfathomable, his love. And he wants that love to be seen through the marriage relationship of Hosea. So Hosea is told to buy her back again so everybody could see this. And hopefully, in Israel seeing this, they would come to love God like he loves them. Now, that is the story of the Bible, isn’t it?
It’s a love story. It’s a story of God’s relentless pursuit of a relationship with people like us who basically have run off with other lovers. And so we’ve pictured this so far with 10 storyboards. We started with the beginning. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.
God created man and woman to have a relationship with him. We know as we read the account that man and woman fell into sin. So we picture sin with that proverbial apple. They both ate off of the apple in disobedience to God. That sin separated them from God.
God could have at that point said, we’re done, but he didn’t. He chose instead a family, a family line, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph, chosen people, the family tree that’s represented there. And this family, God said through this family there would come one who would ultimately bless the world. He would send a Messiah, Redeemer, a Savior. That plays itself out through the rest of the book of Genesis on into the beginning of the book of Exodus when we’re introduced to somebody else that plays a prominent part in God bringing His people to Himself.
Moses. You may remember the account of the Red Sea and how Moses led the people out of Egypt. They ultimately got to the edge of the Promised Land and they were going to go back into this land that God said He was giving to them, a land of milk and what? Of milk and honey. And they were going to go back into the land, but instead of going into the land, they refused to follow God’s leadership.
All they could see were the obstacles. They couldn’t see God is bigger than the obstacles. So they rejected God and they end up wandering. And our 5th storyboard over here is this storyboard of wandering where they end up wandering in the wilderness for 40 years until that entire unbelieving generation died. Then the baton of leadership was given to a new person.
His name was Joshua. And Joshua actually did lead the people back into the Promised Land. And the wall there reminds us of the wall of what? Of Jericho. Yeah, it was one of the first obstacles that they had to deal with if they were actually going to take the land and begin to inhabit the land.
It was an incredible 25-year period where they came back and they experienced God’s blessing time and time again. But that period was followed by a period of the Judges, a cyclical period where they walked to God, they walked away from God. It was an on and off again relationship with God. Even though they saw his love, they walked away from that love. Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.
The period of the judges is followed in the Old Testament by the period of kings. And this period of kings is a period where there are 42 different kings. And of the 42 total different kings, there are only 10 that had a heart for God, only 10 that you look at the Scriptures, it says so-and-so, like Josiah. Josiah was a good king, or Asa was a good king. 32 of these kings were evil kings.
They walked away from God. They led the people away from God. And so it was during this period— you got the little prophetic megaphone there— it was during this period that the prophets came on the scene. Some of you have wondered, you looked at the Bible, you said, how in the world do all of these prophets fit in? All 17 prophets?
Well, this is where they begin to fit in. They come on the scene to call God’s people into a love relationship with him during the period where people are basically walking away from him. By the way, one of those prophets was Hosea. Hosea was one of the first prophets to prophesy to the kingdom of Israel and call Israel back to this love relationship. Ultimately what happened was they rejected God and they experienced the consequences— picture 9— consequences for their choices, and they ended up in exile away from their land for 70 years.
And again, during that 70 years, God wants them to know, I’ve not abandoned you. I’m not walking out on you like you’ve walked out on me. I love you and I have a future for you. And so he sent 2 prophets. You see the prophetic megaphone again, 2 prophets, Ezekiel and Daniel, to let the people know there’s a future.
We talked last week about Ezekiel and the dry bones and all that picture. Well, Daniel is a book of 12 chapters with 10 dreams. And these 10 dreams talk about God’s people’s future. There’s a future for you. And finally, they actually do come back from exile.
And this arrow over here, this U-turn arrow, is a reminder to us that they returned. They came back to the land. And again, God said, let’s do it right this time. So he sent— you see the prophetic megaphone? He sent 3 more prophets to tell them, guys, let’s get it right.
Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi. Haggai talked to them about their priorities. Let’s get those right. Zechariah talked about the Messiah that was coming. Let’s focus on him.
He’s ultimately the one that we’re looking to. And then Malachi talked about the problem of religion and how so often what happens is God wants a relationship with us, but we insert religion instead. And so God says, let’s don’t do the religious thing, let’s do the relationship thing. Let’s have a relationship with each other. Well, that love story, that incredible love story, is told all throughout the Old Testament, and it’s just simply a story of God’s relentless love for us, his come-after love, and the desire to have a love relationship with us.
Now, all of that builds toward an incredible finish, right? I mean, we’re talking about the crescendo part of the story when the narrative really peaks. It’s coming now, but it doesn’t come immediately. It follows a period of silence or a period of waiting, we’ll call this. And so if you’re following along and you’ve been with us in this series and you’ve been drawing along, this is the time again to pick up with your drawing.
Okay, on your message note sheet there this morning, there’s a little space. You could take your pen or pencil out and you can draw this simple picture here that you’ll see on the screen. Of a shh, because it’s a period of silence. We don’t have revelation from God, so there aren’t scriptures that are given to us during this period of time. It’s a period of waiting for God to finish His final preparations for what’s to follow.
And here’s what we know: between the Old Testament, represented in these 10 storyboards, and these final 4 storyboards, the New Testament— between the Old and the New Testament, there’s a period of about 400 years of waiting. Now, I’ve said this before, but let me ask it again. Is 400 years a long period of time? I mean, in some ways, absolutely. When did the Pilgrims land?
About 400 years ago, right?
A lot of blank faces on this. It’s like that history class was a long time ago, you know, have no idea. I think it was like the 1600s somewhere. I’m not really sure. But anyway, So yeah, about 400 years.
Do you think things would be different if they came today? Yeah, yeah, I could think of a couple differences, you know, like gymnasiums, one, or whatever you want to talk about here. Yeah, and a lot of changes took place in that 400-year period of time where it says in Galatians 4:4, God was preparing the way for the coming of his Son. And it tells us in the fullness of time, God sent forth his Son. Born of a woman, born under the law.
So the time wasn’t full. Just catch that. The time wasn’t full after the end of the Old Testament, after they came back to the land. God still had some more things to do to prepare for the coming of Jesus, or the Anointed One, into the world. What did he do?
He had some things to do with the language, so he brought a common language into the world through the world power called Greece. He, in that period of time, as the Hebrew people were persecuted for their faith, increased the intensity of a desire for an anointed Messiah, a Savior, to come. It was during this period of time— you remember at the end of the Old Testament the world power was Persia? And who’s the world power at the beginning of the New Testament? Do you know?
It’s Rome. Greece was one of the world powers during the period of silence, but it’s, it’s Rome. And so now Rome is the world power. What in the world are they doing besides killing Christians and Jews? Well, what we do know is that they brought roads to the world.
They built roads throughout the world, and these roads made it possible for the gospel to spread to the world. So all of that was a part of this waiting period. Sometimes you wonder, is God really working while we’re waiting? Yeah. I mean, all you got to do is pay attention to what was happening during this 400-year period of time.
God was working and making a way for the coming of Christ into the world. Which leads us then to this storyboard right here, to storyboard 12, Jesus, to Jesus. And we picture that with just 4 books because there are 4 books that tell us the story of Jesus. What are those 4 books? Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
4 different accounts. You say, why 4 accounts? Because they give 4 different perspectives on Jesus’ life. But they all tell the same story. And what’s the story that they tell?
They tell this amazing love story of how God demonstrated his own love toward us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The godly came for the ungodly. And so Jesus is the solution. Jesus is ultimately the solution to our sin. We’ve been separated from God by our sin.
Jesus died on the cross to pay for our sins so that the rift of separation could be removed and we could be bought back to God in Christ. In that sacrifice that he made for us. And the gospel accounts just tell this story from a different— each one from a different perspective. Matthew to the Jewish audience, the Hebrew audience. That’s why some of you look at the genealogy in Matthew, it goes all the way back to who?
To Abraham. Why Abraham? Because Abraham was the father of the Jews. And if you’re writing to a Jewish audience, you’ve got to prove to them that Jesus is the rightful heir to the throne, that his genealogy can be traced all the way back to Abraham. Well, Matthew shows us it can’t.
And then there’s the book of Mark. Why Mark? Because Mark was written to the Roman mindset, the world power of the day. And what was Rome concerned about? They were concerned about slavery.
And so it says that even Jesus, he, even the Son of Man didn’t come to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many. Jesus was the perfect servant. That’s why in Mark, the word immediately is used 42, or excuse me, 32 times. If you have a servant, you want them to do the job when? Immediately.
Why is there no genealogy in Mark? Because you don’t give a rip about the genealogy of a servant. You just want to know whether or not they can get the job done. What about Luke? What’s Luke all about?
Luke is written to the Gentile or the Greek mindset. And you notice that there’s a genealogy in Luke. Have you ever realized that? But it’s not traced all the way back to Abraham. Who’s it traced back to?
Adam. And why Adam? Because Adam was the first man. And who wrote Luke? A doctor.
And what was Dr. Luke concerned about? He was concerned about the full development or the perfection of mankind. And Luke shows Jesus as the perfect man. And then there’s John. And who’s John written to?
John’s written to all people so that all of us might believe that Jesus is the answer. And you put all 4 of those Gospels together, they tell us that Jesus is the answer. He is the answer to our sin. He is the ultimate expression of the love of God. Greater love has no one than this— what?— than one lay down his life for his friends.
And you are my friends, Jesus said, if you do what I tell you. So we have this incredible story that’s told to us. Now finally then, having said all of that, some of you are saying, this is the longest introduction I have ever heard in my life. Having said all of that, I want to take you right back to where we’ve been springing this story from, from the book of Acts. So go back to Acts just for a minute with me, Acts chapter 7 and verse 52, because Stephen then, having worked all the way up to here, then focuses on Jesus.
But it’s fascinating what part of Jesus he focuses on. And I just want you to see this, but I also want you to keep in mind a thought. Each one of us is given opportunities to do what it was that Stephen did. And hopefully as a result of this series, we’re going to do better with this. Stephen was able to story the storyline for his listeners, a group of religious people that were not getting it.
And hopefully as a result of what we’ve been working on here today with, uh, in the last couple of weeks with 15 pictures, every picture tells a story. And again, I’ll just liken it to where we started this series. When you go on a vacation, you take pictures. At least, at least 1 or 2 people in your family take pictures. Some are crazier about this than others.
You get the idea. But we take pictures and then we come back and we show the pictures to others and we describe what happened on the vacation because of that picture, right? That’s all we’re doing. We’re trying to give you 15 pictures that you could use to tell the story of the entire Bible because most of us are not able to do that. I understand that, but I think we can all do that if we’ll use some pictures to just remind us of the story.
And you’re going to be given opportunities by God. I don’t think God gives us something and then says, well, I’ll never use that. No, I think it’s more like, I’m giving you something, I want you to use it, so prepare yourself to be used by me. But when you tell this story, keep this in mind. You don’t have to tell the whole story.
Not even Stephen tells the whole story, right? He tells the parts of the story that are most pertinent to the audience that he is speaking to. So watch how this comes out here then in Acts chapter 7, verse 52. And now— I’m just picking it up where we left off last week— and now you, speaking to this group of religious people that didn’t buy Jesus as the Savior, and now you have betrayed and murdered him. Who’s the him?
It’s Jesus. You have received the law that was put into effect through angels but have not obeyed it. What’s he saying? You of all people, come on, you of all people, you Jewish people, you people who have received the law, you know about God’s promises. You of all people have taken the Savior, the Anointed One, the promised Messiah, and you have killed him.
You’ve murdered him. You’ve murdered this love gift that God has given you. Now, did they see it that way? Look at verse 54. When they heard this, they were furious and gnashed their teeth at him.
In other words, they didn’t see it that way. They thought they were right, and they knew that Stephen was wrong. But ask yourself the question, was Stephen wrong in his viewpoint on Jesus. Well, go to the next verse, verse 55. But Stephen, it says— this is in contrast to their response— but Stephen, full of the Holy Spirit, looked up to heaven and saw the glory of God and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
Now let me just say this: if you’re wrong, you’re not going to see what he saw, okay? You’re not going to have all of a sudden God’s Shekinah glory shining down from heaven. If you’re wrong, you’re not going to see Jesus standing Now that’s fascinating in and of itself because every time we are given a perspective on Jesus in heaven, Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. But in this account, he’s standing. Why?
Well, we’re going to surmise right now, but it could very well be that he was standing as anybody else would stand out of respect for somebody. And also out of anticipation. Anticipation of what? Anticipation of what’s just about ready to happen because Stephen was just about ready to lose his life. He was going to be the first martyr of the early church.
And in anticipation, Jesus is standing, kind of the welcoming party, we might say, to receive Stephen. And all of this happens— and note this, please— all of this happens in the fullness of the Holy Spirit. He wasn’t filled with himself. He was filled with God. And by the way, do you see this here?
You see the Trinity at play? You see God the Father, and you see God the Son, and you see God the Holy Spirit. It’s God. It’s the Godhead. But they’re all in play right now.
And the Holy Spirit was filling and he was empowering Stephen. And in that, we come to the 13th storyboard, which is the Holy Spirit. Because as we work out what happens in the book of Acts, the focus— listen— the focus is on the work of the Holy Spirit. The book of Acts begins that way. Jesus told his disciples, you don’t go anywhere until you receive what?
The Holy Spirit. Until you receive power from on high. So after Jesus ascended, We’re told the Holy Spirit descended on God’s people and filled them and empowered them and led them and changed them. It was a work that came from the heart out. It was something that gave them wisdom.
The Holy Spirit gave them wisdom and strength and hope and love and joy and peace. And boy, do you see that right now, don’t you? In fact, just notice the response here. Just notice the work that the Holy Spirit did in Stephen. It says in verse 56, reading that first part again, look, he said, Stephen, I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God.
And at this they covered their ears and yelling at the top of their voices, they all rushed at him. They all, these religious people, rushed at Stephen dragging him out of the city, and they began to stone him. You ever ask the question, why did they drag him out of the city? Answer: because it would have been illegal for them to stone him in the city. So, being that they were law-abiding citizens, they drug him out of the city before they were going to kill him.
So they drug him out of the city, they began to stone him, and meanwhile it says the witnesses laid their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul. You heard this name before? What’s that all about? Saul— this is pre-Saul’s conversion. This is pre-the Apostle Paul’s conversion.
He’s standing there watching these guys kill Stephen, giving his endorsement, even to the extent that when they took their coats off and laid them at his feet, he was responsible for the guarding of them as he basically was assisting them in the killing of of this godly man. And it says, and while they were stoning him, Stephen prayed. Now look at this. If this is not a description of the work of the Holy Spirit and the kinds of things that God could do in a person— while they’re stoning him, Stephen prayed, Lord Jesus, receive my spirit. And then he fell on his knees and he cried out, Lord, do not hold this sin against them.
And when he said this, he fell asleep. What you have here are 2 different responses, okay? Contrasting responses. There’s the response of Stephen, and there’s the response of religious people. And the religious people, mind you, is responding to Stephen’s message that God loves you and he wants a relationship with you forever, but you have murdered him.
You have killed his love gift, Jesus Christ. So you’ve got these 2 different responses. Here’s Stephen’s response. What’s his response? It’s a response of what?
Hope. Hope. I mean, the guy is filled with hope. It’s not the end of life for him. He’s thinking about this is just the beginning of life.
Are you kidding? He’s looking up in heaven. He’s saying to God, receive my spirit. There’s also the response of forgiveness. Believe that one.
Wow. He’s forgiving. His killers in this moment. And then it says he fell asleep. And I always love that term when it talks about a person who’s died in Christ, a person who’s connected in Christ, because it always talks about their death as sleeping.
He was asleep. He fell asleep. Why would we use the word sleep? Because sleep is temporary. Sleep is something that you wake from.
And if you are a member of Christ’s family, when you die, it’s not the end. It’s just the end of this life, but it’s the beginning of a new life. Your soul’s going to go on living. And Stephen even says that here, receive my spirit. He expected that his spirit would go immediately to be with the Lord.
So he dies. His whole focus here is on hope. What about these other guys? It’s hatred. Hope over here, hatred over here.
Total rejection. Total rejection. Of the message that Stephen has brought to them. Now let me ask you a question.
Could you put yourself in Stephen’s shoes? And if you were in Stephen’s shoes, how would have this thing gone down for you? You know, I ask myself that question. Would I have even spoke up? Would have I even said anything more about Jesus?
I didn’t mean it, guys. Come on. I mean, come on. Kidding. I’m kidding.
All right. You know, you’re not killers. You’re not murderers. We probably wouldn’t even have said that because that would be offensive, possibly, you know, politically incorrect. Kidding.
You know, what would have happened? I mean, if we’re filled with the Holy Spirit, this is the kind of thing that happens. What was, what was going on here? What was going on here was that Stephen was doing that which Jesus Christ had commanded him to do. What was that?
He was making disciples, and this 14th picture reminds us of that. Because you remember that Jesus in his commissioning of the disciples said, now you are to go and to make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to do all that I’ve commanded you. And lo, I am with you always— there’s the Holy Spirit again— even to the end of the age. So I want you to go out and I want you to help people do 2 things. I want you to help people come to Christ And I want you to help people become like Christ.
All right, so it’s all about come and become. You say, what’s disciple-making? It’s carrying out the front half and the back half of the Great Commission. And what’s the front half of the Great Commission? It’s going, it’s taking Jesus to the world, it’s describing for them what Jesus has done for us, it’s helping them come to see that God loves them and wants a relationship with them forever.
So Stephen was going, he was proclaiming Jesus, he was proclaiming the gospel. And by the way, he was proclaiming the gospel, and this is what I love, especially today in our culture. He was proclaiming the gospel in its entirety. He was helping people see from the beginning God’s desire to have a love relationship with them. So he was going, but he was also helping them become more and more like Jesus.
The call was to count the cost, take up the cross daily and follow him. So what we have here represented in the making disciples picture is we have this time that’s carried out in the epistles. What’s an epistle? It’s not the wife of an apostle. Okay.
What’s an epistle? An epistle is a letter. Uh, what letters? Well, there are 22 letters that follow Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, Acts, and then you have 22 letters, 22 letters that were written by different people to different people, to churches, a variety of different letters. And what are these letters all about?
They’re all about helping people come to Christ, and they’re all about helping people become like Christ. So they’re all about salvation, and they’re all about transformation. So you take a letter, for instance, like Romans. The first part of this letter primarily is about salvation. Romans chapters 1 through 11.
Chapters 12 through 16, all about transformation. Present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship, right? So it’s all about transformation. You say, well, you kind of cheated a little bit on that. You’re right, because chapters 6 through 8 actually focuses on transformation.
So yeah, there’s a little bit different focus in there, but primarily you can see the twofold focus. What’s Colossians all about? Another letter. Chapters 1 to 2, salvation. Chapters 3 and 4, transformation.
So what’s the rest of the New Testament about? It’s about the making disciples in light of the fact— listen— in light of the fact that God wants a forever relationship with us, that he wants us to come to see his love and experience his love and be transformed by his love so that we might live with him. And here’s the last book of the Bible: so that we might live with him forever. And we call that new beginnings. That picture is new beginnings.
We started over here with beginnings, and we end the Bible with the new beginnings. And what’s this all about? Well, this is all about what even Stephen was anticipating. He was anticipating that there was going to be a day where he was going to be forever in God’s presence. And this is described to us in the final book of the Bible, the book of Revelation.
By the way, it’s not Revelations, okay? I hear people say that all the time. It drives me crazy. But anyway, just a crazy part of me. It’s the book of Revelation.
It’s, by the way, well, just since we’re saying it, it’s the book of Psalms, plural, but there’s Psalm 23, singular. Okay. So if you could get this, yeah, we’re going to read Psalms 23. No, no, no, no, no, no. Okay.
Anyway, it’s just my thing. All right. So back, back over here. So you got new beginnings and God is going to give us a new heavens and a new earth. That’s why we have Earth 2 over there.
You see the 2 on that picture? Yeah, it’s Earth 2. It’s going to be a new heavens. It’s going to be a new earth. There’s going to be no more pain.
There will be no more tears. There will be no more crying. There will be no more death. There will be no more terrorists. There will be no more attacks.
None of that. And we will be with God forever.
Not everybody, because some people don’t want to be with God forever. And the proof of that is they don’t want to be with him now.
That’s a tragedy. See, that’s what this story is all about. It’s all about God saying, I want a relationship with you.
I mean, this isn’t hard for us to comprehend, right?
I want a relationship with you. I loved you. I’ve shown you my love. What more can I do for you? It’s kind of like, What more do you need?
You can’t yet see it? You don’t appreciate it yet?
As we’ve been processing this the last few weeks, I’ve been thinking about this for over a year now, but as I’ve been processing this the last couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking, you know, there’s just so much here to, to be changed by. For instance, do we really appreciate God’s love?
I mean, if we really appreciate his love, then it would transform our love toward him. It would transform our gratefulness, wouldn’t it? Just put this in this context. Do you appreciate your parents’ love? Whatever age you are, do you appreciate all that your parents have done for you?
Do you? Have you ever expressed to your parents your appreciation? And some of you are sitting here right now like a person who talked to me after the first service and said, that’s a really hard one for me. I can’t think of anything that I appreciate in my dad’s life. And so we chatted for a minute about that, and I said, well, how about this one?
You were born.
How about that one?
He said, yeah, I The fact that he gave you life. I mean, he might have been a terrible father, but he gave you life.
And because of that, what happens is, is that we don’t really express to even our parents the appreciation that is so due them. Are they perfect? No, but God is.
And it seems to me that we should find many days and times in our life where we just sit and we say, God, I’m I appreciate you. I love you. We were up in Oregon the last few days to be there for a family celebration of the life of my stepfather who died around the holidays. 45 years of age, he died with the family at home, 3 children at home. Pancreatic cancer.
He lived with this, this last year. And so we all got together and we just encouraged each other. It was really a special time. My father lives in the same city, Grants Pass, Oregon. And those of you that know, my dad has Alzheimer’s right now and he’s in a terrible stage.
He’s in the stage where he knows nothing. At least that’s what it appears like. There’s no real exchange, no dialogue, none of that. It’s just, he just seems to be just an empty shell who’s there. But we still go to see him and we talk and we do what we can.
We pray, we do all of that. We try to understand what is it, God, you want us to do at this time? In his life. And while I was sitting there, I was thinking about this, and I was thinking about how, Lord, you know, I just have so much more in my relationship with you that I need to be appreciative of. And then I thought, as my dad was sitting in front of me, you know, I haven’t appropriately expressed to my dad appreciation for all that he did for me.
Was my dad perfect? No. Not, not at all. But I could give you a list of things that Dad did for us as kids that I could appreciate him for. And so I just felt prompted, and I just started sharing briefly there a few things to Dad.
I just said a few things that I wanted him to know I’m thankful for. Maybe it was just for me, I don’t know, but I just shared a few things. And it was really odd in a sense, because after I finished, he looked up at me and he had not been looking at me. And he looked up at me and he got a huge smile on his face. And then he reached out his hand and he grabbed my hand.
Now, I don’t know if he had any clue what was going on there, if it was maybe a little gift from God. I have no idea. Okay. All I know is that it was a tender moment for me. It was a good moment for me to humble myself before my father and say, Dad, I just want you to know I appreciate you.
Thank you for your love. And some of us perhaps have never done that in our relationship with God, and that could be one of the absolute best things that could come out of seeing God’s love like maybe we’ve never seen it before— an unfathomable, unthinkable, unspeakable unimaginable, and listen, undeserving love. We don’t deserve it. And as we were together, as the family was together, I got to know one of the family members who married into the family. I didn’t really know, and he started sharing some of his story with me, and I probed a little bit and asked some questions, and I found out that he was an Army Ranger, and he was in Grenada, and he was under attack in Grenada, and there was a moment there where an AK-47 and an individual was coming down on him and he started shooting.
And he said he was falling back to get away from the bullets that were coming at him. And there were 2 bullets that grazed the side of his neck. They actually left bullet burns on his neck. It was a miracle that he was not killed, he said. But as he was falling back, he said, that he said, God help me.
3 words: God help me. I said, did you have any kind of relationship with God? He said no. Did you have any kind of relationship with God after that? He said no.
Until 10-some years later, I was sitting in a meeting. There was an individual up there speaking, and this individual said, you know, some of you are sitting here this morning, and at some point in your life you asked God to help you. And you know what? God, he helped you, but you’ve been living your life like you’re the one that’s been in control. You’ve been living your life like there is no God.
Isn’t it time for you to come up— come to a place in your life where you realize that God has been helping you all along because he wants a relationship with you and he asks you, do you want that relationship with him?
And it wasn’t just true for him. Got it finally, 10 years after, 10 years after, he finally got it. And he said, I want that. And it’s transformed his life. But some of us sitting here this morning have had God help us time and time again, just like in the scriptures, time and time and time again.
And we’ve been living as if there is no God. Maybe it’s time that we finally come to the place And we say, I am done with rejecting God. I’m done with turning my back on God. I’m done with running after other lovers. I’m going to turn to God and we’re going to build a relationship and it’s going to be the best love relationship possible.
See, what’s the point of all of this? It’s not the storyboards, it’s the story, right? The storyboards just tell us, tell the story. And what is this story? This is a story that God loves us.
He absolutely loves us, and he wants a relationship with us. And he’s asking us to quit living as if he doesn’t exist, to quit living as if, you know, it’s all about us. It’s not.
It’s all about a relationship with him.
So let me ask you, Do you want that?
Do you have that?
If you have that, are you helping others come to understand and receive that love as well?
Let’s pray.
Just talk to God just for a minute about what he is saying to you right now. Is it possible you just have been living an unappreciative life towards God? Is it possible that he’s been helping you time and time again and you’ve been living as if he doesn’t even exist?
Wow. Certainly possible in my life.
God, we do not want to ignore you. We do not want to turn our back on you. We don’t want to live as if you don’t exist. We thank you that we have together seen your love time and time again for people that do not deserve it, and we realize that we do not deserve your love.
We are sinful. We are separated from you. We are egotistical. We are often full of pride. We are stubborn.
We are resistant.
And we thank you that in spite of all of that, in spite of the fact that we have lived in an adultery relationship toward you, we’ve gone after other lovers, you still love us. And you want us to experience your love and be transformed by it and live in a vital personal relationship with you. And so I thank you for this message, and I thank you that we can talk about that and that we can together experience emotions like the ones that we’re having right now that hopefully are reflective of a new desire to love you like you love us. So Lord, fill us with the Spirit and help us do that.
And by the way, if, if you’re not a Christ follower, you can’t be filled with the Spirit until you become a Christ follower. God wants to live in you. He wants to lead you, wants to change you. He wants a relationship with you now and forever. He wants you to love Him and to live with Him forever.
And He has been working overtime to woo you into this relationship. But if you’ve been playing hard to get, if you’ve been stubborn toward Him, would you today be willing to say no more of that? Would you be willing today to say, God, it’s going to change? I want to love you like you love me. I can’t even believe I get to love you, the God of the universe, the Creator.
I am so grateful. And if that’s what you want, tell God that. He’ll give you new life, and that life is found in Jesus. It’s found in realizing you can’t save yourself, but Christ died on the cross to save you from your sins. He paid the penalty for your sins, and he offers you the gift of life right now.
But you’ve got to receive the gift like any other gift. And you receive the gift by faith, by belief, by believing in Jesus as the Savior and receiving that gift not just with your mind but with your will and your emotions, giving him, like we sang in that first song, your heart, your soul, your mind, your strength, loving the Lord your God with all that you are. And if that’s what you want, if you want that relationship, tell him right now. And here’s what’s going to happen. He’s going to adopt you into his family.
You’re going to be born again. You’re going to start life over, and he’s going to begin to change you. He’s going to begin to transform you from the inside out. And if you receive that gift of life today, talk to somebody about it. Tell them, tell them what happened.
Lord, thank you for times like this. Where we see and understand the story and we are changed by it. We pray that it will not only change us, but it will change others through us. For your name’s sake. Amen.
Well, we’re going to have our team come back and we’ll finish our service with a song or 2 here. And as we do, hey, let me just say to you guys again, this is just a tool, okay? This is just a tool. What’s this tool for? It’s a tool in your tool chest.
It’s a tool in your tool chest to use when you have the opportunity to help people grow in their relationship with God or come into a relationship with God. So here’s my challenge to you, is prepare yourself to use this tool. Okay, prepare yourself to use the tool. So we got a lot of resources that we’ve made available to you through this series. Again, I’ll remind you there’s a book that will take you deeper so that you can go deeper in your understanding of each one of these pictures that describe a period of time.
So take advantage of the book, take advantage of a Kindle if you like that. You can go to the website, you can get the information that’s there. We’ll have 5 more posts this week that will take you through the bottom pictures here. So take advantage of that. Download the Bible Storyboards app on your iPhone, iPad, i-something, and enjoy that.
Use that to help you. Okay, we hope and pray we’ll be able to get an Android out there soon. And, and would you just spread this story? Use the storyboards. But again, it’s not the storyboards, but use them to spread this story.
That’s the key, right? We can— from the Silicon Valley, there are a lot of great things that start here, right? Why don’t we start this here? Why don’t we use this and spread it to the world? One quick story.
There was a missionary recently that stood up here on this stage and she said, I’m in a community, or I minister in villages right now where people don’t have water, but they do have phones.
And I thought, well, there you go. They got phones so we could put something on their phone that could help them tell the story to the world, even though they don’t have water. So let’s work together to see what God can do from Bridges Community Church to help the world. Amen. Amen.
