Sermon Transcript
Hey, everybody. I hope that you guys are already encouraged, and we’re gonna continue our worship in song in a few minutes. But I wanna look together at the scriptures, and also if you got a bulletin, there’s a message note sheet you can follow along with. But I hope that you’ll pull out your Bible if you have one with you or access to a Bible in some way. This is a special weekend in the Gudgels’ lives.
My wife and I yesterday, as of yesterday, have been married 39 years. Yeah, 39 years. That’s like legendary, wouldn’t you say? In this world anyway. But it’s legendary at the Gudgel home too, the fact that she would stay married to me for 39 years.
You guys don’t— a lot of you don’t know the backstory. You’ve just like heard little tidbits because every now and then I might say something or somebody said something to you. But, you know, it’s amazing that we’re even together. We were a part of the same church. In Fresno, California.
So we were friends. She was in junior high, I was in high school, kind of distant friends. She was more a friend of my brother Greg than me. But anyway, so we had this distant relationship and we’re in the same church and that sort of thing. At one point I thought she was really cute and, you know, this nice girl and stuff.
And when my girlfriend could not go with me to the Christmas formal, I asked Bernice to substitute, to go in her place, okay? So, just as friends, you know, that sort of thing. And come to find out later she had some kind of interest in me, but, you know, after that experience, not much, I’m sure. So, there was some of that that went on there. And then finally, a couple years or so after that, I began to realize this is a really, you know, cool person.
This is somebody who’s got it together. This is somebody that could be the answer to my Lord’s prayers. I mean, to Jesus’ prayers or to my mom’s prayers at least, you know. And so I woke up to that reality. The problem was, is that she was dating somebody else at the time.
So now the deal is, you know, how do I get her to undate that guy and date this guy? You know, that sort of thing. So, I don’t— God just worked it out, all I can say. It’s amazing. It is amazing that we are together, seriously.
And part of that also is amazing connected to her family, because her father, the first time I think Guido ever met me— Guido Simonelli, her last— Simonelli home. So, Guido Simonelli, you know, about as Italian as you could get, from New York. Not sure, you know, who else they were connected to over there. But anyway, so, but the first time Guido met me, I was out in the church parking lot doing donuts in my car out there, and he was the custodian at the church. So he didn’t think lightly of what I was doing out there, had a few kind words for me like, never do this again.
What’s your name? You know, kind of an individual conversation there. So When it came around that she probably had some kind of conversation with her dad about this guy named Dave Gudgel’s interest in me, you know, I wonder how hard he swallowed at that point in time and, you know, how that whole thing went. So it’s just really, it’s amazing. That’s the point of this is that we would be married all of these years and still going strong.
But even more amazing is the fact that God wants a relationship with us. Have you figured that out yet? That God wants a relationship with me, he wants a relationship with you. I mean, when you think about the backstory on this one and all the reasons that you would think God would not want a relationship with us, yet he does. He wants a relationship with everybody.
And the Bible tells us that. The Bible, the greatest love story ever told, helps us come to grips with the fact that God wants a relationship with every one of us. Now this morning we’re going to start a brand new series that’s going to focus on that fact, that one fact right there, that God wants a relationship with each one of us. He has extended his love to us over and over again in spite of the people that we are, in spite of the fact that we have turned our back on him. And gone our own way, he still wants a relationship with every one of us.
Now, many of us have only heard parts of this story. Probably most of us sitting here this morning could not actually walk our way through the entire story that the Bible presents that helps us come to understand the amazing love that God has for us and has had for all people. We know parts of the story. We know part maybe about Noah or maybe something about Dan Daniel, who was in the lion’s den. We might know something about Peter or whoever it is, but if somebody was to sit down with you and want to know the story of the Bible, most of us cannot walk them through the story of the Bible because we’ve only studied it in parts.
And today there’s something that’s converging that I think is going to help us all be able to actually walk anybody through the Bible, all the way through the Bible, connect it for them. And what’s going to help us do that is what you see in front of you, Bible storyboards. We’re gonna give you 15 pictures this week, next week, and the week after. So these 3 weeks we’re gonna focus on 15 pictures to help you be able to tell the entire story of the Bible, to storyline the Bible by storyboarding it for people that would love to know something about this amazing God who loves us and desires a relationship with us. But before we can explain it to others, we really got to grasp it ourselves.
Now, one of the concepts that I like behind this fact is that we learn and love— but we learn by pictures, don’t we? We use pictures all the time. So you did something special this week and you probably shot off a picture to somebody so that they can share that story with you. They could share that experience with you. We constantly do that.
We go on a vacation and we come back and we tell people about our vacation with pictures. Every picture tells a story. Well, what we’re going to do is we’re going to give you 15 pictures, and each one of these pictures will help us grasp the essential story of the Bible so that we can actually walk our way all the way through it. Now, the reason why this comes together today is because we’ve been working our way through the book of Acts. And if you’re familiar with the book of Acts, you know when you get to Acts chapter 7, you have Stephen actually storylining the Bible for the Sanhedrin.
He’s standing before the Jewish Supreme Court, the Sanhedrin, 70 members in all. He’s been charged with being against Moses. He’s— they said he was against God and that he was against the temple. So he’s charged with pretty serious charges there. And what he does is he gives an answer, and his answer is to take these individuals through the Bible.
He walks them through the Bible. He storylines the story of God’s love for them. And so when we get to Acts 7, that’s the focus. And in addition to coming to that now, we have just— and this is just something that there’s been a team of us that have worked on together, but we’ve just finished putting together Bible storyboards. We’re not, you know, completely done with what yet could be done with it, but it’s come together as something that my wife and I started a year and a half ago.
And since that time, there have actually been people here that have been a part of this. Grant right down there and Lori have been a part of this, and Andy Bates, who’s over there, has been a part of this. He, he actually did all of these pictures up here. He has an outstanding talent. Artistic ability.
And so there have been several others. Jason sitting back there, he finished the website that just launched this week. And all of this is kind of coming together right now to hopefully help not only us but perhaps others be able to grasp this amazing story that’s told in the Bible of God’s love. So here’s the big idea. I hope that today And the next couple of weeks, I encourage you to be here.
I hope that what happens is, is that each one of us will be able to, with a picture, grasp that simple concept and be able to sit down, even perhaps with a napkin, and draw on a napkin the entire story of the Bible for somebody who does not understand it. Now, most of us right now could not do that, but Lord willing, we’ll all be able to do that when we finish this 3 weeks together. Okay? So what gets us going in this direction is this chapter that we come to that we’ve been working through in Acts, in the book of Acts. So let’s look at it together.
And let me just say this also: this hopefully will strengthen our love for God. This hopefully will give us a bigger picture of the love of God, and we will fall more in love with God in understanding his relentless pursuit of a love relationship with us, that backstory will cause us to love him more than we do right now. And obviously, as we love God, let’s hope then that we are even more willing to share that story with others. Sound good? Okay, at least one of you is excited about this, so that’s good enough.
All right, so Acts chapter 7, here’s how it began. It says, then the high priest asked him, are these charges true? So he’s speaking to Stephen. To this he replied— this is Stephen now speaking to the high priest and the Sanhedrin— In the midst of these charges that have been brought against him, he says, brothers and fathers, listen to me. The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham.
Now with that, he jumps into the storyline of the Bible. Now what’s interesting is that immediately he just assumes that there’s a God or knows that there’s a God. And he says, this God is the God of glory, and this God appeared to our father Abraham. Well, let’s take it back a little bit because there’s backstory that he’s building that story on. What’s the backstory?
That there is a God, and this God created the heavens and the earth. So our first storyboard is going to be a picture of the earth. Now, by the way, if you’ve got a message note sheet, you might want to take out a pen or pencil, and we want you to have some fun drawing this. So we’ll show you somebody drawing it on the screen for you if that will be helpful to you. As you draw these drawings, it’s fair to look around at each other and laugh at each other’s drawings if that would be helpful to you, whatever.
But the point of this is, is see if you can actually draw this so that you can get the concept behind this. The Bible begins with God. The Bible begins with God creating the heavens and the earth. The Bible says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And so we’re going to label this first storyboard Beginnings.
We draw the earth and it reminds us that God created all of this, but he also created a man and a woman. And he created this man and a woman to share a relationship with him forever. He put them into a garden. The garden was called Eden. Eden was a place of paradise.
They had it as good as it could ever possibly be. That’s the backstory. The God of glory created man and woman to ultimately glorify him in a relationship with him. Stephen also says that the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham. Now I want to ask the question, why?
Why did God appear to Abraham? Well, because sin had entered the world. So we got to talk about sin for just a moment. And sin is represented by our second picture, by this apple that’s been bitten into on both sides, and there is a reason for that. You may know that Adam and Eve placed into the garden, and God said to them, you can eat off of any tree in the garden except for one, tree of knowledge of what?
Good and evil. And remember that in disobedience to God, they both ate off of this tree. Now, we don’t know if it was an apple tree, okay? We’re just using the proverbial apple here to remind us of the fact that when they ate from the fruit that they were forbidden to eat from, sin came into the world. And so we’re going to label this storyboard sin.
So the first one is beginnings. The second storyboard is sin. And it reminds us of what took place in Genesis chapter 3. And then that story is carried out— if you follow— that story is carried out all the way up to the time of Abraham. It’s carried out in a variety of ways.
We know that sin multiplied. Through Adam and Eve’s children. There was even a murderer that came shortly after that. You remember that the people multiplied and sin multiplied to the point where God was actually disappointed that he had created man and woman. Remember that?
And God said that he was going to send a disaster. A flood came on the earth, but he gave people 120 years to repent, to turn back to him, to get on an ark with Noah and his family, but the only ones that got on the ark were Noah and his family. And you remember after that, that Noah and his family were told to do 2 things: they were to multiply and they were to spread out. How did they do on the multiplication? Really good.
No problem on the multiplication part of things. I mean, the earth, the people, the population grew. How about the spreading out part? Did they do well on that? No.
And if you know the early chapters there of Genesis, you know what happened was, is that the people all stayed together. They even built for themselves a tower called the Tower of what? Of Babel. And Babel was a way for them to say, you know what, God, we don’t need you. We’re strength in ourselves.
And all of that was just another example of the sin that continued to multiply. But then God brings his message to Abraham, a message of salvation, a message of hope. And that’s where we get to then in Acts chapter 7. Let me pick it up in verse 2. It says, the God of glory appeared to our father Abraham while he was still in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran.
Leave your country and your people, God said, and go to the land I will show you. So just imagine, just Think of it for just a minute. Abraham’s just doing his own thing. God appears to him, I’ve got a job for you. It’s going to take faith for him to leave his land, but that’s what God wants him to do.
So God says, go to the land that I’m going to show you. So he left the land of the Chaldeans and he settled in Haran. And after the death of his father— that was Terah— God sent him to this land where you are now living. So just make the connection here, what’s happening here. Stephen’s standing before the Sanhedrin.
He’s answering the question whether or not he’s against Moses. Is he against the temple? Is he against God? And he says to this Sanhedrin group of people that let’s be remem— let’s remember Abraham and let’s remember what God did in Abraham. And let’s remember that God brought Abraham to this land, to this land that we’re standing in right now, this land that you’re living in.
And he gave him no inheritance here, it says, not even a foot of ground. But God did do this. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child. I mean, that’s a huge promise, promise of land, a promise of blessing through his descendants. He’s got no land.
And he has no children. God spoke to him in this way: Your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own, and they will be enslaved and mistreated 400 years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, God said, and afterwards they will come out of that country and worship me in this place. What’s he talking about there? Do you know?
He’s talking about what? The bondage in Egypt, right? So he jumps ahead because it was something that God jumped ahead on. To let Abraham know that there was going to be a time where actually the people that are coming through you are going to end up as slaves. And then it says he gave Abraham the covenant of circumcision.
What’s that? That was a sign of this covenant relationship that God established with Abraham. And from Abraham, this covenant relationship was established with his family line, with his descendants called the Israelites, the Jewish people are called the chosen people. Reading on, it says, God said, but I will— where am I? Your descendants.
God spoke to him in this way, your descendants will be strangers in this country and not their own, and they will be enslaved. Where am I? No, not there. Then he gave Abraham— there it is— the covenant of circumcision. And Abraham— now watch this— became the father of Isaac and circumcised him.
8 days after his birth. So Abraham does have a kid, and actually more than one. And later Isaac became the father of Jacob, and Jacob became the father of the 12 patriarchs. In other words, Jacob had 12 children, and all of these are known as the patriarchs. Stephen’s giving all this information to them because the patriarchs were jealous of Joseph.
They sold him as a slave into Egypt, but God was with him and rescued him from all his troubles. He gave Joseph wisdom and enabled him to gain the goodwill of Pharaoh, king of Egypt. So he made him ruler over all of Egypt and his palace. Then a famine struck all of Egypt and Canaan, bringing great suffering, and our fathers could not find food. So when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent our fathers on their first visit.
And on their second visit— speaking about a visit to Egypt from Israel— On their second visit, Joseph told his brothers who he was, and Pharaoh learned about Joseph’s family. And after this, Joseph sent for his father Jacob and his whole family, 75 in all. And then Jacob went down to Egypt, where he and our fathers died. Their bodies were brought back to Shechem, placed in the tomb that Abraham had bought from the sons of Hamor at Shechem for a certain sum of money. Now, My guess is, as I just read that, some of your eyes glazed over, right?
You were saying, I have no idea what’s going on here. And, and that’s part of the challenge of reading scripture in detail, but not first grasping the context or the big picture. What’s happening here? Well, the 3rd storyboard actually illustrates this. This storyboard pictures a family tree.
All right, that’s a family tree. And in this family tree are found the 4 individuals that Stephen actually speaks about here in Acts chapter 7 and verses 8 and following, where he talks about Abraham. So there’s Abraham in the family tree, and there’s Isaac, and there’s Jacob, and there’s Joseph. And these 4 individuals are involved in the carrying out of God’s promised blessing to the earth, because God promised to Abraham that in him, in his seed, all the nations of the earth would be blessed. And so Stephen is focusing on what God did in this family.
Ultimately, this family that lived in Israel had to move to Egypt because there was a famine in the land. And when they got to Egypt, they ran into the brother that had some time before been rejected by the brothers. His name was Joseph, the guy that ended up with the coat of many colors, sort of the favorite son of the family, if you know some of the whole story. There’s a whole story here, and he says that Joseph provided for his family and made it possible for them to have food during this time of famine. So he’s focusing on all of that to establish the fact that he’s not against God, he’s for God.
And this 3rd storyboard just simply is described as the chosen people. Abraham was chosen by God to be the father of the Jews. And that from that small beginning comes a great nation that ultimately ends up down in Egypt. Now Stephen doesn’t stop there though. He continues to help them understand this incredible story that he’s absolutely embraced in his life and is committed to by going on to talk about the next big person that the Scripture focuses on.
Who’s that? It’s Moses. So in 17, Acts 7:17, it says, as the time drew near for God to fulfill his promise to Abraham, the number of our people in Egypt greatly increased. Behind that’s probably maybe 2.5, 3.5 million people. So how many went down to Egypt just a few verses before?
Did you see it? 75. And after a while, they have increased to literally millions. Doesn’t give us a number here, but we could surmise that. And it says, then another king who knew nothing about Joseph became ruler of Egypt.
He dealt treacherously with our people, them down in Egypt, and oppressed our forefathers by forcing them to throw out their newborn babies so that they would die. And at that time, Moses was born. He was no ordinary child. For 3 months he was cared for in his father’s house. When he was placed outside, Pharaoh’s daughter took him and brought him up as her own son.
Moses was educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians and was powerful in speech and action. And when Moses was 40 years old, he decided to visit his fellow Israelites. He saw one of them being mistreated by an Egyptian, so he went to his defense. And he avenged him by killing the Egyptian. Moses thought that his own people would realize that God was using him to rescue them, but they did not.
The next day Moses came upon 2 Israelites who were fighting. He tried to reconcile them by saying, Men, you are brothers. Why do you want to hurt each other? But the man who was mistreating the other pushed Moses aside and said, Who made you ruler and judge over us? Do you want to kill us as you killed the Egyptian yesterday?
When Moses heard this, he fled to Midian, where he settled as a foreigner and had 2 sons. After 40 years had passed— so how old now is Moses? 80 years old. After 40 years had passed, an angel appeared to Moses in the flames of a burning bush in the desert near Mount Sinai. And when he saw this— this is Moses seeing this burning bush, these flames, this angel that’s in this burning bush— when he saw this, he was amazed at the sight.
As he went over to look more closely, he heard the Lord’s voice, I am the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Moses trembled with fear and did not dare to look. And then the Lord said to him, take off your sandals; the place where you are standing is holy ground. I have indeed seen the oppression of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their groaning and have come down to set them free.
Now come, I will send you— this is Moses— back to Egypt. Then you get this from Stephen: This is the same Moses whom they had rejected with the words 40 years before, who made you ruler and judge? He was sent to be their ruler and deliverer by God himself through the angel who appeared to him in the bush. I mean, it’s kind of like Stephen is saying Can you believe this, that God would use this guy who was rejected before to be the guy that’s going to ultimately deliver these people from Egyptian bondage? He led them, it says, verse 36, out of Egypt and did wonders and miraculous signs in Egypt, at the Red Sea, and for 40 years in the desert.
This is that Moses who told the Israelites, God will send you a prophet like me from your own people. He was in the assembly in the desert with the angel who spoke to him on Mount Sinai and with our fathers, and he received living words to pass on to us. Now there’s a ton that is said there about Moses in this whole period of the Mosaic period. And so our 4th, our 4th storyboard here is Moses, is Moses standing in the middle of this Red Sea that God parts and the Israelites escape from the Egyptians, if you know the whole story. So this story is amazing.
Just the fact that— and Stephen’s suggesting this— just this fact that Moses was going to be used by God. I mean, come on, he was the guy now who spent the last 40 years in the desert. Why would you want to use him? He was used by God. He was brought back by God to deliver God’s people.
He was the one, it says here, that told God’s people that there was a prophet that would come. A prophet like me. And of course, he’s referring to ultimately the Messiah Savior, who we know as Jesus Christ. And he was the one that saw God do many different kinds of miracles, whether it was the provision of food, whether it was the miracle of leading them at day and at night through a cloud and through a fire, whether it was the miracle of parting the waters of the Red Sea or providing water for them, one miracle after another. Or especially, he was the one that saw God forgive his people over and over and over again.
And he was the one, as it suggests here, he was the one that gave to God’s people the living words of God. He passed along the law to them, and the law contains instructions in it about a portable worship center. What was that called? A tabernacle. They picked it up and they, they took it with them.
So Stephen focuses on Moses. Why Moses? Because he’s been charged as being against Moses. He’s not against Moses, he’s for Moses. Now some of us would miss what it is that Stephen has detailed for us here in Acts chapter 7, verses 1 to 38, because you get into that content And, and it just kind of seems to be just a blur for us.
And that’s one of the things I love about connecting stories to pictures. It’s one of the reasons why I think that possibly by the time we finish this series, all of us could do something that many of us could not do right now. And what’s that? Actually be able to walk a person through the story of God’s relentless chasing of a relationship, a love relationship with us. Have we made it easy?
Come on, think about this for a minute. Is this a sign of easy, of an easy relationship with God? God creates man and woman to have a relationship with him. They are in a relationship for whatever period of time that was until ultimately they turn their back on God. They insert their will above God.
It could have ended right there, but God said, no, I’m not done yet. And God begins to work out a plan, and ultimately this plan comes out in a promise to Abraham, and it’s passed on down those descendants because God longs to have a relationship with all people. And that plan is continued to be carried out through Moses. I mean, at that point, God could have just said, you know, enough is enough. And if you know the story of Moses and all the different things that happened.
Several times there God could have just said, you know, enough is enough. We’re done with this.
Yesterday I had a conversation with the neighbor, the neighbor that lives next to our daughter and her husband over in Merced. And the reason that the conversation started was because the night before I saw a couple people out near one of their cars and wasn’t really sure what was going on, so I wanted to check in with her to see if everything was okay. And she said, yeah, everything’s okay, and stuff. And so we got to talking, and in the conversation she said to me, she said, you know, my pastor says that we really should meet our neighbors. And so I kind of filed that for just a minute, you know.
Of course, I’m thinking inside, yeah, that’s the kind of pastor I want to hang around too, you know, good advice. And so she apologizes for having not met me, and I kind of took the pressure off and said, well, actually, we don’t live here, you know, we live over in the Bay Area.
Over there, and this is our daughter’s home, and so we’re just here for a couple days. And— but anyway, it’s really nice to meet you. My name’s Dave. And so we meet each other, and she launched into a discussion about spiritual things. And I think part of it was because I came back and just asked her, so you sound like, you know, you’re a spiritual person, pastor, you know, do you have some spiritual beliefs?
And she told me yes, and she started describing her relationship with God and Jesus Christ. And that all came up in this conversation, but then she started talking about her kids. And she started telling me the story of her 19-year-old who 3 months from now is going to go in the Army. And she reflected on some feelings about that. And then she shared about her 25-year-old and how her 25-year-old has had a drug problem.
And he’s been on and off drugs. But she said, but you know, something wonderful recently happened. He came to receive Jesus Christ as his personal Savior. And we really see that it’s beginning to turn around for him. I mean, he’s also staying at a home, and the home is giving him some support that he needs right now.
But his life is really changing because of what God’s doing in him and the support he’s getting. And then she said, hey, do you have just another minute? You know, do you have— and I said, well, I— yeah, I got to get somewhere, but, you know, sure, if it’s like short. You know how this is. You’re like me.
You know, I don’t know if I got any more time. She said, just a minute. Just a minute. I got to go inside and get some pictures. I got to show you some pictures.
Pictures. So she went inside and she came back out with modern-day pictures, right? So on her phone she starts flipping through pictures of her family. And she showed me the son that’s getting ready to go into the Army. And she showed me this son that’s 25 years old who’s been struggling with a drug problem, who just recently came into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
And she was so excited. To show me the pictures. She didn’t have to have a script. She knew the pictures. She knew the story of every person that was in that picture, and she, with excitement, shared it with me.
And I thought to myself, wow, wouldn’t that be cool? Wouldn’t it be great if if that was the tool that helped us be able to tell the story of the Bible with people, to be able to just link it to a picture and say, has anybody ever done this for you? I’ve been testing this. I’ve been not just testing this, but I’ve been actually just enjoying this in relationships, especially with some relationships with unbelievers. I’ve just been asking people, has anybody ever explained to you the story of the Bible?
Inevitably, you know what the answer is?
No. And the reason why is because, quite frankly, even after all the sermons we’ve listened to, after all the church services we’ve been at, after all the Bible studies we’ve been at, the reason why is because, quite frankly, we can’t do this. We know parts of the story, but we don’t know the whole story. And one of the things that I’m discovering is that if you could get a handle on the whole story, your love for God will be greater than it has ever been before.
So Bible Storyboards is going to help us do that. This text is going to help us do that. Of course, the key now is whether or not we’ll apply ourselves to this process so that we can actually do that. What did Stephen do? He just picked up with the beginning and he took people through a story.
Did he tell them the whole story? No, you’re not going to be able probably with anybody to tell them the whole story, but you can tell them parts of the story. And in telling them parts of the story, they can hear the gospel of Jesus Christ and be forever changed. Sound good? Amen to that.
Let’s pray. Father, thanks for your love that has been demonstrated to us and to people around the world since the beginning of time. Thank you for this passage of Scripture that will show us that and has already shown us that, where you have repeatedly demonstrated how much you value a relationship with people and the extent that you would go to make that relationship possible. And we thank you for that, Lord. You have demonstrated your love to us time and time again.
And of course, most of all, Father, we know that you’ve demonstrated your love to us in Jesus Christ, not because we loved you, but because you’ve loved us. And Messiah Jesus is that promised one that you sent into the world to give his life so that we might have life now and forever. And we thank you that this whole story is going to tell that story. And we pray, God, that as we listen, as we think about it, that we would consider where we are in this story with you, where our love is. Is it strong?
Is it, is it increasing? Is it diminishing? Is it not even there? God, reveal to us what connection we have to you and what would be our next step. In this connection and in helping others get connected to you as well.
In fact, let me just pause and just say, you know, if you don’t have relationship with God and Jesus Christ, God has made that relationship possible through Messiah Jesus. He’s the Savior. He’s the promised prophet. He came to give life. He made life possible when he died on the cross for our sins and paid for our penalty.
And he invites us into that relationship by faith to receive him as our Savior and Lord. And if you’ve never done that and you want to do that this morning, we encourage you even now to embrace Jesus as your Savior. Tell God that’s what’s on your heart. Lord, I want to love you like you have loved me. Change my life.
God, help us as we share this series together to be changed by it. And may it not stop with us, but may it lead to helping others for your name’s sake, you, for the God of glory, in Jesus’ name, amen. Well, we’re going to continue our worship. Our team’s going to come back up. And let me just say that there are some pieces here that can help you grasp this story.
And so I want to encourage you to take full advantage over this month of several ways that you can grasp this story. So one, of course, is continue to come the next couple Sunday mornings as we get all the way through these 15 storyboards, and that will be helpful. Secondly, I would encourage you to get into one of our groups. So our life groups right now are focused on Bible storyboards. Our student ministries are focused on Bible storyboards.
Our children’s ministries are focused on Bible storyboards. So get in one of the groups and allow that group to be a support to you, and you can help others and they can help you grasp this. You can also go to the website I just mentioned, BibleStoryboards.com. This week and for the next couple of weeks after that, we’re going to focus on each one of these pictures, one picture a day. Okay, so Monday on the blog post there, there will be an introduction to Bible Storyboards.
On Tuesday we’ll focus on beginnings. On Wednesday, we’ll focus on sin. On Thursday, we’ll focus on chosen people. And on Friday, we’ll focus on Moses. Okay, and that’s going to unfold for the next 3 weeks as we go all the way through the 15 storyboards.
So there’ll be a post there, there’ll be a video that comes along with the post to just help you a little bit. So that’s a great resource to you. We also have an app. Thank God for Grant, who’s sitting right there. He developed this app and it’s in process and we’re excited about where it is.
But this is an iOS, so sorry if you have an Android. We will hopefully, Lord willing, be able to have an Android app soon. But the app is available. It just came on today, all right, on the Apple Store, and you could go there right now and get it for free. So it’s there for free for the rest of this month.
So don’t wait forever on this thing, but there’s an app there, and the app is a tremendous resource. It’ll be a great help to you. We wrote a book on this. The book was just released a couple days ago, January 1st, called Bible Storyboards. You could get it in Kindle, you could get it in softcover.
We got some softcovers over there. My wife and I team wrote this, so it says David and Bernice Gudgel as the authors of the book. We could not have done the book without the artwork that I already mentioned Andy Bates, who’s sitting over there, did, and we thank God for all of the work that he has done on this. So that’s all there to help you as well. There’s a kind of a simple approach to this, and that’s revealed on the website.
So the simple way to grasp the story is there for you. But if you want to go digger— dig deeper and work on some application, that’s there for you in the book. But it’s also there for you on the app, because the app has the entire book on it, okay? Not just the book, but it also has the pictures. So the pictures are there.
Nice thing about the pictures on the app is that they’re the colors, and so you could turn it on to landscape and you can walk a person through, you can just storyboard through the storyline of God’s Word. Okay, so that’s there for you. There’s several other resources that you could check out on the web, the blog— what am I saying? You can— the website, that’s what I’m trying to say. You can also though pick up a grid over there.
There’s a cardboard grid over there, cardstock grid for you that will fit into your Bible and it will just give you the simple sketches. Okay. And so that could be helpful to you. If you have a family of young children, we’ve got some handouts over there for you to pick up. All right.
They’re just handouts that will give you 3 weeks of family nights to enjoy together as a family. So take advantage of that. And the kids get this. Listen, yesterday we were with our family and Anderson was there. And Anderson went through this last year as we’ve been testing this and working with this, as I said, for quite a while now.
And they taught this to the preschool at a church over in Merced. He was one of the preschool kids, 3 years of age. Yesterday he went through virtually every one of the storyboards. Okay, he hasn’t been working with it lately. But he got it.
So what that tells me is that even a 3-year-old can get this. Okay, so if a 3-year-old can get it, I think we might be able to get this, and it could really be something wonderful. All right, so that’s all to say, don’t let this just kind of float by, just another Sunday at Bridges Community Church. Let’s take advantage of this and make the most of it and benefit by it. Let’s come out of this thing, all of us, capable of doing what really every Christ follower should be able to do, and that is tell people the story of God’s relentless desire for a relationship with us.
Amen. Amen.
