- 10 years ago he read the book “The Challenge of Jesus” by NT Wright.
- It was a life-changing moment for him.
- The challenge of Jesus is to understand that He is not the beginning of the story of Christianity; He is the climax of the story of Israel.
- If we don’t understand the story of Israel we won’t understand Jesus.
- If we don’t understand Jesus we end up with messy forms of Christianity.
- He spent a majority of his time with people on the fringes of society.
- The Good Book has not been Good News for many people.
- It has not been received as the Gospel; it’s been used as a weapon.
- It’s been used to make them feel like they are outsiders.
- Almost everyone is in recovery from a bad experience with the church or with Christians.
- The experience of God’s people in exile is asking the ongoing question, “How in the hell did we end up here?”
- How did we get here?
- There people who live their lives in exile; far from home.
- They have yet to hear the story of God that the Bible tells.
- As we listen to the story together and hear things that we have never heard or experienced before.
- Everyone has a different story and experience… as we listen together we see the majesty and the glory of our story… the story of God, the story of us.
- We can always hear something we’ve never heard before.
Creation
- It’s easy to forget where we’ve come from, especially when we find ourselves in difficult circumstances.
- We often live in the pain of exile.
- We are still Go’d people
- We a re part of a story that did not begin in exile.
- We are a far way from home.
- Eden is where the story begins.
- We have so many questions and long for answers, but what we have is a story.
- The world has other stories and sings other songs, but that is why we tell our story and sing our songs.
- The first words of the story of God are, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the earth…”
- God spoke creation into existence.
- God looked at it all and said it was good.
- This is the beginning of our story.
- This story is very different than other stories we’ve heard.
- Those stories are not our story.
- We are not God’s slaves, we are God’s partners in the work of creation.
- We were made to be God’s friend.
- We can trust God.
- Our God is not like the strange gods that are far off.
- Our God is a God of order, we can trust Him.
- We are indeed exiled, far from home… life is hard.
- That is why we must keep telling each other the story.
- Remember.
- Don’t just remember during hard times; remember during the good times when we are most apt to forget who and whose we are.
- When we forget our story we will find other stories to live by.
- God said, “let US make man in OUR image…”
- Why did God create anything?
- We believe God is one.
- We were created to partner with God in creation by caring for it.
- Relationships are so important.
- Relationships are so important that’s why God couldn’t NOT create.
- When God completed the work of creation He rested.
- He created the Sabbath as a day of rest and made it holy.
- God does not spend the 7th day exhausted; God spends it at peace, in shalom.
- Shalom means all is well with God’s world.
- We are called to do the same.
- The Sabbath day is an invitation to cease our feverish our activity of self-security and realize life comes to us as a sheer gift, not as a result of our own efforts.
- OUr lives will not fall apart if we take a day of rest.
- To take a day of rest is to resist the internal forces that drive us.
- It’s to refuse to confirm ourselves to the restlessness of our culture.
- it to resist the temptation to form the world in our image.
- We trust God to give us peace and wholeness.
- God has given the sabbath day as a gift for all, regardless of wealth or position in society.
- It’s a call to the dehumanizing exploitation happening.
We have a story other than creation
- Our story focuses on almighty God; the second creation story is about the God who is near.
- God is transcendent and eminent.
- The story continues beyond creation.
- God formed man in his image
- We were created for community and relationship and not with just God, but with each other.
- It’s central to our humanity.
- It’s what it means to be human.
- Community is an essential part of being made in God’s image.
- Marriage was the first picture of community.
- It’s also a picture of our union with Christ.
- God created men and women, both made in the image of God.
- We have not embraced the notion that man and woman were made with equality.
- God gave us the gifts of vocation… to partner with God in caring for creation and to serve in God’s creative act by having children.
- God gave freedom… free to explore creation and free will to make significant decisions.
- God gave a boundary… the boundary is what we tend to remember the most about the God that creates.
- We focus on the prohibition; not on the freedom our vocation.
- It’s only in the “no” that our freedom finds its meaning.
- Man and woman were both naked… vulnerable, naked, and unashamed.
- We were made for community with God and for each other.
- Put your trust in the God of our story… the God who created… the God who provides for us, even in exile.
