We're in our fourth week studying the uniqueness of the Bible.
This morning we're talking about the Bible as one big story.
Now I grew up on Star Wars movies, those early 80s, late 70s, Star Wars IV, five, and six.
I loved Luke when he was training to be a Jedi with Yoda, you know, and then we learned Vader was his father.
You know, I hate to break the news to you.
Um that's part of the story.
Star Wars IV, Luke joins the rebellion.
Five, Luke trains with Yoda, Vader's his father.
You know, Luke's uh Star Wars VI, Luke confronts Vader, and the rebels bring down the Empire.
So those are those three movies.
There's three movies that came after, there's three prequels, there's nine movies total.
There are subplots, there are conflicts, but all of it makes up one big story.
And the big story of Star Wars is the Skywalker bloodline shaping the fate of the galaxy.
Subplots, conflicts, all sorts of stuff, all weaving together.
One big story.
Incredibly similar to the Bible.
That the Bible is subplots and conflicts and all sorts of different things going on, weaving together one big story.
Point number one is this the Bible is a meta-narrative, one big story, of God's rescue of us in Jesus.
We can see Christ in every book of the Bible.
Here's a list that I pulled from the Gentle Reformation blog.
You can look this up this week.
I won't go through every single one of these.
This wouldn't, that would be, it'd take a little bit of time.
But in every book of the Bible, we can see Jesus.
Those books before Jesus is on earth are all foreshadowing and pointing toward.
Those books after Jesus are all explaining his life to us.
We studied the book of Leviticus a year ago.
Christ is the final burnt offering of Leviticus.
We study the book of Nehemiah.
Christ is the wall of safety.
Hosea, Christ is the forsaken husband, the book of John, the New Testament, Christ is the word made flesh, the book of Ephesians, which we're going to study next, coming into the fall.
He's the forgiver of our sins.
The book of Peter, he's the chief shepherd.
The book of Revelation, he's the first and the last, he's the Alpha and the Omega.
All one story, a whole bunch of books of the Bible, subplots, conflicts, all weaving together, one big story, all driving to Jesus or coming out of Jesus and explaining Jesus to us.
And the lobby of Christ Community Church in Nashville, Tennessee.
That's the church that my mentor, Scotty Smith, he planted that church and pastored it for 20-something years.
And in their lobby, they have this painting by David Arms.
This painting is called God's Story.
And Scotty had David Arms, he commissioned this painting when they were going through the story of the Bible.
This painting's a great way for us to ponder the story as we think about each panel of this piece of artwork.
That first panel on the far left is creation when everything was as God meant it to be, Genesis 1 and Genesis 2.
Life was perfect joy, perfect harmony.
We were in close, perfect relationship with God and with each other.
No conflict.
Everything, everything is working.
And then the second panel is the fall, that tragic intrusion of sin and death that we see in Genesis 3.
Resulting in the brokenness of all people and a broken world and broken bodies.
I am wearing these more and more.
Anybody else there?
Late 40s, 50s, you're just carrying these around.
You got 10 pairs and they're scattered all around.
It's coming for all of us.
It's coming for everybody.
Our bodies are broken.
This summer and this fall, my my wife got sick with vertigo, and we're still processing through that.
Some of you were kind with so many meals.
Thank you for that.
And I knew she was getting better when she began to get mean again.
And I said, Oh, you're you're bossing me around again.
Like you're feeling better.
I can tell because you're mean again.
You were just way too nice for too long.
I was very, very worried.
Right?
Our bodies are failing.
Like one day you feel great, and then something happened.
Anybody else?
Does anybody else have an issue?
Anybody have an issue with your body?
Anybody have an issue with the rod?
Anybody have an emotional issue?
Anybody have any emotional issues?
Anybody have a spiritual issue?
Anybody uh fail at things that they wish they didn't fail at?
Anybody think about things they wish they didn't think about?
Anybody uh wish they had one motive, but really they have another motive?
Anybody do something over it and over again and then you kick yourself and beat yourself up afterward?
It's a fallen world.
Adam and Eve's sin would pass to all people.
We're born into this dead condition and to a broken world.
Romans 3.23, for all have sinned.
I have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
So we see our created dignity, back to the painting.
We see our created dignity in the first panel, but in the second panel, we're reminded of the story that we're not perfect, we're broken.
And we experience that brokenness.
But yet we get a third panel, redemption.
God's astonishing promise to redeem all of us.
That he cares enough, he loves enough to love us in our mess while we disobey.
And that is through grace alone, by Christ's work alone, Ephesians 2, 13 and 14.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who were once far off, you've been brought near by the blood of Christ, for he himself is our peace.
So our performance is not our peace, he himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in his flesh the dividing wall of hostility.
So it's by his work, not ours.
Ephesians 2, 8 and 9.
For by grace you have been saved through faith.
This is not of your own doing, it's a gift of God, not a result of work, so that no one can boast.
So we have creation, we have fall, we have redemption, and then the fourth panel on the far right of the artwork, we have restoration, the fulfillment of God's plan, that He wants to gather and cherish a people forever in the new heaven and the new earth.
That there is a day when all of our longings will come true, when we will not be ailed by the brokenness and the sin that we know in this world and in our bodies.
Revelation 21, 1 through 4.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more, and I saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride, adorned for her husband.
And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.
He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.
He will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
And death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
All those longings and of our hearts that were put in there in the creation will come true one day in restoration.
Point number two is this God's story unfolds through the Bible and in our hearts.
Meaning, God's story, this meta-narrative, is the way in which we understand ourselves and our own stories.
It helps explain ourselves to us that we have dignity and that we have worth, and yet we're not perfect, we're sinners, and yet then God loves us in that redemption.
Fourth panel, we're looking forward to restoration.
God's story helps us make sense of our own beings, our own hearts.
And we can make sense of our own hearts and lives only as we find our place in God's story.
As we study the Bible as one story, we can ask ourselves some questions.
Here are four questions we can ask ourselves anytime we hear the Bible or we read the Bible, we do a devotional.
If we're reading in the Old Testament, we can be asking ourselves, how does this passage point toward or foreshadow the work of Jesus to come?
That's what the Old Testament's building toward.
The New Testament's reflecting back on that work of Jesus, and we can ask ourselves, how does this passage help me understand the life and the work of Jesus?
Third, how does this passage help me see how good Jesus is for me?
And then fourth, is my heart trusting in the story of this world, performed, and then you are accepted?
Or the story of the gospel and Christ you are fully accepted?
That question will change your life.
That question will revolutionary, radically free you and give you peace.
It's a question we should ask every morning.
Is my heart trusting the story of this world, perform and achieve and accumulate, and then I'll be accepted?
Or am I trusting in the story of the gospel that in Christ I already am fully loved and fully accepted?
Point number three is this the Bible is one story about Jesus filled with the dynamic of law and gospel.
We could also say filled with demand and relief.
One day this summer, while I was on break, I woke up and I stretched a little bit and I had a little breakfast.
I walked outside, I stared at my grass because I like to stare at my grass and how's it growing, and what I need to do to it, and looked at it, and it's looking pretty good.
And I come back in, and one of my daughters was in the living room, first thing in the morning, I don't know why first thing watching the notebook.
You know, just a nice early morning entry to the day, watching the notebook.
I sit down and I start watching uh the notebook, but I think I'll just watch like five minutes or so.
An hour later, I'm sucked in.
I am into the story.
I need I need to know if Allie's gonna marry Noah.
I mean, I just really I had to know.
I hadn't and I'd already seen it.
I'd already seen it once before, but I had to finish this.
He goes to war, he writes those letters, maybe it's too much information if you've seen it, but you've had a few years.
Will they stay together?
Will she marry him?
Will she marry that rich guy?
Who he was pretty nice too, right?
Like you're kind of like, it's a pretty good catch.
But she's in love with Noah, right?
The story's about Noah and Allie, and within that story, there's a dynamic.
It's one story, Noah and Allie.
And in that story is a dynamic.
The dynamic is love and fear.
Love of Noah, fear of her parents' approval, fear of people's approval, fear of being poor.
One story filled with an ongoing dynamic that must resolve.
And this is how the Bible is similar.
One big story about Jesus, his glory, his goodness to us, and it's filled with a dynamic, and that dynamic is playing out.
500 years ago, the reformers called this the law-gospel distinction.
We could say it this way: the meta-narrative, the one big story is about the goodness of Jesus.
The dynamic within that story that is constantly in the scriptures, constantly at play in our hearts and our lives, is the dynamic between law, who you should be, and gospel, who God is for us in Jesus.
And these two things do resolve.
And they must resolve.
But we get to see throughout the scriptures how they resolve.
And it's all the way through the scriptures.
Look at this.
We'll work our way through some examples.
Creation and fall, Genesis 1 through 3.
Law, God commands Adam and Eve not to eat from the tree.
Gospel, God clotes them after they do this.
God clothes them with the garments, providing a covering that they could not have made on their own.
So law exposes sin, gospel provides mercy.
Abraham and the promise in Genesis 12, 15, and 22.
Law, Abraham's tested to sacrifice his son Isaac.
Gospel, God provides that lamb.
So righteousness comes not by his work, but by faith.
The point, faith, not works, secures God's blessing.
Moses and Israel, in Exodus and Deuteronomy, the law, the Ten Commandments, the covenant, they demand obedience.
Good, holy, rightful instruction for life.
And yet nobody lives up to it.
So we have gospel, God provides sacrifices for Israel as they continue to fail throughout the Old Testament, pointing us to our need of Jesus.
So law reveals sin, gospel gives atonement.
The prophets, the prophets of the law pronounce judgment on rebellion.
The gospel, they promise restoration and a new covenant.
Law convicts, gospel restores.
And Jesus' ministry, he shows up.
Early on, he preaches that Sermon on the Mount.
Remember that?
Matthew 5?
What does he do?
He intensifies the law.
He says stuff like, You've heard it said, don't commit adultery, but I tell you, do not even lust in your heart.
He intensifies the law.
He's not saying the law means nothing.
He's saying, in fact, the law is everything, it is pure holiness.
And at the end of that Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, I didn't come to abolish the law, I came to fulfill it.
He's saying, I am your righteousness.
Paul explains that by saying that our sin is put upon the cross and his righteousness is given to us.
So Jesus intensified the law.
He offers rest and forgiveness to sinners.
He is the gospel.
Heightened law drives us to the gospel.
Paul's letters explain Jesus.
Paul says that law shows sin and brings a curse, but gospel, God's righteousness is revealed apart from the law through faith.
Paul frames everything in this law, gospel distinction.
Lastly, the book of Revelation.
We see law and the final judgment on sin, but we see gospel.
God creates a new heaven and a new earth, wiping away all tears.
The law awards and the gospel comforts.
Priest and author Paul Zahl, in a book called Grace and Practice, a great book to understand this law, gospel distinction, this dynamic that's playing out in this big story.
And he says this every time we hear the Bible, read the Bible, do a devotional.
We can ask the question is this passage demanding law who I should be?
Or is it giving gospel?
And then he says this, because this is what we have to remember as we read, because we're going to read law, we're going to read gospel, and we're going to read this dynamic.
The law, it guides us, but it drives us to the end of ourselves.
And the gospel drives us into the arms of Christ.
Now, here's how it resolves.
I love this quote by C.F.W.
Walther, 19th century Lutheran.
Here's how he explains how does this resolve?
Who you should be and God's promise of righteousness and forgiveness.
How does this resolve?
The gospel does not require anything good that man must furnish.
Not a good heart, not a good disposition, no improvement of his condition, no godliness, no love either of God or men.
It issues no order, but changes a man.
It plants love into his heart and makes him capable of all good works.
It demands nothing, but it gives all.
Should this fact not make us leap for joy?
The law is the F-150 without an engine.
Like that brand new, beautiful F-150, unbelievable it is.
It's perfect, but it has no power.
It can't move.
The gospel's the power to move.
The gospel is the very power by which we can begin to live obediently, not just by behavior, but from our hearts.
What that means is it means we do not obey because we're told to.
We don't obey because we're afraid.
We do not obey to be loved.
We obey because we're already loved.
And we get all of that in the story of the Bible.
And that dynamic that's playing out.
Where the law shows us our needs and the gospel, this Jesus, that the whole story is about this Jesus gives us relief.
This week I saw a reel of one of the bears up at Brooks Falls.
You know, we're moving into the fall.
The bears are there.
You've been wondering about it.
There they are.
We talk about it every fall.
And so they come out of hibernation in June, May, June, and they go to Brooks Falls to feed, right?
If you've been with us for years, you know about our bears at Brooks Falls in Alaska, and they go there and they feed all summer.
They get fatter and fatter and fatter.
We have fat bear wheat coming up the end of September.
We'll talk about it again, don't worry.
And so they're there feeding right now.
And so what I look at on my Instagram reels, I look at bears and fly fishing.
I don't know what you look at.
Those are the things that I look at and I scroll.
So I saw this reel uh this week.
I wanted to show it to you.
And you I watched it like five, six, seven times, something like that.
That's for the teenagers.
Um, maybe 10 times, maybe 20 times, but I watched it a lot, and then for 30 minutes, I watched other stuff.
Like I was just watching other bear stuff.
I was really deep into the bears, and I saw another reel.
I want to show you this reel of all the fish.
This is why that bear was jumping off.
Like, this is the amount of fish that are off.
Wild, right?
Like, that's a lot of fish.
Like, I don't know if you're aware of how many fish are usually rivers.
Like, that's a lot of fish.
I mean, that's nothing more exciting than what I just showed you to me.
Like, there's nothing greater than that.
So, of course, the bears are there.
Of course they're there.
The bears are there because the fish are there.
They want to nourish themselves.
They want to feed on that.
Goodness.
It made me think of that 1 Peter 2, 2, and 3.
Like newborn infants long for the pure spiritual milk.
That by it you may grow up into salvation if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.
Right?
Thinking of the bears, we're going to replace the metaphor very easily.
Like hungry bears crave fresh salmon, right?
Like the metaphor is teaching us something like if we want to grow up, if we want to develop, if we want to mature, if we want to grow in this grace of God that already declares us beloved, if we want to grow in that, like crave the very thing that can grow us.
And that's the story of God's redemption of us.
That's the good news that we have.
To linger longer, to nourish our souls, the more alive we come to the story of God's love for us in Jesus, the more we'll develop, the more we'll grow.
I close again with that quote by John Calvin.
We've been closing all the sermons with this.
What do the scriptures really mean?
Well, he says this, John Calvin, 500 years ago, all scripture, when correctly understood, testifies of Christ.
What's he saying?
He's saying meta-narrative, one big story.
All the scriptures testify of Christ.
That Jesus is all the forgiveness you need, Jesus is all the righteousness you ever need, which means, like we said last week, that your devotion to the Bible, your ability to understand the literary styles of the Bible, your ability to understand the one big story of the Bible, your ability of the law gospel distinction to nerd out with me, your ability to understand all that has nothing to do, nothing to do with your position with God.
It has nothing to do with how loved you are or how accepted you are, how forgiven or righteous, nothing.
It has nothing to do with it.
Not at all.
How long your quiet times are, or how often they are, or how much you read the Bible or study the Bible or know the Bible, has nothing to do with how righteous you are, forgiven you are, accepted you are, beloved you are to God.
It has nothing to do with it.
Which means that we don't have to score keep on how much or how many Bible studies we're having, because we do not study the Bible to be loved by God.
We study the Bible to learn about the very thing we already have.
Right?
To grow in the wealth of the identity we already have in Christ.
That we're already fully forgiven, already fully righteous, already fully His.
He can't love you anymore.
He can't love you any less.
Because He doesn't love you based on your work.
He loves you based on the work of Jesus for you.
And that's why we want to nourish ourselves with the very truth and the goodness that has been proclaimed and is true about us.
Let's pray together.
God, thank you for the story of the Bible.
That's our story.
That we are created, we have word.
We know we have word, and yet we know we are not perfect.
And thank you that in our imperfection, our sin, our brokenness, our mess, our inability to get our acts together, you sent Christ to die for us.
Your love made flesh, your move of love to us, and the cross, an objective place for the forgiveness of sin.
And that none of this position with you or eternity is based on our work or our performance, but solely on the work of Jesus.
You are that good.
And in our days of being proclaimed righteous, and yet not always living that way, our hearts long for the day where the struggle is over.
We look forward to the day of redemption, the fourth panel, where our longings will be fulfilled, our tears will be dried up, all the sad things will be untrue.
We thank you for the goodness of Jesus for us.
Help us to see him all the more, and help us to continue to grow in the great wealth of the identity we have as your sons and your daughters.
In Christ's name.
Amen.