The Bible, Part 2 // A Grand Story

Welcome to the Lookout Weekly Podcast.

Church of the Lookout is an older color of love, and our vision is Jesus abiding in his presence, growing in his family, and living on his mission to transform the world with all inspiring love.

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Hey, good morning, everybody.

Good morning.

Um, what a sweet time of worship.

Wasn't that beautiful?

Uh I just want to point out as well, you know, during worship, I saw Hannah dancing uh down in the front here, and I it's just it was really clear there's a real anointing on her expression of worship for what God is doing.

So I invited her to come up.

Don't you guys agree that there's just it was an anointing on our dancers this morning?

And the the truth is there's some things that are so true they can't be said, they have to be sung.

Some things are so true they can't be sung, they have to be danced.

Some things are so true they can't be danced, they have to be painted.

The thing is, when God reveals himself, he is so creative, he is so outside of our boxes that our our current like expressions can't quite get at the nature of his beauty and his goodness.

And so I just believe, even this morning, I have it in my heart, it's just filled with faith again that this place is just gonna be erupting with creativity and artistry in the days to come.

And I and I want I want you to receive that seed.

If you are an artist of any kind, I believe uh that God's heart is still to continue to fill us with the fire of his spirit, that whatever he's given our hands to do, he's given our voice to do, he's given our bodies to do, we can do it with all our might.

And see, David, the scriptures, uh the scriptures capture a picture of worship that just was so uncalculated.

It was just what is God worth?

And I'm gonna do whatever that is.

And we see that in the life of King David as he as he his first act of as king, as he's anointed king, he he comes into Jerusalem, and his first priority number one wasn't to increase defense spending, it wasn't to issue tax cuts, it wasn't to do any of those things.

His priority number one is we're gonna get the ark of God's presence, we're gonna bring it back into the center of the city.

And and as the Ark of God's presence was being ushered back into the center of the city, it said that he danced before the Lord with all of his might.

And he was undignified before the Lord, even to the point of foolishness, where he was dancing in his underwear.

I'm not suggesting we do that here at the lookout, but maybe a little bit more.

You know, I just think that there's a there's a possibilities before us when we are singing of heaven heavenly realities like we're singing about in the book of Revelation, of being before God's throne in his presence, where there's I believe an invitation for us as a people just to just to know that the possibilities are endless when it comes to giving God the worship that he deserves.

Amen.

All right.

Hey, let's do this before we move on.

Let's all stand together, just stand up where you're at.

Um, I want you to find somebody around you that you either know or don't know.

Welcome them to the lookout this morning.

I want you to greet them.

Uh, before we get into the word, let's just create a little connection here together.

All right.

All right, friends, now that we're all besties, let's settle down.

If you have your Bibles, you can open up to Luke chapter twenty-four.

Luke chapter twenty-four.

And uh, we're gonna get into the word today.

Last week we started this new conversation about the scriptures, just about being a people that hold the scriptures in high view.

And how do how is it that we live into the scriptures?

How do we see um the Bible?

How do we interact with this?

How do we um uh revere it?

How do we submit and yield ourselves to the God of the Scriptures?

And that's kind of where we're at.

Um, and uh sometimes it's hard to know what to do, especially if you're going through a season of you're trying to discern God's heart, God's will.

And he have you have you how many of you have ever played uh Bible roulette, where you open up to random passage and you point and you're like, God, this has got to be the scripture, this has got to be the one.

Um you're you're laughing at me, but we've all done it, right?

We've all done it.

In fact, there's a man who is he was really struggling, so he decided to open the Bible to random page, drop his finger on a verse, and do whatever it says.

And the verse's finger landed on was Matthew 27, 5, which actually read, Then Judas hanged himself.

So the man thought, that's not right.

That's not what I was looking for.

Let me try again.

So he does the same thing, he opens the Bible to random page, this time landing on Luke 10.37, which said, Jesus told him, Go and do likewise.

And he's like, This is not working.

Uh God, I got I'm gonna give you one more time.

So again, the man thought it wasn't right, and so he did it one last time and landed on John 13, 37, which says, Whatever you're about to do, do it quickly.

So Bible roulei, can you know, it's a kind of a roll of the dice how it's gonna work for us, but sometimes it's difficult, especially in a time where if you've ever been through a disorienting season and you're wanting to know God's heart, God's will, sometimes it's hard to know how to interact with the Bible.

But this is where um I think Jesus He comes alongside of us and he teaches us um about his story.

That's what we're gonna talk about um a little bit today.

So Luke 24, verse 32.

Luke 24:32

We're gonna have this on the screens if you don't have a Bible.

If you want a Bible, you can go um take one.

You can get one at the Connect Hub, I believe.

Um also you can um take one from Lost and Found because somebody clearly didn't need their Bible.

So it's yours.

It's yours for the taking.

Luke 24, starting in verse 13.

This is kind of a long passage, so hang with me.

That very day, two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, and they were talking with each other about all the things that had happened.

While they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them, but their eyes were kept from recognizing him.

And he said to them, What is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk?

And they stood still looking sad, then one of them one of them named Cleopas answered, Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?

And he said to them, What things?

And they said to him, Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, a man who was a prophet, mighty indeed and word, before God and all the people, and how our chief priests and rulers delivered him to be condemned to death and crucified him.

But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.

Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things have happened.

Moreover, some women uh of our company amazed us, they were at the tomb early in the morning, and when they did not find his body, they came back saying that whatever that they had even seen vision of angels who said that he was alive.

Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but him they did not see.

And he said to them, O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?

And beginning with Moses and all of the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.

So they drew near to the near to the village where they were going.

He acted as if he were going farther.

But they urged him strongly, saying, Stay with us.

For it is toward evening, and the day is now far spent.

So he went to stay with them.

And when he was at the table with them, he took the bread and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them.

And their eyes were opened, and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.

They said to each other, did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened up, while he opened to us the scriptures.

Let's pray.

Father, we we come to you this morning, God, we're in all of you.

And we humble ourselves before you and your holiness, God, as we open the scriptures today.

Would that the same thing happen to us, God?

God, we pray that we would be a people of burning hearts.

That your word would come alive to us, Jesus.

And as your scripture comes alive, it comes alive in us, Lord God, let it be like a fire in our bones.

I thank you, Lord God, to light us up from the inside out, reveal more of who you are and who we are in you.

I thank you, God, that even today you're pulling us into who you are and all the fragmented parts of our life that we feel like are disconnected.

I thank you.

I just see you stitching us together and knitting us back together, both in ourselves and as a body.

And I just thank you, Father, that that's what you do.

And it's in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

So this passage was obviously, um, if you know this passage, it was shortly after Jesus' resurrection and the world was still spinning.

Uh his disciples didn't quite know what to do about the events that had just happened.

Jesus was murdered just a few days prior, which is not what they expected.

Jesus' body disappeared, and was, and he was possibly alive again, which is not what they expected.

Really, they just didn't know what to expect anymore.

And so they were sad.

They felt disoriented.

And in the middle of this, Jesus nonchalantly just starts walking with these two men as they're walking away from the epicenter of events in Jerusalem.

They're walking to a town Emmaus, and they're talking as they're walking.

He joins them in incognito, which is kind of a thing that Jesus does.

He loves to just kind of jump in.

And uh he's curious about what they're talking about.

And he joins them in their disorientation and and he listened to the story they told and the interpretation of the story that they told.

And when they had finished their interpretation of everything they had said, he finally chimed in, and once again, it is not what you would expect.

He's with these guys, and and uh, and after they finish their telling of the story, he stops them and says, Hey, you are foolish.

You fools, you're slow to believe the prophets.

Why, why is why are you so slow to believe everything that was said?

And it is funny because it's not really the picture of what you'd expect of the comforting Jesus or the Jesus that shows up with a lot of empathy and in a time of disorientation.

Not that he doesn't do that, but in this particular place, he he was helping them connect with the fact that they were missing a huge part of the story.

And then he continues to not offer them advice or even preach one last sermon while he had a chance.

Instead, he connects the plot points of a larger story, walking them through the Torah, the prophets, he starts to show them the arc of history is pointing to himself and the coming kingdom of God.

He anchors their small personal experience into a larger story.

And as he did that, as he opened up the scriptures from the beginning to the end, something lit up in their hearts.

And the only thing that they could respond to later on, as they reflected on this little walk with a man they didn't at first know, they were reminded later on that, oh yeah, as he was walking us through the story, wasn't there a fire that was lit from our inmost being?

That's what we were feeling.

He was connecting us with something bigger than what we were thinking.

How many of you know that that's what Jesus loves to do?

He connects us with a bigger story.

And so last week, if you were here, we started a conversation about our need to revisit the scriptures and its authority in our lives.

Authority is not necessarily a popular word these days.

Um, again, I say that with a little trepidation, but it's true.

The authority of the scriptures, the authority of God's word, as as we as we hold the scriptures together and we interpret the scriptures rightly, uh, it has a bearing in our lives, right?

And if we're following Jesus, then like Jesus, we must have our anchor into a biblical worldview, which means just seeing the world like God sees the world.

That's all that means.

Have a biblical worldview is as simple as this.

Do I see the world like God sees the world?

What is heaven's reality?

And that's always the challenge before us is to adjust our vision and our worldview to is this how you see my life?

Is this how you see the events of the world?

Is this how you see the arc of history, right?

And so we have to anchor our lives in a biblical worldview.

Otherwise, like we talked about, when we don't do that, then what we end up with is a really flimsy mix and match worldview that really at the end of the day just buckles under the pressure of big questions and societal demands.

And that's mostly, you know, in our time of history, in our place of history, uh, most of the worldview we end up with is kind of a mix and match, choose your own adventure.

I'll take a little bit of this, a little bit of that, but it just cannot bear the weight of bigger problems, the bigger things that we go after.

And we believe that the scriptures do, the scripture can bear the weight, the God of the scripture can bear the weight, and we can anchor in and believe that he holds us up and he's anchoring us into a larger story.

So if I were to sum it, some summarize though, this, you know, what I want to get into today, it's this.

The Bible is more than bullet points to believe in.

The Bible is one cohesive story we must live in.

Okay?

The Bible is more than bullet points to believe in.

The Bible is one cohesive story that we must live in, right?

Sometimes it's easy as Christians to just say, all right, what does what does the Bible say?

How do I make a list of the right things to believe so I can follow Jesus in the right ways?

And and again, not that that won't bring good into your life on some level, but the greater opportunity as we come into this book, into the scriptures, is like Jesus to be able to map the plot points from the beginning and to the end so that we can not only see what the story is about, but we can step into the story and realize that upon stepping into the story, meaning and purpose explode in our lives in a new way.

Are you guys with me?

Are you guys with me today?

Okay, thank you, thank you.

Just needed a little bit of that.

So here's how we often approach the scripture.

There's a kind of a few things we do.

One, we see it as a disconnected, as disconnected stories with a moral point.

All right?

Disconnected stories and moral point, kind of like Aesop's Fables.

Have you ever read Aesop's Fables?

Just like a short story, and it has a point.

And if I just learn that valuable lesson, I can move on.

So Daniel and the Lions then then becomes a story that if you're faithful and don't badmouth whoever's in charge of you, God will spare your life.

All right, which, yeah, you know, is kind of a general principle.

It's not it's not a bad kind of working theory.

Or Samson and Delilah, right?

Samson and Deliah, strongman Samson, right?

Which, you know, if you read that as just kind of a simple isolated story, th story with a point, it's about uh that it's not it's not good to trust scantily clad women with scissors, all right?

It's a story with a point.

Adam and Eve.

Never never receive fruit from a naked woman, all right?

Um, you could take stories and apply points to them, all right?

And not that they're all wrong, but it's it's a short-sighted view.

It leaves us with a very anemic, shallow view of what these stories actually are in the scripture.

So we often see this story, disconnected stories, all with a point of how I'm supposed to live my life.

The other thing we do with the scripture, though, is we read it all as stories that are really, at the end of the day, about us.

They're all about us, right?

And so we read the stories and we superimpose our story, usually as the good guy in the story.

And so, Dave and Goliath, you we read the story, and really David and Goliath is a story story about me facing the giants in my life.

And my boss is clearly the giant, right?

Your boss is the giant, you're the underdog, David, and the five smooth stones are the five emails you're gonna send them this Monday to tell them, you know, set things straight and show them how it is.

And so we find these parallels and we just kind of work ourselves into the story.

Funny enough, you know, we read a story like that, we're never Goliath in the story, right?

We're always David in the story when we read it like that.

We're always the good guy, we're always the hero, the protagonist in the story.

Um, because we love, and it's it's a natural thing that we do that.

It's called narrative transportation.

Something happens in stories, I'll talk about that in a second.

But something happens in a narrative where we transport ourselves as if we're in the story.

And again, it's not that you can't read a story of the Bible, Daniel and the Lion's and Jonah and the whale, Noah and the Ark, all these kind of classic what we'd call children's stories of the Old Testament.

It's not that you can't read that and draw personal significance from that, but when you but it changes in meaning and dynamic and depth when we see it as part of a larger arc of what God is doing, namely pointing to the person in the work of Jesus in the stories, right?

So Joshua and the Walt of Jericho, it's not about you marching around your neighbor's house seven times, right?

It's not about you yelling at people to kind of get, you know, get them to do what you want them to do.

It's it's a story about God moving among his people.

David and Goliath is a story about the enemies of God coming against his people and one who would who would come against the enemy once and for all, one who would raise up into his identity.

And so it's it's foreshadowing what would happen in the life of Jesus.

So we read the stories, the stories about us, which again, it's not necessarily always wrong.

I've I read stories like that too, but there's more to it, okay?

Then third thing, third way we often read the Bible is we dissect it as if it's in a laboratory.

We take them the Bible and we hold it under a microscope and we dissect and we analyze, and we, and what we do is we have fragmented the Bible into bits.

We have the moral bits, the systematic theology bits, the devotional bits, the historical critical bits, the narrative bits, the homiletical bits.

We just a lot of bits.

And it's like when I go into the basement and all of the Legos are scattered on the floor of the basement, and it's like a it's like walking on glass in the basement.

They're like they're not put together.

It's just bits of all of these things.

And and again, there's nothing wrong with analyzing certain language pieces and certain parts of the Bible, understanding what it means, but it removes it.

Oftentimes, what happens, and when we separate the Bible into all these different bits, it removes it from a larger sense of this is what God is doing throughout history.

Imagine reading a couple paragraphs of the Lord of the Rings without reading the entire novel and just trying to make sense of the story.

That would be really difficult to just open it up and just kind of read a few parts and meditate on it, you know what I'm saying, and then try to like appreciate the larger story.

Everything is in context of this larger thing that God is doing.

And this is what we see in Jesus that when Jesus read the scriptures, he always read it through a lens of this is what God was saying in the law, this is what God was saying in the prophets and the Psalms, and he was anchoring his disciples in the fulfillment and how he was fulfilling this, all the covenants, all the promises of God, but how the story was going a certain direction.

This is what the apostles did as they were establishing the church, as they were establishing the people into the scriptures.

They weren't just teaching them bullet points of here's what you need to believe to be a good Bible-believing Christian.

They were talking about what God was doing through the ages and this sweeping narrative of love and drama and death and rescue and rebellion and ultimately renewal and restoration.

It's one large story.

See, the story of the scriptures, the story that we come to humbly, day after day.

Is a story of God's unfolding plan for the ages beginning with creation, ending with the setting up of his kingdom.

It's a story that starts in a garden and ends in a garden city.

It's a story about God's pursuit of his people that out of love we were given free will, an agency to know what to do with the free will.

And God trusted enough enough to give us free will, to choose him, but we chose ourselves instead.

We chose to trust in ourselves.

But through this fragmented relationship, through the law, he made a way to tabernacle among us.

And then through the prophets and the Psalms, he started to announce a new day that he would be making all things right.

And he would call his people back into right relationship with him.

And he would make covenants or promises to Abraham and to Moses and to David that one day he would make for himself a new family, a people, a kingdom that would have no end.

And he would send someone who would make it right.

And but even though he kept his side of the promises, his people, us, the the human, the human condition, we did not keep our promises.

We got distracted.

We turned towards idols, we gave our way ourselves to ways of injustice, and we were allured away from his heart into other ways.

But God was patient and he was patient and he kept calling back and calling back.

And then when the time was right, it all cultivated as we know, cold culminated with the coming of his son Jesus, who came as a baby.

He put on flesh to live among us, ultimately to be subjected to the very hands that betrayed him in the first place, the hands of sinful men that would bring him to death.

But as going to death, he held the keys out of the grave.

He took the keys from the grave, and with it he erupted from that tomb, dismantling the ultimate power of sin and death forever.

And walking out of the grave, he initiated what we can now call Project Resurrection, which started with the commissioning of his twelve disciples, and then ultimately the church, which is the renewed people of God, to join him in the work of announcing his rule and reign in all of earth, calling sons and daughters home to be in his family until one day he returns and finally writes all that has been wrong.

And we will be with him forever, just as we were singing.

We will be with him forever in his glory, and the dwelling place of God will be among his people forever and ever and ever.

Come on.

Amen.

Amen.

Now there's a lot of ways to frame in the story.

That was my two-minute version of framing in the story, but it's a story that's not disconnected.

It's a story that's going somewhere, it's a story that we enter into.

Because the reality is we all are actually living into a story.

Just like last week, we talked about everybody actually has a worldview.

You can't have a non-world view.

That's actually a worldview.

Okay?

It's called nihilism, it's called meaninglessness.

That's that's actually a way of interpreting events.

In the same way, you can we all live into a story.

The question is, what story are we living into?

This is huge.

This is massive for us in our day and time.

Because humans are storytelling beings.

It's how God wired our brains to make sense of the world.

It's why 30% of your day is daydreaming.

Okay?

When you're at work or you're listening to me, hopefully not.

When you're in a place that's not engaging of your senses, your brain actually kicks into daydreaming because it's a survival instinct.

Your brain is wired to say, if this, I can't make sense of why this particular situation matters in my life.

So I'm gonna start thinking about a really interesting story about what I'm gonna do later this afternoon.

Or what I need to get done, or that project I need to finish.

Because it's actually more interesting to your brain.

And that's why we dream at night.

It's amazing that when you dream at night, your brain could just shut off and just power down.

It actually starts telling stories about the day.

You start dreaming.

Isn't it so bizarre, your dream life?

You start telling yourself the most bizarre stories, and God starts, I think, I believe our spirits are open up, and God gives us dreams as well to unlock parts of our spirits because we're we're made to imagine.

This is how we're actually wired.

And if we're not living in an interesting story, we will find one to attach ourselves to.

So we actually have to pay attention to what is the story I'm actually living out in my life, what is the story I'm entering into.

So we're wired that way.

Some of you guys know that I've spent some time studying the elements of story as it relates to business leaders and organizations, helping them tell a story.

It's called story branding your business because every business, every your work actually needs a story to attach itself to.

When you don't have a story that you know what you do from nine to five or with your life is actually making a difference, then it actually leads to a miserable existence.

But when you reinterpret what you're doing, and I believe every every person can, by the way, no matter how mundane your job is, when you reinterpret your day-to-day through a lens of what story is this telling?

How is this making a contribution into the world?

How am I joining Jesus in his work towards the restoration and renewal of all things?

It's actually what leads to joy and happiness and purpose and meaning.

And we need that.

That's how we we were we were made to live with meaning.

We were made to have a storyline so that we know that the daily activities, the things that we give ourselves to matter.

And when they don't, we start daydreaming.

And that's why you can actually go to a movie and sit through a three-hour movie and never once does your brain daydream.

Not a single time.

Because it's connecting into a story that's act that's interesting.

It's why we love movies, it's why we love novels, it's why storytelling is very important to the human experience.

But when we lose the plot, we're more susceptible to being co-opted into someone else's story for our lives.

Or a story or an ideology that's prominent in our day that has a storytelling feature to it.

Okay?

So let me just get in the weeds here a little bit.

Can't make it through the sermon without ruffling a few feathers, alright?

Um oftentimes, like right now, it's been said that in America, politics is the new religion.

What used to be reserved, like the zeal and passion of our hearts, what used to be reserved for the faith, has been hijacked by the political spirit.

And what has been reserved as passion and fire for God, often right these days is actually being channeled into the left and the right.

Do you guys know what I'm talking about?

And zeal that we're made to live with, zeal and fire and boldness, it's actually being channeled into for other types of purposes and other types of stories and different types of storylines.

And so that's where in our particular culture there's a couple that we see.

This is on both sides of the party line.

Um, but so on one side, that's where a phrase like make America great again.

It's a really well-crafted uh uh plot point.

It's a storyline that pulls people into a story.

And the idea is that uh that America is was once great, and our our our their main job, our main job of this kind of time in history is that America would become great again, right?

And so, and obviously everybody in this room, I'm sure, we pray for our country, we love our nation, we pray for revival in our nation, we pray for God's leaders and God's ways to flood our nation.

Um, but when you hold that phrase and the zeal that we see for a phrase like make America great again, when we hold it up to the scriptures, we have to just be reminded the scriptures, the ultimate point of the scriptures aren't make America great again.

That's not the point.

That's not what God's doing.

That might be a part, you know, that the what's happening in our nation might be a subplot of a larger thing, but it's a very small subplot.

The story of the scriptures aren't just about America.

Okay?

It's not just about what's going on in our nation, it's about the entire world, it's about the entire cosmos, it's about the nations of the world coming together.

And it's wild because even you look at statistically where the faith is growing around the world, it's not in the states, not even in the northern hemisphere.

The future of the churches in Africa and Asia and South America, specifically in Brazil, that's the future of the church.

The future of the leaders of the church, the future theologians, arguably the ones now, they just we just don't listen to them a whole lot, are actually coming from Africa.

And the charismatic, the Pentecostal church is the fastest growing church in all of the world.

The power of God is exploding all around the world, and it's not originating from the United States right now.

Now, we can take a phrase like make America great again and call it call each other back into a thing.

I just wanted to use that as one example, though, of a storyline that it taps into the deepest passion of our human existence, but it doesn't actually capture the full weight of what God is doing in the scriptures and the story arc of the whole thing.

Are you guys with me?

All right, you can disagree with me, and which is totally fine.

Okay?

This is a safe place to disagree with.

And by the way, when we make some of these kind of political commentaries, that kind of stuff, we invite conversation, let's talk about it, let's get in the conversations, okay?

That's what we're here for, all right?

So that's kind of on the the other side.

Um uh that's kind of on one side of the political scripture.

On the other side, we have what that I would just label as the myth of mess of modern Western progress.

And and there's this idea that because we have advances in science and medicine and technology, there's a belief that humans are always just progressing and that we are we are now now in 2023, we're enlightened in ways that other parts of the world are not enlightened, other times of history know nothing of, and so we've kind of arrived at this peak human existence.

Um uh that really uh at the bottom line, it calls us to believe that really at this point we don't actually need God to get to where we need to go.

It's humans that can do this, and so silly constructs like religion actually limit us from being able to progress into things that science can teach us, and and religion and belief in God and faith.

They were good for a certain part of human history, but they were primitive, archaic modes of living that actually repress us at the end of the day and repress people.

So if we can just now abandon those types of limited thinking and pursue what is possible through human achievement, we can save the world, we can get back on track, we can finally achieve progress.

A former president um uh used the phrase um the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice, all right?

And this was a common phrase that he used.

The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice, um, which is actually a phrase that was borrowed from uh Martin Luther King Jr.

in a sermon that he did.

But it was kind of used in two different ways, I would argue.

Martin Luther King Jr., when he would say the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice, that's assuming that there's somebody bending the world towards justice, that we're living into a way of lives.

So Martin Luther King Jr.

had a high view of the scriptures and a high view of living into the scriptures, and as we do, it actually releases justice.

But it's being also used in our day, the arc of moral universe is long but it bends towards justice.

It's also being used to say if we just keep going, then the natural progression of human effort is going to be justice all the way around.

But that's not what we see, that's not what we see all the way around.

When we leave it to ourselves, we're not seeing a world that's just repairing itself altogether.

Certain pockets are.

We're seeing certain advances, and those should be celebrated in technology and science.

There's certain ways that our lives are more flourishing than they did 100 years ago.

There's other ways that we are still just as depraved and in need of God, and even more so than we were 100 years ago.

Pin drop.

So so we oftentimes think in 2023 there's this elitism of modern times.

We believe that newer is truer, that recent is decent, that every new shift is actually for the better.

It's actually it's just not true.

It's what CL C.

That we have progressed to this lab, and guys, it we could we could we could talk about that for a long time, but the truth is there's some parts of progressing, there's parts that we are desperately, we have a gap, there's a void that only God can fill.

We need the wisdom and the mind of God in our world.

So back to the main plot point here though, these storylines.

If we're not careful, if we don't know what story we're living into, we can enter ourselves into other stories.

We can enter into the story of I'm going to crush my career so I can retire with X amount of dollars in my bank account.

Again, it's not necessarily wrong.

It's it's it's a mediocre story though.

It actually, you when you live that story, you're gonna find time after time people that get to this that high point, that mountain summit top, and they get there and they realize this isn't as good as I thought it was gonna be.

We have stories about certain kinds of relationships, certain kinds of pursuits, certain kinds of dreams.

And again, ambition is good, uh, goals and pursuits are awesome, but when they're not rooted in a larger framework, we're actually left wishing that there was something more because it's how we're designed.

We're designed to live into a better story.

And so going back to the scriptures, when we read the scriptures, what we should be doing as we're reading the scriptures is to ask the question, God, how is what I'm reading revealing more of who you are and what you're doing?

How is what I'm reading revealing more of who you are and what you are doing?

We're reading through these the scriptures of the Old Testament.

How is this more than the story, but how is it foreshadowing what you're doing?

I want to show you a video that really just creatively captures Jesus as the plot, as the hero, as the protagonist, as the one that all the scriptures are pointing to.

I want you to take a look at this and we'll just continue from there.

The story of Adam and Eve is not just about the first man and woman.

There is a true and better Adam who passed the test in the garden and whose obedience is ascribed to us.

There is a true and better Abel who, though innocently slain, has blood that cries out not for our condemnation, but for our acquittal.

There is a true and better Abraham, who answered the call of God to leave all the comfortable and familiar and go out into the void to create a new people of God.

There is a true and better Isaac, the son of laughter, of grace, who was not just offered up by his father on the mountain, but was truly sacrificed for us all.

There is a true and better Jacob who wrestled and took the blow of justice we deserve.

So we like Jacob only received the wounds of grace that wake us up and discipline us.

There is the true and better Joseph who at the right hand of the king forgives those who betrayed himself him and uses his will power to save them.

There was the true and better Moses who stands in the gap between the people of the Lord and the leading new company.

There was the true and better block of Moses, who the block of God's justice.

There was a true and better job.

The true and innocent.

There was a true and better day.

There was a true and better desk.

Did it just waste the color heavenly?

Did he just waste his life?

There was a true and better.

There was a true and better.

The two land, the true light, and the true man.

The Bible is not a series of disconnected stories.

It is a single narrative that points to one person.

Jesus.

Yeah.

That's so good, huh?

It points to Jesus.

So this morning, I want to, as we kind of end our time here together, I just want to leave it at that.

There's a couple things I want to pray into.

I just want to invite you across the room, though.

Let's just close our eyes together.

And just begin to listen for the voice of the Holy Spirit.

Holy Spirit, we welcome you.

Speak to us this morning.

Regarding your word, regarding the stories that we live in.

They were everywhere they would go, they were surrounded by it like a whole library of books.

And it almost represented just all of the ideas and opinions and just ways of thinking.

And they just everywhere they go, they're surrounded by books, but then God would kind of clear it out or choose just one or two books and and bring those to the front and center.

And I I just had a sense that even this morning, there's some of us here that when you're thinking about your own life, it just feels it does feel like you've lost the plot a little bit.

And maybe like the two men on the road to Emmaus, you're walking away from something, maybe a season of life that was just very disorienting.

Maybe you're still in it.

And it's hard to make sense of.

And you're listening to me talk and you're thinking, gosh, I don't know what's where I'm living.

I have no idea.

That might feel a little confusing, that might feel a little discouraging.

But I just felt like the Lord wanted to remind you today that He He sees it all, He sees the arc of your story, that He has not left you alone, and even the things that have happened to you, the things that were out of your control.

I just believe that He's He's remind He wants to remind you today of His His His arc of story in your story, that He is planning, He's purposing to redeem all things for your glory and your good, for His glory and your good.

And I just want to speak over you today if you feel just a sense, this kind of shroud of mystery or even discouragement, to know that you are a part of what God has doing.

He calls you son, He calls you daughter, He calls you co-laborer to join Him in the work He's doing in all of the world to restore and renew all things.

You're blessed where you are, and it's okay to be where you are.

But God has more for you, He has destined great things for you.

Maybe just different ideology.

It's like you just know that you've been spending too much time watching certain kinds of news or too engaged in certain kinds of conversations.

It's actually sapping you of joy at the end of the day.

And I just want to, I just believe that what the invitation from the Lord today is come back to my heart.

Pay attention to my heart, pay attention to what I'm doing.

Look into my eyes, pay attention, come back into the story of what I'm doing.

Find your meaning there.

Thank you, God.

See, there's coming a day where we'll see him face to face.

We're gonna see Jesus face to face.

I just want you to think about the story that we're living in.

Results in us face to face with Jesus.

No more distance, no more delay, no more confusion.

We will see our Creator, we'll see the one we're made for, and our whole life will be reinterpreted through the lens of His work and His glory.

And He'll wipe every tear from our eye.

He will make all things new again.

So this morning, God, we thank you, Jesus, that we're not just left with bullet points, we're left with a story where death is already defeated, resurrection is already possible, and the end has already been written.

God, that you are calling us to yourself and you are determined to make for yourself a people, and you're calling the whole world to know you, to know your goodness, to know your mercy, to know your heart.

And I thank you today, Lord Jesus, that we would once again respond to the good news of the gospel, of your desire to dwell among your people and even dwell among us now, that we would be a part.

We wouldn't just be a number, a new number of people, God, but we are each people with names that are dear to your heart, that have purpose and meaning and significance.

We belong to you, Jesus, and so we thank you, God, that we are part of your epic story for all of eternity.

We love you, God.

We love you, Jesus.

Let's sing this song together.

Come back to the Harvard of Worship, and it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing of making it when it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship.

It's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing of me when it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'll bring you more than a soul more than us.

I'll bring you more than a soul more than us.

I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing of made it, when it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it when it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

I'm sorry, Lord, for the thing I've made it, when it's all about you, it's all about you, Jesus.

Thank you, God.

Thank you, Jesus, to draw attention back to you.

God, would you reveal yourself to us in the scriptures, Lord God?

Would you teach us as we read the Bible, Holy Spirit, we invite you to walk with us through the scriptures, Lord God, to illuminate yourself, to illuminate your work, to illuminate the kingdom of heaven, so that we can be a part of what you're doing, God.

I bless the lookout community this morning, that would be ones to devour your word, hungry for it, hungry for you, Lord Jesus, and that we would not be ones prone to be distracted or sidelined by all the push and pull of conversations and opinions around us, Lord God, but we stay rooted and grounded in the story that is reality.

It's the story of you, Jesus.

That's your name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

A couple things.

Uh, first of all, next week, um, we've invited uh one of my personal favorite teachers and kind of expert on the subject, Mary Jean Powers.

She's gonna be here with us next week, and she's gonna give some more practical handholds of how we enter into the scriptures and what to look for and the questions to ask as we actually come into the scriptures to read it properly, to handle the word of God with confidence.

And she's gonna, she's she's the best I know on this topic.

You want to be here next week as we're gonna explore that together.

I believe that's gonna be so important in the days ahead.

Um, you guys like Mary Jean Powers, any Mary Jean Powers fans?

So she'll she'll be with a phenomenal Bible teacher, okay?

Second thing is this, and in two weeks from today, we're doing something as a community as we're coming into the fall.

Um it's it's a 21-day fast of sorts that we're just calling renew your mind.

And and what it is, uh it's gonna be a fast, not just a traditional food fast, and maybe that would be what it is for you.

Uh, but the question that we're asking is what consumes your attention?

That you can re redirect to the word of God for a renewal of your mind and a renewal of your identity.

So what consume, what in your life right now is consuming the bulk of your attention, that you can redirect for 21 days to the word of God for the renewal of your mind and renewal of your identity.

For some people that might that might be food, and so that the dietary part might be part of it.

It could be you're gonna fast news or TV or social media or screen times or certain kinds of books.

Maybe you fast your kids.

Hello?

Just joking.

Fast laundry, right?

Um, no, uh, you it's up to you.

It's up to you.

And this is just an invitation, there's no pressure to do anything.

Which is we sense that as we're coming in the fall, to set aside some time where we believe the Lord's saying, I want, I want, I want you to return your focus to me in a specific way.

That's gonna mean the elimination of something so that we can supplement it with more time in the scriptures.

We're gonna have a kind of a 21-day devotional journey together on with the renewal of our minds and our identities.

I just want to plant that seed with you that's gonna start launching just a couple weeks on September 10th, okay?

And uh, and again, I believe this is all part of God washing us in the water of his word, establishing us in the scriptures.

All right, are you guys stoked about that or what?

All right, let's stand together.

Let's stand together today.

As we end here today, um, I'm gonna invite our prayer ministry team to come forward.

They're gonna be up front and maybe on the sides, you're gonna see a purple badge.

And if you want prayer for anything today, maybe you want to enter into the story God has for you in your life, maybe you want prayer about the things that we talked about today, come forward and get prayer.

If you want prayer for healing in your body, come forward and get prayer.

If you are uh newer to the community and you want to get a lay of the land and kind of figure out what's going on and uh how to get connected, plugged in.

If you want to meet a pastor, I want you to go to the back of the room on your way out.

You're gonna see a sign that says connect with us on the way out.

You'll see it as soon as you go out.

It'll say connect with us, follow that person, just hang with that person.

They're gonna take you back to the connect hub and uh give you some free gifts and tell you a little bit more about the church.

And then if you have kids, go uh sprint and get them and pull them back up here for some conversation.

You no need to leave, but just bring them back in and uh and um and continue conversation.

So, God, we thank you today for your word.

We thank you for your spirit among us, God.

And I bless your work among us, that your scriptures come alive as we go.

We go in the name of Jesus.

So I bless you to go in the name of the Father and in the Son and the Holy Spirit to be the people of God wherever your steps lead you.

In Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

Love you guys, have an awesome day.