The Story Of The Tree(s)

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It used a lot of visual elements that you'll need to see in order to get the full experience.

And thank you so much for being part of what God is doing at His Hands.

Good morning.

It's uh great to be all together and just like Dallas described, uh worshiping with each other and and Jesus and uh thank God for his Holy Spirit uh to give us joy.

You know, it doesn't look like any of the local football teams are going to this year, so we need him more than uh more than ever.

Um if it's your first time here or if you're kind of new to his hands, uh we're really glad you're here.

Hope you can tell, you can just relax and uh and be yourself.

Um I think our message isn't hey, we get it all together, and you can too.

It's that uh you know we're all in process.

We all need God.

And uh thankfully Jesus is changing all of our lives uh and he's doing it as we get together.

And so it's a it's a good thing.

We'd love to have you part of it.

If you'd like some more information on uh what we're up to and why there's some of these brochures scattered in different parts of the building for sure at the infodesk and at the uh uh kids check-in area, so feel free to grab one of those.

Just really uh one quick announcement that's a reminder about uh giving.

We got a couple special things, I guess special needs right now.

Uh the biggest is uh the need to replace our roof, you know, so we have a building, not an amphitheater.

And uh that's expensive, but um you know, God's given us such a great building, it really is a joy to be able to take care of it, and so it's functional, and uh not just functional, but just such a beautiful place uh to honor Him and for us to get together.

So we can give it to uh stations in the back online.

There's uh His Hands app if you haven't downloaded that's got the messages and different things there, but uh you can also give um that way.

And so thank you for um that.

Uh at the back is also prayer stations, and so if you have any need at all, um please jot it down on a card and put it in the in the slot there.

Uh we've got a whole prayer team that would just love to combine all their faith uh with yours and uh pray about whatever it is that uh you might need help with uh this morning.

And God's thankfully, God's done miracles.

I mean, really every week he does some sort of uh miracle in answer to those uh prayer requests.

And so please do that.

You can probably tell we're gonna do something a little different uh this morning.

We're starting a new uh series.

It's something that the Holy Spirit gave uh Ben Sykes.

And it's I guess a fresh way of kind of looking at uh how God's Spirit and His plan flows through the entire Bible.

Um it's uh after this morning, Ben's gonna do an introduction, and then we're gonna look at eight different Bible stories, uh, each involving a promise and each involving a tree.

And by the end of the time, we will have uh really seen what God's plan is for all creation and uh also what his plan is for each of us individually, and even where we each fit right now on God's kind of eternal uh timeline.

So uh it really should be a good couple of months.

Marlon Yoders uh painting a special painting each week to go along with uh and reflect the story uh as it unfolds.

And so I'm excited to get started and uh let's let's pray.

Abba Father, Daddy Father, we just praise you.

We thank you for being such a great God, for loving us, just as we are, for adopting us as your very own children.

Holy Spirit, we praise you for being our comforter, but also uh being our teacher, and we ask that this morning you'd teach each of us something directly from you, that we'll know that we came away with something you meant for us: an encouragement, uh a help, uh uh a conviction, whatever it is that we need uh this morning.

And Jesus, we just praise you for being our Savior, for being our boss, and for being our friend.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

Well, good morning.

Currently, I'm really gonna do this.

I can't believe they actually talked me into doing this.

This is obviously a little kind of a weird setup, and I'll tell you the story behind it.

And you can see there's a camera down here, and you're gonna see what I'm drawing.

I'm not an artist at all.

So if if you while I'm doing this, if you it's part of your brain is like, does he realize he's really not particularly good at this?

I do understand that.

It's part of it.

It's actually part of the illustration.

I'm just just go with it, you know.

So this started almost about a year ago.

I was minding my own business, reading the Bible.

I should have known better.

And I come across one of these passages when Jesus is he's about to leave and he's telling his disciples that he's going to be crucified, he's gonna rise again three days later, and and he's excited about sending the Holy Spirit to him.

And so he's trying to explain that this is gonna be a comforter and this is gonna be a great encouragement to you.

And when I read that, this quick thought in my just in my mind, I thought, well, that's just sad.

You know, Jesus is gonna leave and he's gonna be gone from his friends and they're gonna miss him.

And I can't wait for him to come back.

And, you know, but I guess we have the Holy Spirit now, you know, and it was kind of like you know, a consolation prize.

And and immediately in my spirit, God was like, Oh my goodness, no.

You you need a whole fresh understanding of just how important the Holy Spirit is, like we just sang about.

And I, it's you know, there's things that you know, and then you keep learning on deeper kind of levels.

So then almost immediately after getting that conviction, like you need a bigger view of the Holy Spirit and what he's doing, uh, God said, and this was oddly specific, he doesn't normally get this specific with me, but he says, it would be good for you, Ben, to be able to just keep in mind the plot, the overall story of the Bible in like, you know, 20 or 30 minutes, whatever, just so you could retell it to yourself.

And I just thought that was strange.

And I didn't really know how that related to the whole Holy Spirit thing.

And uh so I had I I kind of fought that for a couple months, honestly, and uh I tried to talk God out of it, tell him it was a bad idea.

And I had a couple main reasons why I thought this was a bad idea.

Number one, uh, it just seemed really um like I would miss a ton of details.

There's so many important things in the Bible, and I love that, and I love just kind of digging in and you know going into the details, and I'm a detail kind of guy, and so I'm clearly a bad choice to do that, and so I tried to talk him out of it.

And he said, Well, I I hear you, but I'd still like for you to do exactly what I originally asked.

And uh I was like, okay, so then I went to my fallback objection, and my fallback was, uh, God, it just this seems like a lot of work.

And I already have a job.

Thank you very much.

And uh and he's like, I I understand, and I'd actually like for you to do exactly what I originally told you to do.

And so it was around the same time frame I was in the spring, I was about to go and teach the junior high on Wednesdays, like I've done a few times.

And so Justin asked me what I might want to do, and I said, Well, apparently God's gonna have me doing this, you know, I'm gonna be stuck doing this anyway.

So I might as well kill two birds with one stone and and you know, take the junior high through the Bible in eight weeks.

And he thought that was great, that's cool.

So then once I realized I was gonna do it with the junior high and I was locked in, then I figured there needed to be some kind of visual to go along with it, to try to remind myself where I was in the story and be consistent for the different weeks and just give them something to look at.

Otherwise, it would just be a ton of information and really boring.

So I tried to come up with, you know, like a timeline.

I tried to cheat and go online, maybe somebody's written a book on this or something.

And I didn't get anything.

And uh and I try, you know, draw a big line and maybe divide it for you know when Israel and Judah split, and it's good to remember.

Everything just seemed really boring.

And uh really the only thing that was helpful, it was like in Acts, when uh the church is starting to explode, and then you've got Peter and he's hauled before the chief priests, and he gives this sermon, and he just starts at the beginning and he goes, it does an overview.

That's about the right length.

Or when Stephen is falsely accused and he stands and he gives that defense and goes through the Old Testament.

That was was really helpful.

So finally, I just said, I'm gonna put my pen down on the paper, and I'm just gonna try to make a turn at every big promise in the story.

And then after a while, I realized what God was doing.

So this is gonna be just like one line type of stick drawing, but it'll help me remind me where I am of the story.

So if it's not helpful for you, just feel the feel free to ignore.

But a lot of us are visual learners.

Like I I was uh driving downtown a few weeks ago, I saw this guy from college, and I hadn't seen him, you know, in 20 years.

And we were finally sitting in the car, and I was driving, and he was looking next to me, and he looks over at me and he was like, I look at your face, and all I can remember is that that illustration we came up with the submarine to memorize the romance uh composers.

And he's like that 20 years later, he remembered that little memory tool that we had.

So this is kind of along those lines.

So this is, I call this the story of the trees, because the Bible begins and ends with a tree, and there's a really important tree that's in the middle.

And inevitably, about every time in the story when God's gonna show up and make a big promise, there's a tree there.

Because there's trees everywhere.

It's not hugely surprising.

And so here's how this goes story of the trees.

So it all starts with a little dot.

And this represents creation, reminds us of that, and it's a perfect circle because God created everything good, and it's small, not because God created the world small, but because uh we see it now from a long distance.

It happened a long, long time ago.

So God created everything, uh heaven and earth, and he created the Garden of Eden and placed Adam and Eve there.

And if I was gonna draw this chapter, so we're dividing the Bible into like eight big chapters, so it's only the first couple chapters that are a little confusing, because I say chapter because I mean the big section just for today, but really the first chapter is the first eleven chapters of the book of Genesis.

Does that make sense?

So the shape of that story again, this is gonna be like crazy fast.

If you have in your mind, like, oh, I hope he he brings up my favorite Bible story, I probably won't.

Sorry.

But uh I would draw this one kind of like this.

It starts like it's gonna be a perfect circle, and then it just doesn't quite match up.

It kind of spirals out of control.

I find I draw this better if I don't, if I kind of hold my breath.

But that kind of works against speaking in front of people.

So I would draw it like this.

It's kind of it's like a circle, but it doesn't match up.

So what we'll find at each one of these chapters is God's gonna show up at a tree and he's gonna make a big promise.

So there are a couple great trees here.

There's the tree of life, and that represents God's continued presence with his people.

That's what he desires.

And then there's the second tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

And that represents this real choice that we have to just kind of come up with our own plan.

So sure enough, Adam and Eve choose that, and they eat that fruit, and creation falls.

That's the shape of this.

And death enters the picture.

But even in spite of that, God shows up right at that tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and he makes a promise.

It's almost it feels like a disconnect.

And he says that one day one will be born, a son of Eve, that will defeat death, reverse the fall.

So the theme of this chapter is the hope that death is going to be defeated.

So that's what God's saying.

But in terms of the story, the first 11 chapters, Adam and Eve have Cain and Abel.

Cain kills Abel.

Pretty soon the entire earth, uh, the Bible says, is filled with evil thoughts from morning until evening.

So this individual evil becomes pervasive evil.

So God sends the flood to start over with the with Noah.

But then after the flood, everybody's still really selfish and independent from God.

So the biggest example of this is all the people of the world come together at Babylon, they try to build this big tower as a monument to themselves.

And so God confuses the languages of the people.

So you've got this individual evil becomes pervasive evil, and then the flood, and then that pervasive evil becomes institutional evil.

And then God confuses the languages of the people, and for the first time we have the birth of the nations.

So there's this disconnect, the hope that death is gonna be defeated, and then everything just seems broken, and we've got all these broken nations.

So that's chapter one.

That'll be next week.

So, what's God gonna do with all of this?

God says, I'm gonna go bigger, which is what he always does.

And so, about this is about 2,000 years before Jesus is born, to give you some context.

God comes to a man named Abram, and he renames him Abraham and tells him that he's gonna be the father of a great nation.

And through him all the nations of the world are gonna be blessed.

So he tells them to pick up his family and they go live in a tent in this promised land where they're gonna, where God's gonna bless this family.

And so God gives this great promise to Abraham, but, and Abraham believes it.

He's a man of great faith, and uh, but he also has his own plan.

And he wants, just like Adam and Eve before, uh, he tries to come up with his own plan, and that is by having kids with his servant, because he's really old and he gets impatient, rather than through his wife Sarah, like God had promised.

So God comes to him again, reconfirms his covenant with Abraham.

Abraham laughs at him the second time.

And then, so God comes even a third time, and this third time, God shows up at a tree.

This is the second great tree in the story.

This is the oaks of Mamreh in Genesis.

And God shows up with the Trinity and has a meal with Abraham and his wife, reconfirms the covenant, and sure enough, he says, Within a year, you're gonna have uh a son.

And sure enough, Isaac is born, and uh and Isaac marries Rebekah, and we keep drawing this story.

So they have uh twins, and they have Jacob and Esau.

Jacob steals the birthright from Esau, and Jacob has this general deceiving kind of way, and his way of being deceived, also.

He goes to live with his uncle Laban, and Laban tricks him into marrying both of his daughters.

So he marries Leah, has ten kids with her, and marries Rachel, has a couple kids there.

So right before, we're going really fast.

I know this is crazy, this is kind of absurd what we're doing, but the Bible is really beautiful if you view it really far back like this.

It's like imagine you're you're on an Apollo mission, you're coming back from the moon, and for the first time you're seeing the earth all like that.

And there's a certain kind of detail, so to speak, that you're gonna see at that moment that you'll never see again.

And you can't look at that and go, gosh, I just I'm not seeing my favorite tree on Elm Street.

This is a unique moment to see the whole thing.

So right before Jacob is about to be reconciled with Esau, God comes to him and wrestles with Jacob.

And uh Jacob demands the same blessing like that Abraham has.

And God renames him Israel.

And Israel literally means uh to struggle with God.

So the shape of this drawing for the next few chapters is gonna be this tumbling, because that's what the nation of Israel is doing.

It's wrestling with God.

That's part of their identity, their name is we're struggling with God and his promises.

So those roughly his kids roughly become the twelve tribes of Israel.

So you think maybe now this is gonna become this great nation that was promised to Abraham, his grandfather, but not quite yet.

Here we're getting to the end of Genesis, and instead there's a huge famine in the land.

Joseph, one of the younger sons, is uh is sent into slavery by his brothers, goes to Egypt, and he rises in prominence there, and the entire family has to flee to Egypt in order to survive.

At first they prosper, but then a new Pharaoh comes into play that's threatened by them, and he enslaves this family for 400 years, exactly like God promised to Abraham.

This is what's gonna happen now, they're in slavery.

So the shape of this story, again, it's not gonna line up.

It's like things just don't quite connect.

So the theme of this chapter is the faith that God gives to Abraham, that he's gonna become the father of a great nation, and all the nations are gonna be blessed.

But at the end of the story, Abraham's still living in a tent, he doesn't have any any plot of land, his family's kind of crazy, and they end up enslaved in a whole different country for 400 years.

So God's saying these great things, but the story just doesn't seem to match up.

So, chapter three, what's God gonna do?

God says, I'm going bigger.

That's just who he is.

So now we're about 1300 years before the birth of Jesus, for context, and uh a young Hebrew boy is born in Egypt, Moses.

Moses is raised in the royal family.

When he's about 40, about my age, he kills a guy, murderer, and he has to flee to Midian, where he has uh a family, gets married.

So for another 40 years, he's there.

When he's 80 years old, God shows up to Moses at another tree.

So this is the third great tree in the story.

Okay, technically, this is not a tree.

This is a bush.

This is uh, you just kind of work with me, you know.

This is the burning bush.

God shows up to Moses and he tells him, even though you were rejected as a leader by your people, I'm sending you back so that you can uh free them from slavery, along with your brother Aaron.

And so Moses does this, performs a bunch of miracles, or eventually the Pharaoh uh lets them leave, and they part through the you know the Red Sea and it engulfs Pharaoh's army.

So the first thing God does is he sends them to Mount Sinai.

Moses goes to the top of Mount Sinai and gets from God the Ten Commandments, instructions on how to build the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle.

And so this law that God gives is this tremendous gift because this people, this new nation, they've been in slavery for 400 years.

They don't know how to organize their nation, what it should be like, and God's promising to be physically present with them in the tabernacle.

So what is that like?

What is it like to live in the presence of God?

And so that's what God's communicating in the law.

Thankfully, Jesus summarized the law for us.

So it he said the law is love the Lord your God and love your neighbor as yourself.

So the law is about love.

To live in the presence of God, since God is love, is to learn a life of love.

So that's what God gives to the people, but as you might not be surprised, they say we have our own plan.

Just like Adam and Eve before, just like Abraham at first, so now the people of God at Mount Sinai, they say, you know what, here's our plan.

It's kind of scary listening to God's voice.

So, Moses, why don't you go up to the top of the mountain?

You talk to God for us, you be the middleman, and we'll just tell us what he says.

God even invites the leaders of the nation up to the top of the mountain to have a feast in his presence.

That's the kind of relationship that God wants.

And instead, the people say, just give us the rules.

So it's this great gift to learn how to love, and then our response is we just grab the rules and want to run off on our own with our own plan.

So again, this story is gonna have the same kind of shape that I've been describing.

So they go into the promised land, eventually, Moses dies.

He preaches this great sermon in the book of Deuteronomy.

Joshua is appointed the next leader of the people.

He leads them into the promised land through the Jordan River, and they fight a ton of battles to win the land.

They're finally there, and but times are tough for God's people.

They're attacked constantly by those that are surrounding.

They frequently disobey God.

God's very specific of what he wants them to do, and they just come up with their own plans.

And so times are difficult.

So again, we've gotten to the end of this chapter, so now we're going really fast.

I just did Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Joshua.

So at the end of that, Joshua, they're in the promised land, and then God appoints a series of judges to the people and to help rally them at key times.

And they do a great job sometimes militarily.

Some of them are great, like Deborah and Samson and Gideon, but others are really wicked.

The book of Judges is just crazy.

It's like a beheading every chapter.

But the last judge is Samuel that arises for the people, and that takes us uh to this next chapter.

So the people, just right off the bat in this chapter, they come before Samuel and they say, We have an idea, we have our own plan.

We want to have an earthly king.

And God speaks uh through Samuel and tells them, I, God, want to be your king.

And they say, You know what, we want to try our own plan instead.

God says, This will not work.

So finally, God relents, and Samuel uh anoints Saul to be the first uh king.

So Saul is is typically uh a disobedient king.

So God tells him, another king is going to be anointed in your place.

Samuel anoints David, the second king of Israel, and uh David David's a young shepherd boy, slays Goliath, becomes a great army captain, marries into the royal family.

A lot of these stories everybody knows.

So David's a much different kind of king.

He has a heart for God, and he even writes some of the psalms that are in the Bible.

So the first Psalm actually describes a tree, and this is going to be the fourth great tree in our story.

Psalm describes one who loves the law, like in the last chapter, as being one who's like a tree firmly planted by the streams of water that produces its fruit in its season.

So I think that is the heart of a true king.

To look at the law, to being in God's presence, and to mount yourself right there to understand how to lead.

And that's what David desires.

He has that desire to lead in that way.

So that's the great promise of this chapter.

This is the chapter of the kingdom when everything should come together.

But David has his own plan.

As you might not be surprised to hear at this point, David, uh, when he should be off fighting, he goes and commits adultery, has the husband uh killed to cover up his crime, and he repents, has this long reign, and uh David is gener generally prospers the people.

And he has this great desire that he would build the uh temple to replace the tabernacle that was just a tent.

But God tells him, actually, his son is gonna do this.

So now that we've drawn the little dot for the tree, let's continue the story.

Oh no, I broke my lead.

Okay.

So this story again continues to spiral like this.

But don't be concerned, we're gonna have a little different shape to the story soon.

So David wants to build the temple, and God tells him his son Solomon's gonna do it instead.

But God does give a great promise to David, and this is the great promise of this chapter.

He tells David that one day one will arise from your line that will be a king forever.

This forever perfect king is the promise.

So Solomon comes on the throne, he's extremely wise, he writes several books of the Bible, but Solomon's uh reign quickly goes offline when he takes 700 wives from surrounding nations, which is easily like 699 wives, too many.

It becomes, in my own experience, so it becomes a bit of a distraction for Solomon.

And so things get so crazy.

God tells Solomon that at the end of your reign, the nation is gonna split into two.

So that's what I've done here to illustrate and to remind us that the nation splits.

So the first uh the ten tribes to the north split off and they're called Israel, and the two tribes to the south split off and they're called uh Judah.

So Judah survives for a few more generations than Israel.

That's why the line is a little bit longer there.

It's important when we read the Bible to remember that because it gets kind of confusing once you get into these books, like 1 and 2 Kings, 1st and 2 Samuel Chronicles, Ezra and Nehemiah.

There's like two different nations, and they have their own procession of kings for each one.

Both nations are overthrown.

Uh first, it's the nation of Israel, and they're overthrown by the Assyrians, and they're taken into captivity.

Uh, eventually, some of them come back to Jerusalem.

But the nation of Judah survives for a few more generations, but eventually the Babylonians uh take them over, and they're taken into exile in Babylon.

Daniel is one of the guys that's taken uh to exile there.

He rises to prominence and interprets dreams, and we have that great book of the Bible.

So most of these kings are typically evil.

They're not looking to the law to really lead and to live in the presence of God.

There are a few notable exceptions there, but but on whole, it's like every one of these promises.

It just has not happened yet.

This hope that death would be defeated, there's still so much death in this story.

This faith that they would become a great nation.

And through them, the nations would be blessed.

The nation's hardly holding together.

It's in exile now.

And then this love learned from the law to be in God's presence.

Instead, the law is just used typically as a means to divide and who's in and who's out and hold power.

And then this kingdom, when everything was was going to come together, this perfect king, there's just king after king after king after king that is evil and does not fulfill this promise that God has given.

So what's going on?

The story is spiraling out of control, but God keeps showing up and making these big promises.

But even the shape of this story right here, it's intentionally drawn like an arrow because it's gonna point to this really important historical event that we're about to get.

And you would think the Bible would give you that right now.

But actually, the Bible kind of rewinds for a little bit.

So we got right there in that chapter to the end of Ezra Nehemiah.

So at this point, the Bible stops and gives us the wisdom in the prophecy books.

It's a little bit confusing because those books take place during some of the prior history that we've already talked about.

But these books are really important because they give us an understanding of God's perspective in all of this prior history.

So I'm gonna draw this like a little extra line that goes all the way back to Abraham.

Some of these books, like the book of Job, was maybe even written in the time of Abraham.

Some of them were written during Moses.

Moses wrote some of the Psalms.

So I'm gonna continue this extra line through that section.

And then most of the wisdom and prophecy books were written during David and Kings.

So these books give us an understanding of God's perspective on everything.

Like the wisdom books, uh, I read this summary of Eugene uh is it Patterson or Peterson that did the message Bible?

He describes the wisdom books.

Think of Job like God in our crisis.

And then the opposite poll there would be Proverbs, God in our everyday life.

And then for a couple different poles, think of Ecclesiastes like God in our toil.

And then Song of Songs, like God being in the height of our romantic love.

And Psalms would be the biggest book of the Bible.

And think of Psalms like right in the center.

There's just breadth of emotional experience in the Psalms.

So God is saying, I am with you in every possible corner of your life.

Whatever you're going through, I am there.

And the books of prophecy make this similar kind of claim that in each of these historical events we've already looked at, God is right there.

And you'll inevitably you can find, you can go read about some of these battles, like in 1 and 2 Kings, and then you can understand God's heart in the prophecy books, how his heart is breaking this whole time because of the sin of his people, or his anger burns to set everything right.

And then most importantly, these prophecy books, they also, like this arrow, they serve to point to this really important event that's about to happen.

They specifically talk about the coming of the Messiah, where he's gonna be born, what things are gonna be like right when he arrives on the scene.

So finally, here we are.

We're doing pretty good with time.

This is Merry Christmas, the New Testament, the birth of Jesus.

So when I draw this chapter for Jesus, I'm intentionally gonna use a little different tool here because Jesus is fully man, just like this winding freehand kind of drawing that I've been doing, but he's completely anchored in with God's will.

And so Jesus said, I'm only gonna say what the Father tells me to say.

I'm only gonna do what he tells me to do.

And so living in the presence of God and trying to understand how to love, Jesus is the only one that perfectly does that.

So here I'm gonna anchor him in, and he's gonna be this perfect.

And I really hope this matches up.

Excellent.

So when we draw the life of Jesus, finally the spiral is stopped.

His one perfect life, it's like a circle that completely contains every promise that had come before this.

Jesus' life is all of those things.

And so, in terms of the history, you know, Jesus is born of a virgin, he's raised by Mary and Joseph, and uh, his cousin precedes him in ministry, John the Baptist, he's baptized by him, goes into the desert to be tempted, and uh calls his disciples.

And he has this ministry for three years or so, and he heals people, raises the dead.

These huge throngs of people come, he teaches in parables, and eventually he comes back into Jerusalem and uh cleanses the temple.

Uh he washes his disciples' feet.

Judas betrays him and he's crucified.

So the sixth great tree in this story is the cross.

Because Jesus is crucified on a tree.

He's literally nailed to a tree, as if to say, I am one with the tree.

It's amazing.

This tree that goes all the way back here.

And when he dies, he takes all of our sin upon him.

So imagine this story, the drawing we've done so far, like it's a crown of thorns on his head.

He bears our stripes.

But Jesus has completely accomplished single-handedly everything that came prior in this story.

So now we finally understand why God would be making these huge promises.

The reason God made this promise to Adam and Eve that death would be defeated is because he knew Jesus was going to do it.

The reason he made this promise to Abraham, the faith that the nations would be blessed, is because he knew Jesus was going to found the church, and that would be a great nation of priests that would bless all the nations.

And the reason he made this promise to Moses, to give him the law, to show how to love and be in his presence.

Jesus is the only one that completely fulfills the law.

He even expounds upon or expands on the law in the Sermon on the Mount.

Jesus lives the whole spirit of the law.

He completely understands God's heart and does everything that he would have him to do.

And then finally, this promise for a kingdom.

When it's all going to come together, Jesus is that king.

But he's a lot different kind of king than anybody might expect because he's a servant king.

This tree that's planted by the streams of water and produces its fruit, the fruit that Jesus has is he serves others.

And he washes his disciples' feet.

He says, the first will be last.

And now we see what a real king is like in Jesus.

So then Jesus is crucified, and three days later, he rises from the grave, and this is Easter.

So for the first time, we've got to jump in our drawing.

Jesus goes through death and out the other side.

So he does this so he can defeat death and share this victory with us.

So from this dot here, everything else in the drawing is rooted right here.

We're not rooted in the spirit to old creation anymore.

So Jesus is going to actually go in two directions here.

There's only two more chapters.

The first chapter we're going to look at, Jesus is going to send the Holy Spirit and he's going to found the church.

And then the other direction, Jesus is going to ascend into heaven, and we're going to talk about revelation.

So when Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, I'm going to draw that with this exact same tool I did for Jesus.

Because Jesus, the Holy Spirit completely follows in parallel with the life of Jesus.

And the Holy Spirit is sent from his resurrection.

That's where everything is rooted in new creation from his resurrection.

So I'm going to draw this exactly parallel with Jesus' life, but it's not going to completely line up there, not going to be complete, because I'm reminding myself that we're still in the middle of this story.

So this is going to include the history of the church since the New Testament ended.

So we are still in the middle of this part of the story.

All these other big chapters, this chapter is still going on.

So think, big arrow, you are here, right in the story.

So the Holy Spirit, in terms of the history here, the early church grows quickly in Jerusalem.

Peter has this vision for the expansion of the gospel outside.

And Stephen is arrested and stoned.

And then we've got Paul on the road to Damascus, and he's sent to the Gentile nations, plants a bunch of churches, writes these letters to the churches that we have in the New Testament.

And then all of the history that we've had since the end of the New Testament.

So the Holy Spirit, he's sent to remind us about Jesus' perfect life.

So Jesus, the Holy Spirit inspires the scriptures.

So we remember all the details about his life.

But the cool thing is, is once you are reminded of Jesus, that with Jesus you also get all of the promises that were contained in there.

So this hope that death will be defeated, Jesus has that.

And the faith and the love from the law.

That's why in the New Testament, in the Gospels, those themes keep coming up because all of that has been given to us in Jesus.

That's what the Holy Spirit does.

So finally, one book of the Bible left, Revelation.

And we'll see where this all ends.

So we said when Jesus ascends into heaven, or when Jesus sends the Holy Spirit, around the same time, he ascends into heaven.

So here I'm going to flip the drawing like this.

And now, when Jesus ascends, he's not rooted to old creation anymore.

He has a new creation body and that he's one day going to share with us.

And so he's going to ascend to heaven like this.

Straight line.

So the question is, now that Jesus has ascended to heaven, what's he been doing for 2,000 years?

And Jesus has promised that he's going, he's gone to prepare a home for us, a place for us.

And all of the good gifts that he has won are going to be shared with us.

So at this point in the story, what I want you to imagine, in the drawing at least, is everything that has been contained inside Jesus.

We are in Christ, like Colossians says, like this big arrow that's pointing here.

I want you to imagine that like it's a needle and thread.

And we're going to going to be threaded through Jesus' death and resurrection.

So everything in old creation, we have a redeeming God.

And he's going to redeem and be baptized through that death and resurrection.

So as I draw this line here, and we're going to surround the edge of this paper, I want you to imagine that with each line, we're pulling some of this past history into reality because that's what Jesus is going to do in new creation.

He's going to straighten everything out.

He's going to redeem us, he's going to redeem this world.

So in Revelation, when it describes new creation, this is the cool part, I think, in the story, the first thing that it says in Revelation is that there is no death.

Death is no more, crying is no more, pain is no more.

So this same victory that Jesus has over death, he shares with us.

So this peg that started the whole drawing, this death that's been around that long, Jesus defeats it, so now this line gets pulled into new creation.

That's how it's described.

But it gets even better.

New creation is also described.

Remember the promise given to Abraham that he would be a father of a great nation, and through him the nations would be blessed.

It also describes in Revelation that there's a tree planted on both sides of the river, and the leaves of this tree and the fruit are for the healing of the nations.

So the nations will be healed, not just in Jesus, not just shared with us in the Spirit, but forever will be healed in new creation.

So this line that we had in Abraham has now been pulled into new creation and made forever true.

So that's why God made the promise, because he knew Jesus would do it, he knew the spirit would share it with us, and he knew that's what he wanted eternity to look like.

But it gets even better.

Jesus keeps pulling, and new creation is also described.

Remember the promise that God gave to Moses, the love in the law that we have being in God's presence.

New creation is described as not having a sun or a moon.

It's not necessary.

Because God Himself is the light.

So in new creation, we will be walking around in the presence of God.

It will be that close to us, like it's the very light of day.

So that's how we will walk around in God's love and learn how to love one another.

Love's like a banner over us, the drawing reminds us.

But we're almost there.

Jesus keeps pulling.

And new creation is also described that in the middle of town, Jesus sits on his throne, and there is a throne forever.

So this promise that was given to David, oh, let me erase, as that line was pulled through in the last chapter there for Moses and the law.

So now this promise that there will be a forever king on the throne is also made true in new creation.

And finally, our heart's desire.

That there would forever be a king.

This has finally come true in new creation.

So this takes us all the way to the very last chapter of the last book of the Bible in Revelation.

So how is it all gonna come together?

Jesus has been doing this in new creation.

He has been taking all of these promises that he single-handedly won within himself, and the Spirit speaks to us about those, and he's making them real.

One day, a new heaven and a new earth where it all comes together.

All of these promises.

So the Bible ends, and the very last chapter, there's this conversation, this back and forth that takes place.

And imagine this line for the Holy Spirit in the church, and the spirit of the church in the last Revelation 22, it cries out and says, Jesus, come, come quickly.

And so I'm gonna draw a line here for a bit.

This first cry of the Spirit in the church for Jesus to come.

And Jesus calls back and he says, Yes, I'm coming soon.

And the Spirit says again with the church, Come, come quickly.

And then the Spirit calls out to anyone who's listening, please come.

Come and drink of this, the waters that are here in new creation.

So the Spirit continues to cry out to come.

And then the Bible closes with Jesus saying, Again, Yes, I am coming soon.

And so finally, God's will is done in heaven as it is on earth.

Amen.

And that's the story of the trees.

So what we see, what we end up with, is the last great tree in this story.

It's not another spiral.

The last great tree is the tree of life, a new creation, and it's the whole story.

So this drawing is meant to remind us that the Bible is one big story.

It's not just this little collection of small stories that we try to all put together and just find the right story to match our particular problem, like it's a set of magic tricks that we have to learn and apply in just the right way.

But instead, the Bible is this one huge story about Jesus and his redemption of creation and what he's doing.

And that's, and there's lots of different ways you could look at this drawing, too.

So it reminds us of the tree of life.

And in New Creation, it says this tree of life is planted on both sides of a river.

And I don't I don't know how to draw a tree that's on two sides of a river.

So imagine that the river is flowing through the trunk of the tree like this.

That's why it's drawn in perspective.

And so this is a river that's flowing from the throne of God, and this is for the healing of the nations.

Or imagine it's like a sun.

New Jerusalem is described as a cube, like a square like this, that descends from heaven, reminds us of that.

It says the gate is always open so we can come into the presence of God.

Or you could look at this like it's a keyhole, and that reminds us the key that unlocks how we should read the Bible.

For my money, read the Bible with the end in mind.

Know this is where everything is headed.

It gets really, really real.

And then when you read all these promises in the Old Testament, you can have your fist in the air and know God's going bigger.

Every step, God goes bigger.

God goes bigger.

And that's why it was so important for me.

This whole process, why he had me go through this, so I could learn how important the spirit is again.

Because this is only the spirit can do this with us.

We're told in Ecclesiastes that God has placed eternity in our hearts.

But we can't fathom what God's doing from the beginning to the end.

We can't do that, but the Spirit can.

The Spirit has this perspective.

And so we ask for the Spirit.

That's why we sing in these songs, Holy Spirit, come and flood this place, because we want to have this perspective, this whole story on what you're doing.

One last thing on this, and this is neat.

You'll make sure you're watching the screens while this goes on.

But after I did this, I was at one of the art shows that Marlon had, and I look at this painting, and I realize so this is what we did this morning, and then this same kind of spirit will inspire all of us in different ways.

And so I realized what I was seeing.

That's the same tree.

Isn't that great?

That's that's directly behind, like right as you go in into his kids.

And so that's what the spirit does in us.

Only he can inspire this and work us together in these kind of harmonies.

And that's what we're going to sing about now as we again ask for his spirit to inspire us to know the story of the trees.

Y'all stand up and sing with us.