Gods Grand Story #1

God’s Grand Story (Includes Sex)

Series Goal

To understand that Jesus is GREATER THAN any revelation the world might make about sex, sexuality, and relationships. His plan is best, safest, and healthiest.

Outline

· Sex, there is probably no other word in the English language that will grab someone’s attention as quick as this one!

· Over the next three weeks we are going to dive into this subject looking first at God’s Grand Story and how this wonderful subject was written into.

o We want this to be an honest conversation, this means we will have open conversation, seek input, and ask for some vulnerability.

Small Group Questions -

· The word, sex, has so much attached to it.

· God’s Grand Story is massive. But just like any great story you find this tale where something that was once good becomes awful because of some villain or catastrophe (and no sex is not the answer here - bear with me)!

o This Grand Story reveals a plan better than any Hollywood movie.

o Now there are a few ways to break up this story but for our time today we are going to take God’s Grand Story and look at it as a redemptive drama that happens in four parts.

1. Creation

2. Fall

3. Redemption

4. Restoration

o How we engage this story impacts how we speak about everything regarding sex, sexuality and relationships.

· Sometimes I think the way we talk about sex is only informed by two parts of this drama, Fall and Redemption.

o The way we interact with this story impacts our language.

o When we see people first and foremost as sinners, the central focus is placed on their state of sinfulness as well as their acts of sin.

Small Group Questions

· Thankfully this is not the complete story! We are missing the most important parts, the beginning and the end.

o Genesis 1:26-27

Genesis 1:26–27 CSB

26 Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness. They will rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, the livestock, the whole earth, and the creatures that crawl on the earth.” 27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

o Genesis 1:31

Genesis 1:31 CSB

31 God saw all that he had made, and it was very good indeed. Evening came and then morning: the sixth day.

o When we start with an understanding that we are made in the image of God - that we are not junk but made with great value - it changes everything.

· WE WERE BUILT FOR RELATIONSHIPS!

o The crazy thing is that science is proving this very truth.

o We are meant to find our identity in the one that created you and me.

o When we first see the image of God in ourselves and others we focus on the potential to imitate our Creator.

· God is seen first, sin is seen second. It’s not that sin goes away, but it doesn’t hold the same power as does our identity found in our Creator.

o This is also why we need to pay attention to the end of this 4-part drama.

o When sin first appeared in the garden, Adam and Eve hid from God.

o How often are you hiding and hoping God will never see your sin?

· This is not just a story of what happened but something that is continuously occurring. This story points us forward.

Small Group Questions

· Let me close with this - however you see this story and how you see God in the midst of this story, will impact the way you live and influence the role God plays in your life.

· Let’s pray.