This I Believe Week 3 Notes - The Story of Scripture

Intro/Welcome

Good morning

Series

Week 3 of “This I Believe”

What is the Bible?

God’s word written down to us and for us

Who is God?

God was a Trinitarian personal God who is both like us and unlike us.

What is the Story of Scripture?

What is the Bible about?

It answers the “worldview’ questions

Where we came from?

Why we are here?

What happens after we die?

Plan

Creation | Fall | Redemption | Restoration

We will only talk in depth about first two today

Pray

Isaiah 61:1–3 CSB

1 The Spirit of the Lord God is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives and freedom to the prisoners; 2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor, and the day of our God’s vengeance; to comfort all who mourn, 3 to provide for those who mourn in Zion; to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, festive oil instead of mourning, and splendid clothes instead of despair. And they will be called righteous trees, planted by the Lord to glorify him.

Creation

Genesis 1:1 (CSB)

1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

God is creator.

God created Good

All that God created was Good

Tov: good, delightful, beautiful, pleasing

Six times while God is creating it says:

“And God saw that it was good”

The only time he didn’t was after day 2, which was Monday

indicating that there has never been anything good about Monday.

Twice onTuesday

b/c it is doubly good that Monday is over.

After God is done creating we read:

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.

Hebrew: Good - Good

This means that all of Creation is/was Good.

Human Beings

Imago Dei

Humans were created in the image of God

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.

Implications of the Imago Dei

We are both Like and Unlike God

Created for Relationship

We can have a relationship with God unlike everything else in all creation.

Dignity before Depravity

This means that:

at the deepest level of human existence

Human beings are good in that they bear the image of a good God

This means that before depravity there is dignity.

Dignity before Depravity

Created with Design

Genesis 1:27 (CSB)

27 So God created man in his own image; he created him in the image of God; he created them male and female.

We image God as both male and female

Created with Purpose

Genesis 1:28 (CSB)

28 God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.”

The Whole Earth and all of Creation is ours to steward

There are Five things we are to do:

Be Fruitful — bring life, good things

Multiply — reproduce,

Fill the earth — spread out

Subdue — cultivate, make it yours, shape it

Rule — lead, have authority

There are ways that we are to be like God

as ‘little gods’ — image bearers

we are to create, rule, shape, multiply just as he did.

Implications of Good Creation

Something is Wrong

It means that something has gone wrong and it wasn’t God.

Our world is not totally good, there is much that is wrong and broken.

Nostalgic Imprints

There is a kind of nostalgic imprint on our souls

It means we are all trying to back to Eden / Back to the Good Creation

We live with a longing for when things were better

We long to ‘walk with God in the cool of the day’

Genesis 3:8 (CSB)

8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Transition

Every belief system has to answer this question:

What is wrong with the World?

Some deny it

Some ignore it

All try to escape it

But we can’t escape ourselves which is where the problem lies.

The Bible’s answer.

The Fall

The Origin of Evil: Satan and Demons

Evil enters the world.

Genesis 3:1 (CSB)

1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Revelation 12:7–9 (CSB)

7 Then war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels also fought, 8 but he could not prevail, and there was no place for them in heaven any longer. 9 So the great dragon was thrown out—the ancient serpent, who is called the devil and Satan, the one who deceives the whole world. He was thrown to earth, and his angels with him.

Revelation 20:2 (CSB)

2 He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years.

2 Peter 2:4 (CSB)

4 For if God didn’t spare the angels who sinned but cast them into hell and delivered them in chains of utter darkness to be kept for judgment;

Jude 6 (CSB)

6 and the angels who did not keep their own position but abandoned their proper dwelling, he has kept in eternal chains in deep darkness for the judgment on the great day.

We cannot answer exactly how this happened.

God creates supernatural beings known as Angels

Some of those angels led by Satan rebelled against God

They fell.

This was the original fall, the first fall.

The single sin that got Satan kicked out of heaven was Pride.

Isaiah 14:12–15 (CSB)

12 Shining morning star, how you have fallen from the heavens! You destroyer of nations, you have been cut down to the ground. 13 You said to yourself, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will set up my throne above the stars of God. I will sit on the mount of the gods’ assembly, in the remotest parts of the North. 14 I will ascend above the highest clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.” 15 But you will be brought down to Sheol into the deepest regions of the Pit.

Ezekiel 28:2 (CSB)

2 “Son of man, say to the ruler of Tyre, ‘This is what the Lord God says: Your heart is proud, and you have said, “I am a god; I sit in the seat of gods in the heart of the sea.” Yet you are a man and not a god, though you have regarded your heart as that of a god.

Satan tried to usurp God’s throne

His [Satan’s] imprint, influence and teaching are all over the world today.

The Fall of Humanity

Thus Satan shows up in the garden in the form of a serpent.

He tempts Adam and Eve to disobey God

that is to break trust

to break relationships

Genesis 3 says he was ‘crafty/cunning’ - shrewd, clever, subtle

Satan is very wise, intelligent being

this word is used in proverbs to talk about prudence

Satan takes what is meant for good and turns it for evil

He comes to Adam and Eve and does the same thing he is doing today

He deceives them.

He lures them

He entices them.

He ‘indirectly’ questions God’s words

Genesis 3:1 (CSB)

1 Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

He misquotes God’s Word

a tactic still being done today.

he substitutes the word ‘any’ for ‘the one tree’

This serves to disarm Eve — she is excited that she can correct the serpent

perhaps she is trying to help ‘him’ understand

she is lured in by her good nature and good intentions

She actually ADDS to God’s Word

Genesis 3:2–3 (CSB)

2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat the fruit from the trees in the garden.

3 But about the fruit of the tree in the middle of the garden, God said, ‘You must not eat it or touch it, or you will die.’ ”

She happily and innocently corrects the serpent, but also adds the prohibition that not only must we not ‘eat of it’ but we must not even touch it.

Perhaps this was her way of ensuring they would not be tempted.

it is a ‘self-imposed’ restriction

3. God’s Character Challenged

Not comes the frontal assault by the serpent.

Genesis 3:4 (CSB)

4 “No! You will certainly not die,” the serpent said to the woman.

Lit. dying? you will not die.

He is calling God a liar

and then immediately gives the reason

he says ‘here is what God is really up to’

Genesis 3:5 (CSB)

5 “In fact, God knows that when you eat it your eyes will be opened and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Now this, of course is true,

once they partake — they know ‘experientially’ good and evil.

They had known in theory — for God had told them — ‘if you eat, you will die’

And the seed has been planted

and it is only a matter of time before it gives birth to fruition

Eve and Adam use their God given reason to think on these things

and decide for themselves

Will we trust the Word of God? or will we trust the Word of the Serpent?

Of course, it is our will, our decision.

Not unlike the cartoon ‘angel and devil’ that appears on our shoulders.

this really is the question we face very day.

Whose voice will we trust?

The World Broke

Of course, we know, they partake.

God comes to visit them

The confess

God enacts the consequences

They are expelled from eden

lest they live forever apart from God

This is God’s heart — from the beginning

to make a way to be in relationship with Adam and Eve again.

And thus the work of death begins

This expulsion from eden

this is the death of the natural spiritual relationship with God.

It was Paul means when he says we were all ‘spiritually dead’ upon birth — Eph 2.

God’s Judgment

Genesis 3:14–19 (CSB)

14 So the Lord God said to the serpent:

Because you have done this, you are cursed more than any livestock and more than any wild animal. You will move on your belly and eat dust all the days of your life.

15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

16 He said to the woman:

I will intensify your labor pains; you will bear children with painful effort.

Your desire will be for your husband, yet he will rule over you.

17 And he said to the man,

“Because you listened to your wife and ate from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘Do not eat from it’:

The ground is cursed because of you.

You will eat from it by means of painful labor all the days of your life.

18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field.

19 You will eat bread by the sweat of your brow until you return to the ground, since you were taken from it.

For you are dust, and you will return to dust.”

Consequences:

Cursed Satan

Difficulty for Eve in childbearing and relationships to her husband in particular and men in general

Difficulty for Adam in his work (sense of purpose)

The World Today

This of course leads to the world we live in today.

Relationship with God is broken from birth

and restoration is needed.

This is what Jesus Christ came to do many years later.

We will spend all of next week talking about the centrality of Christ to the Story of Scripture.

The world today

exists in this state of falleness

of brokeneness

People are born selfish, self-preserving, self-exalting, self-serving

this is the reason for so much evil and suffering today.

The Three Enemies

Scripture identifies three enemies of God and his purposes in the World.

The World - The Flesh and the Devil.

The Flesh

This inherent selfishness and self-centeredness is what is meant by the Flesh (gk sarx)

It is something we are all born with and is inescapable apart from grace.

Even the ‘best’ of humanity, it will be found were only serving themselves in some way.

The World

The world is really the collective combination of the corporate ‘flesh’ of the world influenced by the Devil to produce ungodliness in any and every endeavor.

it is the world that produces such things as

mass pornography

it is the collective consciousness of a people

it is a wayward culture

and it has played out time and time again over the history of humanity.

and it is playing out in our own day

in our own culture.

The World are the systems that exist that are ungodly and unbiblical

they result in exploitation and oppression.

The Devil / Satan

But the ultimate source of evil is the Devil — Satan — the Ancient Serpent

he is bent on destroying God’s Work

denying his character

and deceiving the nations.

God’s Love and God’s Promise

Genesis 3:15 CSB

15 I will put hostility between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring. He will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.

God promised to defeat evil.

Genesis 3:21–24 (CSB)

21 The Lord God made clothing from skins for the man and his wife, and he clothed them. 22 The Lord God said, “Since the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil, he must not reach out, take from the tree of life, eat, and live forever.” 23 So the Lord God sent him away from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove the man out and stationed the cherubim and the flaming, whirling sword east of the garden of Eden to guard the way to the tree of life.

God Covered their Shame

God desired eternal relationship with them

Redemption

1 John 3:1–10 (CSB)

1 See what great love the Father has given us that we should be called God’s children—and we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it didn’t know him.

2 Dear friends, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet been revealed. We know that when he appears, we will be like him because we will see him as he is.

3 And everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who commits sin practices lawlessness; and sin is lawlessness.

5 You know that he was revealed so that he might take away sins, and there is no sin in him.

6 Everyone who remains in him does not sin; everyone who sins has not seen him or known him.

7 Little children, let no one deceive you. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous.

8 The one who commits/practices sin is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning. The Son of God was revealed for this purpose: to destroy the devil’s works.

9 Everyone who has been born of God does not sin, because his seed remains in him; he is not able to sin, because he has been born of God.

10 This is how God’s children and the devil’s children become obvious. Whoever does not do what is right is not of God, especially the one who does not love his brother or sister.

Jesus came to redeem us — to save us

from these three enemies: The World, the Flesh and the Devil

This is his restoration project

He redeems a people for himself — the Church

And it is through the church that his restoration project is happening.

That is the next two weeks:

Christ and His Church (Redemption and Restoration)

Closing