02-28-21 “What kind of man is this?”

Scripture   Luke 8:22-25, Mark 4:35-41. Matthew 8:18-27

SYNOPTIC STORY COMPARISON

L -     One day, 
Mk - That day when evening came,
Mt -   (No comment on the day or time)
 
L -     Jesus said to his disciples, "Let's go over to the other side of the lake."
Mk - he said to his disciples, "Let us go over to the other side."
Mt -   When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.
Luke and Mark continue with them getting in the boat, however, Matthew (the eye witness) adds more to the story: Then a teacher of the law came to him and said, "Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go." Jesus replied, "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head."
          Another disciple said to him, "Lord, first let me go and bury my father." But Jesus told him, "Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead."
          Others wanted to follow, but Jesus knew there was a cost to following him (he knew they were about to go right into a raging storm) and if they were to follow, they needed to know this was not going to be a picnic with the pastor, rather a storm with the savior. We are not given their response and Matthew, like Luke and Mark, continues the story.
 
L -     So they got into a boat and set out.
Mk - Leaving the crowd behind, they took him along, just as he was, in the boat. There were also other boats with him.
Mt -   Then he got into the boat and his disciples followed him.
 

L -     A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.
Mk - A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped.
Mt -   Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat.
 
L -     The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Master, Master, we're going to drown!"
Mk - Jesus was in the stern, sleeping on a cushion. The disciples woke him and said to him, "Teacher, don't you care if we drown?"
Mt -   But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"
L -     He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided, and all was calm. "Where is your faith?" he asked his disciples.
Mk - He got up, rebuked the wind and said to the waves, "Quiet! Be still!" Then the wind died down and it was completely calm. He said to his disciples, "Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?"
Mt -   Notice that Matthew (the eye witness) speaks to them while the storm is still raging, then he shows them his power to calm the storm, by faith.  He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.
 

L -     In fear and amazement they asked one another, "Who is this? He commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him."
Mk - They were terrified and asked each other, "Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!"
Mt -   I believe what Matthew (the eye witness) records next, is the point to the whole story: The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
          Notice he left out that they were terrified or fearful because their amazement is what was important. The question they asked was paramount, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"
 
WHAT KIND OF MAN IS THIS?
          They had witnessed healings and other miracles, but this one caught their attention. Why? They were present when he turned water into wine and when he fed the 5000. Some of them were in this same boat on this same sea when Jesus gave them a miracle catch of fish. What was so different about this one that caused them to wonder ‘what kind of man Jesus was?’
          First, the other miracles were more passive. They were also miracles that all used something that already existed – stone jars of water, a little boy’s lunch, and fish in the sea. Like we learned last week that God created the first matter out of nothing by speaking it into existence, so this MAN was able to control an out of control nature by having faith to speak a word; and what he spoke…was accomplished. They had not seen this kind of miracle – nor this kind of man – that is because the man they were seeing was none other than the redeemer God of the Old Testament who was in their boat…sleeping.
          What God did in creation, they witnessed first-hand.
 
          Now look at this from Jesus’ perspective. When he got in the boat he was exhausted from a lot of walking, and teaching, and healing. You can imagine how good that cushion looked in the back of the boat. After all, he was in a boat with professional fisherman who spent as much time sailing this very body of water as they did walking on dry ground. What could possibly go wrong?
          In fact, something did go wrong. A storm, squall, tempest, eruption of wind and waves were crashing over the boat. How exhausted was Jesus? He didn’t wake up. These men were used to pop-up storms and you can bet they did everything they knew how to do before waking up Jesus. Have you ever been on a boat in Lake Eire when a storm popped up out of nowhere and it was so bad you were afraid you might die? Let me ask that of my wife and children?
 
TELL THE BOATING STORIES
          I was like these fishermen – except, they came to a point where they were certain they would capsize in the middle of the sea too far to swim to shore; and they screamed at Jesus – Get up and help!
          They had forgotten the things Jesus had done and more importantly, who Jesus was. Thousands of years prior, this same Jesus said let there be light and there was. LISTEN: John 1:10 He (Jesus) was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him.
 
          In that boat on that day Jesus didn’t care who was the smartest, the best looking, the most wealthy, or even the best sailor. He allowed the storm so they could see for themselves that they did not have the ONE THING he wanted them to have – FAITH. Not faith to calm the storm – but faith that he could calm the storm. When you are in the storms of life, do you rely on your power and wisdom, or do you have faith that God will see you through. It is easy to have faith when things are going well, but what about when you find yourself not in the eye but in the furious part of the storm? That is when you will know whether you have faith or not?
          Forget the personal losses we have all experienced due to this storm called COVID, as a church and as a pastor, I have to wonder if Jesus is asleep in the boat, or do I/WE have faith that God will not only see us through but will also accomplish even greater things in us than ever before?
          How important is our faith in Jesus right now? Hebrews 11:6  Without faith it is impossible to please God. The disciples were amazed at who Jesus was. The bible shows that Jesus has power over all creation, specifically over all nature, all sicknesses, all evil spirits, even over death.  The ONLY part of creation that has ever dared disobey Jesus – is US! The wind and waves that day had to choose – they had to obey his word. God has given us a free-choice, to obey his word, or to lack faith and be disobedient.
          When we become like the rest of nature and freely choose to put our faith in Jesus, we will then live a life – not in fear, rather in faith. The wind and the waves had no fear that day – they also had no choice but to obey. How will you choose to live?
          Is it right to compare human response to that of nature’s elements? Yes, but if not, why would the very next story be a parallel story in each of the 3 gospels, only involving humans instead of nature? The storm calmed and the boat set sail again and landed in the land of the Gerasene’s and a man, or two as one gospel writer reports, are possessed by a legion of demons that have caused a storm of epic proportions within them and through them in the community. The people around them, like the disciples in the boat, were terrified, until the demon possessed came face to face with Jesus and at his word, the demons departed and went into a herd of pigs, ran over the edge of the hill, into the water and drown. Once the demons were gone, or the internal storm had been stilled, the men who had been demon possessed were now at peace like the sea of Galilee. They put their faith in Jesus and went throughout the area proclaiming that new found faith in Jesus whose word, had calmed their storm.
Romans 5:1-5
Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

02-21-21 Redemption: From the beginning!

Scripture      Genesis 50:20-21

HIStory

The Famous One

(and the not so famous ones)

Redemption, from the beginning!

Romans 8:18-28
I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us. The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God.
          We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what he already has? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.
          In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God's will.
          And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

          In all of creation there is suffering and struggle. Looking through the window of scripture – particularly the book of Genesis, we see that the character of God, in the midst of creation’s suffering and struggle, is his desire and ability to redeem all things. We see bad things as bad, God sees bad things as an opportunity for redemption – bringing good out of bad. - in all things God works for the good of those who love him.
Even those outside Christianity understand this principle – Consider this Zen Parable
Once upon a time there was an old farmer who had worked his crops for many years. One day his horse ran away. Upon hearing the news, his neighbors came to visit. “Such bad luck,” they said sympathetically.
“Maybe,” the farmer replied.
The next morning the horse returned, bringing with it three other wild horses. “How wonderful,” the neighbors exclaimed.
“Maybe,” replied the old man.
The following day, his son tried to ride one of the untamed horses, was thrown, and broke his leg. The neighbors again came to offer their sympathy on his misfortune.
“Maybe,” answered the farmer.
The day after, military officials came to the village to draft young men into the army. Seeing that the son’s leg was broken, they passed him by. The neighbors congratulated the farmer on how well things had turned out.
“Maybe,” said the farmer.
 
          We see how bad this pandemic is, God sees endless opportunities for redemption. Our God is a redeeming God. I was going to begin HIStory; the famous One and the not so famous ones by looking at creation and instead realized we need to see who God is by looking at the entire book of Genesis in one message, as a way to see that the 66 books of the bible reveal that God is a redeemer – that a major quality of who God is…has to do with his desire to redeem and his power of redemption. In the next 20 minutes, let us look through the window of Genesis and see God the redeemer.
 
Genesis comes from a Hebrew word pronounced Bereisheet which means “beginnings”.
The book is designed to follow two main parts.
Chapters 1-11 tell the story of God in the whole world. (like through a telescope)
Chapters 12-50 tell the story about God and one family - Abraham’s family, and how these two parts relate. (like through a microscope)
 

CREATION
SING “Let’s start at the beginning, it’s a very good place to start.” The first part of Genesis begins with the Creation Story where God creates everything.
To quickly explain creation I will borrow an idea from the philosopher Aristotle and add my own simple understanding to it. Let me begin by asking a few questions:
Where is a person heading from the moment they are born? Toward death.
Where is a star headed from the moment it first exists? Burn out – or Death.
Where is all matter headed from the moment it first exists? Extinction – or Death.
One more question.
          Does matter come into existence on its own, or does it come from the existence of other matter? ie a big piece of matter blows up and we then have many little pieces of matter or many small pieces of matter come together to create a larger piece of matter. That means that all matter has a beginning and an end. No physical matter is eternal. Since no physical matter is eternal – it all had to come form some previous material –
Where did the first matter come from? There is only one answer, it had to be created from something that already existed and that thing that already existed had to exist before there was any matter, and how did that thing come into being unless that thing were eternal? Something had to exist before anything else existed, and if there was nothing to create the first thing, than it stands to reason that first thing is GOD!
God has always existed before there was anything else. The book of Genesis begins at the moment when the eternal God decided to bring matter into being out of nothing.
John 1:1-3 In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.
Hebrews 11:3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.
Day1: God created water then spoke into existence “light”
Day 2: Atmosphere
Day 3: Dry ground and plants
Day 4: Sun, Moon, and Stars
Day 5: Birds and Sea Animals
Day 6: Land animals and Humans (Adam & Eve)
Day 7: Sabbath Rest
 

ADAM & EVE
That all sounds nice. It was, and 6 times God says of all that he has made that it is good. When Adam (from the ground) and Eve (from Adam’s rib) God created us form previous matter he had already made; God said that was VERY GOOD. --- “Maybe”!!!
 They are both individual characters but they also representative. Adam is a Hebrew word for Humanity and Eve is the Hebrew word for life and God creates them in His image. In other words, humanity is meant to reflect the creativity, the goodness and character of the Creator out into the world that He has made. They are supposed to reproduce and make cultures and neighborhoods and art and gardens and everything else, but God gives them a moral choice about how they are going to go about building this world and this is what the tree of good and evil is all about and he tells them don’t eat of the fruit of this tree or you will die.
What’s that all about? So up to now God has been the one defining and providing what is good so God is the one with the knowledge of good and evil. Now this tree represents a choice. Will the humans trust God’s definition of good and evil or are they going to seize the opportunity and define good and evil for themselves?...Adam and Eve eat the fruit?
This is the core Biblical explanation for the concept of sin, that desire to call the shots myself. It’s the inward turn of the human heart to do what’s good for me and my tribe even if it’s at the expense of you and your tribe and the problem is humans are horrible at defining good and evil without God and now that humanity has made this choice, things get really, really bad. So Genesis 3 thru 11 is about tracing this downward spiral of all humanity so Adam and Eve can’t trust each other anymore. There’s a little story about how they were naked and felt fine about it beforehand but now they feel shameful because all of a sudden Adam’s definition of good and evil might be different than Eve’s and so they hide from each other.

CAIN & ABLE
Then there’s another story of temptation where Cain is jealous of his brother Abel and he gives in and kills him.
There’s a story right after Cain (great great great grandson) named Lamech who has multiple wives and sings songs about how he’s a more violent, vengeful person than Cain ever was and he’s proud of it. Things get so bad with the human race that we God decides to just wipe us out.

THE FLOOD
We typically think of the flood story as about God being angry, but it actually begins with God’s sadness and grief about the state of his world and so out of his passion to redeem the goodness of his world, he washes it clean, but there is a glimmer of hope. He chooses Noah and his whole family, and he redeems OR saves them (and the animals) on this boat/ark. So Noah and his family are going to reboot all of humanity, they are going to show what it looks like to be a people redeemed by God.
So, Noah gets off the boat and he plants a vineyard and he gets totally plastered and then something sketchy happens in his tent with his son. It’s a tragic story and from here humanity grows again to be as bad as before which leads into the next story…
 

THE TOWER OF BABEL
In this story you have all of the nation’s uniting together to use this new technology they have. The brick. And they want to make a name for themselves and build this big city with a huge tower that will reach up to the gods, but God knows that this city will be a nightmare and so in his mercy, he scatters the people, and all of these stories are underlining the same idea. When humans seek autonomy from God and they define good and evil for themselves, it results in a world of tragedy and death. And this leaves you wondering, is there any hope for humanity?
Yes, there is. It’s the very next story that answers that question. It’s the beginning of God’s mission to rescue, restore, and redeem His creation.
 
TRANSITION TO PART 2 OF GENESIS AND THE STORY OF REDEMPTION
The second part of Genesis (chapters 12-50, zooms in and focuses on just one family and right in the middle is this story that links the two parts of Genesis together and helps us understand what the whole book is all about.

ABRAHAM
After the scattering at Babel there is this genealogy and it follows one of the tribes all the way down to this one guy named Abram. You probably know him as Abraham. And God starts making all these promises to Abraham like he is going to bless him and give him a ton of kids and he says that through him and his family, all the nations of the Earth are now going to find God’s blessing. So basically God is now redeeming humanity back to the goodness of the garden into his original intentions for the world. It’s like his rescue plan for humanity. That’s why the whole second half of Genesis is about this one family.
So you have Abraham, and he has a son Isaac, who has a son Jacob, and then Jacob has 12 sons, and, in each generation, God renews his promise to bless them and all nations through them. Because of this promise to use this family as a way to redeem the world, it’s pretty easy to read these stories as examples of how to be a good person. But actually, for the most part, this family is totally dysfunctional. So for example, let’s go back to Abraham. This whole story is about God giving him and his wife Sarah a family. But two different times, he basically gives Sarah away to other men by denying that she is even his wife. Then Sarah gets impatient about even having a son, so she makes Abraham sleep with her servant girl which then causes all of these other problems in the family.

ISAAC, JACOB & ESAU
So they get really old and you begin to think that there is no way they are going to have a kid of their own but then miraculously they do and Isaac is born. Isaac has two sons, Esau and Jacob and it seems like things are going pretty well. But Jacob, the younger brother wants the family’s inheritance which belongs to Esau the older brother, so he devises a plan to steal it from his father Isaac who at this point of the story is now old and blind. Who does this horrible stealing from your blind father? And then he just takes off.

JOSEPH
So Jacob goes on from there to have 12 sons, a big family, but Jacob loves his 11^th son, Joseph, way more than all the others so he gives him this special technicolor dreamcoat and his brothers, because of this, come to hate him so much so that they plan on killing him (which seems bad – maybe) but they don’t. They just sell him as a slave down in Egypt. (which seems bad – maybe)
Now while in Egypt, through this crazy series of events, Joseph goes from being in a prison cell to becoming the second in command there. So later on the whole middle east falls into this lack of food security and Joseph’s brothers come down to Egypt looking for food. When they get there, who should they find as the ruler of the whole land, it is Joseph, that brother they sold into slavery. But he actually saves them from starving to death. (God redeems them physically)
So here you have it, Abraham’s great grandchildren who have done this heinous act to their brother, but God has transformed their evil into something good. And that’s exactly what Joseph says in the last paragraph in the entire book where he forgives them of their sin (God redeems them spiritually) Genesis 50:20-21
You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then, don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them.
These words conclude the book because they actually summarize the message of the whole story so far. Humans keep choosing evil and we think they are messing up God’s plan, but he keeps turning their evil back into good and somehow, he is going to use this family to redeem humanity back to the garden. Later, in Egypt, God’s people will become slaves and this is going to be tragic…maybe!
Genesis 3:15 God talks directly to the serpent (the devil) and says, “And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.” When Satan strikes Jesus’ feet and nails them to the cross, God will crush Satan on the head and bring eternal redemption to His people by raising from the dead!
 
All of creation; every story in Genesis, the entire bible is a window in which we can see that, for your sake and mine, God is a God of redemption. In whatever situation or condition you find yourself right now, God is ready, willing and able to redeem you.

02-14-21 2021 Theme Introduction "HIStory" The Famous one (and the not so famous ones)

 Scripture  Isaiah 46:9-10a

HIStory

The Famous One

(and the not so famous ones)

VIDEO: The History of Mankind (Found on right now media)

Isaiah 46:9-10a     Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.                                                                                             NIV

 

There is no biblical Hebrew word for our English word “history”. History was not important to the Jews, but remembrance was extremely important. The only reason to look back was to keep you looking forward. You remember what God has done to remind you what God can do. (If our text did use the word history it might read like the translation from the MESSAGE:

 
Isaiah 46:9-10a     Remember your history, your long and rich history. I am God, the only God you've had or ever will have — incomparable, irreplaceable —  From the very beginning telling you what the ending will be, All along letting you in on what is going to happen.                                                                                                                       THE MESSAGE
 
          Where do you store your History? Your Remembrances? Your Memories? In your data filled brain. To understand what that looks like, let’s consider a computer’s brain or how we consider memory in technology terms.
ILLUSTRATION
"The human brain consists of about one billion neurons. Each neuron forms about 1,000 connections to other neurons, amounting to more than a trillion connections. If each neuron could only help store a single memory, running out of space would be a problem. You might have only a few gigabytes of storage space, similar to the space in a USB flash drive. (my flash dives are 1, 16 and 128 gigabytes – modern computers often have at least a Terabyte, like my external hard drive) Yet neurons combine so that each one helps with many memories at a time, exponentially increasing the brain’s memory storage capacity to something closer to around 2.5 petabytes (or a million gigabytes). For comparison, if your brain worked like a digital video recorder in a television, 2.5 petabytes would be enough to hold three million hours of TV shows. You would have to leave the TV running continuously for more than 300 years to use up all that storage."
APPLICATION
Even with all this great brain potential we are repeatedly told in the Bible to "remember" or "nor forget" the Lord. Minds today are so filled with images, music and unceasing entertainment that they have little time left for Jesus and His-Story. But God has made sure that there is plenty of 'brain space' left for those who dedicate even a fraction of their amazing brain power to Christ.
"Don't let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and say, 'Life is not pleasant anymore'" (Ecclesiastes 12:1).
          Instead – look at HIStory like this:
Psalm 119:18   Open my eyes to see the wonderful things in your word.
 
Hab 2:1  Then the Lord replied: “Write down the revelation and make it plain on tablets so that whoever hears it may run with it.”
 
2 Tim 3:14-15
But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
 
2021 Theme

HIStory: The Famous One (and the not so famous ones)
The famous Bible stories from scripture and church history that show more of God’s story with humanity and point to Jesus who is “The Famous One”
 
Ever present absence vs. Ever present presence
A parent’s life investment is always there, yet the person is forever absent.
God’s past investment is always there, yet He remains ever present as His story and ours continues to be written.
 
 
The biblical narrative is one that is still going on to this day. The biblical narrative tells the story of God and how he reveals himself to us. God reveals himself through formative stories in the bible such as Creation, Adam and Eve, the Fall of Man, The Flood, God’s Covenant with Noah, and the Tower of Babel. From the very beginning of the biblical narrative we see that God relates to us on a personal level. He created us, he formed us, he created the world in which we live, and he has been an active participant in the narrative since before it began.
 
Window vs. Mirror
One author wrote, Rather than being confronted by the overarching story of God’s redemption, we bend the text into the shape of our own lives and make the Bible to be a story more about us—our fulfillment, our sanctification, our hopes and dreams. Absorbing individual verses of the Bible while failing to understand them with the larger narrative of Scripture in mind runs the risk of distorting the Bible’s teachings into the shape or image of the reader, rather than the image of the Author – God!
 
Because the subject of the Bible is God, we need to ask, how does Scripture, then, apply to us? Alasdair MacIntyre argued, “I can only answer the question ‘What am I to do?’ if I can answer the prior question ‘Of what story do I find myself a part?’” Rather than thinking about how God’s reality might fit into my own—stuffing God’s big story into my small story—it is best to think about how my life’s narrative is taken up into that of God’s. My story now must be reconfigured within God’s story of redemption if my life or my actions are to make any sense at all. Seeing my life’s story and purpose as set within God’s overarching story transforms how I understand my past (the ultimate beginning is creation) and my future (the ultimate end is God’s eschatological redemption of all things). Re-inscribed within this new storyline, I come to understand my actions, attitudes, goals, and desires as reordered by a new and larger (and much more compelling) purpose now narrated by Scripture.
 
So if you’re going to read the Bible as a book of heroes and rules and advice, at least get it straight: it’s a story of one Hero who came to rescue us after we had broken the rules and rejected his advice. The message of the Bible is not, “Here are some practical tools that can fix your life.” It is, “Fix your eyes on Jesus. On the redemptive love story of God” On this Valentine’s Day understand it is the greatest love letter ever written!
 
·         Because we’re storytelling people. In his book The Power of Story, Jim Loehr says, “Telling ourselves stories helps us navigate our way through life because they provide structure and direction … Stories impose meaning on the chaos; they organize and give context to our sensory experiences, which otherwise might seem like no more than a fairly colorless sequence of facts. Facts are meaningless until you create a story around them.” The quickest way to change someone is to change the story that they’re telling themselves. This is why we need God’s story.
·         We need to spot false stories. Here are some examples of false stories: You’re here by accident. All paths lead to God. All you need to get to heaven is to be a good person. The purpose of life is to be happy and to feel good about yourself. All these are really popular and attractive stories, but they’re not accurate stories.
So the Bible isn’t just an ancient book. It’s God’s story, and it gives us an accurate picture of what’s going on in the world. It helps us avoid false stories, and it’s a story that culminates in Jesus.
We read to see Jesus as the culmination of the story. But then we read to learn our roles in the ongoing story that’s unfolding in this world.
We live in the in-between. Some people have compared it to a play with many acts. We know the acts that have gone before us, and we know how the play is going to end, but we’re still in the middle of the play. Since we’re in the middle of the play, we’d better work hard at understanding the rest of the play so that we know how to play our role here and now.
 
The mirror
Who we are in Christ as seen in HIStory through the scriptures:
ILLUSTRATION
There was once a flock of pelicans that happily fished off the coast of California.  One day, a fishing company began cleaning their catch at a nearby dock, where it was convenient for them to cast the discarded fish scraps into the water.  The pelicans, drawn to the daily ritual, soon gave up fishing for themselves and settled into a more domesticated existence.  Life was pretty good for these pelicans, at least until the fishermen discovered that there was a market for fish scraps.  Abruptly, the free meals ceased.  
Despite this regrettable change of fortune, the pelicans continued to show up every day at meal-time, only to go away with empty stomachs.  It wasn’t long before the lack of sustenance began to take its toll.  The unsightly appearance of the emaciated birds eventually drew the public’s attention, and experts were called in to investigate the cause of their plight.  For some unknown reason, the pelicans no longer seemed able to access the abundance of food that teemed just below them in the sea.  After a thorough investigation, it was concluded that the pelicans were starving to death because they’d forgotten how to fish! Pelicans were made to fish, but they had forgotten who they were and what they were made to do.
          When we are so focused on our own little story, our own comfort, our own way of living and forget why we were created and more importantly, forget the one who created us, it is time again to look at HIStory, and our story will once again be written with words of hope and life!
 
Isaiah 46:9-10a     Remember the former things, those of long ago; I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.
 
Hebrews 12:2-3     Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.