Scripture Isaiah 46:9-10a
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:
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.
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.
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 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.
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”
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.
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!
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.
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!
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