Sunday's Sermon will focus on Genesis 1:1-2:3
The Bible contains an Upper Story and a Lower Story. The Upper Story tells the big picture, the grand narrative of God seeking relationship with mankind as it unfolds throughout history. The Lower Story contains the details of particular people, the episodes we’ve become familiar with: Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, the flood, etc. This Upper Story is really a framework around which we approach and apply any one part of the Bible. It unifies God’s whole message to us and helps guide us through the hard times in life by doing two things:
a) reminding us of God’s eternal, long-range plan and,
b) putting our experiences into a divine context formed by a perfect Creator.
b) putting our experiences into a divine context formed by a perfect Creator.
For example, without the “Upper Story”, a lost job could be seen as an event without hope. But put into the context of the larger chronicle of our lives, and God’s perfect design, that lost job can be seen in a very different light, perhaps as an opportunity for God to reveal something better.
So, by putting all we read into the larger picture, we can make modern-day application from the Bible that takes into account the grand, mysterious ways of God, and guards us from misapplications that can result from an isolated “what this verse says to me” approach. In other words, the Upper Story creates the context for the Lower Story.
At our church we want to use The Story to help everyone gain a better understanding of the big picture of the Bible and to better understand God’s redemptive plan for us today. As we journey together through The Story we will take note of both the temporal events and characters (Lower Story), as well as the eternal purpose of God: to restore and build a relationship with His creation.
- Has your experience with studying and learning the Bible been fulfilling or frustrating? Why?
- Do you have a favorite Bible story or Bible character?
- What is it about the story or character that most fascinates or resonates with you?
- The Bible has been attacked by skeptics for centuries. A July 9, 2008, headline reads, “Dead Sea tablet casts doubt on death and resurrection of Jesus.” The DaVinci Code is on the national bestseller list for weeks. Other religious groups declare that the Bible is full of inconsistencies and is therefore untrustworthy. How have similar experiences impacted your personal trust in the Bible?
- List a benefit (or two) that you expect to personally experience from going through The Story this year. How do you think our church as a whole will benefit?
In the beginning, God. God is the central character of the grand story of the Bible. It really is all about Him and His desire to be in relationship with people. In the opening chapters of Genesis, the Upper Story is in full view. God has a grand vision to be with us, and enjoy harmonious life with us on the newly created perfect earth. Man and woman together reflect God’s image as community. As images of God, they are to rule as His benevolent representatives over the earth. In the garden, there is perfect communion with God, one another and with the creation itself. It is all about relationships—relationship with God and relationship with each other.
But God doesn’t force those relationships. When man and woman choose to listen to a creature rather than the Creator, the vision is ruined. Sin enters in and brings with it physical death and separation from God and expulsion from the garden. The whole earth is cursed and begins to die. The sin nature is inaugurated by Adam and Eve, and its tragic consequences are passed on to their offspring. Cain killing Abel demonstrates that every human is infected with sin. But sin is more than what we do, it is what we are—it is now our very nature.
Relationship between God and man has now been broken as has the harmony between man and woman. Even the earth itself no longer relates well to man. Immediately, however, God begins His plan to get us back into a right relationship with Him; and that Upper Story never changes even to the last chapter of the Bible. Even after God brings judgment upon a wicked earth, Noah and his family still emerge from the ark with their sin nature. It is going to take something beyond people to solve the sin problem. A clue to the solution is subtly given to us in God’s response to Adam and Eve. God Himself makes for them clothes from an animal’s skin to cover their nakedness—blood is shed to cover their sin. And a promise is made that sin will one day ultimately be vanquished.
This first chapter of The Story is vital to understanding God’s Upper Story. The major doctrines of our faith are rooted here, namely sin and redemption. In the Bible, only the first two chapters of Genesis and the last two chapters of Revelation give us a glimpse into life in a world without sin, a world as God intended it to be. When we compare our world with what the world was like before sin, we learn that nothing is as it should be. Nothing. Sin changes everything. Since the fall in the garden, man exists in a fallen world under the dominion of Satan. But the believer’s hope lies in knowing that one day the Messiah, promised from the beginning, will return to earth, conquer evil and fully restore the relationships lost in the garden.
- Chapter 1 shows that everything began with God creating and ordering. How is this different than other explanations you have heard of how the world began?
- How might knowing that life has purpose and direction affect your daily decisions?
- What do think it means to be made in the image of God?
- How does it make you feel when you have created something or when you have completed a big project?
- How did the author describe the earth at the beginning of creation? (1:1-2)
- What important events did the author describe in these verses? (1:1-2:3)
- What did God give to man and woman? (1:29-30)
- How did God describe what he had created? (1:31)
- What does the creation story reveal about God’s character?
- What does the creation story tell us about humankind?
- How does your belief about the origins of life affect the way you live your life on a daily basis?
- How should the fact that human beings are created by God impact the way we see life?
- What does the fact that God made us in his image tell us about people?
- How does the fact that people are made in God’s image affect the way you feel about yourself?
- How does the fact that people are made in God’s image affect the way you treat other people?
- What have you learned from this passage about your worth?
