The Extraordinary Story of How Jesus Created and Restores Everything

As we lean into the Holy Scripture, the Holy One leans into us.

We all love and understand the idea of "story." We were created by a Storyteller and born into a story already in motion. We don't show up in the story until day six of creation. We are not at the center or first in the story. History is His story.

The Bible isn't intimidating when you see it as a story. It's one story in six acts.

1. Beginnings. Colossians 1:16

• Page one, line one is "in the beginning." In Hebrew, it says "The heavens and the earth God created in the beginning." Elohim bara rasit. In three Hebrew words is the origin of our story. We see our value and life in the beginning of the story. We are carriers of the Imago Dei, image bearers of the Almighty God. You were set apart at conception. We are arriving into a story that's already going. We're not the story maker, we're participants. We have been marked with everything wonderful, beautiful, and spiritual at Creation. Eternity is stamped in us.

2. Revolt. Psalm 14:3

• This is the fall of man. Sin in our lives is not that we did bad things, it's that we did our own thing. The problem isn't, "I've never really done anything bad." The problem is that all of us have done it our own way. We have all revolted. Adam and Eve were the crown jewel of Creation, but they traded their crown for a curse.

3. People. Deuteronomy 7:6

• Adam and Eve have to leave the garden. Human beings start reproducing at a rapid rate and are left to their own devices and understanding. It's a colossal mess.

• God steps into the revolt and chooses a people to be His own so He can show the rest of the people what it's like to have a God that's faithful to His own and gives them life.

• Among those in the revolt. He chose a people. Everyone was born with the Imago Dei. All of humanity was born knowing there is something beautiful, spiritual, and eternal, they just didn't know what to look for. They built idols, religions, ideas, and philosophies. It was in this that God decided He wanted a people because all their gods were deaf and dumb, so He put in the middle of them a people who can see and speak.

• A cycle appeared that revealed there was a huge need even among the people of God. They would be desperate, God would rescue them, bless them, and give them favor. They would be grateful, but immediately start relishing in the blessing, try to do things their own way, serve something else, become enslaved, and cry out in desperation again. Acts 3 talks about the unfaithfulness of God's people, but how God was always faithful to those He calls His own.

4. Savior. Romans 4:25

• Mary and Joseph are they are going to have a son named Jesus who will save His people from their sins. God always had a plan and He chose that a genetic seed of His people would go from one generation to the next, leading to the promise. From revolt, He was already working towards redemption. Our redemption wasn't an exercise, it was an exchange. History changes because Jesus comes to save us, God's Son, was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.

5. Church. Matthew 5:14, 28:16-20

• Jesus sent the Holy Spirit to empower the Church to export the Gospel to the world. The Church is a lighthouse for everyone. We are His People, His Body, His Bride, and His Church. The Church is how the story would go to the ends of the earth.

6. Forever. Revelation 21:3

• Forever is a big deal. Heaven is not harps and sitting on pillows floating around. Heaven is going back to the future. There was nothing wrong with what God created in the first place. He's spent the last several thousand years rectifying the crumbling effects of the revolt that we inserted into Creation so that in that day we can be as God intended.

Knowing the acts of Scripture helps you understand which act you're in when you're reading the Bible. You're holding in your hands the story of God, what it's about, and where you're at in it.

How did John 3:16 become the most famous verse?

It summarizes the entire story that God has written. All the acts are found in this one verse.

In the Old Testament, Hosea is a story within a story. 800 years before Jesus, God's people were a mess. The kingdom was split into northern and southern kingdoms. Israel was in a huge mess with a foolish king. He brought back the idol worship of his ancestors and God's people joined in and it became commonplace. Hosea was God's representative to God's people during the dark time of worship being characterized as drunkenness, temple prostitution, and human sacrifice.

God was faithful and sent Hosea to marry a prostitute named Gomer. She agrees to marry him and they join their lives together. They had a son named Jezreel, which means "I will judge." But Gomer left and went back to her old life while Hosea was preaching. She got pregnant by someone else but returned to Hosea. She gave birth to a daughter that they named Lo-ruhamah meaning "unloved." Gomer later left again, got pregnant again, and returned to Hosea again. This time she gave birth to another son whom they named Lo-ammi which means "not mine."

Hosea has remained so faithful and is trying to be God's representative in dark and crazy times. One day something flipped for Gomer and she left for good when she was promised a different life with a different man. She and her new lover lived it up but the relationship was born in deception, how could it stand the pressure of commitment? Time went by and the lover left her. Gomer was stuck in such a horrible situation that she sold herself into slavery to survive. The news made its way back to Hosea; Gomer got what was coming to her.

Hosea didn't relish in the news, he ran after her to find her. He finds her on the auction block. He exclaims that he has found his wife, his bride, his beloved. He pays full price for her when she couldn't even get half the going rate from anyone else. He embraces her and says, "I'll be yours if you'll be mine!" In the story within the story, Hosea and Gomer fade away, but Jesus emerges. He says He will come for you. He will pour out His affection on you, He'll pay full price with his own life to buy you back from death. He will be yours and you will be His.

These are not just words on a page. It's the extraordinary story of how Jesus creates and restores everything.