RESURRECTION SUNDAY: “The Story Before and Around All Stories”

Luke 24:25-27, 44-49

1 – The Creation Fall Redemption Restoration Story
1. my favorite uncle growing up was Uncle Howard. He was a story teller. As a kid I had a hard time separating truth from fiction. Especially his story about driving through Colorado, being pulled over for speeding, and acting like he was deaf when the highway patrolman approached his car.

2. I was in Boise one month ago for my dad’s 87th birthday. He told me war stories. He was an airplane mechanic in the Navy. He lived on Ford Island in Pearl Harbor for 3 years shortly after the Japanese bombed it.

3. he also told me the story of how he was born in a log cabin in Konawa, Oklahoma – sod floor, no electricity, no indoor plumbing.

4. this morning I want to tell you The Story before and around all stories. The Story in which all of our stories live, move & have their existence.

5. The Story is found in the Bible. Bible comes from the Latin word biblia meaning book. This book is God’s Story. The Story before & around all stories.

6. this biblia is unlike any other that we have ever held or read. Just like all books, it’s words on paper, but that’s where the similarities end. This is God’s biblia. His Word, his Story, his Revelation.

7. This Story can be summed up in four words. The first word is Creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth (Genesis 1:1). All things were created by him and for him. He is before all things and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:16b-17).

8. creation came not by accident but by Divine design.

9. the second word is Fall. God’s creation in the persons of Adam & Eve rebelled against its Creator. They decided to go their own way. They disobeyed God.

10. and God’s original, perfect creation lay spoiled. Separation resulted & now impacts everyone since Adam & Eve. All of us are stained by sin. Separated from God. From each other. From creation. And from our deepest selves.

11. USA Today on Wednesday carried an article on sin. 87% of adults believe in the existence of sin. But for many it comes down to moral pragmatics rather than absolute truth. Sin is becoming relative. People view sin NOT as God views it BUT as how they view it. They interpret sin in a very personal & self-congratulatory manner – I have to do what’s best for me.

12. USA Today quoted Tim Keller of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City. 5000 people. 70% are single & younger than 40. Keller talks about sin but says, I use it with lots and lots of explanation, because the word is essentially obsolete. They do get the idea of branding, of taking a word and filling it with your own content, so I have to rebrand the word sin. Around here sin means self-centeredness, the acorn from which it all grows. Individually, that means ‘I live for myself, for my own glory and happiness, and I’ll work for your happiness if it helps me.’ Communally, self-centeredness is destroying peace and justice in the world, tearing the net of interwovenness, the fabric of humanity.

13. what is true in New York City is true right here in Canby, in the Willamette Valley, in the greater Portland area. All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). Sin is living for self instead of living for God.

14. the third word is Redemption. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your forefathers, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect (I Peter 1:18-19). What we’re talking about here is rescue by what the biblia calls the Gospel.

15. defined as – God himself has come to rescue and renew creation through and in the work of Jesus Christ on our behalf (Tim Keller).

16. the redemption of Jesus Christ is all about reversing the affects of the Fall. Destroying the sin that separates us from God, each other, creation & even ourselves. This is what the life, death & resurrection of Jesus Christ accomplished.

17. without the resurrection, redemption would simply be a passing fancy. The life, teaching, promises & claims of Christ would come crashing down. The resurrection established Jesus in the eyes of God and his creation as the Savior Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

18. redemption hinges on resurrection. And resurrection establishes Jesus as the Lord and Savior over all creation.

19. the fourth word is Restoration. As it was in the beginning, so it will be in the end. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away (Revelation 21:1). The restoration of all things material & immaterial.
20. right now God’s creation – the Columbia River, Smith Rock, Mt. Hood, Douglas Firs, Dutch Iris, Mars Pluto Neptune, the Canby Pond, salmon, steelhead, sturgeon, badgers, worms, lady bugs, the Baltic Sea – God’s creation waits to be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God (Romans 8:21).

21. Jesus’ resurrection-won restoration stretches out to include not just our soul and body BUT every speck of God’s cosmic handiwork.

22. creation fall redemption restoration

2 – The Redemption Story
1. creation fall redemption restoration. I want to say a few more things about redemption. Redeem is a market-place word, a word used in business transactions in the ancient world. It means to buy as a purchase or, in the Biblical sense, buy back as a ransom.

2. the emphasis of the redemption image is our sorry state of affairs. We are held captive to sin & need to be purchased, liberated, from its clutches.

3. we fall short of God’s will & intention for our lives. We fail to make the grade, to measure up, to make the cut. We scuffle with shame & guilt. We try to numb it with alcohol, drugs, sex, money, success, food, video games, music, adrenaline, travel, exercise, education.

4. to climb out of this mess some of us take a stab at a personal enhancement narrative. We engage in behaviors that are designed to convince ourselves that we’re okay. We pour it on in order to convince God that we’re okay as well.

5. we try to be moral individuals who avoid the ‘big’ sins. Strive to be model citizens, neighbors, community members & maybe even church members. We endeavor to be good spouses, parents or children. To remember the poor & needy.

6. but we quickly discover that we can never live up to our own expectations. Our feeble actions fall short of our best intentions. Our personal performance narrative fails to close the sin gap between us & God, others & creation.

7. we need redemption, rescue, help. We need, dare I say it, God.

8. The Word became flesh and made his dwelling with us (John 1:14). God himself entered our world in the life of his Son Jesus Christ to rescue us from our personal enhancement narrative.

9. Jesus lived the life we should have lived. He died the death we should have died. He gives us the life we couldn’t achieve.

10. Jesus does not tell us how to live so we can earn our salvation (personal enhancement narrative). No. Jesus came to forgive and save us through his death in our place.

11. this is God’s grace narrative. God’s grace does not come to people who morally outperform others. God’s grace comes to people who admit their failure to perform and who acknowledge their need for a Savior.

12. we are not accepted by God because of our moral performance, wisdom, or virtue. We are accepted because of Christ’s work on our behalf. This is the grace narrative that is at the core of God’s biblia.

13. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast (Ephesians 2:8-9).

14. grace alone saves us. Faith alone saves us. Christ alone saves us. Our sinful, fallen state is made right with God by the life, death & Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

15. and we get in on the grace narrative by fully recognizing, embracing & confessing that Jesus Christ 1) is God in the flesh 2) died on the cross for our sin 3) rose from the dead to defeat sin & death 4) longs to come into our lives & be our Savior & Lord.

16. pray & raising of hands

3 – The Restoration Story
1. creation fall redemption restoration goes something like this…

2. God made everything good, but unfortunately we’ve made a terrible mess of it from the very start. Today we’re destroying the environment. We’re destroying ourselves.
Socially we’re full of hate, war, lust, greed. As a human race, given enough time, we seem to destroy everything we touch.

3. but from the very beginning God has sought us out. In his great mercy he called a man named Abraham to comprise a new people. He gave good laws for Abraham’s descendants to live by at the time of Moses. He sent them into exile but then he rescued them again. More mercy.

4. in the fullness of time he sent his own Son Jesus to die on the cross, to exhaust all sin, to destroy the power of the devil. On the cross God’s love for his fallen creation clashed with God’s wrath for his fallen creation. In the death of Jesus God’s wrath was satisfied even as God’s love triumphed.

5. and now God gives us new life, for in Jesus the kingdom of God has dawned. With the dawning of the kingdom comes a whole host of women & men swept along by the good news of salvation & the power of the Holy Spirit. We anticipate the consummation of the age. A new heaven & a new earth. A resurrection existence. A return to an Eden-like existence in the very presence of God himself. All things wrong made right.

6. Restoration hinges on Resurrection. Listen to Tim Keller from his book The Reason for God: The resurrection is not a future that is a consolation for the life we never had. No. The resurrection is a restoration of the life you always wanted but was robbed from you by our fallen world. Restoration means that every horrible thing that ever happened will not only be undone and repaired but will in some way make the eventual glory and joy even greater.

7. at the end of The Return of the King Sam Gangee discovers that his friend Gandalf was not dead (as he thought) but alive. He cries, “I thought you were dead! But then I thought I was dead myself! Is everything sad going to come untrue?”

8. the answer of the Resurrection-won Restoration is – yes. Everything sad is going to come untrue. It will somehow be greater for having once been broken & lost. We are looking at nothing less than the ultimate & final defeat of sin, evil & suffering.

9. what is your “sad?” Where has life wounded you? Who are the people who’ve butchered you? What has been taken from you? What is the source of the deepest, darkest shame in your life?

10. Restoration means everything sad comes untrue for you, now in part & forever in whole. I can’t imagine that anyone would want to miss this. The best is yet to come. We are made for eternity.

11. alleluia Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!






Music i listened to while sermonizing – johnny cash; aaron copland; u2; ty vanacker

Books i read & studied while sermonizing – surprised by hope by n.t. wright; the cross of Christ by john stott; the reason for God by timothy keller;