The Rescue

There was nothing Adam and Eve could have done to repair their relationship with God. They chose to sin. They chose to put their own ideas of what is good in place of God's ideas... which we know are perfect. And I know it doesn't seem fair that they should get to set the pace for the rest of human history, but the Bible tells us in Romans 5:12 that, "Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned."
Since all have sinned, all deserve the penalty of sin, which is death, or separation from God. So Since the original sin, the sin of Adam and Eve, people have been imprisoned by Sin. As we move from the stories of the Creation and the Fall, and look toward the story of the Rescue, I want you to see that:
Sin is a Prison
Love has a Promise
Rescue is the Plan
In God’s story, He created a perfect place. Sin destroyed the relationship between God and people and even though we were still sinners, Jesus died so that we might be rescued.

The Story - 3-27-11 from Carmel Students on Vimeo.

The Creation and the Fall

A couple of summers ago, I had the opportunity to take a group of students to serve on a mission trip to Barbados. While I was there, one of the teams and I got to go into the public schools and share with the elementary and middle school students. It was very interesting to be in a public school where the Bible is still taught as a part of the curriculum. The kids all know the Bible stories. They know the books of the Bible, and they pray before lunch and before they leave for the day. But, even though they know a lot about the Bible and who God is, very few actually know God. They have the knowledge in their head, but they have no relationship with God in their heart.
The next to last day that we were in the school, I was out on the playground with a class of 6th graders, and I was kicking a soccer ball with a boy who was about 12 years old. We knocked the ball around for quite a while, and eventually we just ended up hanging out. We talked about his family and my family. We talked about his interests and my interests. We talked about his beliefs and my beliefs. His beliefs were a little different than my beliefs, and just in the conversation I could tell that he wasn’t very satisfied with his beliefs. His understanding was that he needed to be good in order for God to love him, and if his good outweighed his bad, then maybe he might get to go Heaven.
With his permission, I explained to him what I believe and what the Bible says about God’s love, but I didn’t just tell him the story; I showed him the story.

I’m sure many of you have seen this or something like it before. When I hung out with Winston, I was wearing a bracelet just like this one. A tool like this is an easy way to remember the different aspects of God’s story.

The Story - 3-20-2011 from Carmel Students on Vimeo.

The Story - The Power of Story

The Gospel is more than a list of bullet points; it is a story. Any story can be difficult to understand if you miss the beginning.

When I was in college, there was a movie out called Black Sheep, and my friends and I decided to go see it. For one reason or another, we were late for the movie. I was like, come on, lets just see something else, or go to a later show. But my friends thought, no, it doesn’t matter if we’ve missed the first 20 minutes... we can catch up. So we walk in to the theater. Its opening night... literally the only seats left in the whole house were on the front row. So I don’t know how the story began, and I’m forced to watch the movie from the front row, looking straight up.

You can guess what happened. I thought Black Sheep was the stupidest movie I had ever seen. I couldn’t understand why anyone would ever want to go see that movie. I was totally frustrated by even the idea of that movie. I didn’t understand the story, and honestly I didn’t want to have anything to do that movie for a long time. People who knew the story would talk about Black Sheep, and I would spout off about how stupid that movie is. I probably even insulted a few people over it, because I couldn’t understand how anybody could sit through something so ridiculously stupid. I didn’t understand the story, and I was completely turned off by it.

A couple of years later, I was in blockbuster... (you used to actually have to go a store and rent movies on big plastic video cassettes.) and I decided I would give Black Sheep another try. This time, I was in a comfortable place, I got to see the beginning of the story, I understood the plot, and actually had an enjoyable experience. Granted, Black Sheep is still not the best story in the world, or the best movie, but I get it. I laughed... in fact I still laugh even when I see clips of it on You Tube. Regardless of whether or not Black Sheep is a movie worth watching, what I want you to understand is that the first time I experienced that story I had a horrible experience. I didn’t get to hear the whole story, I didn’t understand what was going on, and I hated the story.

Now, imagine that the story is not Black Sheep, but instead what we know to be the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. You may really want someone to know the story; to fall in love with the story and trust it as the foundation for their life. Just like my expereince at that movie, though, we can’t expect someone to walk in to the middle of the story and enjoy.

When we think about the gospel, we need to have a bigger view of the story than just, “God loves you and has a plan for your life. Your sin separates you from God. Jesus is the bridge that connects you to God. Trust in Him and you will have eternal life.”

Even better, we need to have a more complete view of the story than the Vacation Bible School ABC’s. A - admit that you’re a sinner. B - believe that Jesus is God’s son. C - confess him as your savior and lord, and you’ll have life eternally.

People need to understand the Big Picture of the story, and how your story fits in to that big picture.

The Story - 3-11-2011 from Carmel Students on Vimeo.