The God Story: The Inciting Incident

1 Samuel 16:1-13

I.

Though Jesus was known to quote Scripture from time to time, his primary way of teaching was through story. When Jesus wanted to convey a hard to explain spiritual truth, he didn’t preach a three-point sermon; he told a story. We connect to stories. Stories get our attention in a way that a formula or definition cannot.

Jesus taught, not by quoting a Hebrew scripture or bombarding the listener with doctrine, but rather through stories and parables. Stories are written on the parchment of our souls, branded on our hearts. We can easily find ourselves wrapped up in a good story that proclaims great truth better than doctrinal statements could any day.

In our sermon series, The God Story, we have seen that the Bible is not just a disconnected collection of historical accounts, but a story that helps us connect with the mysterious truths of God. Though it can be helpful at times to take a verse here or there, we seek to hear whole story of the Bible: the connection from Genesis to Jesus and beyond.

We have talked about some of the elements of a good story in the last few weeks. A good Introduction is where you learn important information about the main character. We talked about the Suspension of Disbelief where you ask the reader to suspend their logic and critical faculties to believe the fantastic. We looked last week at the Rising Action, a critical time in the story where the protagonist faces conflicts and obstacles.

This week we learn that any good story or play or movie must have a clear Inciting Incident. The Inciting Incident is the moment in a script that kicks the story into motion. It is the event which sparks the fuse of the plot of the story; it’s something that MUST happen in order for the hook–the movie’s special premise–to kick in. It occurs only after the set up. Everything that follows the Inciting Incident should be a result of the Inciting Incident. It is where a story really gets going. It is that moment in the script where the protagonist’s world is turned upside down, It jolts your hero or heroine out of their everyday routine; and he/she must then set about resolving the change in circumstances that the incident has brought about. It is generally a clear and defined moment that is easily identifiable.

Think about the plane crash in the film Cast Away starring Tom Hanks and Helen Hunt. Tom Hanks is Fed Ex executive Chuck Noland who is flying on one of their jets to Malaysia when without warning, BOOM! Chuck Noland finds himself holding on for dear life as the plane loses air pressure inside and altitude outside. The peaceful world Chuck Noland had known comes to an end in a split second of time. Author and speaker James Scott Bell likens the Inciting Incident to a doorway through which the protagonist cannot return.[1] This is the inciting incident for Chuck Nolan: clearly defined and easily identifiable through which Chuck Nolan cannot return.

Our story, The God Story, began with the author and main character creating and writing the story of life into existence. We hear of his love for Creation and his desire not to be a far off and aloof God but one who is involved in what God made. In fact God is one who speaks to God’s creation because God desires relationship with the created. (Thread #1: God speaks because God desires relationship.) But God’s creation, the man and woman, choose their own way, betraying the trust of their God.

And yet God continues to hold out the promise to them and those that come after. He gives a laughable dream to an old man named Abraham, and keeps that promise by giving him a son at the age of one hundred. (Thread #2: When God makes a promise, God keeps it.)

And Abraham’s lineage did become a great nation. The promise was kept, but this did not keep the people from hardship and suffering, even slavery. We talked about last week how this people was delivered from slavery and led out into the wilderness, and even in that wandering time, that transition time, God provided all that they needed. This was Thread #3: God will provide all that you need for the journey.

II.

This wandering people did make it to the Promised Land. They were a people who were centered on one common thing, the God they served. Their connection was not based on physical boundaries or a human leader, only their God. And then they did something surprising, something unnecessary—they asked for a king. They saw other nations had kings, and they did not.

Samuel told them all the pitfalls of having a man be the leader, and yet they still cried out for a human king (1 Samuel 8:19-20). The first king was Saul, and sure enough he ended up getting a big head and wanting power and glory for himself. And so in the story we read this morning, God tells Samuel to go and anoint another king.

This is where we are introduced to David, who would become a great King. Samuel is told to go to the family of Jesse, who had eight sons. When Samuel gets there he sees the sons, strong attractive men. But as each son comes before Samuel—seven sons come before him—God says not that one, not that one, and not that one.

Samuel asks, “Are these all the sons you have?” (1 Samuel 16:11) Jesse answers, there is the youngest; he is tending the sheep. Samuel says, “Get him we will not sit down until he gets here.” David, the youngest with the most humble of jobs, is brought before Samuel. The Lord speaks and says, “He is the one.”

Do you see what’s happening here? Here’s David, the youngest of Jesse’s sons, a young boy or pre-teen, chosen by God through the judge Samuel to be King of Israel. He stands before the old judge with his father and brothers all around him who witness to the anointing of his head with oil, anointing him to be King of Israel.

And this is all happening while a perfectly healthy king, King Saul, is still in power. What a predicament! Good story, isn’t it?

David is one of the main characters of the God Story. He gets a lot of print, and this is his Inciting Incident. This is the “everything has changed moment,” the “there’s no going back now” part of the story. Everything that follows in his life comes from this moment. What is the inciting incident of your life?

At this moment David is given, if not a new story, a better story. David is thrust into a new story. When the prophet Samuel comes to your house, checks out your seven older brothers and then comes to you, pours oil over your head and says, “You’re the new king.”, but you’re not related to the current king. You’re not next in line. Nevertheless, David has received a new, better story. His days as a shepherd, sleeping in the fields, watching over his flock by night are over.

III.

David was unsuspecting, undeserving, caught by surprise, but chosen by God.

This is Thread #4 that we see all throughout the story; we’ve seen it already, and we will see it again. Thread #4: God calls the unlikely and gives them a better story. Abraham, Jacob, Joseph, Ruth, Esther, David and the list goes on of unlikely individuals who accept a better story for their lives. In spite of his imperfections and mistakes, his pride and arrogance, David embraces a better story.

Something clicked for him; something changed in him. After all this is the guy who killed Goliath with a sling and a stone; who fought bravely in battle; who committed adultery and murder and later became a strong and mighty king. But it was that moment while tending to his father’s sheep a messenger came from Samuel that he wanted to see him. He arrives in his father’s house, sweaty, exhausted and out of breath, covered in dust and dirt from the fields now has oil pouring down his face and neck while God declares, “He’s the one. Bring him here.” This changes everything for David.

The Inciting Incident is a doorway through which you cannot return, a major life shift, whether positive or negative:

You’re fired.

Will you marry me?

I’m pregnant.

He’s not coming back.

It’s cancer.

Whether you meant to or not, you find yourself in a new story. What this story tells us is that whatever hand life has dealt us, whatever story we think we are destined to follow, God has a better story for us. And if you consider yourself unlikely or unwanted, then you are precisely who God wants to talk to.

Jesus was big on this. He called out unlikely people and gave them a new and better story. He gave a blind man a new story. He gave the bleeding woman a new story. He gave the paraplegic a new story. He gave the prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers and fisherman each one of them he gave them a new and better story.

I think sometimes we forget who we are. We forget who is writing the story for us. God has not written a story for you that includes abuse and misuse. God has written for you a better story. We need to remind one another of that fact. Not only that, God can use you to help others find the better story. You can help others walk through the doorway to connect with Jesus. It is a doorway they will never want to walk back through again.

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[1]Bell elaborates on his concept of “doorways of no return” throughout his book Plot & Structure (Cincinnati: Writer’s Digest Books, 2004).

The God Story: Rising Action

Exodus 16:1-4

Numbers 11:4-6

I.

We started our study of the God Story in a timely place: In the Beginning. In the first chapter of Genesis we find this interesting, captivating story of how the author and main character, God, got this whole thing spinning in motion. After God created humans, God did something revolutionary that gods aren’t supposed to do: God spoke to them.

That was Thread #1, our first connector that we will see throughout the story: God speaks because God desires relationship.

We talked last week about Abraham and the laughable dream God gave Abraham that at the age of one hundred; he would become the father of a great nation. We talked about our own dreams, our own stories that we still hope will be written, and learned about Thread #2: If God makes a promise, God keeps it. 

We jump back into our Story this week at a place that is critical for understanding the connections or threads throughout the whole God story. But first let me catch you up. You might think of this as a montage, or a sequence of clips in a movie that covers a long period of time in just a few minutes (usually accompanied by a great song) to get you up to the next point of major action. In our montage, we see a few generations pass. Abraham and Sarah did have a son, Isaac. Isaac married Rebecca, and they had twin sons: Esau and Jacob. Jacob had many children, twelve sons who would become the twelve tribes of the nation of Israel. One of the sons of Jacob, Joseph, ends up going to Egypt and saving all of Egypt during a famine. When they became a great nation, part of God’s promise to Abraham is fulfilled.

Then a new king who did not know Joseph came to power in Egypt and forced the descendants of Abraham into slavery. And that is where we find ourselves in the Book of Exodus, a record of people who were enslaved, who then became a people on the run, who then became a people with no home.

II.

Exodus is, if the Bible is one grand story, the Rising Action. You remember those elements of a story from middle school. Here is the basic definition of Rising Action. During the Rising Action the basic conflict is complicated by the introduction of secondary conflicts including various obstacles that frustrate the protagonist’s attempt to reach his or her goal.

In our story the basic conflict is the conflict of the people being separated from God, which started in the garden. It is carried throughout the God Story, and in Exodus it is now complicated by the introduction of secondary conflicts including various obstacles that frustrate the peoples’ attempt to reach their goal. Secondary problems like slavery, hunger, and exhaustion further complicate the already growing issues of a nation of people trying to stay connected with God.

So God radically saves the people from slavery using Moses, who was almost killed as a baby and then had to flee his home country because he murdered someone.  He was a guy who was scared to speak in public. Moses leads the people out of Egypt even as they are chased by an angry army. Then they find themselves in the desert wandering around, starving, tired, and exhausted. That is where we find them; facing secondary conflicts with various obstacles before them.

And somebody says, “Hey, remember when we were in Egypt?” Another says, “Yeah, we had meat to eat.” Another says, “yeah and cucumbers.” 

And someone makes the preposterous proposition, “Why don’t we just go back?”

The warning from this Scripture today is there will come moments in transition times, when we are headed toward our dreams that we will be tempted to go back to where we were before; to what is familiar and known.

Have you ever heard someone say, “I will never go back to that restaurant again”? My Pop-Pop was infamous for this.  He could have had the best dining experience possible with great food and great service.  But let’s say after a great dining experience he has to walk through a maze of hallways to get to a small, dingy men’s room.  Forget about it!  He’d say, “I will never go back to that restaurant again.”  But eventually he would.  Have you ever heard a long-time member say “I will never go back to this church again!”  To say this, one would have to have been so offended that they say they will never darken its doors for the rest of their lives.  And all because they took offense to a decision of the Session perhaps or the pastor’s sermons are boring and out-of-touch or they are not getting their way on church decisions or have a seat of prominence at the head table, so to speak.  But old habits are hard to break and more times than not the person or persons are back in the pew after a short period of time away.

The people of God who had been delivered from slavery, given water in the desert and bread from heaven, after a little time in the desert said, “The heck with it! Let’s just go back.” What they didn’t see was that God would give them all they needed for the journey. It is the thread running throughout the story.

III.

Thread #3—God will provide all you need for the journey.

We have to take this story seriously because some of the secondary conflicts and various obstacles in our lives can lead us into believing a lie. The lie is that life in slavery is better than following God, and you might as well just go back. When you start listening to that voice, you get yourself in trouble.

If you find yourself hoping for the next page to turn in your life, you may be in a chapter of transition. If so, here is what you have to be wary of. In these times it is easy for things to move so fast you can’t get a handle on them. You can become distracted. You can become exhausted. And these are the times when you are vulnerable to the temptation to turn around and to turn away from what God wants.

Surely the Israelites, if they thought about it real hard would not have preferred Egypt. It was a place of slavery, beatings, working in abusive and impossible situations. Life in the desert, in transition, is difficult and disorienting, making you vulnerable to complaining, grumbling, and unhealthy desires.

The transition times, the Rising Action, is in many ways the best part of the story. It is here you really learn the true depth of the characters; this is where the true depth of the character is formed. Romans 5:3-4 says, “we can boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope”. This is what defines you, not the in the beginning, and not the happily ever after; this is where you become who you were made to be.

The Hebrew people would re-tell this part of the story over and over again to remind them of what they went through, to remind them that God took care of them, and to remind them that God will still do it today.

IV.

If you are in a transition place right now, you may have seen a glimpse of where God might lead you. Don’t give up when you start feeling tired and start desiring meat and cucumbers. God will give you all that you need for the journey. Believe that. Trust that.

And sometimes we need some type of sign, something from God to let us know he is still with us. The people who were hounding Jesus were asking him for some type of a sign, something to hold onto. They said, “Our fathers ate manna in the desert. God gave them bread from heaven. What do we get?”

Jesus said, “I am the bread from heaven. If anyone has me, they will live forever” (John 6:31-36, paraphrase). We find Jesus in the Rising Action, and he is all we need. This is the Good News!  Thanks be to God!

The God Story: Suspension of Disbelief

Genesis 18:1-15

I.

Last week we began the series, The God Story, where we looked at the story of God and God’s people as found in the Scriptures. We often wonder, what connects the biblical stories? Does the God of Adam have anything to do with the God of Abraham? And what does that have to do with Jesus? What does that have to do with me?

Last week we encountered Thread #1 and it was “God speaks to God’s people because God desires relationship with them.” It is found in all the stories; a God who speaks and God speaks because God desires relationship. And if it is true for the people of the Bible, it is true for us, too.

Today we will introduce a new thread, but first I want to remind you that if you want to find yourself in the God Story you have to be willing to admit that you have a story. To get caught up in the story you have to understand your story as well.

You may have to admit you didn’t necessarily think this chapter of the story would go in the direction it does. A common theme in the story of God is: things don’t always look the way you thought they would or thought they should. So I will need to ask you to do something that is essential not just for enjoying a story, but for being caught up in the story.

It is called the Suspension of Disbelief.

The idea of the Suspension of Disbelief was first introduced by the English poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge in 1817. He said that when reading fantastic or non-realistic elements of literature there is a Suspension of Disbelief that is necessary. In other words, you have to be willing to suspend your tendency to not believe the impossible to have any hope of enjoying the story.[1]

It is required in many of our favorite stories; you have to say to yourself, “Ok, I’m putting reason and logic aside for a moment, because the story seems better than reason or logic right now.”

So in the film, The Legend of Bagger Vance, I’m going to believe that a mystical caddy named Bagger Vance just appears out of thin air for the purpose of offering the main character, Rannulph Junah, a way to find his “authentic swing”. He does so through his wisdom and insights while caddying Mr. Junah through the Crew Island Invitational against the top professional golfers of his day only to walk away and disappear over the sand dunes before it’s over. So in the film, National Treasure, I’m going to believe that yes, the Founding Fathers of our country following the Revolutionary War buried the exotic treasures of world history several stories down below the many subway trains and Trinity Episcopal Church in Lower Manhattan.

I want to invite you into a fantastic story, it will require great faith and certainly the Suspension of Disbelief, but please understand fantasy does not necessarily mean its fiction.

What I was trying to introduce last week is all the great stories we have find their origin in the great Story which is amazingly and unbelievably true.

There will be times in your story when you will be forced to suspend your disbelief; so you can be caught up in the amazing, surprising, chapter that God holds next for you.

We learn this from Abraham and Sarah. In Genesis 12:2-3, God says, “I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you, I will make your name great and you will be a blessing.”

At seventy-five, God is going to make Abraham’s name great? And the really unbelievable part is that God will make him a great nation. This implies Abram’s offspring will multiply and multiply and become a strong people. Trouble is, Abram has no sons and daughters.

The story continues in Genesis 15. It is eleven years later, Abram is now eighty-six, and still has no children, when God repeats the promise that Abram will be the father of countless children. So Abram and Sarah cook up a different plan, deciding to help God with God’s promise. Sarah tells Abram he must continue his heritage, so she gives him her servant Hagar. Abram and Hagar have a son Ishmael, but this does not seem to be the answer. At age ninety-nine, God speaks to Abram again, and changes his name to Abraham, which means “father of many,” and says you will birth many, and I will establish a covenant with you and your descendants.

Do you see how absurd this is? Suspension of Disbelief is necessary to continue in this story but it’s difficult. God sends the message again, and Abraham and Sarah just laugh, because God’s promise seems so implausible, so unbelievable. God is leading us to believe that the laughable dreams of our hearts might still be possible through God’s power.

II.

Here is Thread #2. If God makes a promise, it will come true.

It may not be in our time. It almost definitely will not be in the way we would draw it up, but God will not forget or go back on God’s word. And this was true for Abraham; everything God promised came true.

The question is, will we be willing to suspend our disbelief to be a part of the God Story, or are we too black and white, too realistic, too rational, maybe even too pessimistic to believe an incredible dream for our life?

What incredible dreams do you have? Once upon a time I had the incredible dream of playing shortstop for the Yankees. But after only tallying two hits in three seasons of Little League, I thought I should try something else. In high school, I dreamed of becoming a stockbroker. But after losing money in a regional stock market game with area high schools, again I thought I’d better look elsewhere. With my dream of going to law school and become a lawyer, more roadblocks and signs appeared. But I remained faithful to God knowing that if God makes a promise, it will come true. So when I began to consider a call to the ministry, all the doors of my other career aspirations were closed with this one left wide open. I’m right where I’m called to be serving God’s people and the world as a pastor of Jesus Christ. This is the part I play in the God Story.

Our story is the story of the God of Abraham, which I’m sure has meant a lot of different things for people over the centuries, but what it reminds me of is that we follow the God who took an old man whose dream was gone, and because he believed—because he suspended his disbelief—it happened. Abraham believed God’s dream for his life. His dream came true.

Paul says this is how we find life, salvation: “Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. As it is written: ‘I have made you a father of many nations’” (Romans 4:16-17). We are a part of God’s Story! We are the extension of the promise God made through Abraham.

God wants to call some things in your life that do not exist as though they were. He wants you to suspend your disbelief and believe. And things that are not can become things that are.

Simply believe.

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[1] Coleridge expounded on his literary concept, the “willing suspension of disbelief,” in his well-known autobiography Biographia Literaria; Or Biographical Sketches of My Literary Life and Opinions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983).

I Am Because I Belong

We celebrated the youth of our congregation this past month.  What a celebration it was!  This annual event always brings out friends and family of the youth who don't attend our church or any church at all.  For our older members it serves as a reminder that the youth of our congregation have what it takes to be leaders in the church.  For all other members it is a confirmation of the fact that these young people are a blessing to us; gifts from God since their birth and they have much to share.  For me, well, it's the one Sunday when I get to sit with my family in worship. :)

The scripture lesson for the day was Luke 5:17-26.  It's a healing story.  It's a story about love, kindness and friendship.  My Pop-Pop as a young man had four really close friends.  The five of them called themselves, "The Five Pals" and had shirts made with this name on the front.  They were a tight group;  almost like blood brothers.  They were there for one another.  They would do anything for any one of them.  That's what good friends do.  In the scripture lesson we have five friends and one of them is paralyzed and can't move.  So his four friends carry him around from place to place.  They had heard of this man Jesus who saved sinners and healed the sick.  They wanted to meet him.. They wanted their friend to meet him, hoping perhaps Jesus could heal their friend.  They believed Jesus could do it.  They came to the house where Jesus was meeting, but were unable to get inside by conventional means.  So they did the next best thing: went through the roof.  They were desperate and were unwilling to give up on their friend with out a fight.  Digging through the thatch and the tile of someone else's home is a radical thing to do.  In our day and age it would be considered breaking and entry, but for those five friends all they wanted was their paralyzed friend back.

Down through the roof goes this paralyzed man and placed at the feet of Jesus.  He's interrupting the meeting with some very important people.  And Jesus, seeing the love and commitment of this man's friends, stops what he is doing.  He sees them for who they truly are.  He sees their faith and the man walked again.  

It took a village, a small community of people to bring the man to Jesus for his healing touch and spiritual renewal.  You can't do it by yourself.  You've gotta have help.  You need someone who has your back; someone you can trust;  someone you can believe in.  These are some of the qualities of community.  The church is intended to be a community of believers in Jesus Christ who demonstrate God's love for them by loving and caring for each other.  We don't stop there.  We are called to share this love with the whole world, to connect with others so they may experience the love God has for them.

We have what it takes to share the Good News because we each have the light of Christ within us.  Let your light shine for all to see!  

The God Story: In the Beginning

Genesis 1:1-2, 26–2:4

I.

We all have a story. We know the chapters and the characters in our story. We know the moments of heartbreak and the moments of joy. Your story is important for we all are a part of a bigger story.

I’ve always been interested in my family history, in the lives of those who have gone before me: where they were born, where they lived, their careers, hobbies and any great stories of their lives.

My Nana always told me stories about her family. She told me about how my great-grandmother, Grandma Pospisil, grew up in the village of Solopisky in the Czech Republic before immigrating to the United States. She was a good student and did very well in school, but because she was a woman she was not permitted to attend the University. She worked as a Nanny for a NYC doctor’s family, who happened to be Presbyterian. Grandma Pospisil became a Presbyterian. She never went to college, but she was determined that her two daughters would get their degrees. My Nana and Aunt Helen did just that.

Grandpa Pospisil, also Czech, grew up in Minneola, Long Island, NY. He quit school when his father died and went to work for Kennedy-Foster Co., Inc. on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. Kennedy-Foster was in the horseshoe business as well as in industrial hardware and tools. Over the years he purchased shares in the company from the Kennedys and Fosters until he eventually owned the whole thing. My Pop-Pop and Uncle Vinnie went to work for Grandpa Pospisil and they later inherited the company from him.

When I hear these stories and come to know my ancestors as best I can, I realize that I’m a part of something bigger than me; it’s a part of a life narrative that is ongoing, one that is cumulative and growing with each passing year.

Theologian G.K. Chesterton said, “I had always felt life first as a story: and if there is a story there is a story-teller.”[1]

I am a big fan of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic trilogy, The Lord of the Rings. Frodo and Sam find themselves as two young Hobbits in the scariest place they ever dreamed of, with the task of saving the world. Here Sam says, “I wonder what sort of a tale we’ve fallen into?”[2]

Sam could not have asked a better question. Sam assumes that there is a story, that there is something larger going on. Author John Eldredge in his book Epic says that the question “What sort of tale have I fallen into?” may be the most important question of our lives.[3]

We experience life as a story. If you are like me, you wish we were given a blueprint at the beginning, a map of what will happen when and where, but instead we experience life like a story. We turn the next page and see what comes next.

It unfolds whether we want it to or not, sometimes too fast, sometimes too slow. And we find ourselves in the middle of it just like we did when we were kids and pretended we were a part of some suspenseful adventure with love, heartbreak, and the unknown. Now we are living it: lives of love, heartbreak, and the unknown.

And many of us, if we stop, might need to ask like the young Hobbit. What sort of tale have we fallen into? How did I get here? Is this really it?

Part of living in the middle of the story means that you can’t skip ahead to the last chapter to see how things end. That means we often live in mystery not understanding how everything happening might fit together in a bigger picture.

In the classic TV show I Love Lucy, husband Ricky would come in almost every show in the middle of the story, in the middle of the event, or the middle of a catastrophe, and say Lucy, “You’ve got some explaining to do!”

Often in life, when a surprising page is turned—we lose our job, the kids move away, our spouse dies—and if there is a storyteller, we want to say to the storyteller, “You’ve got some explaining to do! I don’t get it; I don’t see how it all fits together.”

II.

If life is a story, there must be a storyteller, and I think most of us are wondering, how does my story connect with God’s story? Over the next seven weeks I want to invite you to look at the greatest story of intrigue, suspense, betrayal, adventure, hope, and life. It’s the story of God’s people, and that means it’s a story that includes every one of us.

If you are like me, you can look at the Bible, a big book, and hear the names Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Sarah, Jacob and Rachel, Joseph, David, Isaiah, Mary, Joseph, and Jesus, and think, how does it all fit together? Is this one story or a collection of hundreds? Does the God of Adam have anything to do with the God of Abraham, and do they have anything to do with Jesus?

The answer is an amazing “Yes.” The Bible is the story of God and God’s people and of God’s relentless love and longing for relationship with God’s people. We will look closely to see what threads run throughout. Threads run from Genesis to Jesus and then straight to us.

We will see that the Bible is not a haphazard collection of cute bedtime stories, but instead it is the Word of God speaking to us a connected story of hope for our lives. We will discover that there are threads of meaning and purpose in the story of the Bible, threads that lead to Jesus that lead to us, taking us from haphazard lives to meaning filled lives, from accidental existences, to purposeful existence.

As we hear these amazing stories, and then discover we now live in God’s Story, we will say, “I wonder what sort of tale we’ve fallen into.” We may even say to the storyteller, “You have some explaining to do!” And the story goes on.

III.

Where does any good story start? With “Once upon a time,” or “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away,” or how about “In the beginning.” Our story starts there: “In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth.”(Genesis 1:1) And God is the Main Character.

When I go to a Clint Eastwood movie or a George Clooney movie, and I know they are the stars, the movie doesn’t begin for me until I see them; I’m thinking about them. When are they going to burst onto the scene? So a good story introduces the main character in the beginning; you can’t get to the story, or fully appreciate the story until you are introduced to and appreciate the characters, notably the main character.

And let’s make no mistake about this story we are looking at, though we will look at some incredible characters, and even ponder our place in the story—the main character is always God. In fact we get the word God in the fifth word of the story. In the beginning when God. That tells us a lot about the origin of the world, the origin of our species. In the beginning when God. He is the principal actor, the main character; God is the one we need to get to know to get this story.

An Introduction of a story, the “Once upon a time,” the “in a galaxy far, far away,” introduces the setting, the characters, and the initial things about the plot that we need to know to move forward. Genesis gives the Introduction to the character, the setting, and the plot of the God Story. The setting is “the beginning,” when the earth is formless and empty, and there is nothing.

The main character is God. God is not somewhere backstage, just aimlessly letting Creation take place. It is not an accident. He is the principal actor in creating everything, culminating in God's creation of humans who are remarkably created in God’s own image.

We learn a few things about God that are essential for understanding the whole story. First of all, God is all-powerful. All powerful, omnipotent—however you want to say it—God creates something out of nothing. Secondly, God creates in God’s own image. Crucial to this story is the understanding that we are not robots; we are not programmed to one thing or another; if we are created in the image or likeness of this incredible God, then something of the power, creativity, care, authority, responsibility, imagination and vision of the all-powerful God is found in us. So no wonder we write stories, and create things, and love children, and dream, and desire a story that is bigger than us. The Chief Storyteller made us like himself, and so we get to join in the things that God has done and God is doing. Lastly, God speaks to God’s creation. Our God is a God of relationship. It points to the very nature of God: God as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. God begins the conversation, the relationship, with that which God has created.

IV.

Which leads us to our first thread; thread #1: God speaks to God’s people because God desires relationship with them.

We will see all throughout the story God speaking to Creation. Why? Because God desires a relationship with us. This is the first of several threads we will explore that run throughout the God Story. God is consistent in this desire for relationship with us, his creations.

So I’m inviting you to open your heart to hear the voice of God whispering, maybe speaking, maybe shouting to you your connection in the Story. God is speaking to you.

The story that you have been longing to have, that began in the imagination and fairytales of your heart as a child, your desire for adventure, and relationship, and excitement and love, is not a childlike thing to be dismissed, it is the echo of the greatest story that has ever been told bouncing off your heart. It is the thread of God’s love pulling you into the story.

Pastor and Author Frederick Buechner said:

If God speaks to us at all other than through official channels as the Bible and the church, then I think that he speaks to us largely through what happens to us. …[If] we keep our hearts and minds open as well as our ears, if we listen with patience and hope, if we remember at all deeply and honestly, then I think we come to recognize, beyond all doubt, that, however faintly we may hear him, he is indeed speaking to us, and that, however little we may understand of it, his word to each of us is both recoverable and precious beyond telling.[4] This is the Good News of Jesus Christ. Amen.

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[1] G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (Scott’s Valley, CA: IAP, 2009), 39.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers (New York: Del Rey, 2012), 362.

[3] John Eldredge, Epic: The Story God is Telling (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2004), 2.

[4] Frederick Buechner, Now and Then: A Memoir of Vocation (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 1983), 3.