The Story of God

I promised to provide a way for you to get the slides from the Story of God series this summer. Well, here are the files for each week:

Week 1: Download PDF
Week 2: Download PDF
Week 3: Download PDF
Week 4: Download PDF
Week 5: Download PDF
Week 6: Download PDF
Week 7: Download PDF
Week 8: Download PDF
Week 9: Download PDF

A special thank you to Karianne Rillera for doing the drawings and to Becky Sehenuk for putting the slides together with such a great design. Enjoy the slides and feel free to use them.

Joshua Walker

Theology for Today

Reading the theologians of the past can be a rich experience.
We have a lot to learn from those who have gone before us. Yet like most good things, there is a potential danger. 

As we read godly men like Martin Luther, Jonathan Edwards, St. Augustine, John Owen, and many others, we are drawn to the force and brilliance of their arguments. But we seldom consider the arguments and world views that they were addressing. Does it matter? Absolutely.

We admire their argumentation, we stand in awe of the impact they had on their generations, and naturally, we want to have the same sort of impact. So we imitate their argumentation and emphasize what they emphasized. But when we don’t consider what they were arguing against, we fail to recognize that we may not be called to answer the same questions.

What I mean is this. The great theologians of the past were answering questions. But the answers they gave would not have been helpful if they were not responses to actual questions—regardless of how brilliant those answers were. An ingenious explanation of the law of gravity is not a good answer to how to bake bread. So before we adopt the great arguments of the past, we must first consider which questions we have been called to answer.

Martin Luther said it like this:
“If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ. Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point” (Cited by Francis Schaeffer in The God Who Is There). 

In 1863, a soldier fighting in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania would have been considered a hero. But a soldier fighting the same way in the same location today would not be a hero—he would be irrelevant. 

Should we read old theologians? Of course! We have much to learn from them. But we cannot afford to confuse their battles with our own.
If we want to impact the world as they did then we must know the Bible well and bring that knowledge to bear on the questions and erroneous thinking of the world in which live. 

And how do we know what questions need to be answered today?
We will never know until we walk out the front door and start conversations with our neighbors. Only then will we find that the Bible has answers for real life—it always has, and it always will.

The Impossibility of “One Anothering” Yourself

We would probably all say that we desire to honor God. Who would deny this? But in reality, we have deceived ourselves into thinking that we can actually live a life that honors God apart from being in continual relationships with the body of Christ.

Many would say that this is an overstatement. After all, every one of us has relationships. But I’m talking about something deeper than getting together with people for dinner once every few weeks. This level of interaction may be a blessing to us, but it simply does not fulfill what the Bible calls us to. Really, this type of interaction doesn’t give us anything more than a progress report. But if we were to develop deep, regular relationships with other people, then we would have opportunities to practice the “one anothers” of Scripture.

We run into this problem because we exalt independence.
As a culture we esteem independence—it has become one of our main measures of success. But our exaltation of independence actually hinders the body of Christ from functioning in the way that God desires. 

Do you realize that it is impossible to live a life that honors God on your own? In order for us to fulfill the commands of Christ we must be in true relationship with other believers. We need to reject our culture’s exaltation of independence and finally humble ourselves and express our need for the body.

It comes down to this: you cannot “one another” yourself. Yet the
Bible is full of commands to do various things for one another. The inescapable solution to the dilemma is this: we need each other.
In order to be and do what God has called us to be and do, we must renounce individuality and embrace community. 

You can start this process in two ways: (1) Identify someone who has a need and do what you can to help them out. (2) Identify some of your own needs or weaknesses and bring other people into the process. Our arrogance is the only complicating factor. When we actually begin doing this, we will find that this is exactly how we were mean to live.

THE LARGER STORY OF GOD

Lately, I have been thinking a lot through the big picture the Bible paints of God and his continuing story of redemption. The Bible paints it all the way from eternity past to eternity future, but the thing it never misses is that from front to back it is about God and God alone.
 
Sadly, much of our view of God’s redemptive plan is consumed in painting ourselves as the main character of the story. This is exactly what happened to Lucifer, and to Adam and Eve; they fell in love with themselves and forgot the main character. And from those two distinct moments in time, a new story was begun, not about life, but now about death.
 
As I look around this little part of the world in which I live everyday,
I can see these two distinct stories happening all of the time. Some people are clearly about God’s story! Not really in perfection, but in practice you can see it in how they spend their time and money, treat their spouses and kids, treat their day at work, and on and on. They wake up in the morning with a desire and plea to know God more, and the script for his story is engraved on their mind (God’s Word). With every aspect of their life it reflects the presence of the Spirit of God in their life through distinct works that build God’s Kingdom, his church; an everlasting kingdom.
 
Some, even some who call themselves followers of Jesus Christ, have only one script on their mind, “MY SCRIPT!” They are building a kingdom, but the kingdom they are building is their own; the mark of those who are pursuing the wrong story. They are content when everything is falling in line to their script, but agitated and frustrated when anyone dares to break free from the script and ad lib. The word I have noticed that this person uses most is “busy.” That is code for “it doesn’t help me build my kingdom” so I don’t have time. The unfortunate reality for this person is that their kingdom is passing away. Here today…gone tomorrow.

Confessions of Inconsistency or The Church Cart before the Church Horse

I cannot tell you how many times I have taught or have been taught by others that “context is key.” The basic idea is, if you want to accurately understand a passage of scripture, then you must analyze the context in which it was written. This principle is deeply ingrained in the way I study the Bible. Or so I thought. To my surprise, I recently discovered that I have not been consistent with this principle as it pertains to a particular passage of scripture.

Over the years, I have often thought about what the church ought to be and do. One passage that I have been drawn to in this regard is Acts 2:42-47. I would read this description of the early church and try to imitate their example. They met together, prayed together, ate together, and devoted themselves to the apostle’s teachings. After years of reading this passage, I have become very familiar.

But one day it struck me: this passage needs to be seen in its context. This may not be enlightening, but Acts 2:42 comes after Acts 2:41, and those both follow Acts 1:8.  In chapter one Jesus gave the newly formed church a huge task. They were to take the gospel everywhere, including the very ends of the earth. When we come to Acts 2:41, we read that 3,000 people were added to the church. 

Then we get to Acts 2:42-47. There was a reason they were meeting together, eating together, selling things in order to meet each other’s needs, and devoting themselves to the apostles’ teaching. They were responding to what had happened earlier in the book.  Jesus sent them on a mission. In order to accomplish this mission, the early church needed to meet together, to pray together, to share with those in need. These were things that were essential to accomplishing the task that Jesus sent them on.

As I examined my life and ministry I realized how frequently I tried
to imitate the activities of Acts 2:42; I would meet with people
(often good friends), eat with them, pray with them. In taking part of these activities, I thought that I was being faithful to what the early Church did. 

I was wrong! The early church did not just meet together for the sake of meeting; they were meeting together for the purpose of taking the Gospel throughout their town and even to the ends of the earth. The central issue was not meeting, sharing, or eating together (even though they did those things). The primary issue was accomplishing the mission that Jesus gave them to fulfill.

If I am passionate about reaching a particular area (e.g., my neighborhood), then it makes sense for me to meet with other people who share in that same passion. But rather than simply meeting for the sake of meeting, I should probably meet with them in order to figure out how to best care and pray for that area. My problem has been that I have not been reading Acts in context. I need to remember that Acts 1:8 comes before Acts 2.  Taking the gospel throughout the region needs to be primary. Meeting together is a good thing, but it cannot be an end in itself. In the early church, it was a means to an end. And that end is fulfilling the mission that Jesus has given us.