God's Unfolding Story

Welcome to Truth Talk Live. All right, let's talk. A daily program powered by the Truth Network. This is kind of a great thing, and I'll tell you why. Where pop culture, current events, and theology all come together.

Speak your mind. And now, here's today's Truth Talk Live host. Hello, Truth Talk listeners.

This is Alicia Grimes. And I'm excited about today's show because I think we're going to be talking about something that you're interested and I'm interested. Our question, if you want to call in, is what's your favorite story? Maybe it's your favorite movie, a favorite book, a favorite story your mom read you as a kid.

But we're going to be talking about God's unfolding story of Scripture. But I have some reasons for wanting you to call in with your favorite story or book or movie. I asked this question to a group of women who were doing a discipleship study and they had lots of fun answers as far as their favorite movies, favorite stories. But I want to hear yours.

So call in the numbers 866-348-7884. Some of the ones we came up with were 13 Lives, Princess Bride was on like half of half of our list, maybe Spider-Man, any of the Marvel movies, The Incredibles, Big Hero 6, Unbroken, Captain America, Wonder Woman, The Chronicles of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Sound of Freedom, lots and lots of good movies and stories. So do you have a favorite story or movie or book?

We're going to be talking about this morning or this afternoon, God's unfolding story, which is really the story of salvation through Christ. One of my favorite hero movies is because C.S. Lewis observed that often our favorite narratives revolve around heroes and these heroes, they risk their lives.

Maybe they even sacrifice themselves to win a girl or it's a cause or to save somebody else. And we just love a good hero movie. One of my favorite hero movies is 13 Lives. And it's the story about a group of soccer players and their coach get trapped in Thailand in a cave and the monsoon rains come out along on that particular day. It's a true story, but they get trapped in just this long unfolding story of how people come together from all over the world to try to rescue these 12 soccer players and their coach. And if you haven't watched the movie, I'm going to spoil it for you, but it's been out for a while. But eventually they use divers to go back into this cave. It's a couple of miles back and they actually sedate these boys one at a time and pull them through in bags through the submerged caves several hours. And they rescue all of the boys and the coach. And it's just such an amazing story, but it really echoes. It mimics. It's a shadow of the grander story.

And C.S. Lewis said that these stories resonate with us because they reflect a deeper truth. They reflect the grand story of Christ. So do you have a story or a movie or a book that's your favorite? If you do call in and tell us about it.

866-348-7884. But today we're going to be talking about the gospel and the meta narrative. And the gospel is the true story. It's not a it's not a made up story. It's not a myth. It's not a book that you read.

It's not a Marvel movie. It's the true story of God's love, redemption and salvation through Jesus. And it stands as the core message of Christianity. So there are a lot of things that Christians believe. But when you when you get down to the very core message of Christianity is that God has come to save us through the second member of the Trinity, through Jesus Christ. That he added humanity to his deity. He came to earth and he lived to come on this great rescue mission.

And we'll talk about why we needed to be rescued. But when you read the Bible, it really unfolds into four different parts. And those are called creation, the fall, redemption and restoration.

And we're going to talk a little bit about each of those in each segment. But I just want to start by talking about how one of Jesus's main themes in his teaching was the kingdom of God. And he refers to the kingdom dozens of times. And Jesus preached that the kingdom of God was at hand, that it had come in his coming and it was coming. And he made it clear that interest into the kingdom was through faith in him. Some scholars have summarized this as God's people in God's place under God's rule and blessing. And so that's a big that's a way to understand the big idea of the Bible. It's salvation.

It's God's bringing his kingdom to us so that we could be part of his kingdom. So we're going to break that down a little bit. But I think we have a caller. Nick, do we have a caller? Who have we got?

We're coming. I love Nick. He takes care of me. He gets our callers on the line. I'll keep going.

And when he gives me the sign, we'll get our caller on the line. But before creation is actually where our story starts. And so, you know, we start with creation, fall, redemption and restoration.

But there's a story behind our story that helps explain our story. And that's the story of the Eternal Trinity. So for all of eternity past, God has existed in our love relationship between the Father, Son and the Spirit. And so the God God the Father's given glory to God the Son. God the Son's given glory to God the Father. The Spirit has been the bond of love. And so God has always existed as this relational relationship of love.

And so out of that relationship, he creates us. So I think we have our caller ready. Brett from Indiana. Are you there, Brett?

Yes, I am. Welcome to the show. I'm so glad you called. I listen to the same station, all the different preachers and all the different people talking. And I have for a long, long time.

I've been taking my dog out to the fairgrounds for about 10 years out here. And that's what I do. I listen and he runs. Thank you for being a loyal listener. Absolutely.

That's a good thing to do while your dog's running around. And you get a lot of good messages, a lot of good information. Well, I appreciate your call.

And when you were talking about movies, there's one movie, you know, I'm 50 going on 52 years old. And I've lost a lot of people, you know, infants, you know, grandbabies, my own son, grandparents. I lost a lot of people. Brett, we're going to put you on hold just a minute and we'll be back. We're up on a hard break.

We'll be right back to hear your story. You're listening to the Truth Network and Truth Network dot com. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. And we left on a cliffhanger with Brett.

Brett, you were just about to tell us about some movie book story that meant a lot to you. So pick up where we left off. Yeah. Yeah. Like I said, you know, when you when you lose a lot of people in your life, you know, you don't. Some people, everybody deals with it in a different way.

And they don't, you know, be I'm I like to be alone. And I found that the movie The Shack. Wow. Yeah.

I got I got this. I mean, have you watched it? I have.

It's been a long time. I was I was alone. You know, I saw it on there. You know, I thought, well, I'll watch it, you know?

And I guess I guess it brought a lot of understanding, you know, and got me through a lot of the grief. Right. Yeah. You know, by the power of God, you know, the show was there. I mean, I'm not one of those people who just scrolls through the TV, you know what I mean? Right. I just turned on the TV and there was and I thought, well, I'll watch it. And it's you know, and it took my mind off everything, but yet kept it and put it at one point.

Right. You know, help me deal with the grief and give more understanding to life. I just think I don't think it's a 100 percent spot on movie, but it is well written and it'll help a lot of people who have had to deal with, you know, a tragic death.

Definitely. Well, that's the neat thing about movies and books and, you know, stories is they don't capture completely, but somehow they show us a shadow and point us to Christ. You know, they're not they're not actually gospel themselves, but something in so many of our movies moves our hearts to ask those questions. And I really appreciate I'm sorry for the loss that you've had and the grief that you walk through. You know, they're all in a better place.

They're all in a better place. You know, the way I look at it and I tell people this all the time, you know, bad things happen. You know, that's inevitable, but bad things happen. So worse things don't happen. That's God's will. That's an interesting perspective.

You know, we're going to talk about creation and we're going to talk about the fall in a few minutes, which really explains why the world is like it is. So I appreciate you giving me that little in when we get there. But, Brad, I hope you have a great rest of your day.

Enjoy the dog park. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for calling in. I love it. I love it. I hope it never goes away. Well, we'll try to keep going.

My radio, my radio, it's never been on any other station. Well, thank you. And the station thanks you for that. Thanks for being a loyalist. You have a blessed day.

You too. It looks like we have another caller. Mary, Mary, are you there? I am. Good afternoon, Mary. How are you? Good. I am well, how are you?

I'm doing great. Tell me about your book or story or movie. What's something that is just one of your favorites? It might be one people don't know, but they do know the author E.B. White that wrote Charlotte's Web. He has a lesser known children's book about a third grade level called The Trumpet of the Swan. And I did not enjoy reading as a child, but I would read this book over and over and also was not raised as a Christian.

I went to church, but was not taught about Jesus or having a relationship or having an identity or a purpose in life. And I would read this book about all the young swans on the pond who had beautiful songs and they were mating up. And they were very impressive to the adult swans and very impressive to the other young swans when they had this beautiful trumpeting song.

And I was not an impressive little kid. And there was one swan that didn't have a voice. He was mute and his dad risked his life.

Follow the Christian message of the gospel. His dad risked his life and broke into a music shop and stole a trumpet. Now, God does not have to steal for us to give freely, but he taught his son how to play that trumpet. He gave his son a voice and he gave him a purpose and an identity. And he didn't look to be the most impressive swan, but he just wanted to share the music that his father taught him. And that even as a non-Christian child, that touched me somehow.

And as an adult, I just want to sing my father's song. Oh, thank you, Mary. That is beautiful. I'll have to look up that book.

Of course, I read Charlotte's Web, but I don't think I ever stumbled across that one. But what a picture. Well, thank you for calling in and I hope you have a great day wherever you are and whatever you're doing. You too. Okay.

Thanks again. Well, that is something that we think about when we read these movie or when we watch these movies and read these books. There's there's an echo often, not every time, but there's often an echo of this redemption. There's there's a fall, there's a tragedy, there's a rescue, a redemption, and all those are shadowing the grander story. And so let's talk a little bit about that story. I started in talking about there's actually a back story to our story, and that's the story of God. So I don't know if you've ever thought about who was God and what is he what was he doing before he created us? And he was existing in this perfect relationship, the Father, Son and Spirit. And so because he has existed in this relationship of love, when he created us, that explains part of the reason that he created us and what it means to be made in his image.

So in creation, God created us out of the overflow of who he is. That means that God was never lonely. He didn't create us because he's lonely. He didn't create us because he needed servants.

He, as the Trinity, just had such a beautiful relationship that he wanted to extend that. So out of the overflow of who he is, he created everything we see and everything we know, every person who's ever existed. And so that's the back story to when he comes and he creates Adam and Eve in his image. We are created out of all of creation. We're created with a distinctive ability to love God.

We have a soul. We have relationships with each other and ourselves and God and the world. And that's just a beautiful representation of how and why he created us in the first place. But when he created us, we had dignity, purpose, capacity for a relationship. And our job as humans was to bear the image of God, to represent and reflect him to the world. So we're placed in this beautiful garden in a state of Shalom.

And I love the word Shalom. It actually means peace, but it also means wholeness. So the first people, the first humans, mankind, existed in a state of wholeness, safety and contentment. So we read that God gave Adam and Eve freedom to eat from any tree except for the one tree that was the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And he said if they ate from that tree, they would die. So in the beginning, though, when we were first created, he created us to know him and to reflect him. So the second phase, the second part of our story is the fall.

But before I go too far, I want you to understand that even though we look at the timeline as a linear story, Christ is actually at the center of every part of our story. So we'll come back to that after the break. But if you want to call in with your favorite book or movie, it is 866-348-7884. Truth Talk Live! You're listening to the Truth Network and truthnetwork.com A question for today is what movie or book or children's story impacted you and why? So if you want to call in, the number is 866-348-7884. But we already had a couple of callers share a movie and then also a children's book.

So thank you for those callers. We're talking today, though, about God's story. What is the story that he has been writing from creation until eternity future? And so we started out talking about creation and how he created us in his image. He placed us in a place of perfect peace where we were whole. We had peace and wholeness with ourself, with God, with each other and with creation. And then it doesn't take long in the Bible, chapter three, we see that things changed. And, you know, we have to admit, if we look around the world, this perfect perfection of Shalom is not what we see around us. It's not what we experience. What we experience is a broken world that is so conflicted and that brokenness plays out in so many different ways. But in chapter three of Genesis, the first book in the Bible, we read what happened and we call this event the fall. And Genesis 3, one through seven is a pivotal moment in the biblical narrative when Adam and Eve are tempted by the serpent, who's identified as Satan, to disobey God's command. So God placed him in this garden and he said, everything is yours. I'm yours. Creation is yours.

And everything was perfect. And there's this one restriction on one tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent and they ate the fruit from this tree.

And so here enters sin in the world. And some people have said, well, what was the big deal with eating a piece of fruit? How could that have caused the rupture of relationship between us and God? But the fruit represented God's dominion and his authority over everything he had created. And so in that moment, rather than image and bear the image of God, Adam and Eve decided that they would rather live for their image and their glory. And they rebelled against God wanting to be like God. It's the first sin, it's the same sin that Satan created before the world was created when he rebelled against God and learned to be God.

And he comes to them and says, I'm going to try to use the same strategy on you. And he led them, he deceived them and they sinned. And from that moment, the consequences of sin have been passed down, the consequences of the fall. And we see that through suffering, pain and death. And the image of God in us is now marred and darkened. I love what one pastor says, John Tyson says that the image of God in us, which was a reflection, a mirrored reflection, now is a shattered mirror.

We still reflect God, but it's distorted. So that's the fall and the gospel really, it acknowledges the reality of human sinfulness and the profound impact it's had on our relationship with God and other people. So despite the darkness of the fall, God speaks into this scene in chapter 3 in what has been called the first hint of redemption. So after cursing Satan, God says, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your offspring and hers.

He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. And this is the first promise of the gospel that from the line of this woman Eve, who had sinned and been deceived, the seed of her offspring would eventually come as a savior to crush Satan and to overturn the curse. And that is the person of Christ. So that's the first hint of the gospel.

It's called the proto-Evangelion, the first hint at the gospel. And the problem is that we see in the fall that even though God is love and He created us in His image, He cannot overlook sin. But how would He keep His promise to judge sin and also redeem and restore those that He created in His image? Theologians have called this the divine dilemma. It's not really a dilemma to God, but from our perspective, will He choose love or will He choose justice?

And that's where we see the unfolding of this story. So the third part of our story, of the story of humanity, is redemption. For God to remain true to His own nature, justice must be served against those who rebuild against Him.

So at the cross, Jesus takes on our sin and He dies instead of us to satisfy the justice of God. At the same time, He displayed God's mercy and grace. And a pathway to forgiveness and restoration was open for all of sinful humanity.

This is why it's called the gospel, which actually means good news. So Jesus came, He added humanity to His deity, He lived 33 years on this earth so that He could understand, so we could understand that He understands us, that He could be our great high priest, that He could be our advocate. And He lived as the God-man, a perfect life that we cannot live in our place. And then He died on the cross to take our sins, the punishment for our sins that we deserve because we've rebelled against God. And then He defeated death on the cross, and He defeated death for us. And so in His coming, in His incarnation, He made a way for God's justice and God's mercy to both come together.

And that happens at the cross. And then when we believe in Jesus as our Lord and Savior, we're forgiven and restored, and we're promised an eternal life with Him. And so in this way, when the image of God in us had been marred, when we had sinned and broken that relationship with God, we're distanced from Him for now and eternity, God made a way for us to be restored. And He restores the image of God, and He gives us an identity in Christ. And at the same time, we're invited into His family, we're adopted into His family. And so now, because of what Christ did for us, we belong to Christ. We belong in the family of God, and we have a place at His table. And this is amazing news given how far we've fallen, how destructive our sin has been in our lives and the lives of others.

And God doesn't want to leave us in that brokenness and that separation for eternity. So we have creation, then we have the fall, and then we have redemption. So in redemptive, God's redemptive work is really the focal point of all of Scripture. Jesus is the center point.

He's like the sun in our solar system. And every event in the Bible from creation to revelation is circling around Him, is finding its meaning in Christ. So the fourth part of our story is restoration. And that's what will happen at the end of time when God completely redeems everything fully, and everything is restored.

Restoration involves the coming of God's eternal kingdom, where God's purposes are fulfilled and everything is restored. So remember Genesis 3.15, God pledged, He promised, that the seed of Eve would come and crush the head of Satan. And we see that happen on the cross and in the resurrection.

But there's a second coming when Jesus completely crushes sin and death and restores an eternal kingdom that we will experience forever as followers of Christ. So restoration is the culmination of His promise that He made in the garden when we sinned. It's also the culmination of a promise He made to Abraham. Because when He started this new nation through whom the Savior would come, He started with one man, Abraham. And He raised up this man, Abraham, and said, I'm going to bless you, and through you all nations of the world will be blessed.

You are going to be the one who reflects and represents me to a lost world. And Abraham had faith, and he followed God. And through him the nation of Israel came about, and their mandate was to do the same thing, to represent and reflect God to the world. But you see this continued pattern of brokenness from the fall that we cannot actually image God the way we are intended to until we have redemption through Christ. But in the restoration of all things, we see that come full circle at the throne of God. When you have God on the throne and the Lamb of God, and in Genesis 12, 1-3, we see this when all believers come together in heaven to worship Christ. And we see that in John. John is seeing this in the vision of the Revelation. And they are worshiping, Worthy are you to take the scroll and open its seals. For you, they're talking about Jesus, were slain. And by your blood you purchased people for God from every tribe and language and tongue and nation. And you've made them a kingdom and priest to our God, and they shall reign on the earth. So this new kingdom that's coming brings a new heaven and a new earth, where death shall be no more and there shall be no more mourning, crying or pain, for the former things have passed away. That's from Revelation 21 4.

So we'll be right back to talk through this a little bit more deeply, but if you want to call in, it's 866-348-7884. Welcome back to Truth Talk Live. We were talking today about God's unfolding story. And just to recap what we've talked about so far, we've had a few callers to call in and share their favorite book or movie or story and how that's impacted them. But the stories that we write, that we read, they really point us so many times to a grander story. And that's the story of Christ. It's the story of our rescue from our own sin, from the loss of shalom, the loss of peace with God, when sin entered the world and we're alienated from him and we experience all this brokenness in the world. And all of us can testify to the fact that the world is a very broken place.

And we experience it out there and we experience it in here. When we look in the mirror, we see the brokenness. But salvation through Christ is the unfolding story of a God who has existed eternally in a relationship of love, Father, Son and Spirit, created us out of an overflow of that relationship and created us to bring us into his family, to reveal himself to us so that we could know him, created us to worship, to be known and to know and to steward the earth. But the first humans, mankind, out of the gate, we decided that rather than live for God's image and to glorify him and represent him to the world, that we chose our own image, to live for ourselves and to live in a selfish way.

And we can blame it on Adam and Eve, but we do the same thing. Every day we're faced with the same dilemma. Will I live for my glory? Will I live for my image, for my reputation to reflect me to the world? Or will I live for the glorious God who created me?

And that's still the same struggle that we have today. But out of that brokenness, God promised that if you rebel against me, the consequence is death. And so God has this great love. He is love. He exists as love. And he created us in his image, but he has this dilemma because he's also just. And he has to keep his promise to punish our rebellion.

There has to be a price that's paid. And so we see creation. We see the fall where we rebel against God. And then God steps in with what we call redemption. And that's when God, the Son, Jesus, adds humanity to his deity. And he comes to earth to live in our place, to die in our place, and to resurrect so that we can have resurrection life. And that is the good news of the gospel. That is the grand story.

But our story doesn't end there because guess what? Jesus is coming back. He has a second coming. In his first coming, he came with the offer of restoration and hope and forgiveness. And he made a way for us to be restored. The first time he came on a donkey symbolizing that he's coming as a peacemaker.

But the second time, his second coming, he'll come back on a stallion. And he'll come to judge and to close out this chapter of this meta-narrative and to move all of us who believe in him into an eternal creation, a restoration, and a redemption of all things for eternity. So that's the big story of the Bible. And so, you know, I would ask, where do you see yourself? When I talk to people about this unfolding story, the focus is Christ.

But Christ is doing what the Father planned through the power of the Spirit. So it's all about the Trinity's work in creation through the fall to redeem us, to restore us, and to have us dwell with God for eternity. So where do we see ourselves?

I have a lot of people give me feedback. I think I see myself in the broken identity. And I want to be in the gospel identity. I want my identity to come from what Christ has done for me. And so God makes it easy for us. He says through repentance and faith in Christ and what Christ did for us. Repentance is turning away from your sin, turning away from whatever has become God for you. And turning to God, running towards him, agreeing with God that, yes, I've rebelled, I deserve punishment and death.

But I believe and I have faith in what you did for me to save me. And when we make that turn, when we repent and we believe and place our faith in Christ, then we start to experience forgiveness and the restoration that God brings. And he invites us back into that family. And then he's our father. And so then we live out of that. And God has prepared good works for us.

And we do good works not to earn our salvation, but as a response to our salvation. So I hope that helps you as you think of your place in God's big story. Where are you in God's story? Have you even realized that God's writing a big story and that you're part of that?

You can be part of that. You're either in the story and you're broken and you're far from God, or he's drawing you through his spirit into that relationship, or you've already come into that relationship and you're living out of that. So that's the good news of the gospel. That's why we call it good news. The gospel actually means good news.

But I don't know what you're facing today or the things that you're struggling with. But you know, when I think about some of my favorite movies, some of my favorite movies are The Lion, the Witch, the Wardrobe, which if you know C.S. Lewis, he wrote all these children's books that actually have all these themes of redemption and creation and sin and struggle and rescue and restoration.

So many other books like that and movies. But the central message of Christianity is a true story. And it's God's salvation through repentance and faith in the life, death and resurrection of Christ. So we had creation, fall, redemption and restoration. And the question is, have you responded to the gospel?

So we still have just a few minutes left in this segment if you want to call in and share your favorite book or movie or story. But I just want us to go to Romans 5, 1 through 11. This is really a beautiful passage that explains how God brought us out of the fall and redeemed us through Christ. So it says, since we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We've obtained that by faith into this grace in which we now stand and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. So we see in this passage that Christ died for the ungodly, but he brought peace, grace and the Holy Spirit.

He gives us joy. He gives us perspective, endurance, character, hope, love and reconciliation. So all those things are true for us who are in Christ. There's another amazing passage in Ephesians 2 that really explains who we were, like from the fall until the restoration through Christ, but God, who we are now that we are in Christ.

And this is just a summary of Ephesians 2. It says, you were, you were dead in sin. You were walking in sin. You were following the world. You were following Satan. You were living out your passions of the flesh.

You were carrying out evil desires of the body and mind. And you were children of wrath by nature. Right in the middle of Ephesians 1 through 10, we have verse 4. But God, if you want to do an amazing study of scripture, look for all the but gods in scripture, because but God is what turns everything around for us. So the rest of that passage, but God, who was rich in mercy, loved us with a great love, made us alive in Christ, raised us up, seated us in heavenly places, made us trophies of his grace and kindness, and saved us by grace and gave us the gift of salvation. So I would just encourage you to study the metanarrative of scripture and understand who was God before he created us. What does that tell us about why he created us and what purpose we have?

Then we look at creation that at the end of creation, he said, this is very good. And then we chose our own way. We chose to to bear our image instead of God's to live for our glory instead of his.

And that broke and fractured that relationship with God. But God, being rich in mercy, did not want to destroy those made in his image. So he made a way for us to be redeemed while also satisfying the justice that he demands because he is a good and righteous God. And we see that redemption in Christ. He came for us. He lived for us. He died for us. And he rose again to defeat death and make a way for our resurrection. So now on this side of what Christ did, we accept him through repentance and faith.

And now we live for him. He's created us for good works that we do as a response to the gospel, not to earn God's favor. And then we look forward to the time when Jesus is going to come back and he's going to set up an eternal kingdom where there is no more death and no more sin and no more suffering.

I encourage people to think about and have a robust theology of suffering because I am pretty sure that we're not going back to the original garden. Because in the garden, we knew very little of God. We knew that he was creator and that he was with us. But almost everything that we know, the deeper things of God, we learned on the other side of the fall. We learned in our redemption through Christ. Now, because of sin, because of suffering, we understand that God is redemptive. We understand that he has unconditional love, that he's sacrificial, that he gave himself for us, that he paid a price for us, that he loves us to that degree. So in our suffering and in our pain, we realize that we have a God who suffered with us, who suffered for us, and who is going to make all things new. So I'm so glad you joined us today and we'll look forward to next time we get together on Truth Talk Live. Thank you for all of our listeners out there and have a great day.