Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / July 11, 2021 | Good Question - What Is the WHOLE Gospel?

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July 11, 2021 | Good Question - What Is the WHOLE Gospel? · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that music's good.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: I like that.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know who picked it, but gets me fired up.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um my name's Alex Wolf.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_00: For those of you who don't know me, uh I'm the young adults pastor here at TBC, and I sometimes have the privilege to uh stand up here and uh give the sermon.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um for those of you who do know me, uh you're probably expecting me to tell some sort of self-defaming story at this point.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um as some of the pastors have pointed out to me in my last three or four sermons, uh, the illustrations have not painted me in such a great light.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: But that's okay.
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: As long as the word of God connects with you, it's a worthy sacrifice, I think.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: So um today I want to continue our series entitled Good Question.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about it, in which we're looking at various questions surrounding the Christian faith and life.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And today I want to look at the question, what is the gospel?
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now I know that seems very basic, uh, but let me assure you, my goal today is that this sermon is not just not just for seekers for people who haven't heard the gospel.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's not even just for new Christians who have, you know, are fresh into the faith.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my goal is that this is for all of us uh today, because one thing that I've realized through my studies in the Bible is that the gospel is so much bigger than we often recite or even recognize.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I want to argue that we often over-emphasize one part of the gospel and we neglect others.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: And as a result, our gospel isn't very compelling, neither compelling evangelistically, nor compelling as we preach it to ourselves and to one another.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: So uh it's sort of like this Twitter stream that I found.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's a there's a hashtag on Twitter that was trending a while back, and it's called Explain a Film Plot Badly.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so here's one example.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh is uh this is Harry Potter, of course, if you're not familiar, and the explanation of this plot is a noseless guy has an unhealthy obsession with a teenage boy.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: Now, that's true, that sort of captures what's going on, but it didn't capture the whole thing.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: It sort of falls short.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, how about this one?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh man destroys family heirloom.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: Again, doesn't quite capture the whole picture.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: I like this one, very Kansas friendly.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh hitchhikers with self-esteem issues get lost in the woods and meet a televangelist who is a fraud.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: Pretty good.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh this is one of my favorites.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Uh miserable billionaire terrorizes a mentally ill man.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the point is, uh oh, wait, we got one more.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: Look at this.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, single father tries to end world hunger with his rock collection.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's the Avengers, by the way, the most reasonable.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, just like these horrible plot summaries are short versions of the gospel, I'm arguing.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: Namely, you know, Jesus died for our sins so that we wouldn't go to hell, is hardly compelling because, like these, it has no context.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so it needs to be more than this.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_00: So today, I want to deal with the question: what is the gospel?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I want to answer this question by talking with you about what I think a short version of the gospel is that contains most of the crucial parts that we often miss.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so to spoil it for you, uh, the gospel, I believe, is the whole story of the Bible, and I believe that every part is crucial for our understanding of what the gospel is.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this reminds me of Jesus on the road to Emmaus, and saying that, some of you know exactly what we're talking about from Luke 14, starting in verse 13.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Jesus has died and he has rose from the dead, and two men are walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus about seven miles away.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so it's a it's a bit of a hike, and they're talking about all the events that have happened in Jerusalem over the past few days.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and Jesus in his resurrected body appears to them and says, What you talking about?
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Are you the only guy in Jerusalem that has no idea what's been going on the last few days?
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: Well, tell me about it.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and they proceed to tell them all the things that happened and that and that they have found his tomb empty.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: And Jesus in verse 25 says, Oh foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Apparently they were supposed to know something about what was going down through the scriptures.
• 4:42
  SPEAKER_00: Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the part that I really want to focus on.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: In beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them and all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: What it must have been like to be on this road with Jesus as he, starting with Moses and going through the whole Old Testament, explains the gospel to these men in seven miles.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: It must have been an amazing uh thing to hear.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_00: So, my goal today is to show you uh why every piece of the biblical story is important and must be represented in some way in our shortened versions of our gospel for our own sake and for the sake of those who will hear our gospel for the first time.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: But in order to understand all the parts of the Bible and why they are important, we need to first understand how story works and how all the elements contribute to the whole thing.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to take a look at an example for illustration purposes.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_00: So we're gonna be talking about the story of the Bible today as the gospel.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to take our illustration from this movie, Taken.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh some of you might be familiar with it, starring Liam Neeson.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh basically, his daughter gets taken, and he has to go find her.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_00: And in our uh bad explanation of the plot, we have this explanation.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_00: A dad has to go pick up his daughter.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is going to represent our overshortened versions of the gospel.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: Now, it's technically true that this is what's happening, but it doesn't capture the whole picture of what the author intends for you to take from the story.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm going to use taken as my illustration for the major parts of the narrative and how the plot and how the story works.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, how story works, the taken edition.
• 6:44
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I hope you will stick with me on this.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never seen it, uh hopefully I can represent it well.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so how does story work?
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, uh, to begin with, uh, it has a happy beginning and a happy ending.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: We call this the setting and the denouement.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: The setting uh is uh is often something that's going well, and then the ending often reflects or restores the beginning, but usually it's even better in the end.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so in the beginning of our movie Taken, uh Liam Neeson gets to connect with his daughter after a long time.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: He's had this long career where he hasn't got to see his daughter very much, and so now he's retired and he's working as a bouncer at a popular uh music venue, and now he gets to reconnect with his daughter.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically, the way he wants to do this is by inviting her and getting her free into one of the concerts of the music hall he's working at.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the setting.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: He he wants to reconnect with his daughter, and at the end of the story, uh Liam gets to connect with his daughter, but on a whole new level, and plus she gets to meet her favorite artist backstage.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: So at the beginning of the movie, this is what's happening, and at the end of the movie, this is what's happening.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: But if that was it, it wouldn't be a very good story.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh if the story was Liam Neeson wants to connect with his daughter and he succeeds, you wouldn't buy a ticket to go see that movie.
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh but what happens in the story is a problem arises by the hands of an antagonist.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: Now, Liam Neeson in this movie is our protagonist.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and an antagonist, a proper antagonist, is diametrically opposed to the protagonist of the story.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: In the movie taken, uh, the antagonist arises as a trafficker.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Liam's uh daughter travels to Europe with a friend, and they get kidnapped by sex traffickers.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh the uh daughter calls Liam, and at that moment the man is taking her, and the antagonist picks up the phone, and so he introduces himself as the antagonist because he is putting in jeopardy the protagonist's happy beginning.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so he initiates a conflict for Liam.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: And namely, the conflict is that on one hand, his daughter is now in sex slavery.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: That's not good.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the main problem for Liam is that he can't connect with his daughter now, and he can't take her to this concert and show off.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's really what's going on here.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so this is the happy beginning, and it's all been stripped from him by the antagonist.
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so the next part of a good story is what we call the plan.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_00: The plan is also called the philosophy of the protagonist, and this is very important to any narrative, to any story, because the plan or the philosophy of the story reveals the character of the protagonist.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: In other words, you get to know the protagonist's character as he responds to conflict.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_00: We're not totally unfamiliar with this concept when I was working in insurance.
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um we would often hear uh your character comes out as you respond to rejection.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: So if somebody says, I don't want to buy from you, uh, are you gonna quit or are you gonna press on?
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's gonna show you what you're made of.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is what's happening in the story.
• 10:17
  SPEAKER_00: As the main character responds to conflict, he's going to show what his character is about.
• 10:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so Liam Neeson's plan or his philosophy is revealed in his famous statement in this moment while he's on the phone, hearing the antagonist breathing on the other side.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: And he says these famous words.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know who you are.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what you want.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you're looking for ransom, I can tell you that I don't have money.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_00: But what I do have are a very particular set of skills.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: Skills I have acquired over a very long career.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_00: Skills that make me a nightmare for people like you.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: If you let my daughter go now, that will be the end of it.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I will not look for you, I will not pursue you, but if you don't, I will look for you, I will find you, and I will kill you.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_00: This is his plan of action.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: This is what he intends to do to fix his problem.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: This becomes a very important piece.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: And in this statement, his character is revealed.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: Namely, uh, he reveals his particular set of skills that he has.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about this.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Second, he reveals his love for his daughter.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, he reveals that he's willing to go to great lengths, even risk his life, to save his daughter from this sex trafficking.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and we also learn in this case that Liam Neeson is vengeful.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: He wants to, he's going to avenge his daughter being taken.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so the next part of the story we have is called the response to the conflict.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: We also call it the rising action.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the rising action is basically uh playing out the philosophy statement, the plan.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_00: So he's already said everything he's gonna do.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now the rest of the story is just giving you the details of how he does that, and you're going to watch now as he does what he says, and you're gonna see whether or not he will be successful.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to see what he means by his particular set of skills.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: So he shows his skills, uh, and ultimately he finds his antagonist.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: He tra he chases him down uh even in the most unlikely of odds, he finds this man, uh, and then the resolution or the victory comes.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: He kills the antagonist just like he said he would do.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And he recovers and he saves his job his daughter just as he said he would, in the way that he said he would do it, using his particular set of skills that are pretty awesome if you watch the movie.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But just go check it out.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: Take my word for it.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um But the important thing to note is this is not the end of the story.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: The resolution, the victory, it might be the great climactic moment, uh, but remember the setting.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: See, he saves her and he kills the guy, he carries out his plan, sure, but the setting, the happy beginning, saw him getting to reconnect with his daughter.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if the story ended at this point, where he was just going to, you know, save her and then, you know, cut scene, go to credits, it wouldn't, it would render the setting void.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what we're trying to get back to is how it started.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_00: So he saves his daughter, uh, but then we get to the result, that is the happy ending.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: This is the called the denouement.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: And uh this is living in light of the victory and restoring the setting.
• 13:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the in the movie Avengers, the great climactic moment is when they finally defeat uh these aliens in the city of New York.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not the end of the story.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: The end of the story, they they the denouement is the peace and the restoration that they get afterwards in light of their victory.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: So in Liam's case, not only does he now have a newfound relationship with his daughter, because she now trusts him, he now finally gets to take her to the concert he promised in the beginning, but with a twist.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_00: He gets to take her backstage and she gets to meet her favorite artist.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And so now the beginning is restored, but with way better uh results than what we could have ever imagined at the beginning.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So, can you see how that short version of you know a father picking up his daughter doesn't just tell it, doesn't tell you why he needs to pick up his daughter or if he succeeds.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And therefore, it's not a compelling summary of the plot.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to argue that the Bible follows a similar plot structure.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so we're going to look at uh using these elements at the story of the Bible.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And remember this plan down here, this philosophy that we said the protagonist has.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_00: When you get to the end of the story, you might have heard people talking about the moral of the story.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_00: What is it the author wants you to take and apply to your life?
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: That's what the plan is.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: The plan often ends up as the moral of the story, right?
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_00: Namely that Liam loves his daughter so much that he's gonna go to great lengths to save her.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's the moral of the story, right?
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible is gonna follow a similar plot line.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the biblical story, there's a great beginning and there's a great end.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: At the beginning, man is ruling from the garden, and at the end, man is ruling from the garden.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_00: Let's look at Genesis.
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, in the begin, Genesis 1.1, in the beginning, God, God is introduced as your protagonist.
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: He's your main character of the story.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then he goes on to say in Genesis 1.26, this is his purpose statement for creation, he says, Let us make man in our image according to our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: He goes on to say, God blessed them, and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it and rule over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the sky, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_00: So God is setting man up to rule, to be his vice-regents, to represent his characters, to be in his image, ruling over his creation.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: And at the end of the story, we flip to the end of Revelation, and the line is they will reign, that is, men with the one man, Jesus, will reign or rule forever and ever.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if this was all the story gave us, it wouldn't be a very good story.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: It would be, God created heavens and earth, and he put man to rule over it, and they did.
• 16:52
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's good.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what happened, and it's not a very good story because we wouldn't then learn anything about the protagonist at all.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_00: And in this, in the case of the Bible, the protagonist is God, and he is the whole purpose for the story.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: And the whole purpose of the story is so that you can get to know him, truly know him, to know his character, what he's like, so that you ultimately in the end can be like him too.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: So the Bible will follow a plot line.
• 17:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so the setting is this: that God has created man and woman to rule on his behalf, according to his word, according to what is good and right in his eyes, mimicking his character system, ruling over all of the living things on the earth, the beasts of the field being the bottom of the rung here.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is the saying.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is what they are to do, and they are to multiply his image, they are to have children, and teach them how to also represent the character of God, and in doing so, they are to fill the earth with image-bearers.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is their task, and they are not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, or they will die.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is the word that God gives them, and they are to operate according to these words.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: But, like any good story, an antagonist shows up on the scene.
• 18:21
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, the antagonist is diametrically opposed to the protagonist.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And Satan identifies himself in the biblical story as such, because God says, the day you eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you will surely die.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Satan comes on the scene and he says to Eve, the exact Hebrew phrase that God had said, you will surely die.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: Satan says the exact same phrase with one word difference.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: Lo, which means not.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: You will surely not die.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: And remember, the word of God is the very thing that man and woman were to operate by.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so Satan comes and he says the opposite of God.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the question is, will man and woman listen to God's words, or will they listen to the words of the serpent?
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_00: So the serpent arises from the beasts of the field, and he gives him his word.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: And instead of operating according to God's word, man and women choose to operate according to the word of the serpent, and in doing so, instead of being in God's image, they create God's in their own image.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: And so Satan has introduced a conflict for the protagonist, namely that God's rule through man has been reversed.
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas God was to uh to to, or man was to rule in God's image over the beasts, now the beast is ruling and man is creating God's in his own image.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is not good.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: This is a conflict for God's plan.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_00: So it's exactly flipped on its head.
• 19:58
  SPEAKER_00: So the next part of the story we should expect would be God making a plan.
• 20:05
  SPEAKER_00: God's gonna make a plan to reverse the whole thing.
• 20:08
  SPEAKER_00: Or he's going to respond to the conflict in some way, shape, or form.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the philosophy of God.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is how his character is going to be revealed.
• 20:20
  SPEAKER_00: And we find this section in Genesis 3.15 through 21.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in this section, God starts out by cursing the serpent and prophesying his death.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: He says, one is going to come from the woman, one of her descendants is going to come, and he's going to kill you, Satan.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you're going to crawl on your belly all the days of your life, you're going to eat dust.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: This is what's going to happen.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to put somebody new from the woman who's going to kill you, because Adam didn't.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then he turns to the woman and he says, uh, from you a new ruler is going to come, a new Adam.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_00: Your husband failed, so a new Adam is going to come, and he is going to rule.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to do it right.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's going to rule in the image of God, just as Adam failed to do.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he turns to the man and he talks about cursed are you from the ground, you're going to return to dust because you were created from dust.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: But it's interesting what happens.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_00: God had said, if you eat of the tree, you will die that day.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: And he doesn't.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: He doesn't die that day.
• 21:25
  SPEAKER_00: Something dies that day, but it wasn't him.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so God offers him mercy.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't die that day, but he provides a substitute for Adam and He covers him with skins, with garments.
• 21:38
  SPEAKER_00: And so we learn about God as he brings this plan to action.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_00: His plan in fixing this whole thing is taking out the man who disobeyed, taking out the serpent, bringing a new Adam who's going to rule according to how he said it was going to be done.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we learn about God as he's going.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: To do this.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: He's merciful.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_00: He's compassionate.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_00: He's slow to anger.
• 22:05
  SPEAKER_00: He's abounding in steadfast love.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so we look now to the rising action, the implementation of his plan, which goes from Genesis 3 to the book of Revelation.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_00: All that's happening in those books, I shouldn't say all that's happening, but what's happening in those books is the carrying out of God's plan to fix the problem.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's going to bring forth a new Adam.
• 22:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so we're watching as he brings forth judges and kings and priests and prophets who will kind of stand in this place prototypically.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: But mostly we're watching how his philosophy plays out.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: It's filling in the details.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: He says that he's compassionate, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in loyal love.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: And now we're going to watch to find out just how compassionate he is.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to watch and find out just how slow to anger he actually is.
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: We're going to watch and find out just how far he's willing to go with his loyalty.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so, uh, how does this rising action play out?
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what are the details?
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, we'd have to go through the entire Bible to get to all that, but uh, I'll do my best to summarize it very quickly.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm gonna create a different line that's going to represent the rising action.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: So Genesis 3, God promises that a new Adam is going to come.
• 23:23
  SPEAKER_00: And he's gonna fix the whole thing.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna reverse it back the way it was meant to be.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and he repeats this promise to Abraham in Genesis 12.
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, just like Adam and Eve were meant to rule over the beasts of the field according to what was good in God's eyes, so now Israel, this nation that God is going to make through Abraham, is going to rule over the nations according to what is good in God's eyes.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And this nation, Israel, will now bring forth this new Adam to be their king.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And so now we're watching as God raises up this nation and puts in prototypical rulers who will tell us something about this ruler who is to come.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: So Joseph is the first to sit in this place, but he's not the guy because he dies and he doesn't raise from the dead.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then Moses comes on the scene and he is a prophet who speaks face to face with God.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: And you're thinking, okay, this is a good sign.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: And not only that, but Moses is delivering Israel from Egypt, with God's help, of course.
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_00: Uh God gives Israel the law through Moses.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: He gives the dwelling, the tabernacle, God's presence through Moses, and you're saying, well, this looks pretty good.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's the guy, but then Moses messes up and he dies.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and then Joshua comes on the scene, and Israel is becoming this great nation, but they don't have a land yet.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so Joshua takes Israel into the land.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: He's destroying all the seeds of the serpents and Canaan, right?
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you're thinking, okay, maybe it's gonna happen now, and then Joshua's out, but they have the land.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so now Israel's finally in their land.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: They're a great nation, they have all this equipping, and now all they need is their king, their ruler, so that they can bless the nations.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so judges arise.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the job of the judges was to make sure, like the new Adam would in the future, make sure that everything operates according to what is good and right in God's eyes.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: Make sure that everything operates according to God's word.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but they fail.
• 25:31
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of their story, everyone's doing what's good and right in their own eyes rather than what's good and right in God's eyes.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: So they mess it up.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then David shows up on the scene.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Now you're thinking, okay, this is surely the new Adam.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: They're in the land, everything's going well, they're prospering, they're uh having victory over their enemies.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's setting up in Jerusalem, everything's good.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he's a man after God's own heart, he's doing good things, and then he sins with Bathsheba.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so you look again.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Solomon comes on the scene, and you're, okay, uh, his name is peace.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh everything about him looks like, okay, this could be it.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: He's prospering, he's ruling with great wisdom, and then he goes after other gods, and he does not do what's right in God's eyes, but his own.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_00: He does the same thing Adam and Eve do in the beginning.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_00: All of these guys did.
• 26:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so now the nation of Israel has a fall, if you will.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_00: They've gone through uh, they've gone through judges, they've gone through pee uh priests, they've gone through kings, and they've all messed it up.
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: The only people left to go through are prophets, and the only reason a prophet shows up on the scene is to tell the king that they're messing it up.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: And so the prophets come and say, Yeah, you guys didn't do it right.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: None of y'all are the new Adam.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and in fact, because you went your own way, God is going to punish this nation.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: Because you made God jealous with other gods, God is going to bring Gentile nations over you to make you jealous.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so they prophesy that Egypt is going to, we call this the times of the Gentiles.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Egypt is gonna come and trample over you, Assyria is gonna come and trample over you, Babylon, Persia, Greece, all these, Rome one, these are all the nations that have been prophesied to come and to get Israel to repent, to judge them so that Israel will finally repent.
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: And in the midst of the times of the Gentiles, a man shows up on the scene into the Roman Empire.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: His name is Jesus.
• 27:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he says, and the New Testament says, that he's the new Adam.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_00: And he presents himself as the new Adam to the nation, and they say, Nah, you're from Satan.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want anything to do with you.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: And they kill him.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And he dies and he raises from the dead and he goes to the right hand of the Father.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: But the text says that's not the end of the story.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He's gonna come back someday to Rome 2, the book of Revelation, right?
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to set up his rule from there.
• 28:04
  SPEAKER_00: And so all of this is simply just playing out.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: You're watching God bring about the new Adam.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: That's all we're watching for, right?
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus, you know, I like my fireworks.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: I thought it was cool.
• 28:17
  SPEAKER_00: Sam wasn't as pleased with me, but anyway.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so the new Adam shows up on the scene, he says he's the new Adam, they don't believe him.
• 28:26
  SPEAKER_00: And so the story continues.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: He's not ruling yet.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and the interesting part is that we are here.
• 28:34
  SPEAKER_00: We are not even at the the the uh victory yet.
• 28:41
  SPEAKER_00: We're not even at the victory yet.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the climax hasn't even happened yet.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting part, though, is that our gospel presentations often contain information only found within this small section of the story.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_00: That Jesus died and was buried and rose again.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's a huge part of the story, by the way.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not downplaying that by any means.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: You have to have that as part of the story.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not the whole story, and it's not even the best part yet.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so we are here before the rising action.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: Our gospel contains information that doesn't even include the resolution, and so we have to look and ask, what is the resolution?
• 29:24
  SPEAKER_00: The resolution says Jesus is gonna come back someday.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he's going to set up his rule.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: The new Adam is gonna come back, he's gonna chain up the serpent, he's gonna rule for a thousand years, take back what the serpent had stolen from God, and prove that he rules according to God's word by setting up a just kingdom for a thousand years.
• 29:46
  SPEAKER_00: This is how he's gonna do it.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: God's gonna bring forth the new Adam, and he's going to rule for a thousand years, and he's going to have victory over the antagonists.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_00: But that's still not the end of the story.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_00: Remember that the story started in a garden.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the story started with the desire to fill the earth with image bearers.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: People who represent God's character.
• 30:15
  unknown: Right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_00: But that's not what's happening yet.
• 30:17
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus is ruling.
• 30:19
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, but we wait for the end of the story.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: We call this the new heavens and the new earth.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_00: This is the denuma, where man is ruling.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: So, first, Jesus rules for a thousand years, and then the new heavens and new earth come, and now the new Adam, Jesus, is going to rule forever.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_00: And we, as his image-bearers who have seen his character, have received his character, who now imitate his character, will rule with him.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: And thus he has filled the earth with us, his image-bearers, who will also rule his image, because we know what he's like, and therefore we are able to imitate him.
• 30:58
  SPEAKER_00: There will be no more pain, there will be no more sorrow, there will be no more war, no more sickness.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_00: We will have access to the garden in Jerusalem, this great city that in the center will be the tree of life, in the river that's flowing with living water.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna go back to the setting, but it's going to be better because the earth will be filled with image bearers and it will be forever.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so then, what is the moral of the story?
• 31:26
  SPEAKER_00: Remember, we said the plan is the moral of the story.
• 31:28
  SPEAKER_00: Wait, there it is.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I had to do my try.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: There it is, okay.
• 31:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um the moral of the story is the promise for the new Adam to come and rule.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so the moral of the story for you, what the author intends for you to apply, is trust in God's promise that he will bring the new Adam who will restore the rule and who will get you to the garden.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we're supposed to apply.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_00: So, why do I go through all this?
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: What is the need to talk about the whole story?
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why all this, you know, detail?
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_00: Why put it all together?
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: Why not just Jesus died and rose from the dead so that you won't go to hell?
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to argue that saying that this is the gospel, that Jesus dies for our sins so we won't go to hell just doesn't quite capture it.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's a true statement.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_00: It's part of the gospel, but it doesn't capture the intended message.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you've ever tried to share a gospel like that with somebody else.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: And the big questions are one, uh, who is Jesus?
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: What's a Messiah?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: What is sin?
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_00: Why do I care about it?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: Where is hell?
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds cool to me.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 32:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh in the in the gospel presentation of avoid fire insurance sounds so negative to people.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: You're telling me I'm going to be judged, you know, uh Jesus died for your sins, so you won't be judged.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if I want any part of that.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: Or so I've heard from people who I've shared with.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so now I want to talk about then why these elements are important.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: We we already know the middle of the story.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: We already talk about it a lot, but why is the beginning important and why is the end important?
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_00: So the importance of the beginning is that it's the foundation of the story, it's the context of the story.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: What is a messiah?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: Start at the beginning.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: What is sin?
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Start at the beginning.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: It's a story.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: It explains who we are, where we came from, how we got here, and what we lost.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_00: Most people hearing the gospel, I came in contact with this a lot in college.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And when you ask, you know, why do you think you're going to heaven?
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: They say, because I'm a good person.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: And they don't understand the need for what Jesus did.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: They say things like, Well, I mean, thanks, bro, but I didn't ask him to die for me.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't think I needed it.
• 33:51
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: But story, if you start from the beginning, has an amazing ability to make you feel the loss, to make you long for restoration along with the other characters of the story.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting part is this is actually our story, too.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm urging you to make people feel the loss that the story presents.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: Define what sin is and why I am a sinner.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not just that I do sin, but that my very nature is so selfish that I'd rather make up my own definitions and listen to the definitions of the culture of Satan than rule according to God's definitions.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because that seems more beneficial to me.
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_00: You see, then people can maybe see it a little bit.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, oh, I may think I'm a good person in my own eyes, but it's God's definitions that matter for a people designed to rule according to his word.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: So the goal is to help people get this by preaching the beginning of the story.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that the fact that Jesus died for your sins and was rose from the dead actually means something.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: And then why is the ending important?
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have basically one word here, and it's hope.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: It describes where we are going, how we're gonna get there, and what we will receive back from the setting.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in seminary, when I got into seminary, I was had been studying end times, eschatology, for quite some time.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because I was always taught growing up that when you die, you go float on a cloud somewhere.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and I'm just like, well, I don't want to do that that bad.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um it doesn't sound that fun.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: My legs will probably get tired.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: I don't like singing too much.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and so I just uh but then when I got into eschatology, it was like, well, no, you're going to rule with Christ forever and ever on the earth.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it came alive to me.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_00: And it built my hope.
• 35:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I was really excited about it, and I wanted to show that I could parse eschatology with one of my professors.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I couldn't, but I tried.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I came up and I'm like, Doc, you know, I had these ideas about eschatology, and I was talking to him, and he's like, you know, Alex, um, the only thing eschatology in end times is good for is hope.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, okay, well, I agree with the statement that that's what it's good for.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: I disagree with the tone, right?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Implying that, oh, you know, hope is just some marginal thing that Christians need on the side.
• 36:27
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true at all.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: If you've read the New Testament, hope is the central motivating factor of the Christian life.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is very, very powerful.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's the reason that you endure in your faith because we know the end of the story, we know it's coming.
• 36:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a bit cliche, but there's a there was an experiment uh performed by a John Hopkins professor called the Hope Experiment.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_00: You may have heard of it, you may not have.
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_00: It's kind of a gruesome experiment, honestly.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but nonetheless, cool point.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um he took rats, some wild rats, some domesticated rats, uh, and he placed them in a bucket full of water.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and he let them swim until they would drown, and he would record how long it would take them to drown.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_00: And the average was, regardless of a domesticated rat or a wild rat, didn't matter, the average was somewhere around 15 minutes.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_00: Uh they would just swim for about 15 minutes and then they'd give up and they would die.
• 37:30
  SPEAKER_00: They would drown.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and uh he didn't understand, his his observation was that it seemed like they had more in them, but they realized that the situation was hopeless, and so therefore they gave up.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_00: And so he created this hypothesis that what if I pull some of them, what if I inject hope into the situation?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: So what he did is randomly, some of the rats, uh, right as he was noticing signs of them drowning, uh, right as they were just about to give up, he would rescue them out of the bucket, he would dry them off, he would resuscitate them, he'd let them kind of recover a little bit, and then he would place them back in the bucket.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: It sounds cruel, I know.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: Uh he would place them back in the bucket to try it again.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And he found that they didn't just swim for another 15 minutes, they didn't just swim for another 30 minutes, it was somewhere like an average of 60 hours.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: They just never gave up.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_00: And his observation, his application of this study was that hope is very, very powerful.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: When these rats felt that there was a way out and that the situation wasn't hopeless, they had the strength to press on because they believed that somebody could intervene and help them out because it's happened once, so I'm just gonna keep going and trust that it's gonna happen again.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: The point is that hope motivates us.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: Hope is powerful, and without hope in our gospel, without the denouement, without the resolution in our gospel, we're gonna have a hard time enduring when things seem hopeless.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: But if the end, if the victory and the denouement aren't a part of what you preach to yourself and to others, then you're missing out on the motivation to do the one thing that we are urged to do more than anything else in the Christian life, and that is persevere and help one another do the same.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because the end isn't here yet.
• 39:27
  SPEAKER_00: The antagonist is still running rampant, he's still running the joint.
• 39:31
  SPEAKER_00: We have need to persevere.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: And hope also motivates us to godly living today, or according to Paul, uh, we can suffer and we can sacrifice because we know that the end is coming and that all of that will be vindicated.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: So Jesus didn't just die so that you could avoid hell.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: He died so that you can rule with him forever on the earth and have access to the garden and all of its benefits, the tree of life, and the river that's flowing with living water.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_00: He died so that you can regain what was lost long ago.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I believe this gospel is not just for non-believers or new Christians.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel is useful to all of us.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: And we must preach the whole gospel, the whole counsel of God to others, and most importantly to ourselves.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now I understand that the whole story of the Bible is much more detailed than this, uh, and much more detailed than even this presentation.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it leaves out a lot of details.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I believe this is what we are to pursue as believers.
• 40:40
  SPEAKER_00: We are to continually deepen our understanding and our trust in his story and the ending that's coming.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and if you need help with this, teaching the story and how it all fits together is my passion in life.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is this is what gets me out of bed in the morning.
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: I love seeing the story come alive to people.
• 41:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's what story is meant to do, if read correctly.
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's meant to come alive.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because through it you will see the character of God.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so please don't hesitate to reach out if if you'd like to go through it in more detail.
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_00: But to close, um, I want to say this.
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: We are a people who are one day going to rule with God's Son according to his character, according to what is good and right in his eyes, and Christ's death and resurrection has secured your spot in that day in the garden.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: But we aren't there yet.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's still forming us into his character, still bringing us along, still making us his image bearers.
• 41:49
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is, we are in the story.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: So we can participate with his movement forward in the story.
• 41:59
  SPEAKER_00: I've said it once and I'll say it again.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_00: Your personal story is either helping to move God's story forward, or it's trying to carve out its own narrative, which never really ends that well.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so the question then is which will your story be?
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh let's pray.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for your word.
• 42:23
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for your gospel, for the good news that what was lost will be restored a hundredfold in the new heavens and new earth.
• 42:34
  SPEAKER_00: And you have secured us a spot there, and so we long for that day.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for what your son came and did for us on the cross.
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: We're thankful that we too will be raised from the dead in the likeness of his resurrection.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: We're thankful for every piece of your story, and we ask that you would help us to be uh good readers of your story, learning from every piece, learning the whole council, uh, so that we might be people who understand where we came from and understand then where we are going and how we're getting there.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: We thank you for all of this.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name that we pray, by the power of the Spirit.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.