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Foundations · The Grove Church

• 0:01
  Charlie Loften: Hello, and welcome to The Grove Church podcast. I'm Charlie Loften, the lead pastor there, and we are so glad that you're joining us. Whether you are a member and you're just catching up on a sermon that you missed or you're someone who's brand new, we are really glad that you were joining us. And if you are new in some way, and I know that a lot of people will do that, we'll listen to sermons first before they visit. I want you to know that we would love to meet you at any point.
• 0:25
  You can join us live in our services on Sunday, nine and 10:30 or our streaming service at 10:30. Either way, we would love to be able to get to know you. And regardless of why you are here listening to this sermon today, thank you so much for joining us. Hey, good morning. If you are new, I'm Charlie.
• 0:44
  I'm the lead pastor here. I'm really glad that you're here. Glad you chosen to worship with us today. And I'd love to meet you in the back of the room afterwards, give you a gift, just get to know who you are. Interested in that, would just love to figure out how you made it here and any way that we can help you, we would love to know that.
• 1:00
  So really glad you're here. Glad all of you are here. Glad our Roots kids are here with us. Sorry about all of that. So many our youth pastor, Spencer, he's with several of our kids at Camp Barnabas this week, and so many of our other leaders are serving full time this summer at Camp Barnabas or at other camps.
• 1:22
  And the ones that were supposed to be here today last minute were not able to. So you're in here with us, and the one time you're in here with us, Ty makes a six seven joke. And so that's that's too bad. Sorry about that, but really glad you guys are here. And there really are just a lot of cool things going on.
• 1:38
  Not only are some of our youth groups serving at Camp Barnabas, the special needs camp that really just kind of loves and serves kids in that community. Again, we've got kids that are serving there full time. We've got people that are working at Camp War Eagle. We've got people that are working at New Life Ranch. And like Ty mentioned, we've got this awesome group that's going to Costa Rica this summer.
• 1:59
  And so we're just really excited. Really excited about all the awesome things. People are just taking the hope of Jesus just out there to our community and to the world, and so really excited. I just want you to be aware. You can be praying for them as well and just what God's doing.
• 2:18
  And we're also really excited about the summer seminar that Ty referenced. We started, we kicked that off on Monday. It's every other Monday, so next one will be not tomorrow, but the next. And just kind of working our way through kind of some, this topic of holiness and what it is that God has called us to in that area. Had a great kickoff, encourage you to every Monday that you're available, and again, every other week to make that a part of your schedule this summer as just kind of taken us deeper in some areas.
• 2:45
  And it's kind of a little bit, got some of the summer series that we're doing, kind just thinking about ways that maybe that God is calling us to kind of go deeper. And as I was getting ready for this message and kind of framing it the way that we are, I was reminded of the very first show that I ever re watched, where it's like, okay, was over, and now I just have to completely re watch it. Not like a comedy where you're watching what we used to call reruns, where you would just kind of, oh, it was fun. I was watching some of it, but like, I got to completely rewatch this show just to kind of see what it was about. And it was a show that finished in 2010, I'll always remember when it was, because it was the summer that we moved here.
• 3:27
  I quit the job I was doing in Cabot in June 30, and we didn't move here till August, so I had the month of July. Obviously, we had packing and things that we needed to do, but I decided I was gonna rewatch Lost because it had just finished, and it was a great TV show all the way up until, for me, the very, very end. And the end seemed a little just kind of like casually put together. I remember telling myself, there's no way that the writers of the show had this ending in mind from the beginning, but it was such this is going to sound exaggerated. It was such an important show to me that I wanted to rewatch it.
• 4:08
  So we did, and this was old school, not the oldest of schools, but this was back when Netflix wasn't streaming but would send you DVDs. Who's with me? Okay, right? And so we're on the two plans, so you could watch one while the other one's coming, and they would pass each other, and so made it through the entire series the whole time. And it turned out, even from episode one, you can see glimpses of the way that the story was going to unfold.
• 4:37
  Again, I may be disappointed with it, but it does seem very clear to me based on what the people call the Easter eggs, these kind of things that are hidden in there that you may not catch until later, they were there all along. It's like, Okay, that's what that was. That's what that was. But after years, I had forgotten, and he'd kind of laid a trail to what I would then call a less than stellar ending. But we're not talking about that today.
• 5:03
  But like my favorite book series is very similar in the Harry Potter books. And I will not talk about the ending of that either, even though I thought it was great, because I did talk about the ending once, and somebody said, spoiled it for them. And I'm like, can't spoil a twenty five year old book. But nonetheless, you read it once, and then you're kind of maybe just a little blown away by the ending. You go back, read it again.
• 5:31
  It was there all along. I mean, she's just an incredible storyteller in the way that she kind of unfolds this, and you go back and you look. And again, it was there all along. You just didn't catch it the first time. And what we're going to do in this series is we're going to spend some time chronologically going through what we're just going to eight just kind of epic moments from the scripture.
• 5:58
  These incredible stories, most of which, if not all of which, you have a decent amount of familiarity with. And what we're going to discover, a few things I hope are going to happen over the next few weeks. One is, is that just our overall Bible literacy will increase, our understanding of the big picture story of the Bible. And then also with that, we're just gonna kind of see that in these stories, this picture that God is painting, and that culminates in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, you see glimpses of it all along that you may not would have seen, and that people maybe not certainly were not understood completely at the time. But you go back, and you're like, and this is a plan that God was unfolding all along.
• 6:50
  And with that comes, I just want us to level up, and it's our basic theological understanding and also see a picture of the way that God progressively is revealing through scriptures who He is, who we are, what is our relationship with Him, this big picture of answering the really biggest questions that life or we can ask, and we see in these epic stories. So today, we're gonna start the very beginning with creation. We're gonna talk about Noah, Abraham, Moses, Jesus coming into the world, His death and resurrection, some things that happened in the book of Acts that are just these really pivotal foundational moments all throughout this big picture story of the scripture that essentially shape who we are and what we believe about who God is and our place in this world. And so I would just invite you, I know summer is kind of a chaotic time, and you're here some, and you're not, and you're in and out. I would just really encourage you to just bookmark in some way either our YouTube page or any place where you can get podcasts, and just on the Sundays that you missed, to just kind of catch up, catch up with us to make sure that we're catching all of these stories, and again, getting this big picture of the way that God is unfolding the big picture story of the Bible.
• 8:19
  And again, like I said, we're starting at the very beginning in Genesis chapter one. And when I say beginning, Genesis chapter one verse one. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Now a lot of these things that we're gonna look at today and really over the course of this entire series are gonna be verses, ideas, stories that you're very familiar with, and some of the truths that we talk about may not seem very profound to begin with. Oh, yeah, I know that.
• 8:55
  But it is really sometimes these most simplest ideas that are the most significant and the most foundational. I tell you God created the universe, and you're like, yeah, of course, I know that. But this is where the story begins. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. Everything that we know about the physical universe, everything that is, everything that has been, everything will be, has been created by the God of the universe.
• 9:25
  He did not take something that existed and and make something out of it. He created everything. And we'll just say it this way. God is the creator and the owner of the universe. It belongs to Him.
• 9:41
  He did not form something that existed. He did not come and make it His own. And again, I think it is also important for us to understand that with that, we were not trapped souls somewhere, and God made a place for us to put us here. And some of you may be thinking, that's weird to even say that, but there are some religions and some one off cults that teach something very different than that. And if this was something that was made to create it for you, and so that you could have something and you were somewhere in some sort of weird state before this, then your relationship to God and to the world is different.
• 10:24
  But you did not exist. We did not exist. Nothing existed, And God, for his own purposes and his own pleasure, chose to create something. And so who you are and the way that you relate to God, it matters when you think about it that way. You did not exist, and God owed you something, and so he made something for you.
• 10:50
  It is something he made for himself. And so everything that we have, including our own existence, we owe to him. And so then the natural order of things then is we live a life, first of thankfulness. I'm very thankful for what I have and who I am, and I owe all of that to God. And also, with thankfulness comes obedience.
• 11:16
  I owe Him I owe Him my life. I owe Him obedience. This all belongs to Him. It's all His, including me. And so the rules and the boundaries that He sets, that is the natural order of things.
• 11:31
  And if I step outside of the rules of the one who owns this, then I am the one that is the problem because I belong to him, and all of this belongs to him. And there's something in that to begin to be able to talk about that somehow God owns the universe and that somehow now I'm obligated to him that can make not just an American, but I think all of us. Just kind of bristle a little bit. I'm my own person. No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
• 12:03
  Nobody can control me. Nobody can tell me what to do, and we kind of bristle against it. And we begin to talk like the way that my oldest daughter used to talk when she was younger. Now some of you, and I hate to admit this publicly, some of you have come to me sometimes kind of sharing some issues and struggles you've had with what you call your strong willed child. And as you're talking about it, I am putting on pastor empathy face, but in my heart, I'm laughing at you.
• 12:33
  Because you don't really know. You know, when you tell your stories, they're like, oh yeah, that sounds real bad. And they're like, no, no, you don't know. You don't know. You just don't know.
• 12:42
  Because our little one, before she was even two years old, would walk around the house. Nobody's talking to her. Nobody's interacting with her. She's completely on her own, walking around the house. No, no, no, no, no.
• 12:58
  No one's even talking to you, kid. What you mean? What do you mean no? What are you talking about? And yet I asked her about it.
• 13:05
  Of course, she doesn't remember when she was two. We would just tell her this story, this is what you were like it too. He's like, well, you don't know. I did that my whole life. And I'm like, what do you mean?
• 13:14
  I used to sit in my room by myself practicing different ways that I was going to tell you guys no. Well, that's real special. Thank you for that. And then just a little bit on the other side of two, she once said to her mom, two years old, she once said to her mom, I'm sick and tired of you telling me what to do all the time. You come to me with this story, and you're telling me about how your teenager said that to you once.
• 13:41
  Like, we were well onto other things. The time we got to this, this is what we're dealing with it too. Followed up very shortly, few months later, with the now very classic Loften family line of you don't know anything about my life. Again, if I told you that a kid said both of those things, you'd say, yeah, that's very normal. Teenagers do that all the time.
• 14:01
  It was our teenager that was talking like this. Again, just a very I mean, very impressive actually, the level of thought and vocabulary in such a small one. It was impressive, but we also knew we were in a lot of trouble. But again, we're not in a competition about who had the strongest will child. I won, but you don't have it's not a competition.
• 14:20
  This is who we are, Right? If you are... The creation of rules around me in and of itself is wrong, and no one can tell me what to do, and anybody, anything that hints at control is necessarily bad. That's very often how we feel. It's certainly how our oldest daughter felt, and it's how lots of our kids...
• 14:49
  In different ways, all of our kids felt, and it's the way that we all feel. But the thing, rather than allowing us to make... To feel restrictive or to make us feel like something is off, because this is in fact a good thing that we could draw comfort and peace from if we understand that that that that God is good. He's good. Day one, we created.
• 15:14
  It was good. Day two, was good. Day three, good. Day four, good. Five, good.
• 15:18
  Six, very good. Everything God creates is good. Everything that he does is good. Everything about him is good. And to live in a universe, in a world that is owned and maintained by a God who is good, who only wants what is best for me, who loves deeply and is only good, and I live under his pleasure should actually bring us peace if we would let it rather than bristling at control.
• 16:00
  Continuing on in Genesis chapter one, and we see specifically when God created people in Genesis chapter one starting in verse 26. Then God said, let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground. So God created mankind in his own image. In the image of God, he created them. Male and female, he created them.
• 16:38
  God blessed them and said to them, be fruitful and increase in number. Fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground. So God had created, you know, the sun, the stars, the moon, the earth, the grass, the the fish, the birds, the animals. He created all these things, and finally, he ends up with creating people.
• 17:07
  I've created this beautiful and wonderful thing. Again, as the as the Bible talks about, there was nothing, and then God created. The fancy theological term for that is we should... Fancy term should always be in Latin. Right?
• 17:20
  It's he created things out of nothing. And then he's created this beautiful thing. And he says, I want to create now someone who can care for this for me. And he says... And and and the ones that he create now is people, men and women.
• 17:38
  He created them, again, the same way out of out of nothing for his own pleasure, but he created them different. It says in his own image. There's something unique about the way that he created man and woman, not necessarily in its method, but in its purpose and its design, created in the very image of God, meant to reflect certain elements of God himself back to God, A part of creation, but different than creation. And I think this is an incredible, important, theological, and just kind of personal point to kind of understand. Again, we'll say it this way.
• 18:20
  We are a part of creation and set apart from the rest of creation. There's two different elements there, and they're both important. And you can get a little bit off on one, over focus on one, and you can get... You can just kind of start to think differently about who you are. We are not separate from creation.
• 18:43
  We are not on the same level as God himself. We are different. And again, we are not some... We were not some souls that were owed something, and then God made something for us. We are a part of this creation.
• 18:54
  We are. There is... As far as God's ownership, God's lordship over it, we are the same. We owe him the same level of devotion that the stars in the sky owe him. They they they...
• 19:10
  Every every part of creation is owned by him and is meant to reflect in some way the glory of God. And this is who we are. We are a part of creation. It does not belong to us. We are a part of it.
• 19:24
  And that has something to do with our stewardship. It has something to do with our relationship with God and the honor and respect we should treat something that does not belong to us. But at the same time, you are not just a part, just one other part of creation, both in the in the telling of the story in Genesis one and its retelling in Genesis chapter two, when it kind of unfolds this a little bit even further, it becomes very, very clear that what... When God created people, they were meant to be something very, very different than every other part of creation. Still under his lordship, under his protection, still connected to the creation that God has put around us, but unique in its purpose.
• 20:15
  A mountain can only be what a mountain is called to be. A star can only be a star. And there are parts of the universe that God has created that the only eyes that will ever see them are the eyes of God created just for him, for him to see. Even the animals, and I gotta be careful here because anytime I say things like this, then dog people really start to just kind of... They get annoyed.
• 20:43
  And so whatever it is I'm about to say about animals, your dog is excluded. Your dog is different. It is the same as a human, and God loves it the same. It has a soul, and you'll be with him forever. Amen.
• 20:54
  Your dog is different. But some animals, they are just... That's all they are. They are just creation. And they get...
• 21:03
  They have they have things that that feel like personality, that feel like maybe they have a soul and kind of this deep relational connection. But we were created very differently in his image. God wanted us to worship him in a way that dogs, other animals, mountains, stars, They can't. They are... They they do.
• 21:28
  They reflect God's glory in a lot of different ways, but there was something different that he wanted from us. Not just simply a stewardship over the rest of creation, but a way of relating to him, a connection to him. And with that comes something that it can be just kind of one of the more kind of parts of the story that we don't really like. Because it says here the thing God placed this this tree in the garden where he'd kept them, where it was out of bounds for them to eat from it. God very easily could have created a universe that that tree did not exist, and people could have just lived here forever.
• 22:09
  But God wanted something different from us, and this is something that we have to kinda put our minds around. He wanted us, again, unlike a dog, unlike an animal, unlike a mountain, he wanted us to have the ability to choose or not to choose, to stay under his protection and under his... And in his safety, to choose relationship with him. And so he places this tree there and says, hey. You can do whatever you want.
• 22:40
  You just can't do this. Now the story doesn't really tell us how long it was between when God did this and when the story of the fall comes. Get the impression from the way the story is told that it was not a lengthy amount of time. It was a little bit of time, I'm sure. I don't think they just went...
• 22:58
  Ran straight to it. Wouldn't surprise me if that was the case, it wouldn't... We don't necessarily get that impression. We get the impression it was a long time either. And they go, and they begin to be tempted about whether or not they should eat it.
• 23:12
  And we fast forward here to Genesis chapter three starting in verse six. When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
• 23:42
  Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, where are you? And in this very short story, and we talked about it a few weeks ago in the context of one of our off ramps, we talked about this. We just got this, I think, just a very accurate picture of not only what happened to Adam and Eve, but what happens to all of us all the time. God has said, life is found everywhere.
• 24:22
  Right here is where death is. This is where separation will come. If if if you do this, you're stepping outside of my protection, and death will be inevitable for you. And Satan says, it's not like that. It's not like that at all, actually.
• 24:38
  You're not gonna die. Not gonna die. In fact, you'll gain something you didn't have before. You'll have a different insight into the way the world works if you will take that. And then in one of the just...
• 24:51
  I think one of the most devastating descriptions of thinking that you will see amongst people, you'll find here in verse six. And Eve looked at it and said, it actually looks very pleasurable. And I bet it's very tasty too. And this thing that I don't have, I would rather have it than not. I think this this wisdom that Satan's talking about, it actually would be really good.
• 25:15
  All of this is good. What God says is bad is actually gonna be good, and there's things that he's actually trying to keep from me. He's keeping something good from me by not allowing me to do this, and so she takes it. And it says, immediately, they became aware of their own nakedness, and they began to try to cover themselves up, but they do it in artfully with leaves, and they immediately begin to hide. And what happens here in this moment is this, is that sin brings shame and separation immediately.
• 25:46
  Immediately, it happens. There was no time. It didn't take any time at all. They stepped outside of the loving protection of a good God. They rebelled against the idea that anyone has the ability to tell them no or to restrict their behavior and their desires in any particular way at all.
• 26:02
  They stepped outside and decided by their own reasoning, actually this thing that God says is prohibited is actually good, and if I take it, it will be good for me. And the thing that He says will be bad will actually be good. And they, it is the very first story here in the Bible is very... I don't wanna say beautifully, but I'll say it anyway, beautifully described. But it is a line of reasoning that is repeated in story after story after story all throughout the Bible and repeated in our lives all the time.
• 26:34
  God says, do this, not this. God says, don't do this. Do this instead. And we we and we begin to tell ourselves, I think it actually would be good, though. It would be good if...
• 26:50
  It's not what he says. It would actually be better for me. And then you do it, and immediately the shame cycle begins. And all the confidence that you had and that this bad thing would actually be good, and God is actually trying to restrict me in some way, immediately as soon as it happens, you begin overwhelmed with guilt, and you begin to hide, you begin to feel shame, you begin to try to cover yourself in some way. It is a pattern that begins here and continues to be repeated.
• 27:24
  And then unfortunately, the cycle just continues. It continues in almost every story in the scripture, and we can't seem to break out of it either. The story of my life, the story of your lives is just I feel anxiety. I don't I don't like rules. I don't like boundaries.
• 27:47
  I'm feeling some sort of stress, and the way that I feel it is appropriate for me to relieve stress is this thing that is outside of what God wants for me. And so I think that even though God says one thing, that if I just take this, it'll be good, and then immediately shame kicks in. Immediately guilt kicks in. Immediately the hiding begins. And then God, where are you?
• 28:15
  And then they come out, and they have this conversation, and it ends with this in verse 21 of chapter three. The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. The story ends with this, that God's grace and a sacrifice brings redemption. Redemption comes here. Well, you have after she takes the apple and god finds them.
• 28:50
  God enumerating all of these consequences. And it can read or feel like to us like God is punishing them for what they you've done this. Now I'm going to do all of this to you. But really what he's describing is the natural consequences of what you've chosen to do. I told you that if you did this, death would be death would come to you.
• 29:13
  Now you have done this. Allow me to describe for you what that now is going to look like. This is what it's gonna look like for you. This is what it's gonna look like for you. This is what it's gonna look like as this perpetuates for generations.
• 29:25
  This is what you have done. On the one hand, if you read it one way, you can feel like that god is really angry. He's punishing them. He's trying to do them harm. How dare you not do what I say?
• 29:42
  He said, but I tried to protect you actually and you chose to step outside of my protection. Now, he's describing, this this is now what your reality is. The two very critical elements of this that cannot be ignored. First, this happens because god sought them out. They were hiding from god and god came looking for them.
• 30:09
  And it ends with him covering them. They tried to cover themselves with leaves. Again, continuing a pattern that has existed from this time and continues on. I have done something. I have sinned.
• 30:26
  I have brought shame to myself, and now I need to work to fix it, and I just can't seem to. Like, no matter what I do, I can't seem to fix the problem, and so I'm just going to hide. And God comes, and he finds you. And the thing that you've done to try to cover your shame is insufficient, and God seeks you out. Says, I will cover you.
• 30:53
  And he covers them by making a sacrifice that he a sacrifice that he makes And he sacrifices these animals and provides them both with animal skins. This is probably the greatest the word Easter egg makes it's difficult in a Bible context. It's the biggest one, and it's right there in chapters one through three, very first stories. For thousands of years after this, there's going to be this repeated cycle, People stepping outside of God's protection, trying to fix it themselves, and they just can't. And it is God who initiates, and it is God who brings redemption through work that only he can do, culminated, of course, in his son, Jesus Christ.
• 31:46
  It is the sacrifice that Jesus Christ makes that covers us, that is the remedy for our shame. It is God's initiative that breaks the separation and makes relationship. And you don't have to wait until the end of one of the gospels to understand the power of this story. You can go back and you see it here at the very beginning. This is who God is.
• 32:14
  This is who he always was. And even some of in this story and other stories like it, we'll see some stories that sometimes to our eyes, to our ears, they sound harsh. But even what feels that can, on one hand, be hard, what we're seeing is the goodness and grace of God. That even though we continually decide to step outside of his protection, God is always seeking and God is always bringing redemption by the work that he does, not the work that you do. And we see it unfold in story after story and book after book, and it comes to a climax in the thing that Jesus Christ does for us.
• 33:07
  So in addition to just kind of learning some things in this series, kind of seeing a little bit more maybe in some of these stories that we did and understanding kind of the progressive nature of revelation and theology and the scriptures in addition to that, I think I think personal reflection is going to be really, I think, incredibly important during the series. And I think it is going to be important for us just in our own lives to break out of the cycle. I'm I'm I'm I'm not going to I'm not I'm going to break the sign. I don't want to choose things outside god's protection anymore. I'm going get out of the shame cycle.
• 33:46
  And I'm going stop trying to fix things myself but instead embrace the sacrifice that Jesus Christ has made for me. So, in a minute after I pray, the slide will come up as it does every week and it talks about all the different ways that we can respond there in the back or where we are. But I would just encourage you to spend some time for sure, just in prayer, in communion, in reflection. How can I reject this shame cycle but embrace the loving sacrifice that Jesus Christ has made for me? Let me pray.
• 34:32
  God, thank you for the story, and God, I thank you that in this story, in Noah, Abraham, Moses, it's very clear all along who you are, who we are, and the way that we can have a relationship with you. And God, we are, of course, so thankful for your son, Jesus. God, I pray that we would step outside of this normal pattern. We were to reject this idea of taking what does not belong to us, this idea of entitlement that we have, but God, that we would embrace hope and life through you, and that God, that we would gladly accept the loving sacrifice that your son Jesus Christ made for us, and it is in his name that we pray. Amen.
• 35:48
  Thanks again for joining us on our sermon podcast, and you can learn more about us at thegrovechurch.org. If you go to thegrovechurch.org/connect, there's a form you could fill out. Just let us know that you've been listening. And if you wanna dig deeper on some of these topics that we cover in our sermon podcast or just another issues of dealing with culture or theology, those kinds of things, you can check out our cultivate podcast. It's on the same feed however you found this particular podcast.
• 36:14
  So again, this is Charlie, the lead pastor at The Grove, and thank you so much for joining us.