Meet the Author

Good morning, my name is Rodney, and I'm one of the pastors around here, and it's exciting to be here this morning. Today is a day of new beginnings for River City, right? We have a new arrangement in here, some new things we're doing with hosting, some TV screens instead of papers in our hands, and a new sermon series. But no matter what all is new, the definition of church is not where we meet, or how we do things when we meet, but the church is the body of Christ: People who have tasted of the grace of God, and seen that he is good.

Last week, a dear friend of mine and his wife were visiting River City from North Liberty, and at lunch I was showing him pictures of our new trailer and I said, while it's a lot of work to set up every week, there is something really special about having everything we own in a trailer. It's a tangible reminder every single week that the church is not the building. It's the people in it. That no one would look at that trailer full of equipment and chairs and say, "ah, there goes River City Church!"  So I hope for you that meeting in a school has reinforced that idea, that the church is the people! That's why we don't say "we are having church" or "join us for church", but instead, say "we are gathering." What we're doing this morning is a gathering of the church, because it's a gathering of people.

But not just any gathering of people constitutes a church, and the Church doesn't refer to all people of the world. It's a specific kind of people that make up the Church. In fact, people in the Church are by definition different than all the other people of the world. And, it is not true necessarily that just because you showed up to a church gathering this morning that you are part of the Church.

What makes up the Church are people with a certain identity, a certain story that we belong to and are actively participating in. Being a Christian isn't just belonging to a certain belief system, although believing certain things to be true is absolutely part of it. Being a Christian isn't just doing certain things or saying certain things, although action is part of it. But being a Christian, being part of the Church is to belong to a story that is much bigger than our own.

We live in story. We're immersed in it every moment of every day.

I mean, we love stories. It's why our TV's almost never shut off. For people born since 1955, which is most of us in the room, TV is not something we see as an invention. It is a living thing we can't imagine living without. Same with our phones. It's why we love books, movies, even commercials are short stories sometimes -- it's why Jesus told parables! We just did a whole sermon series this summer based on stories, because if Jesus says, look if you want to follow me you have to forgive people, we're like, okay sure. But if he tells us a story about a guy who owed his master $6 trillion dollars and had no way to repay it, but was forgiven, but then went out and couldn't forgive someone who owed him $30,000, we kinda wince a little and go, "oh... yeah... that's me... probably should forgive."

So stories are part of our every day lives. If I said to you (pick someone by name), tell us about yourself, you would stand up and tell us a story or series of stories. Not only do we have our own story, but we are part of 100's of other stories at the same time. We have a family story, we live in a house with a story, we live in a town with a story in a community with a story in a state, a country, a continent with a story, and in a world with a story.

Stories are the framework for what we experience in our lives. Alasdair MacIntrye tells a story where he imagines he's standing at a bus stop and a person walks up to him and says,"The name of the common wild duck is histrionicus, histrionicus, histrionicus."

Now the meaning of his sentence is clear enough, but what on earth is he talking about? Only story can give it the framework that makes it make sense. For example, maybe the story is that this person has mistaken you for someone they met earlier who asked them what the Latin name of the common wild duck is. Or maybe he's just come from his therapist who has encouraged him to be brave and strike up a conversation with a stranger to overcome his shyness. He didn't know what he would say, and his therapist said, "oh, just say whatever comes to mind." Or another story could be that he is a Soviet spy who has arranged to meet his contact at a bus stop and the code word is the Latin name of the common wild duck.

Do you see what I mean? In order for things to make sense in our lives, we put them in the context of story.

The identity that Christians share, regardless of race, gender, color, ethnicity, culture, or age, that makes them the Church is that we belong to a story much greater than our own. That beyond all of our smaller stories is a grander story that unites us all. It is the Story of God. 

Lesslie Newbigin was a missionary to India, and one day he was conversing with a Hindu scholar of world religions. The Hindu scholar said to Lesslie:

"I can't understand why you missionaries present the Bible to us in India as a book of religion. It is not a book of religion -- and anyway, we have enough books of religion in India. We don't need any more! I find in your Bible a unique interpretation of universal history, the history of the whole of creation and the history of the human race. And therefore a unique interpretation of the human person as a responsible actor in history. That is unique. There is nothing else in the whole religious literature of the world to put alongside it."

Australian sociologist John Carroll, who does not profess to be a Christian, believes that "the reason the church in the West (that's us) is in trouble is because it has forgotten it's story." We've allowed the 100's and thousands of smaller, lesser stories, to float to the top, and adopted the stories of the world as our own. One of my goals as your pastor is to reverse that trend. I want to recover the Story of God, helping us see that the Bible is not a smattering of poems and stories that have nothing to do with life in 2019, but instead of the story of God. When we open up God's word, our first question should not be, "how does this apply to my life?" Our first questions should be, what does this say about God? What has he done? What is he doing? What is he like? And then, if these things are true, what does that say about who I am and what I ought to think, and say, and do?

We are characters in the story, but it is not about us. So let's meet the Author. We believe in one God, eternally existing in three equally divine Persons: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, who know, love, and glorify one another. This one true and living God is infinitely perfect both in his love and in his holiness. He is the Creator of all things, visible and invisible, and is therefore worthy to receive all glory and adoration. Immortal and eternal, he perfectly and exhaustively knows the end from the beginning, sustains and sovereignly rules over all things, and providentially brings about his eternal good purposes to redeem a people for himself and restore his fallen creation, to the praise of his glorious grace.

Everything in the universe is designed to bring glory to God.

This is the Author of the Story of God. His ultimate purpose for history, the final chapter, the finish line of this race, is found in Habakkuk 2:14: "For the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord's glory, as water covers the sea." His work of Creating the world, which we'll look at next week, his work of redeeming fallen humanity, which we'll look at over the next several weeks, and his work of making all things new at the end of time, which we'll look at in April and May, are all part of displaying his eternal and incomprehensible glory!

The Story of God isn't just some new belief system that we fit into our current way of living. This is a story that changes everything. It affects everything, from how we worship to the way we eat and drink.

That's why not everyone who shows up at a church gathering and says "I'm a Christian" is actually a child of God. To be a Christian is to see yourself as part of a story that's not about you, but in which you have a purpose and a role! According to Acts 17, you have been born into the family you were, to the parents you had, in the city you were, in the month of the year you were born, into a 100 lesser stories, in order for you to be a valued, loved, and active player in the Greatest Story of them all so that God's glory would be on full display in all of Creation. This was God's plan even before he created the world!

Ephesians 1 tells us that he chose us before he created the world to be adopted as sons (heirs to the inheritance) through Jesus Christ, watch this, according to the good pleasure of his will (which means the reason he created you is because he wanted to; the reason he created the world is because he wanted to) and here's why, verse 6, to the praise of his glorious grace that he lavished on us in the Beloved One. Verse 9 He has made known to us what his plan is for all of time, verse 10, to bring everything together in Christ, both things in heaven (the kingdom) and things on earth (humans) in him.

The Story of God is a race to be run.

So how do we do this?

Maybe you're

As we close, I want to go back to the verses we read at the beginning. Turn to Ephesians 1. Pauls prayer for us

Bless