God's Big Story: Acts 1

Welcome to Coming to Life, a one-year journey through God's Word. My name is Katie Haack. I'm going to take a short break from our regular videos going through each book and section of the Bible to take you through what I'm calling God's Big Story. It's a six video series that we're going to do with my friend, Kesed. Before I introduce her to you, though, I just want to give you a brief story about how we came to know each other. I was taking an online class and she was doing videos for the online class. She wasn't the only one. There were other videos that I was watching, but every time one of her videos came on, I would just be glued to the screen. I couldn't wait to hear what she had to say. God spoke to me and said, you're going to do something with this woman someday. I was like, oh, that's odd and random. When we started the Coming to Life project, I instantly knew that I was going to reach out to her and ask her if she'd be willing to drive all the way down here and record some videos with us. It had to be the Spirit of God because she said yes when I asked her. Her way of describing God's Big Story is really unique and really special. I'm so excited to share it with you. Can you tell us about yourself or how you came to understand this story of God that you're going to share with us today? Yeah. Like she said, my name is Kessid and we just met about two hours ago. We're already best friends. I love the story of the Bible. I think in general, I just love stories. I love a good story. The reason I really got into this with talking about and understanding the Bible as a story, it probably started when I was really young.

I grew up in Southeast Asia. God is an oral culture and oral cultures primarily learn through stories. As we were trying to interact with our friends and tell them about the Bible and about what God had done, the best way to do that with them, even just culturally, was through stories. Not just picking out stories, but actually telling stories as connected because they're part of something that's bigger. That started when I was young. As I grew and I was being discipled and even going to seminary, when I was learning all of these great theological truths and all the facts that you're supposed to know and all of this, I had this aha moment one day where I realized that I had somehow separated those things out. I was like, here's the story of the Bible and here's all the stuff I need to remember to be a good Christian. This stuff seemed so overwhelming. I couldn't hold it. It was falling through my fingers constantly, I felt like. Suddenly I was like, wait a minute, all of this stuff, which is so good and so needed, it's given in the context of a story. Why am I not thinking of it that way? That really changed the way I studied scripture. It changed the way I discipled. It has given me just like an acceleration on studying the Bible and just, oh my goodness, it's so easy to become obsessed with a good story. My obsession is definitely with this one. That's kind of how it all started. I'm finding out that the more I learn, the less I realize I know. I understand that. There's no better story to be obsessed with. I think that it's common for us as Christians to just pick out little pieces, kind of like you said, I need to act this way or here's a verse that speaks to me today and what I'm

going through. How is it really helpful for us to understand and grasp this overall story? I think a good way to think about it is even thinking about literature that has stood the test of time, for example. Let's think about something like Lord of the Rings. This is a story. It's an epic story. There are different books, but they're all part of something bigger. If you hand me the third book in this series and you're like, here, Cussid, you should read this. You're going to get so much out of it. I will probably enjoy it. I'll probably get something out of it, but I'm not going to understand the depth of it unless I understand the entire storyline. In the same way, how many times have you heard someone quote something from their favorite movie or their favorite book? I've heard quotes before that I think, that's really cool. It does stand alone. Those quotes are great. But then when you hear the context for where those quotes are from, all of a sudden you recognize the depth and honestly sometimes realize you might have heard the quote wrong, which does happen. I think in the same way with scripture, you can pull out a verse. You can even pull out a minor story in scripture and it has value. It's the Word of God. But oh, you're missing so much. You're missing so much if you don't understand the bigger storyline. So understanding the bigger storyline helps you study because then as you are looking at verses and smaller stories, you know what to place it in. You know what to set it and nestle it into. And so then your story just becomes deeper and fuller and your understanding becomes

better. I love that. I love that. And I love what you've done with this. And so Kesed has the Bible divided into six, what she calls acts. And so we have six videos in this mini series, one for each of these acts. So I just cannot wait to hear you tell us about act one. So go ahead. So like any story, and this one being the best one that there is, obviously, really to intro into a story, to enter into a story, you need to understand the structure of story. So any good story has very specific components to it. Every good story has a main plot. Every good story has subplots, you know, and a subplot, the purpose of a subplot is it's supposed to encourage the drive and the direction of the main plot. So within that, you've got a main character, and everything that is in a story points to that main character, just like the subplots do. And so in the Bible, that is also true, you've got a main plot, you've got a main character, everything else is a minor plot or a minor character. So Joseph, Moses, all of these great stories, they actually are purposed to encourage the main plot. And now every story also has conflict, which is hard. And it's very hard in this story, because this is a true story. But it's really important to understand that as well. So when we enter into this story with act one, and as I go through the story of the Bible, God's big story, I'm going to use six acts. I am not the first person that came up with this, I don't want to take credit for that. But it just makes a lot of sense to me. And honestly, my small brain is able to remember six acts. So that's one of the reasons why I really like doing it that way. So we're going to start off with with act one. Now act one is the introduction to the setting, just like any story, when you start a movie, or you start a book, you are introduced to the setting. And that's what happens in Genesis one. So in Genesis one, with the very first verse, Genesis one, one, it says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And this is literally the first statement that we see about the main character of this epic story. And so right then we can't read this like it's an intro into the action, we have to stop, we have to pause. This is the first thing that we are learning about this main character. So what is it that we find out? Well, in the beginning, okay, he's outside of time. In the beginning, he created the heavens. Okay, he's outside of space. In the beginning, he created the heavens and the earth. Okay, he's outside of matter. So this main character, this big deal God that we're about to follow his entire story through, from the very beginning, this is the foundation of what we learn about him. And everything else has to be set on this foundation, or we're going to misunderstand the story. And we're going to misunderstand the way

that we should interact with him. So it tells us that in the beginning, God creates the heaven and the earth. So what happens is over a period of six days, he does this, he speaks light into being, he speaks land, he separates the land from the water, he fills the water, he fills the land, he puts the sun in the sky, he puts stars in the sky. I mean, this is a beautiful thing that he does. And he's, he's a creative God. That's kind of another thing that we're learning about him as we start this story out. And every day at the end of the day, he kind of takes a look over the creation. He's like, Oh, this is good. This is good. And he enjoys it. Well, on the sixth day, he does something a little bit different. And on the sixth day, it tells us that he says he makes this statement where he says, let us make man in in our image. So again, there's this little note of like, wait a minute, this main character just talked about himself in the plural. So even more so, he is outside of our understanding. So he says, let us make man in our image. And that's what he does. Out of the dirt, he makes a man, he calls him Adam. And, and this is really where we have to start to understand and really be careful. Because if we're not careful, then we will allow man to take the reins as the major character in our reading. And that's very unfortunate, because it's not how this was written. And one of the reasons that we oftentimes will read it this way is because when that happens, at the end of the sixth day, it says that that God actually, instead of saying, Oh, this is good. He actually says, Oh, this is very good. But he's not just saying it only about the creation of man. He is saying it about the final. Finality of creation. He's done. He's finished it and it's really good. And does that include man? oh sure, of course, it includes man and and man has a special note in God's creation because man is the only creation that is made in the image of God and that means that man can Be in fellowship with God and it also means that man has specific purposes that reflect what God does as well So one of the things that God does when he creates man is he actually says to him Be fruitful multiply fill the earth Subdue have dominion. These are things that man is able to do because he images God Well at the end of of this six-day period, you know when God says this is good we get to the seventh day and I know what people love the sixth day and man being created on the sixth day, but I Love the seventh day the seventh day is the only day that God sets aside He sets it apart from the rest of the creation days and he calls it holy and what scripture says

Thus the heavens and the earth were finished and all the host of them and on the seventh day God finished his work that he Had done and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done So God blessed the seventh day and made it holy because on it God rested from all his work that he had done in creation God doesn't rest because he's tired He rests because he's finished and this Sabbath reality is really what man was created for this set-aside space for rest in the presence of God and This this is why we were created It was for this moment this relationship in this restful space in time and it is Here that God places man He places him in this garden space called Eden and in this garden space Like I've already mentioned man is given a purpose be fruitful multiply fill the earth have dominion Also, he's given what he's needed to live in fullness in the garden There are so many things that the man has there's beauty there's water there's trees And in fact, there's two very specific trees in this garden One is called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and one is called the tree of life And when God places man in the garden, he says you can eat from any of the trees in the garden except don't eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil because if you eat from that tree you will surely die and So he gives him purpose he gives him everything then that he needs and he gives him companionship because it becomes clear that Adam is alone and that is not a good thing and they look around and the Animals are not going to provide companionship to Adam because they're not made in God's image So God actually takes a rib from Adam and he makes a woman and and woman is different than man And they both image God Uniquely and it is together that they're able to image him the best and the better and now there's companionship and there is community in this Sabbath reality with the opportunity to walk in obedience to have everything they need with access to the tree of life, but also to have the opportunity to obey God and not take from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and this is The beautiful setting God has placed them in and that's the end of act one That is awesome

I just love how you described that and how you laid that out and it gives me this understanding of the setting and I love how you talked about remembering that God is the main character in his story because I do think often we put ourselves in as the main character and so That was I was really important and it just it just takes me there though. You know when you read Genesis It's just like you're there and you can envision it and see it and it's so beautiful So thank you so much for sharing that. I cannot wait to hear the other acts that you have Stories are the best when they're fully told. Yes. Yes. So awesome. Thank you again I hope that the information shared today helps you grasp how interesting the Bible is so that you develop a passion For reading it and a pray that as you dig into God's Word that your spirit begins coming to life God bless you