Acts 13:23-25

How Does It All Fit Together?

A Question of Story

As we continue the story of God and His love for humanity, we encounter the beginning point of Jesus’ life in verses 23-25. These verses are the stories we tell around Christmas every year. These are the stories of expectation during the Advent season leading up to Christmas.

John the Baptist is a great example of knowing your role and purpose in God’s story. John had a specific mission while he was on the earth. His job was to prepare the people for the Messiah. His job was to tell the people about the need to repent. John was not the Messiah. John never claimed to be the Messiah. He knew his place. He knew his role. It would have been easy for John to manipulate the people who were following him. He could have claimed that he was God, and people would have believed him. He could have pointed to himself instead of Jesus to gain fame and fortune. But he chose to remain in the role that God had for him in God’s story.

You might be tempted to step outside of the role that God has for you in God’s story. You might want to gain fame, fortune, and followers. But our role as followers of Jesus is not to be the main character of the story. Our role is to point to the main character. We are not the star of the show; God is. The pieces start to fit together more clearly when we know our role in the story.

Acts 13:20-22

How Does It All Fit Together?

A Question of Story

As Paul tells the story of Israel to the people gathered in Pisidian Antioch, these verses encompass the time of the Judges through the kingship of David. We spent over three months studying David’s life on Sunday nights this spring. Paul covers it in one verse. Like yesterday, this again shows the vastness of the story that God is telling through the history of the world. What seems like a long time in our eyes is but a moment in the eyes of God. And if one is going to tell the entire story, then you’ve got to move through the years fast.

This Sunday, I am going to preach the entire story of the Bible and still have you out by lunchtime. The story of how everything fits together is God’s story, and seeing how the story winds its way from creation to the new creation is fascinating. There are 66 books in the Bible, but the Bible is one story. Invite a friend to church on Sunday who needs to hear God’s story. It might be the story that changes their life. 

Acts 13:16-19

How Does It All Fit Together?

A Question of Story

How do all the pieces fit together? Why did this happen? What did that mean? As life unfolds, we are always left with these questions. We are trying to make sense of everything and craft a story that makes the most sense out of the facts we have. When we do this on our own, often we are left confused and make false assumptions. When we do this work in community with others, we make fewer mistakes. But when we do this work in community with God taking the main role in the story, then we have clarity on the purpose and direction of the story.

As we ask the question, “How does this all fit together?”, we will read a sermon that Paul shares in Pisidian Antioch. In this sermon, Paul tells the story of God’s people from the wilderness to the person of Jesus. This is the story that we fit into as well. Our story is not only our story. Our story is a minor detail in God’s grand story.

Today, we read of the time of Israel from their time in Egypt through their entry into the Promised Land. One thing that I find important in these four verses is the amount of time that these verses take. Four hundred fifty years! A lot of the time in our stories, we want things to happen fast. But this story takes generations. This story takes centuries. This story takes millennia. God’s story encompasses all of history and all of time. Our lives play a small role in that story. Let’s envision how our lives fit into God’s story.