I love to tell
the story;
For those who know it best
Seem hungering and thirsting
To hear it like the rest.
And when, in scenes of glory,
I sing the new, new song,
’Twill be the old, old story,
That I have loved so long.
I love to tell the story,
’Twill be my theme in glory
To tell the old, old story
of Jesus and His love.
This Sunday, we talked about the Liturgy of the church: the very specific form we use to guide our Sunday worship. We saw that each and every week that we gather, we are not just doing church things, but following the pattern that God has laid out for us in His word. This pattern is not just a proper form or structure, it is the telling of a story.
This story is the story of redemption. We come to be reminded that the life we live is not a detached set of events, but is His plan from before the foundations of the world, unfolding in human history. We declare the same story every week: about how we sin against the sovereign, good God of the universe, and He acts, in love, to rescue us from the deserved punishment of our sin, through the sacrifice of Himself, and invites us to be heirs of His glory. We declare what has been declared since the beginning of God’s people, because even though much has changed in the world, God is still working out the same story. It is important for us to recognize this, because we are part of the story! Knowing the story and how we fit allows us to better grasp what this life is about. Specifically:
We are connected to His story.
Knowing the story of redemption gives us a larger narrative to fit our lives into. No longer do we need to create a story to bring ourselves value. Instead, we are already connected to His story; we need to learn it. As we learn about our redeeming and reconciling God, it not only changes our view of Him, it changes how we see ourselves and our responsibility toward others. This story of redemption is our story, we are the ones rescued from death, it also becomes the story we submit to.
We either unite with or rebel against the story.
God’s story, then, is not one of many stories in the world, it is the story. It is a story that has always been, even before it was revealed to us. It will happen, as He planned it, in spite of us. This changes how we respond to it. This isn’t merely something that happened, it IS happening. We cannot change it, we can simply choose to work with God or against Him. To work against Him is to choose to live as if His story is not ruling over our lives; to treat Him as just another creation. When we make the storyteller nothing more than a character in the story, the story becomes too weak to give us the purpose and hope we require to live.
We need the story.
What stories do is give a framework for living. People can tell you that you should treat others well, but it isn’t until you are loved that you are motivated to actually do it. This isn’t just because of personal experience, this is because what had been a concept is now rooted in a practical narrative. Likewise, we were created by God to understand Him through His love for us. This love is expressed in the story of how He has saved us. This love toward us is the gospel story.
The story is about unifying all stories.
In the sermon, Andrew said that this story is both individual and communal. It is our story, in that we experience this redemption personally, but it is communal because it connects people together through a shared story. God is revealing His story so that we set aside our individuality to pursue unity with His people; the people of God are a people unified by a common story. It doesn’t end there; the end of the story is a unifying of all things to God. Philippians 2 tells us that there will be a day where everyone proclaims His glory in a unified voice:
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. (10-11)
In the end, there will only be one story, as all of the other stories will fade away. For those who belong to God, we are given the gift of knowing the story, so that we do not waste our lives on things that are temporary. We are united to the eternal so that we can live the true story with the author as our guide. It is in living this story out that we grow in our love for Him.
“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. | Matthew 6:19–21