Good morning!  I want to begin this morning with a little memory game. Anyone remember what you ate for dinner last Sunday? How about last night? What happened on 9/11 2001?  How about Dec 7, 1941?  How about Oct 31, 1517?  Martin Luther nailed the 95 theses to the church door in Wittenberg, Germany and started the Protestant reformation.

 

Memory is critical to identity. Without memory we have no history, without history we have no clue who we are or where we are going.  When brother Martin nailed those 95 theses to the door of the Wittenberg church, he was remembering, connecting back to Biblical history and the historical confessions of the church. He was remembering whose story this really is!

 

Let me illustrate: Moses warned Israel - “When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his command, his laws and decrees that I am giving you this day. Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, and when your herds and  flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery...

 

When we forget that all of history including my own story is really his-story, I lose track of who I am and why I’m here. I begin to think my own story is all there is.

 

Let me draw you a picture: This circle represents “my story”. It’s about me. It’s about what I want, it’s about my desires, it’s about “queen me” or “king me”. It’s my story. Outside of my story are others, including God that I choose to accept or reject as it pleases me. But my story is about me and because it is about me and me alone, it ends in emptiness and despair.

 

Here is another circle. It’s God’s story. It’s not about me, though it includes me. It’s about the whole world. It has no beginning and no end. At the center is a cross by which God has rescued me from my story, my preoccupation with myself. God has made it for those who were far away from him to be brought near to him. This is the real story. And because it is about him, it never ends, and it is filled with mercy, grace, and abundance.

 

If you want to avoid hysteria in your future, you need to be his-storical in the present.  Your story is not about you. Your life is part of the tapestry of God’s great story. You were in his mind before the creation of the world. When Jesus gave his life on the cross, you were in his heart, he knew you. You have a historical connection with him, whether you know it or not.

 

This morning we return to our series on The Truth project with a look at his story. All of history is indeed, his story.  When we forget the lessons of his story, we inevitably repeat the mistakes of those who have gone before us.

 

It happens to me on the golf course all the time. When I forget to be historical, my game becomes hysterical. I cut corners, forget my ball position, start my swing inside out, dozens of lessons I know from the past but forget in the present and my mistakes sabotage my future.

 

A famous historian said, “Without an understanding of the past, there is no meaning in the present and no hope for the future.”  He did not intend it as a theological statement, never-the-less it is. Outside of God’s story, our story makes no sense.  When we write God out of the script, we lose our history, and without our true history, our lives have no ultimate purpose or meaning or hope.

 

Jer 29:11 is one of the most loved verses in the Bible.  The verse comes from a letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent to the exiles in Babylon. Remember they were in exile because they had forgotten whose story they were living in… they thought it was about them, their story!

 

How amazing it is that we would have the audacity to resent God as an unwanted trespasser into the story of our lives!  The truth is if God had not broken into our story, we would be lost.

 

Jesus said that every word, every thought, every attitude, every act you have ever done is recorded in heaven. God is the God of history and yours is recorded. Jesus said every person will stand before the judgment throne of God to give an account of how we have lived and what we’ve done with what we’ve been given. God is going get historical with us!  That judgment will be the intersection of our sin and God’s holiness. (cross) Our story will be swept into God’s story. Are you ready for that?

 

Jesus said it will be a day of weeping and gnashing of teeth as we see, maybe for the first time, the reality of our depravity and God’s absolute holiness and righteous judgment. Our story will be seen for what it is and we will be silenced. That may be the end of our story, but not of God’s story.

 

In God’s story, a cross stands at the crossroads of history. It stands at the intersection of my sin and God’s holiness. On that cross Jesus stretched out his arms and shed his blood for my salvation. God took my wretched story into his divine story for the sake of my eternal future.

 

On that historical cross, he cried out “It is finished; the debt of sin has paid in full, wiped clean to be remembered no more!”.  It’s a gift received by faith. Here’s maybe the most amazing thing.

 

God is not a visitor to my story; He is my story. My life is his story. My past, my present, my future is his story. Lord, help us remember to never forget, it’s your story, not ours!  Let us pray:  O God of all history, forgive us for the times we have pushed you aside, believing that you were interfering in our story when in reality, you are our story, our life, our only hope. Grant us grace to live within your story, to seek your will and your kingdom above all else!   In Jesus name, who came and died and rose again to reclaim our place in your great story.   AMEN