In the beginning, God … (Genesis 1:1).

What are the four most important questions?  No, they aren’t “What’s for dinner?”, “Do I have to?”, “Where did I put my keys?” or “Will you marry me?” (though that last might be a top-tenner).

After a great Chatham Serves Sunday, we now begin a new series, Age to Age: The Big Story of God's Faithfulness.  Why do our Bibles have, and have to have, those first thirty-nine books, including Leviticus, Ecclesiastes and two helpings each of Samuel, Kings and Chronicles?  Why not just start with Matthew 1:1 and go from there?  Doesn’t the New Testament mean that the Old Testament has become obsolete?  We are going to find out!

Back to those four important questions.  Here they are:

• Where are we?
• Who are we?
• What’s gone wrong?
• How is what’s gone wrong to be made right?

The Bible is many things, but it is fundamentally a story, The Story that truly answers those four fundamental questions.  Jesus is the capstone, the completion, the goal of The Story, but we have to understand The Whole Story if we are to understand Jesus.  If you show up for a two-hour movie at the hundred-minute mark, you’re not going to know what’s going on.

Where are we?  In a meaningless cosmos, are we the product merely of time, chance, and “the laws of science?” Or are we a good Creation?

Who are we?  Smart-ish beasts?  Meat machines?  Evolution’s latest experiment, or latest accident? Or bearers of the divine image?

What’s gone wrong?  Politics, economics, society, the family?  Men?  Women?  “Them”?   Or are we all just helpless victims of circumstances beyond our control?  Or have we been captured and enslaved by an alien Power?

How is it made right?  More and better laws, education, leaders, money, freedom, democracy, socialism, capitalism?  Science and technology? Drugs and entertainment?  Every day a Prime Day, every Friday Black?  Or one Friday Good?

To be human is to inhabit a story of some kind.  The story we think we’re in decisively shapes everything about how we live.  Scripture tells us The Story we are actually in.  It’s a Story that does not begin with us, will not end with us, but which embraces and includes us all.

So buckle your seatbelts and strap on your helmets!  We’re about to start a tour of the Story We’re In, which is also The Only Story There Is.

As you think about “The Old Testament,” what are your initial responses, reactions?  How could you become more open to God telling The Story the way God has chosen to?  What kind of help would be helpful to you – and whom could you ask?