Romans 11:33-36 | God Is The Story

Introduction

One of my wife’s favorite things to do when we get our family together is to have everyone play games. For those of you who know my family, it would be a fun guessing game to figure out who really likes playing those games and who is moderately annoyed with the idea. But nonetheless, we are all super competitive, so once the game starts, it is on! 

I don’t know what’s happened to me, but at some point along the way, my brain decided game rules were not worth storing. Too much information for too little use. So, I always have to ask to be reminded of how to play the game we are about to play. It happens with my family, and it happens with friends. It doesn’t matter how many times I’ve played the game; I will still need to be told the rules again. 

Now, I’m sure all of you have had this type of a moment. Someone wants you to play a game that is neisnd you find out there are basically three types of people in this world: the person who is exasperated that you don’t know how to play and basically rolls their eyes and will teach you the rules if they have to; the person who is overly excited to tell you all the rules; and the person who is helpful in teaching you the rules. 

And inevitably, someone explains the game for five minutes. You nod along. Yep. Got it. Makes sense. You start playing. Three turns in, you play a card and everybody at the table looks at you: “Why would you do THAT?!” Well, apparently, you knew the rules. You just didn’t understand the game. 

Because most games are interesting that way. Someone can tell you all the official rules—what you can do, what you can’t do, how turns work, even what you have to do to win—and you still may not really understand the game. It really helps when someone tells you, “The real key is to save those cards until the end,” or, “Be careful, because when they do this, they’re probably trying to trick you.” 

There is a difference between knowing the rules of a game and understanding the game. Understanding the game means you begin to see how everything fits together. You know what matters most. You recognize what other people are trying to do. You understand why one move matters three turns later. The individual rules aren’t just a bunch of disconnected instructions anymore. You begin to see the whole thing. 

Something similar happens when you have friends who have a favorite tv show or movie series, and they convince you to watch one of the shows with them mid-season or the third movie in the series. You end up sitting on the couch having this conversation: 

“Wait, who is that?” 

“That’s her brother.” 

“I thought that other guy was her brother.” 

“No, that's her ex-husband.” 

“Why did everybody get quiet when he walked in?” 

“Ohhhh...okay, so three seasons ago…” 

You can watch the exact same scene they’re watching. You know who is talking. You understand the words they're saying. But they see something you don't see—because they know the story. 

The Story

And I wonder if, for many of us, this describes our experience with the Bible better than we realize. 

We know a lot about the rules. Don’t hate. Only love. Do not commit adultery. Never take the Lord’s name in vain. Some of you may have even studied enough to know that Deuteronomy 22:8 says you should ALWAYS build a parapet (railing) around your roof top deck to keep anyone from falling off, to love your neighbors well. You’re like the person who knows that Free Parking technically doesn’t award you the money in the middle! 

We also know a lot of the characters. Adam and Eve. Moses. David. Jesus. Peter. Paul. You might even know Tychicus from Ephesians 6 and Acts 20. 

We even know many of the scenes. The snake in the garden with the tree. Abraham’s preparation for the sacrifice of Isaac. The parting of the sea. Samson and Delilah. The battle between Goliath and David. The widow’s mite. The cross at Calvary.

But if I asked you to sit down and explain the entire story of the Bible, where would you even begin? What would you include? 

Imagine, I gave you three minutes. Someone sits down across from you and says, “I've never read the Bible. What's it about? Tell me the story.” Where would you begin? 

You might know all kinds of true things about the Bible. You might know the rules. You might know the characters. You might know the scenes. But can you put those pieces together and tell someone the Story? 

          “Um…I’m sure there is an ark in there somewhere. And an empty tomb!” 

My first time in Ethiopia, I had a chance to teach biblical theology to a group of pastors. On the last day, I was sitting there as the students were taking turns sharing the story of the Bible. A gentleman in his sixties was sitting next to me. And he just started to cry. I asked him if he was alright, and he said to me, “I spent my whole life reading the Bible one piece at a time. Preaching one story at a time. And no one ever took the time to tell me it was one big story that all went together.” 

Review

This last year we were in a series called In Between. We were looking at this life we all are living and all the instruction, wisdom, and guidance God has given us for living now—in this moment between his creation of all things and his eventual re-creation of all things in the new heavens and the new earth. God did not leave us alone without instruction. And in some ways, that is a series we could never finish. It really is our lifelong project to study Scripture and better understand how God has called us to live this life “In Between” his creative moments. 

We even spent some time in Genesis 1–5 beginning to examine God’s plan. God had great purpose in his creation of this world and his people. God has many good things he made us for and many ways we take part in his plan. What we saw in those first chapters of Genesis was a glimpse—a beginning peek at what this entire story might look like. 

But there is a difference between knowing the beginning and knowing the whole story. 

That is the goal of this series. How do we take the many pieces we DO know—the stories, the people, the rules—and see how they fit together into one grand story? Or, to be even more accurate, how do we rightly read the story God has given us and see THE Story HE has written—and how his Story is the grandest story we get to be a part of? 

I know it would be hard for many of us to sit down with someone who asked us about the Bible and spend three to five minutes walking them through its story, because many of US haven’t thought of it that way. WE haven’t put together all the little stories and moments into one big Story. 

But what if, by the end of this series, you could sit down with that friend and say, “I am no expert, but I can definitely share the major Story of God from Genesis to Revelation. And it is amazing!” 

That is our goal! Over these next 12 sermons, we will together see how God’s Word stitches this Story together and learn how we might simply share it with others. But I also hope WE will be encouraged as we see how it all fits together—that we will marvel at the wonder of God and HIS great Story. 

Before Everything Else, God Is

So, when we think about the grand story of Scripture, we naturally ask ourselves, “Where do we begin?” And since we just went through the beginning of Genesis together, I hope everyone would say, “In the beginning, God.” 

Yes! We start at the beginning, and the beginning starts with God. But it is so much more than that. God is not only the beginning. 

God is the Story! 

We begin The Story with God himself—not only because God is the beginning, but because God is the point of the Story. 

It is interesting to note that when Paul went before the religious leaders of Greece at the Areopagus in Athens, this is how he approached them: 

So Paul, standing in the midst of the Areopagus, said: “Men of Athens, I perceive that in every way you are very religious. For as I passed along and observed the objects of your worship, I found also an altar with this inscription: ‘To the unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything. 

And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place, that they should seek God, and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him. Yet he is actually not far from each one of us…
Acts 17:22–27 ESV 

Paul started with God. He points to the altar to an unknown god and says, essentially, “Let me tell you about the God you do not know.” 

The Story begins with God, rather than humanity, because The Story is about God. Before creation, sin, covenant, redemption, or humanity’s need for salvation, God is. Everything that follows originates in him, depends upon him, and ultimately exists for him. The Bible is not ultimately about how God fits into our lives; our lives find their meaning within God’s Story. 

We naturally experience life from the inside out and, therefore, tend to organize even Christianity around ourselves: my problems, my purpose, my salvation, my eternity. And often when we talk to people about what we believe, they are coming to us with a specific question, a specific hurt, or a particular way they are seeking to know God better. So, we often start there. That isn’t wrong. But without more discussion, it can cause us to misunderstand The Story right from the very beginning. Starting with someone’s need means we need to be careful to not make that need the center of Christianity. 

Scripture begins differently: “In the beginning, God…” 

Before there was a human to save, God was already perfect, holy, complete, and lacking nothing. Acts 17 says he is not served as though he needed anything; rather, he gives life and breath and everything we know and need. 

That means you and I—and every human being who now lives under sin—need to reorient ourselves right from the outset. We are not the center of the Story. Yes, there are glorious truths that affect you and me and beautiful joys awaiting us through faith and renewed relationship with God. God has given humanity an astonishing place within his purposes. But we are not the center of the Story, nor are we its ultimate end. 

God is the Story 

This is what Scripture, through God’s Holy Spirit, is exclaiming to us repeatedly—if only we have eyes to see and ears to hear it! The Psalmist proclaims: 

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.
Psalm 90:1–2 ESV 

Before there was creation, humanity, sin, or salvation, God was already God. 

As Paul says to the Romans: 

Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor? Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid? For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.
Romans 11:33–36 ESV 

For from him and through him and to him are all things! That becomes our paradigm for why God is the Story. Everything is from him, everything is through him, and everything is to him. 

Before Everything Else, God Is 

Therefore, everything else is: 

• Everything Is From Him

• Everything Is Through Him

• Everything Is To Him 

Everything Is From Him

Everything is from him. After our Genesis series, I would imagine this first statement might seem like an obvious statement. Everything is from him. We talked about how God created us and everything we see out of nothing—stars, galaxies, hummingbirds, and ladybugs. Everything we see and know ultimately owes its existence to God. In that sense, literally everything is from him. 

But saying everything is from God means far more than that. Notice again what Paul says in Acts 17:24–25. God “is not served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” 

God didn’t just make you; God has life IN himself, and he is the source of life itself. You and I are alive this morning because God has given life to us, and he has given us this very breath we are breathing right now. My intelligence, my body, my relationships, and my opportunities are given by God. 

Even my place in history has been ordained by God. In Acts, Paul says that God determines: 

“…allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place…”
Acts 17:26 ESV 

Paul isn’t merely claiming that God started all of creation and humanity and then stepped away. He is telling the people of Athens—and he is telling you and me—that we are standing where we are standing because of God’s sovereign ordering of all things. Why were you born in this country? Why did you have the parents you had, the siblings you had? Why do you live in this particular time and place? 

We did not give ourselves this existence. 

Everything is from God. We simply receive it and respond. 

This is one of the great reorienting realities of our lives. We tend to think of everything in our world, our sphere, as mine. 

My house.

My abilities.

My time.

My family.

My career.

My plans.

My money.

There is one sense in which that is true. God gave you stewardship of many different things. But stewardship is one thing. Ownership is another. Everything good we possess ultimately comes from God and is God’s. 

What do you possess this morning that ultimately originated with you? 

Even the things we often want to say we earned didn’t ultimately start with us. We may say, “I worked really hard, so I earned that paycheck.” And you did work for it! But you didn’t create your body, your mind, your opportunities, or the very existence that made any of that work possible. 

Realizing that everything comes from God should change everything. The Bible is not ultimately about how God fits into our lives; our lives find their meaning within God’s Story. 

And we see that God is the great Giver. We are the receivers. 

• Before Adam does anything, he receives life, creation, a wife, and a purpose.

• Abraham receives a promise.

• Israel receives deliverance before Sinai’s commands.

• David receives covenant promise.

• The new covenant is God’s initiative.

• Salvation is received by faith.

• The Spirit is given as a gift and a guarantee.

• The new creation and our forever life with him are God’s gift. 

Everything is from God. We simply receive it and respond. 

Everything Is Through Him

Amazingly, everything is not just FROM God; it is also THROUGH him. Yes, God is the origin of all things, the divine gift-giver, the initiator of everything we know and have. But he doesn’t merely start the Story and withdraw. He doesn’t just give one time and then stop. He gives again and again, continually upholding everything that we have and know. 

As we already said, God gave us the breath we have right now. But I also can’t depend on myself for my next breath. Or the next one. Or the next one. God is the only one who can carry forward what he himself began. 

I didn’t start myself, and I don’t sustain myself. 

We never outgrow our creaturely dependence on God. 

Which is odd. Think about how much of our lives—our entire childhood and much of our young-adult lives—is spent trying to become independent. Learning to tie our own shoes. Learning to read by ourselves. Learning to drive. Learning how to make, save, and spend money wisely. Every parent here is partially gauging our success on the eventual independence of our children. There is a reason the “kid living in the basement” joke exists—it reminds us of this constant pursuit of independence. 

But this isn’t true of our relationship with our good Father. We never outgrow our dependence on him. Surely, we mature, and surely, we grow and have more responsibility. But God ultimately is the one through whom we are living. 

More than just saying God, we should also be saying Jesus. Colossians tells us: 

He [Jesus] is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him. And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Colossians 1:15–17 ESV 

All things were created from Jesus (by him), all things were created through him, and all things were created for—or to—him. This is the same basic pattern Paul was using in Romans, but now specifically looking at Jesus. 

Jesus does not suddenly enter the Story at Bethlehem. The entire Story existed from him, through him, and to him. And this Jesus is the one through whom everything is holding together today. The writer to the Hebrews says it this way:

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power.
Hebrews 1:1–3 ESV

Jesus is not merely the one through whom God originally created everything. As we talked about in Genesis, he was likely the person of God talking with Adam as he named the animals and walking with Adam and Eve in the cool of the day. Yes, from Jesus and his creative works came everything we know, but now Jesus is presently upholding “the universe by the word of his power.” Creation is not a machine that God started and left running like a cosmic watchmaker. He is intimately holding everything—all of creation and you and me—in his hand and by the word of his power. 

Jonathan Edwards helpfully brings this into perspective with one simple question (that I’ll paraphrase to make the old English clearer): 

Why should the fact that I exist in this moment mean that I must exist in the next? ~ Paraphrase, Jonathan Edwards, The Great Christian Doctrine of Original Sin Defended (1758) 

And the answer is that there is no guarantee that I should exist in the next moment. My heart continuing to beat, my brain continuing to send signals across synapses, my very being held together and continuing forward according to the regular patterns and laws God has established in creation—under all of that is a God who keeps everything together. 

There is no such thing as a truly independent creature. 

The Bible makes this clear. Even when we contemplate our next hours or our next day and the things we hope to accomplish, James says: 

Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”
James 4:13–15 ESV 

Notice what James actually says here! He doesn’t say, “If God wills, then our plans will succeed.” He says, “If the Lord wills, we will live.” Every plan we have is dependent on a God who upholds all things at all times. 

But the providence of God we receive through him is even bigger than just sustaining us as his creation. God is also sustaining his purposes. Having begun his Story, having told us his goals and purposes in Genesis for humanity—to have dominion, to spread, and to guard and protect his words and ways—God also doesn’t leave those purposes dependent on us. 

God doesn’t merely begin what he intends; he carries it through. 

We already walked through much of God’s story from Adam and Eve on and looked at how God was the one to first act, and his people received from him. But God also continues, preserves, provides, and carries his purposes forward. Everything is also THROUGH him: 

• Adam and Eve sin and hide, God comes seeking, covers them up and promises the coming serpent crusher.

• God gives Abraham the promise of offspring, and when Isaac and seemingly the promise are threatened, God provides the substitute and preserves the promised line.

• God delivers Israel, and when they are trapped by the sea, he guides them through the sea. Even through their failures (over thousands of years), God continues to carry forward his purposes.

• David receives the covenant of promise. And despite David’s sin, through his children and failed kings and eventually exile, God preserves the promise of THE coming King.

• And God’s promises don’t merely survive until Christ—they reach their fulfillment IN Jesus Christ, God’s very Son through whom all things were made and all things hold together. 

God doesn’t merely begin what he intends, he carries it through. 

That is true for you and me, for all of creation, and for each and every one of his plans and promises. He who began a good work in us will bring it to completion we are told in Philippians 1:6. 

From Him reminds us that we owe God our very existence. 

Through Him reminds us that we continually depend on God for our existence and for God to carry his purposes in this world and in us to completion. 

Everything Is To Him 

To Him, therefore, reminds us that neither our existence nor the Story ultimately ends with us. Everything is moving toward God and toward HIS glory!

 “For from him and through him and to him are all things.” And notice that Paul immediately defines the proper attitude next: “To him be glory forever. Amen.” 

To him what? To him belongs glory! To him belongs worship! That is where this is all taking us—to God himself, to his glory, and therefore to the worship of God. 

In Isaiah, God speaks of his people as those he made for one incredible and almost incomprehensible purpose: 

[E]veryone who is called by my name,
whom I created for my glory,
whom I formed and made.”
Isaiah 43:7 ESV 

Everyone whom I created for my glory! We often ask the questions as humans, “What am I for? What is my purpose?” And the ultimate answer is not self-fulfillment, achievement, comfort, reputation, or anything else we might want to come up with. 

We were made for God’s glory! 

Augustine said it this way: 

“You have made us for yourself, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” ~Augustine, Confessions 1.1 

That is beautiful and it adds something incredible and important to this final move. Everything being made TO God is not selfishness on God’s part. Our being made for God isn’t the opposite of our good. Our proper end is where we find our proper rest. It is where we discover what we were actually made for and find that, in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we are finally living toward our proper end. 

Pastor John Piper says it this way: 

“God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.”
~ John Piper

God doesn’t get glory and we get nothing. God forbid we think that way! As God is glorified, we find our deepest and ultimate satisfaction in him. Our entire existence is from him, through him, and to him—and Colossians has shown us that this Story centers finally upon Jesus Christ!

And as Paul says in Romans:

For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him...
Romans 1:21 ESV

When we realize that the entire Story is about God and that everything we have is only because he has given it to us, we should give thanks. Sin takes what has been given to us and returns to God only ingratitude. Paul goes on to say that sinful humanity “exchanged the glory of the immortal God” for created things. Everything should move TO God in glory, but sin bends that glory back toward the creation. Sin lives as though God must prove to us why we need him, rather than recognizing that our lives themselves exist because of and through him.

 We were made for God! Apart from God we are restless and searching for meaning and purpose that cannot exist outside of God. But in God, we find that we are ultimately satisfied, and God is glorified in our satisfaction in him.

 And because of that, he deserves our worship! What is happening around the throne of God today is what will continue to happen around the throne of God for all eternity:

 And the four living creatures, each of them with six wings, are full of eyes all around and within, and day and night they never cease to say,
 ‘Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!’
And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying, 
‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.’”
Revelation 4:8–11 ESV

Conclusion

God is The Story!

Before everything, God is. And because God is, therefore everything is FROM Him, THROUGH Him, and TO Him.

We haven't put all the pieces of the Story together yet. There are other major moves, characters, and moments to understand. But now we know the most important thing we need to know if we're going to understand how all the pieces fit together: we know who the Story is about.

God is the Story.

That brings us to the crux of our project in this sermon series. How would you say all of that—my 30-minute sermon—in just a few sentences?

That is hard to do, but I want you to take a minute before you read further. This is the beginning of the Story of scripture that you, me, and everyone we know needs to hear. Open up your Notes app on your phone, grab a piece of scratch paper, and try to write down a couple of sentences about this beautiful truth—about our God who is the main point of the Story…

The goal here isn’t to have all the same sentences. But in case you were struggling to come up with your own sentence, here is an example: 

God is the perfect and holy Creator. Everything comes from him, depends upon him, and exists for him. God is the Story, and our story only makes sense inside his.

That naturally leads us to our next section next week. If everything comes from God and belongs to God, what is his relationship with everything he has made? And we will see that the God who made all things doesn’t merely stand over his creation as Creator—he reigns over everything he has made as our very good King!

I pray that over this entire series, we see again and again the God who is—the God who begins the Story, carries the Story, and brings the Story to its glorious end. 

The God who is the Story.