Page 1 of 9 SLIDE Today is the first Sunday of a three week sermon series called Essentials. Over the next three weeks I m going to share the essentials of the New Testament and show how they apply to our lives in 2012. This is all part of a Year of the Bible focus we ve taken this year at Chain of lakes. Last month I shared a similar series on the Old Testament. As part of that series I gave you a timeline of the Old Testament. I gave you six dates and said if we know those six dates and where each Old Testament story is in comparison to those dates that would help unlock our own understanding of the Old Testament. I did the same thing today. something similar today. I gave you a separate brochure that has an organization of the books of the New Testament and a timeline. I encourage you to take this home and put it near your Bible or where you keep your information from Chain of Lakes. This sheet can help you understand the New Testament. I want to start with a question. There are no right or wrong answers. If someone said the word, The Bible what image would come into your mind? I ve had these conversations with people for over 25 years. These are some images that people have shared with me. One image is the rock. This is the Bible as the 10 commandments. SLIDE It s Charleton Heston coming down from Mount Sinai with the rock over his head in the movie the Ten Commandments. Some churches want to emphasize this Bible as rock. This is the Bible as the foundation. The Bible secures us to something deep and permanent. We are secure in the rock.
Page 2 of 9 This image can break down though because what happens when we have a rock in our hand? We re tempted to throw it. This is what can happen when we think of the Bible as a rock. We re tempted to throw it at people. The Bible becomes a book of judgment. There s no grace in throwing a rock. When we see the Bible as a rock we can become like the Pharisees in the New Testament. The Pharisees started out as people who took the religious laws their Bible very seriously, but they became obsessed with following the laws and getting other people to follow the laws. How many of us at some point in our life have had this image of Bible as rock? Let s pray that we don t have the Bible as an image of the rock. Would you pray with me Another image of the Bible is the script. A script is something that people memorize. Many people see the Bible as a separate group of passages to memorize. These passages have no real context to the overall story. I remember when I was growing up I went to the Good News club. This was a club that met after school at one of our neighbor s house. I think I was in second grade. We would go and play games and hear stories about the Bible. Each week we would have to memorize a Scripture. I ve always been kind of a last minute person. I would frequently not have my Scripture memorized so I couldn t recite it for the teacher. One day the teacher finally had enough of this. She chastised me for not memorizing Scripture. That was practically the end of the Good News Club for me. It didn t help when the teacher started talking about Heaven and Hell. M parents decided I wasn t ready for that.. I believe in memorizing the Bible. We are encouraging people here at Chain of Lakes to memorize the Scriptures of the bible. We have a Bible passage on the back of our bulletin that I m encourage us to memorize. Here s a passage for next week on the resurrection.
Page 3 of 9 Memorizing Scriptures is certainly important. But the image of the Bible as script breaks down because the Bible is something we know in our head and it doesn t move to our heart. What difference does it make if I know the 23 rd Psalm, but continue to gossip about people at church. Some of the nastiest people I know The purpose of the bible is not to commit it to memory. I know some of the meanest Christians who have memorized Scripture. How many of us have carried this image of the Bible as a script. Let s pray that we can let go of this image. Would you pray with me? These are two images of the Bible. There are others. The problem with these images is they aren t compelling to a majority of people in our culture. If a person carries the image of the bible as a rock or a script that person most likely is not going to want to learn and know the Bible. It s not compelling. It doesn t speak to people. What has resulted because of the image of the Bible that many people have is we have large number of who don t know the Bible and really don t have that much interest in learning the Bible and receiving the life-giving messages in the Bible. Let me share the image of the Bible that I want to encourage. It s the image of two media players on top of each other. SLIDE Here s a picture of a Windows media player. There are many media players for the sake of this sermon I chose this one. Play button Time Let s image that this media player is going to share the story of the Bible. Let s say that each book of the Bible could be captured in one minute. The media player of the Bible is 66 minutes. 0-1 is the story of Genesis; 1-2 is the story of Exodus. 39 stories in the Old Testament.
Page 4 of 9 39-40 is the story of Matthew; 40-41 is the story of Mark. 65-66 is the story of Revelation Let s imagine that the bottom media player is a story of our own life a video of our life. Let s say that each year of our life is in one minute on the media player. I m 48 years old, so the first minute would be my first year as a baby; the 36 th year would be a story of my being married; the 45 th year would be me coming to Chain of Lakes. These two media players don t run separately. The Bible becomes powerful to us when we find connections between God s story and from our story. When something happens in our life that happens in the Bible. My story is related to the Bible. I can learn from the story in the Bible and apply those lessons to my stories. Our stories are running and they get connected. When this happens the Bible is not a rock, or a script, it s a living and breathing and relating to our lives. The story of the Bible becomes our story. It s not an old dusty book written by white men; instead it s a new, fresh story that was written by a God who loves us deeply and is relating to us in 2012.. That s an essential our image of the Bible. If we take one idea from this sermon take this image of the Bible as two media players running. Now if we have this on-line media player as our image we have to know the story. If the New Testament starts at minute 40 we have to know what happens in minute 40 and 41 and 42. It s important for us to know an overview of the New Testament. For the rest of this sermon I m going to share this overview. Let me share the books of the NewTestament. Numbers 40-44 are the first four books of the New Testament. They are the gospels. Each gospel was written to share the story of Jesus with a specific audience. I ll share more of this next week in my sermon. Originally people thought that Matthew was the first gospel that is
Page 5 of 9 why it was put first in the Bible. Then people discovered that Mark was the first gospel written. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are called synoptic gospels. They are similar to each other. John is very different. Each of the gospels was written by the name of the gospel. The fifth book or 44 in the media player is Acts. Acts is a book that starts with the ascension of Jesus into heaven and then chronicles the amazing start of the church starting in Acts 2. Most of the last part of Acts is a story of the apostle Paul starting churches. The book ends with Paul in Rome. He died shortly after. The rest of the New Testament is letters. And then 22 letters. Most of the New Testament is made up of letters. 4 stories, one story about the start of the church, and 22 letters. Paul wrote most of the letters in the New Testament. The first group of letters are written to communities of people. They go in order of length. The longest letter is Romans, then 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Epehsians. Ephesians is actually longer than Galatians, but this mostly fits. Some people debate whether Paul wrote Ephesians and Colossians, but we re staying away from that today. The first nine letters are to communities. The next four letters are written to individuals Timothy first and second, Titus and Philemon. Philemon is the one of the shortest book in the Bible. It s only 25 verses. Then Hebrews. Hebrews doesn t fit any category. People aren t totally sure who wrote it and it was one of the last books included in the Bible. It s a wonderful book about Jesus. After Hebrews is a section called the general or Catholic epistles. Catholic means universal. These are not written by Paul. The book of James, Peter 1 & 2, John 1,2,3, and the book of Jude. Each of these books is very short. Finally we have the book of Revelation. It is at
Page 6 of 9 the end of the book; it deals with the end-times. It s also seen as a book that gave a vision for the world for a group of people who were being terribly persecuted. SLIDE Outline of the New Testament 4 gospels stories about Jesus 1 book of history 22 letters 9 written by Paul to communities 4 written by Paul to individuals Hebrews 7 general or catholic or universal letters Final letter called Revelation Let me give you a timeline. It s starts with the year 6 BC. 6-4 BC. These are the years that most people think that Jesus was born. How did you come up with this. The Bible shared that Jesus was born during the reign of King Herod. Herod was a ruthless leader who died in the year 4 BC. According to Matthew when Herod found out that Jesus was born he had all the male children killed near Bethlehem. People think that Jesus was about two when Herod died. Why not zero. There was no zero in the calendar. The calendar went from 1 before Jesus was born to 1 after Jesus was born. When the calendar that we have was developed in 525 they were off by five years. I m going to go through this quickly. 30 Jesus was crucified 46 is when Paul started his missionary journeys. He underwent three missionary journeys. 65-67 is when Peter and Paul were put to death 70 is when the first gospel was written 75 is when MJatthew and Luke were written 85 is when the gospel of John was written 95 is when the book of Revelation was written
Page 7 of 9 That is a chronology of the New Testament. Not everyone will agree to all of these dates. Some people have fierce arguments about these dates. I encourage anyone to learn these debates. For our purposes these dates will serve us well. Overview of the New Testament Images that don t work for the Bible An image that does work two media players that run Outline 4, 1 22 Chronology This information is essential for us as we learn about the New Testament. What s even more essential is that the Bible deepens our love relationship with Jesus Christ and deepens our love relationship with the world and myself. When we read the Bible this helps deepens this love. The best way to do this is to read the Bible with anticipation of growing in love.. Let me close with a personal story. This week I shared with our staff a short talk about Jesus. They asked me to share some short talks about God, Jesus, the church, Chain of Lakes church. This past week I shared a story about Jesus. I shared a little about my developing a relationship with Jesus. When I grew up I never liked going to church; in fact for a while I hated going to church. Church was cold and boring and no fun. Despite my negative attitude I was always interested in Jesus. I usually tuned out during the sermon, but I would often listen to the gospel reading. I was impressed by how Jesus would stand up to the Pharisees; I was impressed by how Jesus would stand up for the people who were outcasts the woman caught in adultery, and the blind man and a beggar; I loved hearing how stories like the Prodigal son and the Good Samaritan where Jesus showed how to love; when I heard Jesus say that I am the vine and you are the branches that made a lot of sense to me.
Page 8 of 9 Jesus caught my attention. I gradually not all at once or suddenly fell in love with Jesus. I wanted to learn more about him. I never was the type of person who would utter Jesus name in every other sentence or try to convince everyone I met to follow Jesus. Over time I developed my own understanding really my identity about Jesus. Over time I came to the conclusion that I was willing to give my life to Jesus. He was my Lord and Savior. I identify myself as a Jesus pilgrim. Jesus doesn t prescribe answers to all of our problems. But I shared with my staff this past Tuesday that every issue and challenge in our world is ultimately a spiritual issue. Let s take the issue of parenting for example. Every parent has questioned whether they are doing a good job of parenting. This past Thursday Katie Solem spoke at Lino Lakes Elementary STEM school about Love and Logic parenting. She did a terrific job. Our congregation partnered with the school to put on this seminar. We didn t have a huge turnout, but the parents who were there talked to each other about how they want to get more people to come next time. This was exciting to me. I think we ve created something among the parents of kids at Lino Lakes Elementary STEM. Anyone who has been a parent has questioned themselves at some point. These questions are ultimately spiritual questions. All parents wonder about their self-worth and what is the right thing to do, and how do I respond. These are spiritual questions. What is causing me the most anxiety in my life right now? Take 10 seconds to identify what is causing each of us the most anxiety in our lives. If we push into that anxiety, I believe that the anxiety is a spirutal problem. Jesus can help us come to terms with that anxiety. I m not saying that Jesus is the answer to every problem because this turns Jesus into a mathematical equation and life is much more
Page 9 of 9 complicated than that. I am saying that Jesus will help us comes to terms with every problem that we are encountering. This is why knowing and learning the New Testament is essential. When we develop a love relationship with Jesus throughour reading of the New Testament, we will develop the peace that surpasses all understanding; when we know the New Testament and see it as a book that reveals the Word of God that is Jesus to us we will see it as a _.