South Platte Sentinel Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013 Page 11Religion

What is the overall storyline of the Bible?

To Our Many Friends and Supporters: These words seem so insignifi cnt to express my gratitude to each and every one of you who gave so much during our recent fl ood crisis to protect and care for our residents. First of all, let me thank the 28 families who were able to answer our call for assistance and came to pick up their loved ones and took them home for several days until the immediate danger had subsided. You reduced our burden - thank you. Thank you C.N.A.s or your endless effort to keep our residents clean, warm and well fed and for dealing with the "No Flush" issue for there was minimal odor, and for the staff who took laundry home to do so that we would have what we needed to continy each day - you deserve a gold medal. As a staff up kept everything running smoothly without interruption and odor free. To the laundry staff who drove many miles to transport soiled linen so it could be laundered so residents had clean beds to sleep in, thank you! To maintenance and housekeeping for your endless efforts to keep waste material removed from the building and doing endless errands to facilitate the operation of the facility, thank you. To our medical professionals (R.Ns and L.P.Ns) for the care of our residents and being ready and prepared should we need to evacuate, thank you. To our adminstrative team who kept scheduling up to par to assure continued care for our residents at all times, prepared medical records should evacuation become a reality and maintaining contact with outside resources to assure that we had the most current information relating to the high water status, thank you. To our staff who kept information fl owing freely between staff and families, thank you. To our outside vendors - Gulf South, Schryver Medial and Mekesson - who contacted us and made sure that we had the supplies that we needed, thank you. To Re-1 Valley School District who brought over fresh fruits and vegetables that had been ordered for the school but could be used because school was cancelled, to Better Electric who provided a covered trailer should we have to evacuate our medical records and supplies, and to the First Christian Church who opened their door to us should we have to evacuate our residents, a big thank you to all for your efforts to help! If anyone who came to our aid has been left out, we apologize but are so grateful Last but not least, thank you God for watching over us and protecing us during this time of need.

Gloria Kaiser NHA, Administrator

Devonshire Acres1330 N. Sidney Ave. Sterling, CO 522-4892

God's Word For Today

By Pastor Sean Cole

Have you ever wondered what the overarching storyline of the Bible is? While the Bible contains 66 separate books, the Holy Spirit has inspired one sacred book with one unifi ed story. This one ultimate story is often times called a “metanarrative.” The grand story of the Bible stands as supreme above all other stories in our contemporary world. What is the overall storyline of the Bible? It is this: God displays His Glory by building His Kingdom in the salvation of His people through the Person and work of Jesus Christ. The Bible centers upon Jesus Christ as its ultimate focus. From Genesis to Revelation, God reveals how He is bringing glory to Himself through building His kingdom. What then is the Kingdom of God? It is God’s people, in God’s place, under God’s rule and God’s blessing. Vaughan Roberts has written an excellent book entitled “God’s Big Picture: Tracing the Storyline of the Bible” in which he explains the storyline of the Bible through God’s kingdom in eight stages. Allow me to briefl y explain the different stages of the unfolding of God’s glory in building His Kingdom through Jesus. In the Old Testament we see the fi rst fi ve: 1. The pattern of the kingdom: The Garden of Eden. This is the world created how God wanted it to be. God’s people—Adam and Eve, live in God’s place, Eden, under His rule and blessing as they submit to His word. This is the ultimate pattern of how the story starts with this kingdom motif. 2. The perished kingdom: After the Fall when Adam and Eve disobey God and sin, we see this kingdom die as they are no longer His people, living in His place, under His rule and blessing. Instead, they are now spiritually dead and live in a cursed world. As a result of Adam’s one sin, he brought death and condemnation to every single person who would ever live, so that we are born under God’s wrath and in need of salvation. Genesis 3-11 unfolds this in graphic detail with

Cain and Abel, Noah and the fl ood and the tower of Babel. 3. The promised kingdom: In His sovereign grace, God chooses Abraham and makes an unconditional promise with Him to re-establish the kingdom. Abraham and his seed will be God’s people, living in God’s place (the Promise Land) under God’s rule and blessing and would also be a source of blessing to the entire world. Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob all die without the Promised Land. At the beginning of Exodus, God’s people are not in God’s place (they are in Egypt under slavery) and they are not under God’s rule (but under Pharaoh’s rule) 4. The partial kingdom: In the Passover and Exodus, God redeems His people, calls them His own, and gives them His law so that they might live under His rule and blessing. God’s blessing is marked by His manifest presence with them in the tabernacle and then under Joshua they enter the Promise Land. Under David and Solomon, we see Israel at its peak with Jerusalem as the capital with the glorious temple. It is God’s people, living in God’s place, under God’s rule and blessing, but it was not complete. It was not the total promise given to Abraham. David was still a sinner and his household suffered. It was the height of an earthly kingdom and yet as imperfect as it was, it was still only a partial kingdom. 5. The prophesied kingdom: After Solomon died, his son caused the fracturing of the nation to divide into civil war and form two kingdoms—the Northern (Israel) and Southern (Judah). Both kingdoms are taken over by Gentile enemies and eventually the Southern Kingdom is forced into 70 years of Babylonian Exile. During this time, God raised up prophets to announce the coming Kingdom where God would again restore His Son David (fulfi lled in Christ) to the throne. The Old Testament ends with the nation back in the land, but not restored to its glory under David. They are

looking forward to a new day when God would institute a new covenant that would replace their hearts of stone with hearts of fl esh. As we transition to the New Testament, we see the next three stages: 6. The present kingdom: Jesus comes in the fullness of time, born of a virgin, as the true King David and preaches that the gospel of the Kingdom has now arrived. He inaugurates the Kingdom by His perfect life, sacrifi cial death, and victorious resurrection. The Kingdom of God is now where He

rules His people through the gospel as the resurrected Christ. But it is still not the fullness of the kingdom. Jesus has ascended to heaven and given us His Holy Spirit to indwell and empower us to announce the Kingdom of God. 7. The proclaimed kingdom: After His ascension and Pentecost, we as Christ’s people are now to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom to all creation until the King comes back to judge the world in righteousness. Christ has commissioned His church to be His ambassadors of the Kingdom to preach the good news and to call all people everywhere to repent and believe in Him alone as Savior and Lord. This is where we are now in history, but yet there is going to come a day when Jesus comes back as the Righteous Judge to set up the ultimate kingdom. 8. The perfected kingdom: Reve-lation 21-22 describes the fully restored consummation of the kingdom as the dead are judged

in Christ and the righteous inherit eternal life, and the unrighteous are thrown in the lake of fi re. We see God’s people (all true Christians from all nations and all times in history), in God’s place (the new heavens and new earth) and under God’s glorious rule and blessing for all eternity. When we understand the “big picture” view of the unifying storyline of the Bible, we see the importance of being under God’s rule and blessing in His Kingdom. Have you submitted to King Jesus? Have you repented of your sin and trusted in Him alone to forgive you and grant you eternal life? Are you living under His sovereign rule? The only way we can truly experience the blessing of God is to live under His rule, on His terms, and in compliance with His Bible. Surrender to King Jesus today! (Sean Cole is the lead pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church in Sterling.)