The Bible starts with a really important line, “In the beginning, God…”.

It doesn’t say in the beginning me; it says in the beginning, God. God was here before all of this—before your job, your drama, your stress, or anything else going on in your life. Yes, the Bible helps, guides, and teaches us, but the starting point for studying Scripture is realizing that it is primarily a book about God.

At the same time, the first page of Scripture also reminds us that there is something special about humans. After five days of creating the heavens and the earth, God shifts gears for day six and says, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26).

The mountains are magnificent, the beach is beautiful, and animals are amazing, but there is something that sets you and me apart from the rest of creation—we are created in the image of God!

The first two chapters of the Bible are amazing. Adam and Eve live in perfect harmony with each other, creation, and their Creator. But in Chapter 3, the serpent tricks Adam and Eve into eating the forbidden fruit, and suddenly everything changes.

Adam and Eve hear God “walking in the garden in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). Their response is to run and hide. They sow fig leaves together to try to cover themselves up and then immediately start playing the blame game. Adam blames Eve, and then Eve blames the serpent.

Scholars call this chapter ‘the fall’ because it’s the moment sin, shame, and fear created separation between God and us. From there, things spiraled out of control. So much so that it only takes one generation for humans to start killing each other. For the rest of the Old Testament, it becomes abundantly clear that humans are hopeless on our own. We don’t just need to clean up our lives a little bit; we need something greater. We need a Savior.

In Genesis 4-11, things get really bad. Even after God saves Noah and his family from the flood, humans continue to rebel against Him. By the end of Genesis 11, it begins to feel like humans are hopeless, but in Genesis 12, a brand-new story begins.

God reaches out to a man named Abraham (his name was Abram at that time) and gives him a new mission. God explains to Abraham that He wants to make a great nation out of Abraham’s lineage. All Abraham has to do is leave the place where he is comfortable living and set out into the unknown.

To Abraham’s credit, he obeys. Without much instruction, he sets out and eventually ends up in a land called Canaan, (what we now call Israel).

The rest of Genesis tells the story of Abraham’s descendants figuring out life in Canaan. At the very end of the book, a severe famine hits, and the entire family ends up moving to Egypt. That’s where the book of Exodus picks up.

The Book of Exodus begins 400 years after Genesis ends. Unfortunately, the Israelites had become slaves in Egypt. Fortunately, God’s plan for His people has always been freedom, so He raises up a man named Moses to bring the people out of slavery and Egypt and bring them to the Promised Land.

In Exodus 20, the Israelites are out of Egypt, and God wants to give them some guidelines to keep them from straying from Him during their journey. We call these the ten commandments, and even if you are brand-new to the Bible, you’ve probably heard of them.

At times, in the Old Testament, it feels like God is just giving us a list of rules to follow, but that’s not true; God uses the law to show the Israelites how to not just survive but thrive. Unfortunately, they didn’t do a great job keeping the commands, and as a result, they constantly make their lives more difficult for themselves than they need to.

This law still serves as a roadmap to a thriving life for us today! But it is also a reminder that we will never be able to live a perfect life on our own. The law reminds us again that we need a Savior.

We call the first five books of the Bible (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) the Torah. In addition to everything you’ve already read, they go on to talk about the rest of the Israelites’ time wandering in the wilderness. The journey takes forty years, but they eventually find themselves right on the brink of The Promised Land.

At the end of Deuteronomy, Moses climbs up a mountain and is finally able to see the Promised Land, but then he dies.

Joshua 1 picks up the story from there. Joshua, one of Moses’s disciples, is put in charge and told it is his job to lead the people into the Promised Land. That task sounds a lot easier than it actually was. There was a mighty rushing river they had to pass and then enemies to defeat in the land.

Because of these challenges, God gives Joshua a really important pep talk that we should all remember and hold onto today: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go” (Joshua 1:9).

Once the Israelites finally make it to the Promised Land, you’d think their lives would be on easy street from then on out, but nothing could be further from the truth. They constantly struggle because they keep turning away from God.

The design from the beginning was to let God be their King. To love, follow, and worship God. Trusting that the way God marked out for the Israelites is the path to abundant life.

Instead, in 1 Samuel 8, they decide they want a human king to lead them. God has always and will always be ready to be our King, but for some reason, humans have always been drawn to wanting another human to lead them.

What’s interesting about this chapter is God doesn’t argue back. Instead, He gives them what they want. A man named Saul ends up being the first king, and he does pretty well until the power gets to him, and he goes mad.

After that, David takes over as king, and although he makes a ton of mistakes (which we’ll see next week), he’s known as a man after God’s own heart and leads the Israelites through some very tumultuous times.

After King David’s reign, his son Solomon takes over. Solomon’s time is marked by peace. He is incredibly rich, so he builds the Temple, throws large parties, and tries to live life to the fullest. Yet, at the end of his life, he sits down to reflect and realizes that “everything is meaningless.”

Ecclesiastes is about that realization. He concludes that even the wealthiest king, who had everything he could ever need, knew he was missing something. Without the Messiah, life still felt meaningless for the king.

Unfortunately, after Solomon, everything falls apart. When Solomon’s son Rehoboam takes over, Israel splits in two—the Northern Kingdom and the Southern Kingdom. From there, it doesn’t take long for both Kingdoms to fall. In 721 BC, the Assyrians overthrow the Northern Kingdom, and then in 587 BC, the Babylonnians overthrow the Southern Kingdom.

God’s people live in exile for several decades until they are finally able to return to Jerusalem and rebuild. By that point, the people are tired and losing hope that the Messiah will ever come and save them.

The Book of Psalms is a songbook consisting of 150 songs. These are the songs God’s people grew up singing. Today, we may have different melodies, but we still sing a lot of the same lines.

Scholars call Psalm 1 an introduction to the other 149. It’s a reminder that if we “delight in the law of the Lord” and “meditate on his law day and night” (Psalm 1:2), then we will be “like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither” (Psalm 1:3).

Psalm 23 is the most famous Psalm in the Bible. It was written by David (who wrote 73 of the 150). In the song, David reflects on his days as a shepherd, reminding us that God is the one who watches over us, keeps us safe, and even disciplines us at times. Psalm 23 is a gift. It’s a song that we can hold onto in good times, bad times, scary times, and questionable times. Psalm 23 is a song for every situation.

David wrote Psalm 51 after his greatest moral failure. In a matter of a few months, David (the man after God’s own heart) committed adultery, lied, and had someone killed to try to cover up his sins. David isn’t an example of perfection, but he is a good example of what we should do when we fall short. Psalm 51 reminds us that even though we all stumble, God’s grace is enough for us. All we have to do is turn to Him and ask for forgiveness.

The Proverbs were written primarily by King Solomon to help us understand the heart of God. They are short, clever sayings that offer us wisdom.

One of the reasons the Proverbs are so important for us to read and memorize is because they give us an invitation to surrender. To stop leaning on our own understanding and instead believe in, and rely on God. In a world that screams at us to trust ourselves, Proverbs 3 gives us a freeing invitation to put our trust in God. When we do, He will make our paths straight (Proverbs 3:5).

About 700 years before Jesus, Isaiah prophesied (a fancy word for predicted) that there would be one coming who would take up our pain and our suffering, and be ‘pierced for our transgressions’. Isaiah went on to prophecy that each one of us, like sheep, will go astray, but the punishment that we deserve will be ‘on His shoulders’. By His wounds, we will be healed.

Who does that sound like?

Hopefully, by now you are starting to see how much of the Old Testament points to a person: Jesus. This is just one of over 300 prophecies about what the Messiah (the deliverer of God’s people) is going to look like. Jesus fulfilled them all. The Old Testament is like a puzzle that is missing a bunch of pieces, and Jesus fits all the pieces perfectly together to complete the picture.

Isaiah 61 is another good example of a prophecy that points to Jesus. Remember, this prophecy was written over 700 years before Jesus. And yet, in Luke 4, Jesus stood up in a synagogue and read Isaiah 61. When He finished reading He sat down and announced that He was the fulfillment of the prophecy.

Isaiah wrote in the middle of a very tumultuous time. He lived in Jerusalem when the people were far from God and he spent a lot of his time warning them that if they didn’t turn back to God, they would suffer the consequences. They didn’t listen, and sure enough, the Babylonians defeated Jerusalem and carried them off into exile.

Fortunately, that wasn’t the end of their story. As we already read in Isaiah 53 and now in Isaiah 61, the Israelites were looking ahead to a greater hope, a Savior, the Messiah, who would come to set them free from oppression.

Jeremiah is another important Prophet from the Old Testament. He wrote about 600 years before Jesus and witnessed the Israelites defeat and exile in Babylon.

Jeremiah 29:11 is one of the most popular verses in the entire Bible, and for good reason. It’s an amazing promise and reminder that God has good plans for our future. When you realize Jeremiah wrote it to the Israelites when they were living as exiles in Babylon, it becomes even more powerful.

Jeremiah writes, “It will be a long time. Therefore build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce” (Jeremiah 29:28). He invites them to settle in and get comfortable where they are because their current season of exile may take a while, but God will bring them through it. Jeremiah 29 is a reminder that whether we are living in a time of plenty or a time of need, our job is to trust the God who is always faithful to provide.

“You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart” (Jeremiah 29:13).

John starts his Gospel with a massive statement, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God” (John 1:1). John was one of Jesus’ closest friends. He knew Him better than just about anyone. With his opening line, he wants the whole world to know that Jesus (the Word) was not just a good moral teacher—He is God!

The first few verses of Chapter 1 are a little difficult to understand, but the big takeaway is that Jesus is a picture of God stepping out of heaven to dwell with us, teaching us how to be human.

In John 3, Jesus has a conversation with a Pharisee named Nicodemus. The Pharisees were a religious sect who prided themselves on being set apart from the rest of the world by their good behavior. After spending his whole life trying to earn his way to God, Nicodemus sits down with Jesus and asks Him why nothing he is doing seems to be working. During the conversation, Jesus tells Nicodemus a lot of important truths about the Gospel, including arguably the most famous verse of all time, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

In other words, it’s not our good behavior that saves us; it’s putting our faith in Jesus.

At the beginning of John 8, Jesus has a really important interaction with a woman who is caught in the act of adultery. All the religious leaders stand around her armed and ready to stone her to death. Jesus stands between them and offers a challenge, “Let any one of you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her” (John 8:7). One by one, they all drop their stones and walk away. Then Jesus turns to the woman and invites her to “Go now and leave your life of sin” (John 8:11).

Jesus’s life is the ultimate picture of love. But love is both grace and truth. He shows her grace by sticking up for her and then challenges her with truth, inviting her to leave her life of sin behind with all the stones lying on the ground.

In John 13, Jesus is at the final night before He goes to the cross, and He’s in a private room with His disciples about to eat the Passover meal. We find out from Luke’s Gospel that before Jesus walks into the room, all the disciples argue about which one of them is the greatest. But then Jesus enters, gets a basin of water, and begins washing the disciple’s feet.

That’s a beautiful picture of what it looks like to be great. The world tries to tell us that greatness looks like power, money, and being the ‘best’, but according to Jesus, true greatness looks like serving. “But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant.” (Matthew 20:26).

John 19 tells the story of the darkest hour the history of the world has ever recorded, the moment Jesus took on the sins of the world, and laid down His life to be the ultimate sacrifice for our sins. Paul later summed up that moment in his second letter to the church in Corinth. “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Jesus went to the cross for YOU. Even if you’ve heard that a thousand times, stop for a moment and let that truth sink in.

The final chapter of John’s Gospel is a fantastic reminder that no one is ever too far gone for God’s love to reach. The night Jesus is betrayed Peter runs away, leaving his best friend to fend for Himself, and then, when asked, he denies Jesus three times. As you can probably imagine, Peter thought he was too far gone to be saved. So, he returns to what he knows best, fishing. In a perfect picture of grace Jesus conquers the grave, defeating sin and death once and for all, and then returns right back to the beach to remind Peter that He loves him.

We are all imperfect people pursuing a perfect God. John 21 reminds us that God loves us exactly where we are.

The first few chapters of Acts set up the rest of the New Testament. They are a bridge between the life of Jesus and the story of his disciples building the church. After Jesus ascends into heaven, the disciples are all together in an upper room, praying and trying to figure out what to do next. Suddenly the promised Holy Spirit shows up and empowers them to go preach the Gospel with boldness.

Peter goes first. He stands up in the middle of Pentecost (a Jewish festival that brought people to Jerusalem from all over). A few weeks earlier, Peter was so scared that he ran away and denied Jesus three times. But in Acts 2, he steps up and preaches a bold and unapologetic message about how Jesus really was the Messiah.

The message hits home with the people. They repent, get baptized, and 3,000 people are added to the church in a single day!

At the end of Acts 2, we get a snapshot of the early church. We’ll read all about the church next week, but for today, notice they meet together, share meals, worship, and live in community, just like we try to do today.

After Peter’s sermon in Acts 2, things start moving quickly for the church. They make some massive waves in Jerusalem, and people get saved and healed left and right. But not everyone is happy about this. The religious leaders of the day are threatened by this movement, and they bring Peter and John in for questioning.

It’s worth noting once again that just a short time ago, Peter was running away, scared for his life. Now he’s saying things like, “As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:20).

By Chapter 5, Peter and John are thrown in prison, and are about to be killed for their faith. But a wise Pharisee named Gamaliel speaks up and points out a really profound point:

“Leave these men alone! Let them go! For if their purpose or activity is of human origin, it will fail. But if it is from God, you will not be able to stop these men; you will only find yourselves fighting against God” (Acts 5:38-39).

One of the really fun parts about reading this story two thousand years later is that we get to see just how wise Gamaliel’s words were. They tried to stop the church from moving forward, but they weren’t able to. In fact, for two millennia, people have tried to stop the church, but they haven’t been able to, because whenever they do, they find themselves fighting against God.

Throughout the book of Acts, the church continues to take ground and spread from Jerusalem to Judea to Samaria. In Acts 9, something really important happens. A Pharisee named Saul (who later changed his name to Paul) does a complete 180 and goes from persecuting the church to becoming a sold-out follower of Jesus.

Paul was an incredibly strategic, smart, and bold person, so when he began preaching about Jesus, the church’s growth picked up exponentially. By Acts 16, Paul and his companions are over a thousand miles away, trying to build a church in Philippi.

Paul and his friends face a lot of trials as they try to build the church, but their faith helps them persevere through it all. They eventually get the church up and running, and about ten years later, Paul writes them a letter we call the book of Philippians. In the letter, he reminds them of one of the many lessons they learned together in the early days: “I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:12-13).

Romans 8 is one of the most victorious chapters in the entire Bible.

Romans is the longest letter Paul wrote. This makes sense, because all his other letters were written to churches he had already been to or people he already knew. However, when he sat down to write Romans, he still had never been to Rome. So, he had to start from the beginning and spend more time explaining the Gospel to them.

For much of the first seven chapters, he talks about how prone we all are to sin and rebel against God. But then, in Romans 8, he gets to the really good news, reminding us:

• “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” (Romans 8:1).
• “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18).
• “In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans” (Romans 8:26).
• “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).
• “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us” (Romans 8:37).

Galatians 5 is a really important chapter in Scripture. Paul reminds the Galatians, and in turn us today, that we are set free. He then encourages them to continue the fight to live free. He says the secret to living this way is to learn how to be led by the Spirit instead of the flesh (Galatians 5:16).

The good news is, when we walk by the Spirit, we will naturally start to see the fruit of the Spirit in our life. “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law” (Galatians 5:22-23).

Have you ever met someone who wanted to be less loving or less joyful? No, of course not. We all want the fruit of the Spirit in our life. Our job is to surrender each day and allow ourselves to be led by the Spirit instead of the flesh.

Philippians is a really important letter Paul wrote to the church in Philippi. The final chapter, Philippians 4, is one of the most famous chapters of all of Scripture, and for good reason; it’s packed full of quotable verses.

Remember, when Paul was planting the church in Philippi, he went through a tremendous amount of persecution along the way. Through all his trials he learned he could turn to God in any and every situation. We can follow his example by taking the things we worry about and giving them to God through prayer.

The book of James is short, but as you probably noticed from reading the first chapter, it packs a punch. James wrote to an audience that was going through tremendous persecution, which is why he starts the letter by reminding us to, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance” (James 1:2-3).

James reminds us that following Jesus isn’t just about saying all the right things; it’s about putting our money where our mouth is. “Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says” (James 1:22). It’s about actually taking action steps to serve, love, and give to those who need help.

At Red Rocks, we talk a lot about changing the world, and in James 1:27, we get some good insight into how to do that, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world” (James 1:27).

Revelation is the final book in the Bible. John wrote it after God gave him a vision of the future. For the last two thousand years, scholars have debated many pieces of Revelation. It’s a very mysterious book, and a lot of it is left up to debate and interpretation, but there are a few things that everyone agrees on. The first is John’s objective for writing it; he makes it clear right from the beginning that this book is a picture of the future God gives to us for today. He wants us to see where we are heading, so we can live today with forever in mind.

The second thing everyone agrees on is that God wins in the end! Although there is a lot of debate about how and when it’s all going to take place, the important thing to remember is that God wins!

In the final two chapters, we get to see a picture of where we are heading. One day, God will “wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).