Sunday message · Storyline series
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Message Summary
Pastor Phillip Santillan begins Storyline, a series on the gospel as the grand story of Scripture, in Genesis 1. For years in church, Phil heard the gospel presented simply: we are sinners, Jesus died for sinners, so repent and believe. In Bible college he found that scholars saw it more fully, as Jesus and the first disciples did: a storyline of God’s great plan to rule and reign over our hearts. The simple version is part of it, but the gospel is also what God has done, is doing and will accomplish: the good news of the kingdom.
Oversimplified, the gospel can start to feel like a belief rather than a truth. Yet Paul called it the power of God for salvation (Romans 1:16), and Phil says it is hard for the gospel to be powerful in our lives if we do not understand why it is powerful. He wants lives powered by the gospel, not just informed by it. He also warns against treating the gospel as just a beautiful story; taking lightsabers to camp does not make anyone a Jedi. Scripture is inspired and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness (2 Timothy 3:16), a story our lives are meant to submit to.
After reading Genesis 1, Phil sets aside debates over the earth’s age or the length of the days to ask what it reveals. Creation is God’s act alone, for his own glory, bringing into existence what did not exist before. The story starts with God, not us; he is its author and main character. As Jesus told religious leaders, the Scriptures testify about him (John 5:39).
Drawing on Hunter and Wellum’s book Christ from Beginning to End, Phil names three truths from creation. First, God is sovereign. Everything owes its existence to him, he is the standard of truth, morality and goodness, and he was in control even at the cross, when he seemed least in control. Second, God is distinct from his creation but not disconnected. Nature can point us to God, but worshiping creation instead of the Creator is the error Paul describes in Romans 1. Yet “just because God is not like you doesn’t mean that God doesn’t like you,” and Jesus promised to be with us always (Matthew 28:20).
Third, God is satisfied in his creation, calling it good, so the story begins “with our dignity rather than our dysfunction.” God did not rest because he was tired but to enjoy his work and enter covenant relationship with his creation. Sabbath invites us to stop doing and connect with him and others.
Phil closes by asking whether we live what we believe. Do our actions show that God is sovereign, or do we bargain with him? Do we remember he is with us when he seems silent, and loves us when shame is louder, or do we secretly think he would love us more if we accomplished more? He invites everyone to imagine lives that are not about us but about God’s story, submitted to its truth.
Questions about creation in Genesis 1
It means God was satisfied with His creation. He called His work good again and again, and when He looked on all He had made, “it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Pastor Phil says that means the human story begins “with our dignity rather than our dysfunction,” before sin enters in Genesis 3. Creation is God’s good work, and He delights in it.
This message draws three truths from Genesis 1. God is sovereign: everything owes its existence to Him, and He was in control even at the cross. He is distinct from His creation but not disconnected from it, so nature points to Him without being worshiped. And He is satisfied in His creation. As Pastor Phil puts it, “just because God is not like you doesn’t mean that God doesn’t like you.”