We're continuing in our series on the Sermon on the Mount.
So we'll read from Matthew 5 and from verses 17 to 20.
Verse 17.
Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets.
I have not come to abolish the law, but to fulfill them.
For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away,
not an iota, not a dot will pass from the law
until all is accomplished.
Therefore, whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments
and teaches others to do the same
will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
But whoever does them and teaches them
will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
For I tell you, unless your righteousness exceeds
that of the scribes and Pharisees,
you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.
And this is God's Word.
All right, before we look at this passage, let's pray.
Our God, we ask now,
that you would help us.
Lord, we need your help.
Lord, we need you.
Oh, we need you.
In this hour, we need you
to come and help us understand
what you have to say to us, Jesus,
through this part of the Sermon on the Mount,
this really important part.
So we ask for help.
We ask, Lord, for the help of the Holy Spirit right now.
And we pray that in Jesus' name.
Amen.
So we're, on Sunday nights,
working our way through the Sermon on the Mount.
And in this passage,
these few verses we read,
we're really moving our way toward the thesis,
the big idea,
the central idea of the entire Sermon on the Mount.
And Jesus is talking to everybody tonight.
If you, tonight,
are a Christian
who has been a Christian for some time
and you have never been more sure
of God's work in your life
and you're in a state
where you feel like you're really growing right now,
Jesus is certainly talking to you.
And if you are a Christian
who is struggling tonight,
you know yourself,
we've been looking at this in the mornings,
a justified sinner,
but there's a big emphasis right now on sinner.
You feel like you're walking through it a bit,
Jesus is talking directly to you.
And if you come tonight
not really knowing yet
what you think about Christianity
and you think maybe, at best,
the idea of God is a probability,
but you don't know much more than that,
Jesus right here in these verses
is talking directly to you.
And what is it that connects all of us tonight,
no matter where you are spiritually?
No matter where you are spiritually tonight,
what is it that connects all of us?
And it's that Jesus, in this passage,
tells you what he thinks about the Bible.
So this passage is telling you
exactly what Jesus thinks
about the Old Testament
and then also, of course,
the New Testament as well.
So if you're a Christian tonight,
you have to conform your view of the Bible
to whatever Jesus thinks about the Bible, right?
So you've got to read the Bible
in the same way that Jesus does.
And if you're not a Christian
and you've come to the Bible before
and you've struggled with it
or you've rejected it
or you've said,
I'm not sure that this is really
God's authoritative word in this world,
at least you've got to come
and be willing to see
how Jesus reads the Bible.
Because if you're reading it
merely through your own lens,
through your own subjectivity,
and rejecting it,
then you've not yet come to deal
with the Christian claims about the Bible.
Because what Christians think about the Bible
is what Jesus says about the Bible,
what He thinks about the Bible.
And so in that way,
we all, no matter where we're coming from tonight,
we need to hear what Jesus thinks about the Bible.
And so that's what He gives us right here.
He tells us, first,
what He thinks about the Old Testament,
secondly, that He makes sense of it,
and finally, He doesn't dismiss a single word
in the Old Testament.
He actually raises it to a higher meaning,
a higher plane of power.
So let's look at that.
First, a bit of context first.
When Jesus came here in the Sermon on the Mount,
He's coming as a teacher.
And in His early ministry,
when He started teaching,
people called Him Rabbi.
And so they're picking up on the language
of Second Temple Judaism in the first century.
And there were many people
that were teachers in that culture,
particularly the scribes and the Pharisees.
And so when Jesus came teaching,
people were very suspicious of Him
because what they did was
they compared Him to the scribes and the Pharisees.
And every time Jesus would teach,
it would sound different
than the scribes and the Pharisees.
And so immediately,
what did He say already in the Sermon on the Mount?
He said,
blessed are you who are persecuted.
And the scribes and the Pharisees
were in a position of power,
not persecution.
And so immediately,
suspicion.
Blessed are the persecuted,
the reviled.
Blessed are those who show mercy.
Blessed are the poor in spirit.
And this is flipping on its head
exactly the thing that they thought of
in the lives of the scribes and Pharisees.
And so immediately,
suspicion.
You know,
this is a usurper.
They wanted to kill Him all the time for it.
And especially,
especially,
there was a lot of suspicion
around what Jesus thought and said
and did about the law.
So Jesus mentions that here.
I didn't come to abolish the law.
But there was a lot of suspicion
around Jesus' use of the law.
So we think of the law,
the Old Testament,
the Ten Commandments,
the laws in the books of Moses,
Genesis to Deuteronomy.
There's 613 of them listed
from Genesis to Deuteronomy,
613 laws.
And what did they say about Him?
The scribes and the Pharisees
accused Jesus over and over again
of libertarianism.
You know,
of taking the law,
the Old Testament laws,
and playing fast and loose
and rereading them.
And they were worried about
how He treated the Sabbath.
They were worried about
the fact that He was going out
and He was eating
with tax collectors and sinners,
which by their interpretation of the law
was not acceptable.
And so people were always saying,
Jesus plays fast and loose
with the law.
They were suspicious.
And Jesus responded.
At one point He said,
the Son of Man came eating and drinking.
He came sitting down
with tax collectors and sinners
and everybody's saying,
look at Him,
a drunkard,
a glutton.
And then what does He say?
He says,
yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.
Now when He said that,
He was talking about Himself.
And He's saying,
look at me
and the things I do
and you will see
not the abolishment of the law,
but the fulfillment.
He says,
wisdom will be justified by her deeds.
Watch the deeds of wisdom,
my deeds,
and you will see one
who has received the law
in exactly the way it was meant
and has lived it out
in exactly the way
it was meant to be lived.
And that created a deep suspicion,
libertarianism,
everybody said.
Jesus says,
with great wisdom and skill here,
I have not come to abolish the law.
I have come to fulfill it.
What does He mean?
First thing He means,
Jesus first tells you
what He thinks about the Old Testament.
Here,
now in verse 17,
when He says that,
do not think I've come to abolish
the law or the prophets.
That's what He says.
Notice that.
I've not come to abolish the law
or the prophets
and the prophets.
I've not come to abolish them.
I've come to fulfill them.
That little phrase,
the law and prophets,
is something you've got to pay attention to
because the research
we've been able to do
on this phrase
in the first century
in this realm of what was called
Second Temple Judaism,
the religious culture of the first century
where Jesus lived,
the law and the prophets
was a shorthand
to mean the entire Old Testament.
So sometimes people come to this passage
and think Jesus is saying,
I didn't come to abolish the Ten Commandments.
I came to fulfill them.
Yes.
But here,
when He says the law and the prophets,
He's actually talking about
the whole Old Testament,
not just the law,
not just the 613 laws
in Genesis to Deuteronomy.
And,
you know,
whoa.
Chapter 7,
verse 28,
at the end of the Sermon on the Mount,
everybody looks out
when He says stuff like this
and says,
it says,
they were astonished
because He spoke
like one who had authority,
not like the scribes did.
So the scribes
were receiving the law
and interpreting it
for the people.
He comes and says,
I came to fulfill
the entire law and prophets.
They would have known
in the first century
what He means by that.
He means,
I came to fulfill
the entire Old Testament,
the law and the prophets.
So in the Old Testament,
the Hebrew Bible,
the Hebrew Bible
originally composed
has three sections to it.
The first section
is Genesis to Deuteronomy,
the law.
That's the short word for it,
the books of Moses.
And in the second section
of the Hebrew Bible,
the Old Testament,
it's called the prophets.
And in our English Old Testaments,
we think of Joshua
as the beginning
of the historical books.
But Jesus would have
thought differently.
The first century,
they thought differently.
Joshua was the first prophet.
And there's three sections.
There's the law,
there's the prophets,
and then finally,
the Psalms or the writings.
And that's because
the Psalms are the first book
of the wisdom literature,
the very end
of the Hebrew Bible.
And when the King James Bible
was translated
after a guy named Jerome
translated the Bible
into Latin,
some of the things
were rearranged,
right?
But the way Jesus
received the Bible,
it was in three sections.
Law, prophets,
Psalms, or writings.
And here,
he's just giving you shorthand.
He's saying,
I came to fulfill
the whole law and prophets,
meaning the entire Bible.
That's the way
they would have said it.
Like we would say
the scriptures
or something like that.
And that means,
well, what does he say?
Verse 18,
for truly I say to you,
until heaven and earth
pass away,
not an iota,
not a dot,
will pass from the law
until all is fulfilled,
all is accomplished.
Iota is a little,
is the smallest Greek letter.
And so it's just
a little squiggly.
And dot,
he's referencing there
the smallest Hebrew letter.
It's called a yod,
and it's just a little
squiggly as well.
And you see what he's saying?
He's saying,
I'm so serious
about the Bible
that all the letters,
the letters matter to me.
The yods and the iotas
matter to me too.
And all of it
will be fulfilled.
All of it
will be accomplished.
When he came
at the beginning
of his ministry
to the synagogue,
he opened the Isaiah scroll.
And he read from it.
This is the beginning of Mark.
And what does he say?
He says,
today,
this reading is fulfilled
in your hearing.
I came to fulfill it.
Isaiah,
Genesis,
Malachi,
all of it.
That's what he's saying here.
Now,
let me bring this to us,
apply it for a moment.
That means that
whether you're a Christian
tonight or not,
I think all of us,
even as Christians
in the modern world,
we have difficulty
day in and day out
coming to the Bible
and receiving it
and re-receiving it
as truly God's
authoritative speech
to us.
We have trouble
with that,
receiving it that way
over and over again.
Let me just say,
why do we believe
the Bible
is God's authority to us,
God's word to us?
It's not merely
because there are
101 and more
really good
inductive and deductive,
empirical and rational
arguments
for why the Bible
is God's word,
like the manuscript
tradition that we have,
like the fact that
we know very well
that the scrolls
we received historically
is the very Bible
that you're reading
in front of you
right now.
The arguments
for the resurrection,
the argument that
as soon as this Bible
was being written,
Christianity transformed
the Roman Empire
in a matter of 150 years
and the martyrs,
the apostles who saw him
and were willing
to give their lives away,
all sorts of reasons
that testify
to the authority
of God's word.
But more important
than any of that,
the real,
why do you believe
the Bible is God's word?
And here we learn,
here we learn
that one of the reasons
you should
is because Jesus Christ
himself
looked at the Old Testament
and said,
that's the word of God.
And I've come
to fulfill
every bit of it.
And look,
if Jesus Christ
rose from the dead
in the middle of history
and he did,
then you've got to believe
everything he believed
about the Bible.
Yeah?
If Jesus Christ
rose from the dead
in the middle
of human history
and he did,
you've got to believe
whatever he believed
about the Old Testament.
Now that's very important
because,
second application,
because,
look,
every single one of us
needs authority
in our lives.
And if you dismiss
the idea
that God has spoken
into the world
in an authoritative way
through Scripture,
if you say,
I'm not so sure
that that's real,
that that can happen,
then all you've done
is transferred
the possibility
of final authority
to yourself,
to your own subjectivity
and your own feelings
and your own emotions.
Now,
we need to hear
some wisdom on this.
and some years back,
Taylor Swift spoke
at NYU's commencement
at their graduation
and this is what she said.
She said,
I know,
she said,
I know it can be overwhelming
to figure out
who you're going to be
after today,
who you have to go and be
after you graduate
from uni.
And she said this,
I have some good news for you.
It's totally up to you.
Everything is totally up to you.
And she said,
and I have some terrible news for you.
It is totally up to you.
Now,
for just a little moment,
she captured
exactly the problem
with modernity,
the paralysis
that's involved
in the modern age
that says,
you are your own authority
and that is good news
and you are your own authority
and that is terrible news.
That is truly terrifying.
Utter paralysis.
Look,
God spoke into the world
and that means
no matter how you feel
about it every day,
there is an authority
that stands above you.
And the man who changed
the world 2,000 years ago
is the very same man
who looks at this book
right here,
the Old Testament
he's talking about
in his time
and says,
that is the word of God.
And Jesus himself saying,
I receive that
as the very word of God.
If Jesus died and rose again
and he did,
you've got to believe
what he believed
about the Old Testament.
Secondly,
he also tells us here
that he makes sense
of the Old Testament.
So,
now,
the second major point
is to say this,
is to highlight
what he says at the end.
I didn't come to abolish
the law
and the prophets,
the whole Hebrew Bible,
I came to fulfill it.
And this word,
fulfill,
I saw one commentator,
one translator,
said,
you could translate it
literally by him saying,
I came to fill it full.
I came,
I came to take
the whole Old Testament
and fill it full.
Fill it full of what?
Fill it full of meaning.
Another way
to translate this word
for fill
is to say,
I came to show you
the purpose
for which the Old Testament
exists.
To fill it full of meaning.
To really show you
ultimately
what it's all about.
What he's saying there
is that the Old Testament
is not in any way
just a bunch of laws,
613 laws.
It's not just a bunch
of historical chronicles
of an obscure people group
in the ancient Near East.
It's not an endless account
of genealogies
that don't point you
to anything.
He's coming to say
that throughout
the entirety of the way
of that history,
it was always moving
and pointing directly
to him.
That he came
to fulfill,
to fill it full,
to make sense
of the whole of it.
Let me give you
one example.
Genesis 3.15.
In the beginning,
we did not follow.
We did not obey the Lord.
We were made in God's image.
We rejected that.
And when that happened,
when our sin broke the world,
the serpent,
the personal conscious evil,
the serpent,
Satan,
he was there.
And God spoke to the serpent.
What did he say?
He said,
I will put enmity,
I will put war
between you and the woman,
Eve,
between your offspring
and her offspring.
He will crush your head
and you will crush his heel.
That's actually the word crush.
And boy,
I will put enmity
between you and her,
singular masculine noun,
offspring.
That's important.
The singular masculine,
the offspring,
that is referred to
in Genesis 3.15
is a singular noun,
one person
and a boy,
a masculine verb,
a masculine noun.
And you see that
all the way back
in Genesis 3.15
when God said,
I will make war
between you,
Satan,
and the offspring of Eve.
That singular masculine
little boy,
one little boy
will one day come
and you will bite his heel
but he will step on your head.
In other words,
what happens when a poisonous snake
bites your heel?
You die
because, you know,
veins,
the blood runs everywhere.
You die
but in the midst of death
it says at the same time
the boy will crush your head.
You see,
that was all about Jesus.
From the very beginning
of human history,
God spoke a prophecy
about Jesus
in Genesis 3.15.
He came
and Jesus fulfilled that
and in Luke 24
Jesus is walking
on the road to Emmaus
and he turns
to these two disciples
and he says to them,
it says that he told them
for a long time,
what does he say,
that the law of Moses,
the prophets,
and the Psalms
were all about him.
That's what Luke 24 says.
What is that?
That's the threefold division
of the Hebrew Bible.
In other words,
he explained to them
before he ascended
that the whole Old Testament
was about him,
always about him.
So here's a way
to think about it.
The Bible is not a book
written to you.
The Bible is not written to you.
The Bible is written
to people in the ancient Near East.
The Bible is written,
Matthew's Gospel
is written to Jewish people
in the first century.
But because God
is the divine author
of Scripture,
because it is God's Word,
the Bible is written for you.
The Bible,
in other words,
the Bible is written to you,
not originally,
but because God is author,
it's written for you,
it's written to you.
Ultimately,
ultimately,
the Bible,
let me give you a second one,
the Bible is not about you.
The Bible is about Jesus.
But the Bible is about
how much Jesus is for you,
for you.
The Bible's about you
only because it's about Jesus
who is for you,
who is God with us
and for you
and for us.
Right?
And so,
I'm going to do something dangerous,
very dangerous here.
And that's,
I'm going to give you
Charles Spurgeon's key
to evaluating sermons.
And the first key
is don't evaluate sermons.
That's the first key.
Boy,
ministers are the worst
about that,
going to other churches
and evaluating sermons.
Don't evaluate a sermon,
receive it,
you know,
even as much as you can,
receive it.
But,
but,
Charles Spurgeon,
what he says
about evaluating a sermon.
This is from 1859,
sermon number 242
of volume 5
of Charles Spurgeon's
collected sermons.
And this is what he says,
a Welsh minister
who was preaching
last Sunday
at the chapel
of my dear brother,
Jonathan George,
told this story.
A young man
had been preaching
in the presence
of a seasoned,
mature minister.
And after the young man
had finished preaching,
he went up to the old minister
and he said,
what did you think
about my sermon?
Now that's mistake
number one there.
And the minister said,
a very poor sermon indeed.
A poor sermon,
said the young man.
It took me so long
to study it.
Aye,
no doubt about that.
Why,
did you not think
my explanation of the text
a very good explanation?
Oh yes,
said the preacher,
it was a very good explanation.
Well then,
why do you say
it's a poor sermon?
Didn't you think
the metaphors were appropriate
and the argument conclusive?
Yes,
they were very good
as far as that goes,
but nevertheless,
it was a very poor sermon.
Will you tell me
why you think
it was such a poor sermon?
Because,
he said,
there was no Christ in it.
Well,
said the young man,
Christ was not in the text.
He wasn't mentioned.
We are not to be
preaching Christ always,
said the young man.
Christ was not present
in the text I read.
We must preach
only what is in the text.
And the old man said this,
don't you know,
young man,
that from every town
and every village
and every little hamlet
in England,
there is a road
to London?
Yeah,
said the young man.
Ah,
said the old minister.
And so,
from every text
in Scripture,
there is a road
to the metropolis
of the Scriptures,
Jesus Christ.
And my dear brother,
your business
is when you go
to the text
and you get in the pulpit,
you say,
now,
what is the road
to Jesus Christ?
And then you preach
a sermon running
along the road
towards that great metropolis.
And he said,
I have never yet
found a text
that had not got
a road to Jesus Christ
in it.
And if I ever do find one
that has not a road
to Christ,
if I ever do find one
that has not a road
to Christ,
I will make it.
I will go over
every hedge,
I will cross
every ditch,
but I will get
to my master,
for the sermon
cannot do anybody
any good
unless there is
a savor
of Jesus Christ
in it.
Jesus came
to fulfill
the law and prophets.
He is the point
of the Bible.
Lastly,
he elevates,
he doesn't stop there.
Jesus thinks
the Bible is God's word.
He says that he
is the one
that makes sense
of all of it.
And then lastly,
he raises
the teaching
of the Old Testament
to an even higher level,
far from what
the scribes and Pharisees
thought he was up to.
They thought he was
being fast and loose
with everything
in the Old Testament,
with the laws,
and boy,
he doesn't.
He raises it
to a different plan.
So he says here,
therefore,
whoever,
Jesus says,
if you relax
the least jot,
the least iota,
the least dot,
yod of the Hebrew Bible,
any of the commandments,
and you teach others
to do the same,
to relax any of it,
you'll be called
least in the kingdom
of heaven.
But if you teach
everything,
you'll be called
great in the kingdom
of heaven.
For I tell you,
unless your righteousness
is greater,
exceeds that
of the scribes
and Pharisees,
you will not even
enter the kingdom
of heaven.
Boy,
what is he saying?
He's saying far,
far from being licentious,
far from being libertarian
about the Old Testament
and the laws
that were given.
He says,
I've come to fulfill it
and I've come to raise it
to a level
that the scribes
and the Pharisees
never did.
And what does he mean
by that?
You know,
he's saying the law
to me,
the prophets to me,
the writings to me
are so important
that I'm telling you
your righteousness
must be greater
than even the scribes
and Pharisees.
Now,
he's saying something
very radical
in his context
that would create
a lot of anger,
a lot of frustration
with him.
He's saying
that Judaism,
Second Temple Judaism,
as it was being practiced
by the scribes
and the Pharisees,
is not righteous enough.
He's saying
all the external conformity
to the Ten Commandments,
all the practicing
and the memorizing,
all the laws being obeyed
visibly before your eyes,
he's saying
that is not enough
to enter the kingdom
of heaven.
He's saying
I've come to say
something that radical,
that extreme.
Now,
what does he mean by that?
The rest of the Sermon
on the Mount
is what he means by that.
So,
you have to come back
to really see
what he means by that.
But let me give you
an example.
The very next passage,
he says,
you've heard
the Ten Commandments,
you've heard it taught
by the scribes
and Pharisees,
do not murder,
but I say to you,
if you are even angry,
unrighteously angry
with your friend,
your brother,
your sister,
then you've murdered
he said,
you've heard that it was said,
don't commit adultery.
And the scribes and Pharisees
running around saying,
I've never committed adultery.
I've been faithful
to my spouse.
And he's saying,
but if you've looked
at another person
with sexual lust
in your heart,
you've committed adultery.
And Jesus is saying,
look,
I've come to raise
the law
to its true level,
the level,
what,
of the heart.
I've come to show you
that external conformity
to the law
is not the full intention
of what the Old Testament
was teaching.
Now,
instead,
that if you really want
to obey,
if you really want
to have righteousness
in your life,
you've got to internalize
the law.
You've got to begin
from the heart
and move outward.
your righteousness
has got to exceed
that of the scribes
and Pharisees.
Now,
when he said something
that extreme,
what was he saying?
He's not trying
to get you to say,
okay,
well,
if I can get my heart right
and I can go out
and I can exceed
the righteousness
of the scribes
and Pharisees.
No,
he was saying,
look,
these guys are doing it
as best as any human can.
And,
look,
he was saying
every single person
in this world
is condemned by this.
If you really want
to follow the law,
try,
you can't.
That's the point,
that's the first point
of the Sermon on the Mount.
You can't
because it begins
from the heart
and moves outward.
And when he said,
your righteousness
has got to exceed
the scribes and Pharisees,
he was saying,
you need a righteousness
that you will never
be able to achieve.
You need a righteousness
that is not your own.
You need an alien righteousness,
an outside source,
and that takes you
right back to verse 17
where he said,
I came to fulfill
all of it.
So,
we'll close with this.
His comment,
I came to fulfill
the law,
exists in two senses.
Two senses.
Here's the first sense.
He came to be
from the inside out
every bit of righteousness
that we never were.
That's the first sense
of fulfillment.
He came to be
from the inside out
every bit of righteousness
Israel never was.
The scribes never were.
The Pharisees never were.
We never were.
You never were.
I am not.
He came to be that.
That's the first sense.
Let me give you
a quote
to flesh this out.
I got two quotes
as we finish
from John Calvin.
Both of these
are from 1534
from John Calvin's
preface
to the translation
of the Bible
into French
by a friend of his.
So,
he wrote a preface
to the Bible.
Not the best idea,
maybe,
to write a preface
to the Bible,
but they did it.
And there are
some great quotes
in it.
This is what he says.
Because Jesus Christ
has fulfilled
all righteousness,
he desired
in all the right ways
that you never will,
then this is true.
Every good thing
is to be found
in Jesus Christ alone,
he says.
For he was sold
to buy us back.
He was sold
to buy us back.
He became the captive
to deliver us.
He was condemned
in our place
to absolve us.
He was made a curse
for our blessing.
He was made
the sin offering
for our righteousness.
He was marred
that we might become fair.
He died for our life
so that by him
fury is made gentle.
Wrath appeased.
Because of his righteousness,
darkness
turned into light
for us.
Fear reassured.
Despisal despised.
Debt cancelled.
Labor lightened.
Sadness made merry.
Misfortune made fortunate.
Difficulty easy.
Disordered now ordered.
Divisions united.
Rebellion subjected.
Intimidation intimidated.
Ambush uncovered.
Assaults assailed.
Combat combated.
War,
our war with God
warred against
by him.
Vengeance avenged.
Torment
that we deserve
tormented
in him.
Damnation
now damned.
The abyss
has sunk
into the abyss.
Hell
transfixed.
Death
dead.
Mortality
made immortal.
Now that's why he's Calvin.
That quote.
But boy he's pointing
to Jesus.
Look what is he saying?
He's saying that
the one who fulfilled
all righteousness
took on your
unrighteousness
so that you might
receive his righteousness.
That's the first meaning
that he fulfilled
the law.
He fulfilled all of it
for you.
He fulfilled the whole of it.
Desire outward
in your place
so hell could be
transfixed
!
For you.
The second sense
the final sense.
One more quote.
How did he do it?
The second sense
he's saying
I came to fulfill
every bit of it
from my heart
outward in your place
and I came to do it
by fulfilling
everything the Old Testament
was talking about.
That's the second way.
He's saying
I came to do it
by fulfilling
everything the Old Testament
had always pointed to.
And so here's Calvin again
same preface.
How did he do it?
Jesus Christ
he says
is the new Isaac
the beloved son
of the father
who was offered
as a sacrifice
but nevertheless
did not succumb
to the power of death.
He says
Jesus is Jacob
the watchful shepherd
who has such great care
for the sheep
which he guards.
Jesus is the good
and compassionate
brother Joseph
who in his glory
was not ashamed
to acknowledge
and forgive his brothers
however lowly
and abject
their condition.
Jesus is the great
sacrificer
and elder Melchizedek
who has offered
an eternal sacrifice
once for all.
Jesus is the sovereign
lawgiver Moses
the new and better
writing his law
on the tablets
of our hearts
by the spirit.
He is the faithful
captain and guide Joshua
to lead us
to the promised land.
He is the victorious
and noble king David
bringing his hand
all
by his hand
all rebellious powers
to subjection.
He is the magnificent
and triumphant
King Solomon
governing his kingdom
in peace and prosperity.
He is the strong
and powerful Samson
who by his death
has overwhelmed
all the enemies.
This is what we should seek
in the whole of scripture
truly to know Jesus Christ
the infinite riches
that are comprised in him
and are offered to us
by him
from God the Father.
If one were to sift
through the law
and the prophets
Calvin says
he would not find
a single word
which would not draw
us back
to Jesus Christ.
Therefore
Paul says rightly
that he knows nothing
except Jesus Christ
and him crucified.
Jesus Christ
fulfilled
everything for you.
Everything.
And so tonight
you can say
I am far more sinful
than I'm willing to admit
and yet
I am far more
loved by Jesus
than I've ever dared
imagine.
Let us pray.
Father
thank you
for the revelation
of Jesus
the incarnation
and how
it shows us
the truth
about the Old Testament.
So we want
Lord tonight
to think about
the Bible
in the same way
you do
to read it
through the lens
of the truth
of the one
who came to make
sense of
all of human history
Jesus.
So I ask for some
that they would be helped
to see the power
of scripture
because of the power
of the gospel.
I ask for others
that they would be able
to see that Jesus
fulfills all righteousness
in their place
and I ask for all of us
that we would see
that as the new
and better
Jesus you are
the new and better
Moses and David
and Solomon
Joseph
Melchizedek
that we would know
that you came
to redeem us.
So reinvigorate
our vision
of your glory
through our reading
of scripture
we pray
in Jesus name
Amen.