In Ryan Bush's sermon titled "Reading And Studying The Old Testament," he emphasizes the importance of understanding and incorporating the Old Testament into Christian faith and daily life, viewing it through the lens of Christ's cross. Bush starts by acknowledging the challenges of engaging with the Old Testament due to its size and the initial impression that it may not directly relate to the New Testament Christian experience. However, he argues that neglecting the Old Testament diminishes the richness of one's faith journey and understanding of God's redemptive narrative.
Bush presents the Bible as a grand story of redemption divided into four thematic parts: Creation, Separation, Preparation, and Reconciliation, focusing on the first three as they pertain to the Old Testament. He provides a succinct overview of each:
1. **Creation**: Highlights the omnipotent power of God as the creator of everything, emphasizing humanity's unique relationship with Him, made in His image, to glorify and love Him.
2. **Separation**: Discusses the fall of Adam and Eve, introducing sin and separation from God into the human experience, underscoring the necessity of a Savior due to the inherent sinfulness and rebellion against God found in humanity.
3. **Preparation**: Covers the extensive period where God prepares a people (Israel) to receive and proclaim the coming Savior, using laws, sacrifices, and prophecies to teach the need for atonement and foreshadow Christ’s sacrifice.
Bush further illustrates how the Old Testament, through these themes, connects to and enriches the understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Creation reveals God's nature, highlighting His sovereignty, eternality, sufficiency, and goodness. The narrative of separation deepens the understanding of sin's gravity, its consequences, and the promise of redemption. Preparation shows God's plan unfolding, the anticipation of a Savior, and the foundation laid for the gospel's full revelation in the New Testament.
Bush urges believers to approach the Old Testament with the cross of Christ in view, which will not only enhance their comprehension of God's character and the depth of human sinfulness but also heighten the anticipation for the rescuer promised throughout the Old Testament narrative. This approach, according to Bush, leads to a more profound love and reverence for God, a deeper repentance for sin, and a stronger reliance on Christ's redemptive work.
He concludes by advocating for a disciplined engagement with the Old Testament, suggesting a Bible reading plan that includes substantial portions of it. By asking what each passage reveals about God, man, and the promise of a Savior, believers can foster a more holistic faith that encompasses the full narrative of Scripture, leading to a life centered on the joy, hope, and worship of God.
In Ryan Bush's sermon titled "Reading And Studying The Old Testament," he emphasizes the importance of understanding and incorporating the Old Testament into Christian faith and daily life, viewing it through the lens of Christ's cross. Bush starts by acknowledging the challenges of engaging with the Old Testament due to its size and the initial impression that it may not directly relate to the New Testament Christian experience. However, he argues that neglecting the Old Testament diminishes the richness of one's faith journey and understanding of God's redemptive narrative.
Bush presents the Bible as a grand story of redemption divided into four thematic parts: Creation, Separation, Preparation, and Reconciliation, focusing on the first three as they pertain to the Old Testament. He provides a succinct overview of each:
1. **Creation**: Highlights the omnipotent power of God as the creator of everything, emphasizing humanity's unique relationship with Him, made in His image, to glorify and love Him.
2. **Separation**: Discusses the fall of Adam and Eve, introducing sin and separation from God into the human experience, underscoring the necessity of a Savior due to the inherent sinfulness and rebellion against God found in humanity.
3. **Preparation**: Covers the extensive period where God prepares a people (Israel) to receive and proclaim the coming Savior, using laws, sacrifices, and prophecies to teach the need for atonement and foreshadow Christ’s sacrifice.
Bush further illustrates how the Old Testament, through these themes, connects to and enriches the understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Creation reveals God's nature, highlighting His sovereignty, eternality, sufficiency, and goodness. The narrative of separation deepens the understanding of sin's gravity, its consequences, and the promise of redemption. Preparation shows God's plan unfolding, the anticipation of a Savior, and the foundation laid for the gospel's full revelation in the New Testament.
Bush urges believers to approach the Old Testament with the cross of Christ in view, which will not only enhance their comprehension of God's character and the depth of human sinfulness but also heighten the anticipation for the rescuer promised throughout the Old Testament narrative. This approach, according to Bush, leads to a more profound love and reverence for God, a deeper repentance for sin, and a stronger reliance on Christ's redemptive work.
He concludes by advocating for a disciplined engagement with the Old Testament, suggesting a Bible reading plan that includes substantial portions of it. By asking what each passage reveals about God, man, and the promise of a Savior, believers can foster a more holistic faith that encompasses the full narrative of Scripture, leading to a life centered on the joy, hope, and worship of God.
This morning we are going to consider, as I mentioned in my prayer, the cross of Christ in the Old Testament, or maybe to frame it a different way, reading and studying the Old Testament with Christ in view. Now the Old Testament can be a bit challenging or even intimidating. One, because it's so big, so it's a large chunk of our scriptures, but also it can be challenging because it's hard to know how it applies to us. What does this have to do with us? Because obviously in the Old Testament we have not yet come to Christ, the center of our faith, our Savior, the reason that we're gathered together. So it can be a little bit daunting to understand, well how do we approach this huge portion of our scriptures? Now the wrong way to go about that is to say, well I won't approach them. I'll stick with the New Testament, the Gospels, the letters, and I'll hit the Psalms and Proverbs from time to time, but really I want to focus the vast majority of my attention on the New Testament. And there's nothing wrong with slanting towards the New Testament, but to neglect the Old Testament is only detrimental to our faith. It's only detrimental to your walk with the Lord. So I want to help maybe give you a few handholds this morning, some handles to grab on to, to help you approach the Old Testament on a daily basis as you read it. So you can think of really the whole Bible, you can think of it as a grand narrative, as a big story of God's redemption of his people. That's really what it is from the beginning to the end. It's telling how God has worked through history to rescue his people. And you can, you can kind of put it in sections in your mind, this has been helpful for me and it might be helpful to you as maybe four chapters in that story. I don't mean a chapter in the Bible, but four chapters of how that story flows from beginning to end. So maybe write these down, it could be helpful to you. The first one is creation. I'll go back over these in a moment. Creation, separation, preparation, and reconciliation. I took a page out of Jimmy's book, I went with the Ions there. So creation is the part of the story where we learn that there is a creator and he is the one true and living God and that he created us to glorify him by loving him and doing what he commands. Then we move into the second big chapter of this redemptive story, story of redemption, separation, and that's where we learn how people broke that relationship by rebelling against God. And a separation occurred, a chasm was introduced. The third section, preparation. Now this is the largest part of the Old Testament. Really it's the vast majority if we I would put all of that a lot of the Old Testament in this phase of preparation and this is where God prepared a people to receive the Savior as one of them, a part of their nation, and then proclaim that good news of that Savior of his coming and the work that he did to all the world. So that was the preparation part and then the last one, reconciliation, of course that's the coming of Christ, his work on the cross on behalf of sinners. We're going to focus on the first three parts of that because that's the Old Testament. Now all of the writings of Scripture are tied to Christ. They're like the roots of a great tree. Now you might find a root, a good distance from the tree, but it's certainly connected to that tree. That's what the Scriptures are. Every chapter, every verse, every word. So I want to help you see with more clarity how these large sections of the Old Testament strengthen our understanding of the gospel of Jesus Christ. So this morning I'm going to focus on creation, on separation, and on preparation and help us hopefully get those clear in our heads. So let's start with creation together. The Bible begins with these words. "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. God is the creator of all things and he has authority over everything. When God began to create the heavens and the earth he simply used words, 'Let there be light, let there be an expanse in the midst of the waters.' He spoke and everything came into being. God also created the angels to worship and serve him. They were beautiful and good. And in the book of Job we see that they shouted for joy when God brought the world into being." It's Job 38.7. "God created everything in six days. He created sky, land, water, mountains, ocean, sun, moon, stars, all the plants and animals. And finally God created man, Adam, and the first woman Eve." And the Bible says this, "So God created man in his own image. In the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." This means that Adam and Eve were unique among all of God's creation. And one of the ways that their uniqueness is clear to us is that man is able to have a has the capacity to have a personal relationship with God. Now that's important. It's not just one of the attributes of man. It's sort of the center of who we are. Us knowing God and relating to him is central to our very existence and essence. "After God created the heavens and the earth he looked at everything he had created and saw that it was very good." Now let us consider for just a moment how the narrative of God's creation, which I just briefly summarized, connects to the gospel. And one way it helps us to understand the gospel is by revealing to us the nature of God. In other words, what kind of God did we offend? And what kind of God do we now know and worship? A clear understanding of that being makes all the difference in the world and in terms of our, well, not just our beliefs but how we feel about what goes on in the world and how we act in this world. So the creation account reveals a few bullet points here. Let me share some of these with you. First, God is the one true God. He alone is the Creator and Sustainer. He didn't call in a pantheon of gods to conspire together in order to create the universe. He alone is our Creator and our Sustainer. God is eternal. In the beginning, God, God was already there, always has been and God always will be. He is eternal. God is completely independent. Did you know that God doesn't need anything? We need things every moment of our lives just to stay alive, much less to thrive in this world. Well, God is completely sufficient in and of himself. Also, God is all-powerful. Let there be light and there was light. Just with the power of His Word, He brought all of this into existence and God is good and holy. He looked and saw and He saw that His creation was very what? It was good. Why was it good? Because He Himself is good. The last thing I wanted to point out is something to do with us. That we have the capacity to know God for we were created in His image. Adam and Eve could know God. They walked with God. Now, this is hard but I need you to stick with me here. We need to get a sense of the greatness of God. What a majestic and glorious being He is. What beauty and perfection. This is the one true and living God. It's impossible. I tried. I thought what could I say here? But it's impossible for me to paint with my words a sufficient, even close to a sufficient picture of the beauty of God. I wish I could but He must reveal Himself to you and I know that He has revealed Himself to many of you. Those of you who are born again, you love God and you have bowed down in worship because you have caught glimpses. You have understood. You have felt the weight of His power and His glory and His beauty. Have you ever stood at the rim of the Grand Canyon and tried to take in its greatness, its grandeur? Now, I've been there once many years ago and I could stand here and try to describe it to you if you've never been there but I couldn't do it justice. You have to see it for yourself and when you do it it it changes you. Yet the Grand Canyon is small and ugly compared to the greatness of our God. This is one of the things that the Old Testament does. It gives us glimpses and reminders of the loveliness of God and His as His attributes are displayed for us as they are here in Genesis 1 and 2. This is the God whom we have offended and this is the God who has redeemed us and this is the God who is now our God forever. You see how when we begin to get up maybe a bigger, clearer picture of who God is, how it affects how we understand the gospel. We will never tire of looking upon God, of being near Him, of worshiping Him. I can't remember where I heard it but it was just such a mind-blowing thing to me. Someone was talking about heaven and talked about how think about the happiest day you've ever had or the happiest moment you've ever had. Maybe when your first child was born or marriage or whatever it is where you were just you thought nothing could be better than this. Think back to that moment and now ask yourself what happened. It passed, didn't it? You got hungry, you got tired, something happened and it was bad news or it it it fled away, that feeling fled away because we don't have the capacity to maintain a joy like that. With heaven you will. You will maintain that joy and that happiness and that peace times a million forever. Now let's consider a second chapter or theme, separation. God placed Adam and Eve in a beautiful garden called Eden. They had a good relationship with each other, with God. God commanded Adam and Eve to care for the garden, to be fruitful and He gave them the clear command, "You may surely eat of every tree of the garden but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die." Adam and Eve listened to God's words and obeyed them. They had a good relationship with God. Now you remember the angels that God created? One of the angels was especially gifted and beautiful. After some time this angel was filled with pride. He wanted to be like God. He wanted the other angels to worship and serve Him instead of God. Now there is only one true God so so God cast this rebellious angel out of His presence, out of heaven and the other angels who had worshiped Him. These disobedient angels are known as demons. Satan and his fallen angels hate God and they seek to wreak havoc among his creation, especially people by stealing, killing, destroying. Now the Bible tells us that one day this fallen angel came to Adam and Eve in the form of a serpent and Satan lied to Eve. He tempted Eve and he told her that if she ate from the tree she would be like the one true God. Exactly what he wanted. He told her she would not die if she ate it. Eve listened to his words and she believed. She took the fruit and she ate and she gave some to her husband, Adam, to eat. They disobeyed God's command. They sinned against God. Now God is righteous and holy and he must punish sin. So God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden. Their relationship with God was broken because of sin. Furthermore, Adam and Eve's condition, the sin that had entered into them was was passed to their children and their children's children up until today. It's a spiritual cancer choking the hearts of all the sons and daughters of Adam and Eve. People were now separated from God because of sin. The Bible says this in Isaiah 59.2, "Your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear." Now before God cast Adam and Eve out of the garden he promised them something. He promised to send a Savior to set them free from their sin and to make a way for people to know God again. God said that a Savior would come and crush the enemy Satan's head but Satan would strike his heel. It's Genesis 3.15. Now like Adam and Eve and like all of us in this room all people have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Every person has broken God's command. Everyone is separated from God because of sin. The Bible says that the wages of sin is what? Death. Because of sin no one can approach God and no one can enter into heaven. Now as Adam and Eve left the garden God killed an animal. He took its took its pelts to cover Adam and Eve to cover their nakedness and their shame. This taught them that their sin and shame can be can only be covered by the shedding of blood. Hebrews 9.22 says without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. Now let me let me share briefly some important points here that come from that narrative. Disobedience to God is sin. God is holy. There is no sin in Him whatsoever. God hates sin. Sin separates man from God. The payment for sin is death. Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness for sin. All have sinned and fall short of God's standard. God promised to send someone to rescue people from their sins. Now this this of course is bad news and this is the part of the the story that we don't like to dwell on but we must consider it and remember it and this is something that the Old Testament helps us to do. It helps us to remember our need for a Savior. Not only does the Old Testament remind us of the grandeur and glory and beauty of God, it also reminds us that we have offended Him. That we don't live up to His standard. We've rejected and reviled. We blasphemed Him. We've rebelled against Him. I mean can you imagine? It's as if we've stood before the most amazing piece of art and threw mud all over it. It's as if we've struck our Father on the cheek and then spat in His face. When you read the Old Testament you will find yourself thinking how could they have acted so foolishly, so sinfully? How could they have been so faithless? And then you will quickly realize that you have acted in the very same ways that very morning and you have much more light than they had. This my friends will cause you to repent again and cling to Christ with more determination and a great dilemma of more joy and that's a good thing. The Old Testament helps us to do this. Alright let's consider the last chapter or one more chapter that we'll consider today in this grand narrative preparation. So as time passed the descendants of Adam and Eve multiplied. They waited expectantly for the rescuer who was to come and crush Satan's head to free them from bondage to sin. God prepared a people to understand all of these things to receive this this Redeemer and then proclaim his coming to the world and this group of people was called Israel. God told Israel to build a special structure called the tabernacle and place it in their midst. He loved Israel. He made a covenant with them so that he might dwell with them. Israel was required to be holy though to be holy like God was holy so God gave them ten commandments and many other laws and regulations to show them how they were to live holy lives. For example do not worship other gods or make idols. Honor your father and your mother. Do not lie, steal, murder or commit adultery. God's law was like a mirror. It showed the people that their hearts were soiled from sin. It showed the people that they were in need of reconciliation. Now one thing to remember to be clear about is that the law the law is a mirror. It's not a bar of soap. If one of you walked up to talk with me this morning before the service I noticed you had a big piece of spinach in your teeth from your spinach and eggs this morning and I said hey brother go check go look in the mirror real quick you might want to take care of some. So you go in there and you look and you see the big piece of spinach in the mirror. Well not a single one of you I hope would stick your face against the mirror and start rubbing. The mirror is not meant to cleanse clean to wipe away the mirror is not meant for that it's simply meant to show what the problem is. You have to look somewhere else for cleansing. The law is unable to cleanse and it was unable to cleanse Israel from their sin. Now no one was able to obey those commands just like Adam and Eve the people of Israel sinned and fell short of the glory of God. So God taught them how they could be cleansed for their sin. Remember he was preparing a people for for something big that was was to happen in the future. He told them to repent of their sin and to offer a blood sacrifice by faith to pay the price for sin. The people of Israel learned that the wages of sin is death. When an animal was sacrificed for sin the blood of an innocent animal was shed for a guilty person. God said for the life of the flesh is in the blood and I have given it for you on the altar to make atonement for your souls for it is the blood that makes atonement for life. Leviticus 1711. The people of Israel remembered that without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins. The innocent animal died in the place of the guilty person. God was preparing his people for the coming of the Savior. Now another another part of this preparation was God sending prophets. The prophets proclaimed that the Savior would be for example pierced for their rebellion and that he would be crushed for their iniquity among other prophecies. Now if you've ever had to start a fire in the wilderness with maybe you just had a few matches or maybe you you only had a flint and steel to try to to try to get a fire going you know that you can't start with big logs right you need you need kindling small kindling in order to start the fire. Paper, cardboard, small stakes, maybe even dried plant fibers would would do the trick. You can't start with anything larger than that you'll waste what you have. Now the Old Testament is filled with small kindling that helps start the gospel fire in our hearts. Look at the truths we just learned. God loves his people and desires to have a relationship with them. That's why he made his dwelling place with the people the tabernacle. God is holy and people must live up to God's standard to have a relationship with him. People can be forgiven of their sin through the shedding of blood. This is what the sacrificial system showed them and God will send a rescuer to take away the sins of his people. Another prophet said,"After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie." But who was this Savior and when would he come? The Old Testament leaves that question lingering but in doing so and communicating those truths to it, it prepares our heart. It lays out the kindling that we might read the New Testament and consider what Christ has done and burst into flames with love, praise, and thanksgiving. So the Old Testament stirs up a longing and anticipation for reconciliation with God. If we read the Old Testament with humble eyes of faith we will gain a sense of of holy expectation, a coming redemption. Now of course you might be thinking well we don't have to expect that. Of course we have been redeemed by Christ. The next chapter of reconciliation has taken place but we also live with expectation of something don't we? Because we have not arrived yet to our eternal home. We live in an expectation of life everlasting free from the power and influence of sin. So let me summarize. When we read the Old Testament with the cross of Christ in view we will gain helpful knowledge in three areas. The first one is this. We'll gain a better understanding of what I put here is the beauty of God. I was going to put knowledge of God but I want to move past the cerebral, the beauty of God, the beauty of God. Come to the Old Testament ready to be shocked, to be awed, to be taken aback by the power and glory and grandeur of God. Don't let the stories of the Old Testament become so mundane that you read past them without your jaw hitting the floor at what he does. The second thing is not only are you looking for the beauty of God in the Old Testament but be ready to be confronted with the sinfulness of man. Be ready to be confronted with the sinfulness of man and you can just put your own name in that last space there. The sinfulness of. Be very careful not to think, not to be like the Pharisee who's praying in the temple with the sinner far off. Remember and he's on his knees beating his chest saying God have mercy on me a sinner. Don't be like the Pharisee and say God thank you for not making me like these people in the Old Testament. How foolish they were. Brothers and sisters that that is not the purpose of those passages for us to be puffed up in pride because we have advanced so very far in our sanctification. Rather those are meant to remind us of our own sinfulness and how desperately we need the Savior Jesus Christ just as much today as we did the very first day he was revealed to us. The sinfulness of man. So we're looking for the beauty of God. We're ready to be confronted by the sinfulness of man and the last one is we're looking at promises of a rescuer. Or we might say glimpses or foreshadowings or pre-figurings we might even say. There are many many stories and descriptions and teachings in the Old Testament that that push us toward Christ. I'll give you just one quick example when when Lot and his family were being led out when they were were supposed to leave that wicked town you remember they they wouldn't leave the angels were warning them saying you've got to leave you got to leave but he kept delaying he kept delaying and what does it say the angel took him by the hand and pulled him out and then it has this it has this phrase it says the angel took him by the hand and it says God being merciful to him what a picture of the gospel that that's all through the Old Testament so look for these promises and pictures of a rescuer that knowledge as you see it and you rejoice in it and you reflect upon it that knowledge will have a profound impact on how you feel and how you feel we'll get to actions in a minute but I want to encourage you to let theology control your emotions do you ever feel that you do you ever feel as though your emotions are controlling you and you're you're being driven along like a like a boat without an anchor and a windy and a windy gale and it's your emotions that's blowing you around I know I feel like that at times a struggle with that at times but the truth of Scripture the truth of God can shape our emotions we ought to seek to let that happen seeing the attributes of God will cause us to treasure and cry out for God it will inflame a love for us let me tell you something it's really hard it's really hard both to be inflamed in love for God for Christ and to be spiteful to your wife it's really hard to do those two things at the same time number two seeing the sinfulness of man will cause us to agonize for our remaining sin which will lead us to cling to Christ more fervently now I'm not advocating for seeking out seeking to be depressed and despairing all the time because I'll woe is me I'm a sinner but I am advocating for a healthy look at that on a regular basis oh God I I am in desperate need of forgiveness today and for you to work in me to root out that sin and I cling to Christ number three reading the promises of the rescuer will cause us to rejoice and hope rejoice and hope we ought to be so full of joy and so hopeful because we have so much promised to us I know there's a lot to be worried about and I know there's a lot of things that look hopeless out there and there are hope many hopeless things out there but the most important things are shot through with hope and joy and we ought to take hold of that and so that knowledge and then those emotions will impact how we live number one we will worship God in the splendor and beauty of his holiness we will worship him we will be quick to praise him so we'll be very slow to miss the gathering the public gathering of the saints to worship God we'll also take time out of our day to praise him as we go through our day we'll whisper in our hearts God you are amazing praise you number two seeing our sinfulness and agonizing over that it will cause us to flee from sin it'll cause us to be quick to repent when we do sin and it will cause us to continually pull away and look to Christ his shed blood as the atonement for our sin and finally being joyful and hopeful because of the promises of the rescuer we will center our lives around the things of God it's interesting I was talking to brother Ariandes this morning on our way to church and he was saying how in Cuba there's a this different dynamic where there's just not there's not much to do there there's not activities that you do and he was talking about how your your life is centered around the church that's what that's that's that is your life you survive and the church and how here it's so easy to be distracted because of all of the activities that go on in our day to day lives and the church becomes part quarter of our lives and I'm preaching to myself here too but let me say it again how here in the United States it's so easy to become distracted by the many activities good activities that our families partake in and the life of the church becomes a small part of our lives we will center our lives around the things of God because of the great joy and hope we have found in him one application adopt a Bible reading plan if you don't have one you probably already do but make sure if you do that it does include a healthy dose of the Old Testament make sure that you are reading a good a good chunk of the Old Testament on a regular basis and as you do ask yourself three questions what does this passage teach me about God looking for his beauty what does this passage teach me about man being ready to be confronted with the sinfulness of man and finally how does this passage point me to Christ looking for that kindling that can be lit aflame by the New Testament let's pray Lord thank you thank you for the Old Testament Oh Lord we all have our our sections of Scripture that are so very dear to us or thank you for those for me it's the Psalms thank you so much Oh God for the Psalms I want to die with the Psalms on my lips and I want to sing them into eternity Lord help us not to neglect other parts of your word Lord help us to see the the need we have to take in the whole counsel of God from beginning to end or help us to be disciplined to read and may that discipline be motivated by by this joy and hopefulness that we just considered by a longing for you because we've seen your beauty your goodness your grandeur or thank you for my brothers and sisters in Christ we ask you to continue with us this morning receive our worship Oh Lord we do worship you we do praise you Lord help us now to pray help us to pray with with hearts humbled before you in Christ name we pray amen okay we'll begin our time of prayer this morning if you notice in the bulletin we are praying for Siri Pong and his family in Bangkok Thailand