Jesus the Alpha and Omega of Bible Study - Chapter 11

1:02No. I'm sorry? Okay, I think I'm getting there. Okay, thank you. So, chapter 10, we looked at what is the goal of Bible study. And the goal is Christ-likeness, just to put it in one word: two words, Christ-like godliness. God is in Christ, and so God's image is seen in Christ, and certainly is the embodiment of God himself. So we want to, as a goal, let the scripture transform us into the image of Christ. That's its goal. Every thought is to reveal, to exalt, and to promote Christ-like godliness in the hearts of those who read it.

2:05So, chapter 11, continuing that thought that we're going to be transformed into the image of God, into the image of Christ. And so, this chapter is about conformity. So, we are to conform to the scriptures rather than make scripture conform to us. But it goes a little deeper than just mere conformity. It goes to the very definition. The premise of this chapter is that we should depend on scripture to define who we are, how we view ourselves, what we do, and what we become, what we will become. So, scripture defines us, and we should depend upon it and allow it to define us. Who we are. Who are you? Someone asks you, where do you even go? We might even say, well, I'm in Christ, yes, but what does that mean?

3:11Who is the authority to tell you who you are? And we are, as followers of Christ, we are to look to Scripture to allow it to define us because that's exactly what Jesus did Himself. He let Scripture define who he was, what must take place, where he was to go, what he was to say, and what was to ultimately happen. And so John 12:26 says, If anyone serves me, he must follow me. He must follow me. If you're going to serve Christ at all, you must follow him and specifically follow him in how he took his cues from scripture and how we are to take our cues, our defining influence. So basically, Jesus let Scripture define who he was, how he viewed himself, what he was to do, and what was to become of him. His true followers will let the scripture have the same defining influence over them as well. Very straightforward. He let scripture define himself. We are to do the same.

4:22It's a couple extremes as you approach scripture. You may pick up your Bible and you may read it on one end of. The extreme is like, okay, this is a book, and you may read it just as some unattached, indifferent third-party. Okay, neat book of history, whatever, but you read it pretty much detached. This is an interesting work, but it doesn't really involve me. Another extreme is to bear or to make the scripture comply with your way of thinking. So, on one extreme, you're completely detached, not letting it really influence you in that regard. The other extreme is to force it, your thoughts on the scripture.

5:18Such approaches fail to recognize that scripture was written to engage you, to guide you, to shape you, and ultimately define you. Define, that's it's really going deeper than just good morals, good thoughts, good things to engage your mind. It is to define who you are. And that's how Jesus exemplified this kind of study. Jesus's study of scripture provided the opportunity for him to discover himself in the scripture. His study of scripture allowed him to discover himself in. Scripture. Remember from childhood, Jesus grew in the scriptures, right? He grew in knowledge. We spent some time looking at that growth. Jesus grew. He grew in his understanding of scripture. He grew in how it applied. He grew in all of that. He was fully human. And he went through a growth process.

6:25Now, he was fully God. So he didn't have sin acting upon his, but he grew. It was a process of growing. And so from the very beginning, he allowed the scripture to define who he was, what he should do. That's very clear as you just start looking at how Jesus interacted with the scripture and said, and as he was looking at what must take place and what he would do, it's easy to see him in Old Testament statements and descriptions that spoke about him. He clearly saw himself in these, and he let those images and those descriptions set the course for his life.

7:12For instance, in the Old Testament, what we call the Old Testament, the Hebrew scriptures, he saw himself as the Son of Man who would suffer for his people, and he acted accordingly, constantly referring to himself, Son of Man, and specifically in those suffering. Contexts. He clearly identified himself as a suffering servant of Isaiah 53, and he let that knowledge guide his path. A lamb led to the slaughter who would bear the iniquity of his people. And even in the really small ways, Jesus let the simple statements about him in scripture guide his activities.

8:00For instance, he rode in Jerusalem on a donkey. Why? Because the scripture said he would. Zechariah 9:9, rejoice, O greatly, O daughter of Zion, shout in triumph. Behold, your king is coming to you. He is just and endowed with salvation, humble and mounted on a donkey, even on a colt, the foal of a donkey. He clearly saw himself as the king. He clearly saw himself as fulfilling scripture, and that is exactly why he went in and rode in on a donkey. We may see that as something maybe kind of in a small way, so to speak, but he looked, he was aware of what the scripture said, and that set the course for his life. And so, go find a donkey.

8:58Also, in seemingly Insignificant expressions such as, I am thirsty, as John 19, 28 says, to fulfill Scripture. He said, I am thirsty. So even down to the words he said at certain times, he let scripture dictate what he was supposed to say and what he was supposed to do. So it's easy to see how he clearly saw himself in those statements about himself, but he also saw himself in the Old Testament images and types. After we were talking last week about, or last time about the principle of single meaning, we got into a lengthy discussion about types. How many have heard that word type in the Old Testament? Okay, what is a type?

9:50I'm just going to give you my simple definition, okay? There's a lot of definitions out there, but I'm just going to give you a simple, what is a type? I call a type a God-ordained object lesson in the Old Testament that testifies to a greater reality fully revealed in the New Testament. It's a divine object lesson. It's an object lesson that God is developing and he is communicating through that object or that object lesson to a greater reality. Examples would be, I believe, the Ark is.

10:30I believe the Lamb of God, the Passover Lamb. These are object lessons that God is developing. And I'm not going to get too much into this, but I just want to, real quickly, because for those who are interested, it's a big issue. There are six criteria to define what a type is that will keep you from getting into allegory. Number one, resemblance, that the Old Testament type or shadow or pattern, another word for pattern, a type is pattern.

11:14There's a resemblance. There's something that resembles the New Testament reality. It's not something just completely off the wall. There's a real connection, the Lamb of God, Christ laying down his life. The real resemblance. There's a historical reality. There's something that's really there. Third, it prefigures a truth to come that's being developed. There's a heightening effect. As you come into the New Testament, as you look at the Lamb, you can see the Passover Lamb and a heightening effect coming into Christ being that Passover Lamb. Then there's the divine design. In other words, God is the one purposely making this object. Lesson. It's not just some human correlation that we look and say, oh, you know, the rings on the temple, that can stand for whatever you want.

12:10No, it's not a human correlation. It's something that God is doing. And there is a New Testament designation. So somewhere if we're going to start seeing Old Testament truths that God is developing, that there's going to be some evidence for it in the New Testament. So that we're not just seeing, like I said, rings on the curtains in the temple as something, some kind of New Testament truth. You know, and I understand there's a great design in Scripture, this great mind.

12:48And so, and there's things that it's beyond my ability to fathom, but certainly we look for the scripture to be able to tell us. But this was just to give you an example, and I don't want to spend as much time here because I want to get to how we are to see ourselves in Scripture. And that will take up our time tonight. But it's clear that Jesus saw himself as a sacrificial lamb. And this is developed through the Old Testament scriptures, this concept of sacrifice. And God is doing something. When I used to Use this illustration.

13:33We lived down near San Diego, and there's a big naval base down there. And the ships coming in and out are really a sight to see. All kinds of ships, all kinds of vessels there. But when an aircraft carrier comes into harbor, it's breathtaking. The sheer size of it, the way it comes, it silences those standing around the harbor, and they're just, wow, that's something unique. That's what I liken to a type in the Old Testament. God has set up these incredible object lessons. And the danger of just seeing everything as a type is to take these monumental truths that God has painstakingly ingrained into the Hebrew mindset and reduce them down to something just human correlations. And so that's why it's important to really see what divine object lessons was God setting up and to pay attention to those. Well, one of those clearly, and there's several others, and I won't, there's quite a few, but I won't spend time on those. But just to give you an idea how Jesus saw himself in these images.

15:03But he saw himself as a sacrificial lamb. You remember early on, there's the garden sacrifice, right? And what was that garden sacrifice for? You remember, Adam and Eve were what? They were naked, right? And they had sowed fig leaves together, right? And so they are shamed. And so garden sacrifice was made, and it gave them a covering, right? So as you first start understanding what sacrifice is, the very first time you see it, it is a covering for the naked shame of humanity. So at the very beginning, sacrifice is about covering. And that's going to be the idea of atonement. Then you come into Exodus, and there's the Passover sacrifice. And what was key about the Passover sacrifice is that God made a distinction between two peoples, didn't he?

16:07And the basis of that distinction was the blood of an innocent lamb. It wasn't the genetic makeup of the two classes of people. It was the genetics of the Passover lamb, right? It was the blood. It was the spilled blood. That's how he made a distinction. Then you come to the Levitical sacrifice. And the Levitical sacrifices are all about access to God. How do you, you don't come into this temple without first making sacrifice. And so, the very way that the holy God dwelt with a sinful people was through sacrifice. You had to come into his presence.

16:55There had to be sacrifice. You came to that front of that temple and you came in and you had sacrifice. Your access to God was given to you on the basis of an innocent sacrifice. But all this is just rehearsal. All this, God is putting, it's like a rehearsal of the main event. All of this, He's embedding deeply into the Hebrew mind of what Jesus is going to do. And then when you get to the suffering servant of Isaiah in 52 and 53 of Isaiah, you realize that the sacrifice is going to be human. He's going to be marred more than any image, just like those Levitical sacrifices. I mean, they were mangled by the time those sacrificial animals made it to the altar. I mean, it's just a mangled mess, and that's what sin does. And that's what it's going to take. It's going to take the sacrifice. Come to the suffering servant, and he is going to be like a lamb led to the slaughter. All this imagery, God is developing and building so that when Christ comes, we will understand what he's doing.

18:14The danger of reading the New Testament back into the old is that you miss really what God is doing through these object lessons over a long period of time. We need to understand these sacrifices so that we understand what Christ did. And so, when you come to the lamb in John's gospel, behold, the lamb, that had a rich history. The lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. It had been rehearsed over and over and over. The countless sacrifices deeply ingrained. Well, Jesus sees himself as that lamb, he understands what he is going to do from that Passover lamb imagery. It's been as plain as day in his mindset from very early. He understood who he was. And he related to Scripture. He understood what he was to do, where he was to go, what was to become of him because of what the scripture said. That's how strong of an influence scripture had over Jesus. And that's how we are to have. That influence over, we are to allow it to have the same influence over us. I'm not going to go through all these. I'd give you scripture about these. I just wanted to show you that Jesus sees himself as the lamb and looked into these images of the Old Testament descriptions and Old Testament images and patterns. He saw himself, and that set the course for his life. Another thing that's very important to point out is Jesus also saw others in Scripture. And I'm not going to take time to go through all of those, but he clearly saw the scriptures spoke about his disciples. Zechariah 13:7, strike the shepherd and the sheep may be scattered. So he knew that scripture also spoke of others, not just about himself.

20:23Judas. He knew very well that the scripture spoke about Judas. He's praying to his father. He said, Not one of these perished except for the son of perdition, so that the scripture would be fulfilled. He knew that scripture had spoken about Judas. And when you go through and you start looking at this, you realize that Jesus sees scripture as being far more than just about him. It's also about his people. It's also about a lost world. It's about, it covers. People. And so when we come to Scripture, you need to understand something. It's not just thematically about Christ, it's thematically about Christ's people. And so as Jesus looked, and there's a lot of examples, but whether it was Jew or Gentile, friend or foe, intimate disciple or incorrigible adversary, Jesus knew that Scripture spoke about people other than himself.

21:32Scripture's about other people as well. And that's where then we start: okay, where am I in Scripture? How do we legitimately see ourselves in Scripture? I'm glad you asked, because you would be surprised at just how much you and I show up on the pages of Scripture. And we show up in the same and in images, we show up in descriptions. And I just want to walk you through a few of them this evening. And we will by no means be able to scratch even the surface. Even my book doesn't even scratch the surface. But just to give you a flavor, if Jesus let Scripture be the defining influence in his life, we must do as well if we are going to be his followers, right? We follow him. If Jesus saw beauty in the biblical terms, Defined him, so must his disciples. But how? And that's the question. How does one legitimately see himself or herself in Scripture?

22:43Well, one writer acknowledged that there are over 175 New Testament names, descriptive titles, and figures of speech that refer to Christians. We'll walk through a couple of them. Believers. One of the fundamental ones is a believer, a believer. And there's so many places we're called believers. Also, faithful, faithful. The idea communicates, what does a believer do? Just out of here, just the name? Believe. Yes, thank you. It's pretty simple. That's what a believer does, believes. And the same word, faithful. They are faithful. In Revelation 17, 14, these will wage war against the Lamb, and the Lamb will overcome them because he is Lord of lords and King of kings. And those who are with him are the called the chosen and faithful. In fact, Jesus Himself is going to be called the faithful. And those who belong to Him are also called faithful. They are of faith. They have the faith like Abraham. They exercise faith. They believe. They trust. They go where God takes them. They go where they believe His word. Word. That's what believers do.

24:03What are you? If you're a believer, what should you do? Believe. I think we struggle with this more than you. Believers simply believe. I remember when early on, struggling with the Bible and some elements of it that I found difficult, eventually it just came to a point and you say, you know, Lord, unless there's absolute reason not to believe something, I choose to believe it. You know what? I've never found anything that's absolutely so far out there that cannot be believed. In fact, quite the contrary. Just approach with simple belief. That's what we do. That's what believers do. They believe. Take your cues from scripture. If you're a believer, believe. Be growing in your belief. Choose to believe. Set your mind, I will believe. Unless there's absolute evidence to the contrary, I will believe. A skeptic does the absolute opposite, right?

25:12Unless there's overwhelming and compelling evidence, I will not believe. That's the nature of an unbeliever. But there are terms that are used to relate to God. There's our relationship to God. There are so many of these terms, these 175 plus or whatever, there are some terms that you can categorize under the relationship to God, the relationship to Christ, the relationship to each other, and the relationship to the world. Just real quickly look at a couple of them, but in relationship to God, there's the word chosen, called, God's own possession, children of the promise. Those are incredible terms. Such terms communicate the intrinsic value that a believer has to God. Chosen.

26:09Thought through, valued, called, that is sought after. Listen, I don't care. Don't struggle with this. Your salvation begins on God's side of the fence. And that will become the anchor of your soul, knowing that God took you into account long before you ever even opened an eye. And in these contexts, chosen, called, God's own possession. It's in the context of those who have been rejected, those who have been cast out, those who are suffering. And so he says, Look, chosen, called, you are chosen. Children of the promise.

27:03Intrinsic value. Such terms communicate that these have been granted, believers have been granted God's favor, not because of their personal merit, but because of God's goodness. Simply, God loves you. And He took you into account. He took into the enterprise of being in relationship with you. He sought you out. He came after you. You belong to Him if you are in Him. Let that sit at the foundation of who you are. And nothing can move you, because nothing can change that.

27:44They are loved, they are treasured, and will not be destroyed with the world. They are blessed beyond all measure. That's what these terms communicate. Believers are joined to God by His predetermined, loving desire for a continual, abiding relationship. Listen, He not only thought through the enterprise, He not only sought you, He took into account what it would be and what it would take to enter into a permanent relationship with you. That's believers in relation to God. There's also terms that describe character in relationship. We're holy, holy. Believers are holy, they're called the righteous. Of God. They are called obedient children, called saints, set apart ones.

28:41What is all that? Such terms are about reflecting God's character. What does an obedient child do? Are you an obedient child? Do you see your name on the pages of scripture? Describes you. Are you a believer? Then you are described as an obedient child. You know what an obedient child does? Goes out and obeys. Take your cues. This is who you are. As Jesus went and saw the descriptions that referred to him, and he went with him, so are we.

29:22Those who believe in him will inevitably display his character. Being a saint is being set apart. It carries the idea of a reflection of his character, set apart for his purpose out of the common masses. Those are, if you're a believer, you have been taken out of the common mass and you are for, you have been selected out, you are part of, you're outside of this common mass now, and you are to reflect his character. That's what a saint, a sanctified one, set apart one for his purposes.

30:06They are separated from the pattern in common masses to such an extent that God's character is seen in who they are and what they do. So the scripture defines a believer as, or describes a believer as holy, righteousness of God, obedient saints. Take your cues and go and be what the scripture calls and describes you to be. This is who you are in Christ. Also, there are these descriptions that surround the temple of God, the worship, temple worship, temple of God, living stones. What do these communicate? Well, such terms communicate God's presence with the believer.

31:02Temple of God. It's where he dwells. That's what temple, right? It's all about dwelling, God's presence. It's who you are. It's who we collectively are as a body and individually. Presiding place, God's presence with the believer. It also communicates living stones, communicates growth and sanctification. You are being built up into a corporate assembly, right? We are being. Built up. Temple of God, living stones. Jesus told his disciples that he was going to prepare a dwelling place for them, and he would certainly come back again for them. However, in the meanwhile, he said that both he and his father would come to abide with those who keep his word. If you keep his word, guess what? This is where he abides. And guess what? You're described as faithful, one who keeps.

32:02So what should you do? Go keep, right? This is who you are. You see how it comes out? Don't go and keep so that you can become a keeper. You are a keeper, so go keep. That's what you do. Let scripture define you and don't be taken captive to lies. Listen, every time you fall, every time you fall into sin, you start by believing a lie. That's how the whole thing works. Always has. Some things don't change. Starts with a lie. Believing something that'll satisfy, that won't satisfy, believing something that's.

32:49But what's interesting is that as the temple of God, as living stones, his people welcome God into their lives. Lives now. You see that? Like Jesus and his father are going to come and abide with those who keep his word. And so what his people do is we welcome him. He's going to welcome us into his home later. That's why he goes and prepares a place for us. And so what believers do is they welcome him into our homes now.

33:27And we welcome him at the deepest level. Come in, come all the way in. My house is your house. Come, abide. It's also in this picture, believers are described as the aroma of Christ, both to those who are perishing and those who are being saved. The aroma of Christ. Called the first fruits. First fruits, choice ones, right? The first, the beginning of a great harvest. Such metaphors describe God's supreme delight in Christ-likeness. He loves the aroma of Christ. He loves, believers are the aroma of Christ.

34:18First fruits, living sacrifices, Romans 12, priests, Revelation 5. These terms commune. The dedication and responsibility that believers have to God. We are to serve Him with our entire beings. We are living sacrifices and we are priests. How does that work? You see how the metaphor? I mean, we're giving ourselves daily to Him. We serve Him with the things we say, places we go, the thoughts we entertain, aroma of Christ, first fruits, living sacrifices. Come to the Scripture and let the Scripture define you. Okay? Don't let the world define you.

35:17This is who you are. You are in Christ. So those are just terms in relationship to God. There are also a lot of terms that speak of our relationship to Christ, and some of them overlap. I'll give you some that don't overlap. But relationship to Christ, we are disciples. And this speaks of a person who is devoted to Christ's teaching, who naturally learns from Christ. That's what a disciple is. We come and we are devoted to his teaching, and we naturally, that's what we do. We learn. What does a disciple do? Learns. We learn and we follow. Learners and followers at the deepest level.

35:59Seek to. Be at the deepest level. We grow in our followership. We're called servants, slaves, even. And these terms imply a single focus upon Christ's interest. Who are you? Slave of Christ. What is a slave of Christ interested in? The affairs of Christ. We voluntarily, if you're a slave of Christ, we voluntarily and humbly serve Him simply because we love Him. No, the scripture is very much about you, far more than you realize. Let it have its defining influence.

36:47Called Christians. There's another term, called Christians. And this speaks of somebody who belongs to the party of Christ. You heard Democrat, Republican, you can think of it like that. Christian, I belong to the party of Christ. And the early believers' discipleship was of such a permeating quality that outsiders simply associated them with Christ. Oh, yeah, they're just like Christ. Christian. We're called Christ brothers, members of God's family and household, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ. Christ, an heir with Christ.

37:35Everything has been given over to him. These terms describe something so close that believers are closely associated with Christ in this life and will enjoy all the future blessings of Christ in the next. Your big brother owns it all. You're of his household. You are a fellow heir, a joint heir. Scripture does not speak of Christ separate from his people. If there is a Christ, there is his people. Scripture speaks much about us. But tune in. You're there.

38:22And you can legitimately see yourself there. Oh, you won't see your name, at least as your parents gave it to you. But you'll see the descriptions that God gives. Relationship to Christ is this imagery of the pure virgin, described as a pure virgin. You know what that stresses? It distresses that, or it stresses that unadulterated fidelity to Christ while waiting for his return. That's what we are. Pure virgin waiting for him. And this is about fidelity to the one who's coming and going to take us into the marriage union.

39:15The bride of the lamb. I wish I had time to go through all these. It's incredible how rich and how beautiful the terms scripture has to describe you and me who are in Christ. Bride of the Lamb. And this one puts, this metaphor combines the rich imagery of the sacrificial devotion of the Lamb and the response of the loyal love by his people. The bride of the Lamb, the one who absolutely loves and has taken in his sacrificial devotion and has responded with the loyal, spotless, fidelous, unending love.

40:04Bride of the Lamb. Faithful. Fidelity. Such expressions define our relationship with Christ in the closest terms known to us. We don't go any more intimate than that. They involve a complete renunciation on our part of any allegiance to anything or anyone. That would hinder faithful dependence upon and devotion to Christ. Beautiful imagery. And yet, this is who we are. Are you going to let this define you? Are you going to let, listen? Are you in Christ?

40:53And this is who you are. So, be faithful to Him. Now, there's this other category. We looked at the relationship, the terms that deal with the relationship of us to God, the terms of the relationship of us to Christ. But there's also terms that describe our relationship to fellow believers. And I'm going to go, I truncated this section because I just don't have time to go through them. But unity is an automatic condition among those who believe. It's automatic. We are already unified. We don't have to reconcile that which God has reconciled.

41:37The church is God's answer for racial reconciliation. You come to Christ, and God reconciles us. We don't try to reconcile what God has already reconciled because we already are reconciled. Unity. All believers are part of this. Collective category of slaves and brothers of Christ. There's a lot of these that overlap. We're slaves and we're brothers. So therefore, not only are we in that relationship to Christ, but we're all among the same category. So we're all part of the same collective category. Brothers, categories.

42:21Corporately, we as believers comprise the bride of Christ. So each believer is part of a class of individuals who possess a shared identity. We all share this. And this is why we love one another. This is why we're to serve one another. This is why when you do it to the least, you've done it unto him. You really are in the presence of Christ's bride. You know, and a friend of the bride seeks to take care of and rejoices when the bridegroom comes.

43:06We're also called fellow citizens, also called one flock. Such terms indicate the common government that we have and the common dependence that we have upon the great shepherd for our provision, our protection, and our guidance. We are fellow citizens. Our kingdom is not of this. World, though we are in this world. We are of the household of faith, family, right? We are, because we're of the household of faith, we are active in exercising faith. That's what we do. But we also look for ways to build others up in the faith, right? Because that's what the household of faith does.

43:58Among a brotherhood, there's a brotherhood. Far exceeds any fraternity out there. You talk about loyalty to a brotherhood. Such terms indicate that there is not only love toward God and Christ, but also to one another as family. As the Father, Son, and Spirit love believers, so believers love believers. So you're of the household of faith. So you know what? Go love those in your household. Then there's also this category of not only just relationship to God, relationship to Christ, relationship to each other, but there's also terms that describe our relationship to the world. We are aliens and strangers. And these terms graphically affirm that believers are not at home in this world, and our conduct is to reflect such reality. This is not our home. We are not of this kind. We are really passing through this world. In fact, I would say this world isn't about building a kingdom here, it's about transformation for the next kingdom. Life is about transformation.

45:03We're called children of the light, sons of light, sons of the day. These terms stand in stark contrast to the believer's former life in spiritual darkness and moral corruption. And since we are of the light, we have a responsibility to reflect the moral character of God in all that we do. We are of the light, we love the truth. We are ambassadors of Christ. Ambassadors of Christ. You know what an ambassador does? He goes to represent the one who isn't there. The ambassador goes to represent the one who isn't there, and we have a mission to seek his terms of reconciliation. That's what an ambassador does is to reconcile, or to, and certainly we have a ministry of reconciliation to the world to seek terms of peace with individuals on his terms.

46:13But this expression reiterates our continuing responsibility to love those who are yet unreconciled to God and to serve as Christ's representative through whom Jesus delivers his message of reconciliation. We are ambassadors, and there are many who. Who are not reconciled. And we must carry this ministry of reconciliation. So that should define a little bit of what you do with your days, right? He should shape. To summarize real quickly, there is a great beauty in the descriptions and images that Scripture uses to describe God's people. And this is just a very small sampling. And we are to see these images and we are to allow them to define us and shape us and lay the path forward of how we are to think and what we are to do and what we are to engage in. And at first glance, you look at some of these terms, and it's not very appealing. But when you look at them a little closer, there is a deep beauty, a glory in which Christ, in which God delights. Think about there is no beauty in a sacrificial lamb, is there? I mean, that's a pretty gruesome sight. A sacrificed lamb is a gruesome sight. And yet, this is the image that God assigns to Christ and ascribes to Jesus as the highest honor in heaven, a lamb who was slain for his people.

47:50That's the most beautiful image. There's beauty in these descriptions. Likewise, we wouldn't see apparent beauty in being a humble slave. And yet, God delights in that. Just as Jesus esteemed the beauty in the biblical terms and imagery that described him, so should we. You remember Effie? Who can forget Effie? Maybe he's listening, maybe he's listening. If he is, hello, Effie. But you remember Effie, Orthodox Jewish background from Jerusalem over here, comes to Christ. I remember talking to him after having looked into scripture, he saw, okay, Yahweh is also described as Christ. The branch is Yahweh. And when he made that connection, that okay, God Himself is, or the Messiah is spoken of in terms of Yahweh Himself, he understood that God Himself was in Christ. But then he had a dilemma. What about my Jewishness? He said, I grew up all my life believing that once you, if you to become a Christian, is to leave your Jewishness.

49:24And so he wrestled with this. That was the last obstacle. And then one day he said, I never will forget when he told me. This, but he just said, you know, one day it just hit me. I'm going to let the Bible define my Jewishness. I'm not going to let other people tell me what a Jew is and isn't. Jesus was a Jew. And I'm going to let the Bible define my Jewishness, not man. And those words, I often think about his words and the tremendous cost he paid to follow Christ. And as followers of Christ, we must let the Bible define who we are and what we should do. Let the Bible define my manhood. Let it define my womanhood. Let it define marriage. Let it define truth. Let it define. That's what it does.

50:23God uses belief in the words of Scripture as the means by which he transforms his people into his perfect image. And it's also the way he keeps them safe and shapes their future. So let the word have its coming back full circle. The principle of conformity. We should depend upon scripture to define who we are, how we view ourselves, what we do, and what we will become. Any questions? Got a couple of minutes. Well, I'm here if anybody wants to descend with their Bible, get their finger on it, or what about this? You just come on up here and we can talk. But really, let this sink in. Let the scripture have its defining influence. You're not, it's written to engage you, and it's written to transform you.

51:26So let's let it have its defining influence. Heavenly Father, we just thank you for the word that gives us so much light. It tells us who we are, it tells us who you are, tells us how we are to relate. And you've given us such clear instructions just in the terms, just in the names of Christians, just in the names of your people. Father, there is much instruction there. And so, Father, help us to be believing as believers. Help us to be obedient children. Help us to be light. Help us to be ambassadors. Help us, Father, to be brothers and sisters to one another. Help us to be part of that faithful bride collectively. May this church be faithful to you as we wait for your return. May we be faithful to you on an individual level. Father, may you dwell among us corporately and individually. May you have your way. May you have your place here. Reside, build us. Up as living stones, Father, transform us into the beauty of your image, revealed in your Son. In Christ's name, amen.