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All right. Good evening. It's good to see y'all. Should I say howdy? You know, I always forget that is the proper way to start a sermon at Emmanuel Baptist Church. All right. You can get out your Bibles, but don't turn anywhere quite yet. We actually don't have a single base text tonight.

We're going to be flipping around. So while you're getting out your Bibles, do some finger stretches, you know, get those scripture flippers ready because we're going to be moving back and forth, and it's going to be fun. I'm going to keep you awake, I promise. Tonight, I want to talk about something that no one really talked to me about until I was in seminary.

And that is the importance and the applicability of the Old Testament. Now, I think we all know what I'm referring to when I say the Old Testament, right? We're talking about the first 39 books of the Bible, Genesis through Malachi. This is the Old Testament. We know it.

We love it. And you see that question up on the screen. Should Christians study the Old Testament? And I think most of us are probably sitting here saying, like, yeah, obviously. Yes. It's part of the Bible, right? In fact, it's the majority of the Bible. It takes up just over 75%.

However, As I grew up, and I grew up in a solid evangelical church, every time we would go to church, every time I would go to a Bible study, even through college here at Texas AM, we were always, always, always studying the New Testament. And that was great, and I really grew.

I'm not here to knock on the New Testament. However, I observed and still observe to this day a general nonchalance towards the Old Testament. And maybe that's not fair, but maybe I'll ask y'all, have y'all noticed this as well, or is this just me? And maybe nonchalance isn't the right word.

Maybe it's just a lack of attention. Maybe it's just, well, it's big, it's long, it can be difficult to read. So I wanted to dig into the question: why? Why, generally speaking, not speaking for everyone, but why, generally speaking, is there this reluctance or this shying away from studying the Old Testament?

And as I was asking around a little bit on this question, I have a few answers, and y'all can see if you agree with these or have any of your own. But some answers I found were: A, it's hard to understand. B, it's boring. I mean, you've got building instructions and genealogies, and why do we need to read that?

Sometimes it can be harsh. Or distasteful. You have some stories in there that you kind of want to look away from. It's also very uncomfortable in parts. It's not PG. You know, we have kind of our highlight reel that we go through in Sunday school, you know, the Red Sea, David and Goliath, Joshua and the Wall.

But there's other stories that we wouldn't really tell our children. Some would say that it's mythical, that it doesn't apply because it didn't actually happen. And then there's that last reason on there, just straight up not applicable. And this is the one that we're going to focus on tonight.

I want to combat this myth that I think is very prevalent even in our evangelical circles. And that is the myth of inapplicability. And simply stated, it's that the Old Testament does not apply to New Testament believers. We even have that phrase, New Testament believers. And sure, it may contain some nice stories to inspire us from time to time, but surely it doesn't bear weight on our theology, right?

We get our theology from the New Testament. That's the new covenant. So where does this mindset come from? Well, there's a phrase for it. I think it comes from replacement theology, which is just the idea that the events and the people and the church and the New Testament replaced everything, the nation of Israel and the events that happened in.

Old Testament. And then, de facto, the Old Testament itself replaces the New Testament. Oh, by the way, that theology is not found in Scripture. Jesus is very, very clear that not one jot or tittle will pass away from the Old Covenant. But yet, we still have this idea in the evangelical church today.

We are New Testament believers, wonder the new covenant. The old covenant has passed away. And to be honest, the term Old Testament doesn't help. Because in our language, in our culture, we think of things that are old as things that are kind of used up, you know, worn out, insignificant.

However, Jesus doesn't refer to it as the Old Testament. The apostles don't refer to it as the Old Testament. That's just kind of our phrase that we developed through church history. And honestly, there's some better ones out there. Some want to call it the Second Testament. But it's really hard to change thousands of years of church tradition.

But this corpus, these 39 books, you know, what they're referred to in the New Testament. They refer to the writings, they refer to the law and the prophets, and they're just, frankly, they're just referred to scripture. And when you see that in the New Testament, when Jesus, when Paul, when Peter talk about scriptures, this is what they're talking about.

So there you have it. The myth is the Old Testament is old and doesn't apply. And I do believe it's a myth because nowhere in the New Testament does it claim to be a replacement of the Old Testament or suggest that the Old Testament doesn't apply. And in fact, quite the opposite is true, and that's what we're going to explore this evening.

So, let me give you three reasons why I think we, as New Testament believers, ought to embrace the Old Testament. And by the way, when I say embrace, I don't mean just get through it. I mean learn to love it. You know, revel in the mysteries and in the tension.

Let God speak to you through it, soak it in, and let it draw you to deeper worship. So, reason number one, the Old Testament reveals the true nature of Yahweh. And I say Yahweh intentionally. We'll get to that. Number two, the Old Testament illuminates the teachings of Jesus.

And number three, the Old Testament lays the foundation of our faith in Christ. All right, let's start with number one. The Old Testament reveals the true nature of Yahweh. Okay, so I mentioned the myth of inapplicability, and you can kind of parse this out into some smaller myths or ideas that Christians can buy into.

And one of those is the idea that there is a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament. Have y'all heard this before? Okay. So, kind of, it's a, I think this came about because it's a very convenient way to wave away a lot of the uncomfortable parts of the Old Testament.

In the Old Testament, Testament, there's stories of people getting speared by high priests, there's stories of the conquest and entire people groups being laid to waste. And sometimes we can just kind of wave this away by saying, oh, no, no, no, that's the God of the Old Testament, and he was a God of wrath and vengeance.

But when I go to church, I worship the God of the New Testament, and that is a loving God. You know, that's a God that cares for my soul and would never do any of that stuff that we read in the Old Testament. So there's a big problem with this.

There's actually several problems with this. So if we affirm that there is a God or a distinction between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament, what we're doing is a soft affirmation that there are, in fact, two different gods of the Bible.

And some people might not say that explicitly. Some people might take the tact of, oh, it's the same God, but he has two different natures. You know what that sounds like to me? That sounds like God is bipolar. And frankly, I don't want a God who is bipolar.

And that's not the God that's described. Another issue with this, and some will go here instead, they'll say that the God of the Old Testament idea is just that God has changed, that God was one way and one part of time, but that his nature developed or progressed into a more nuanced God.

But there you have the same problem. Problem. You have two different gods of the Bible. And Scripture does not speak to that. So if you could, please turn with me to Exodus 34. And I'm going to use the whole book of Exodus. Don't worry, we're not going to read the whole book of Exodus.

But I'm going to talk about the book of Exodus to push back against this two-god theory. And if you've been with me in Yag Sunday School, then this will sound familiar to you. So in the book of Exodus, from the very beginning, you get this theme that comes.

And the theme, as I would describe it, it's a theological theme, and it's the theme that's summed up in the question, who is the Lord? And Pharaoh actually asked this question explicitly in Exodus 5, chapter 2. You might remember, Moses and Aaron come before Pharaoh. They say, Let my people go, let my people go.

And Pharaoh looks at Moses and he says, Who is this Lord that I should listen to his voice and let your people go? And I've told my Sunday school class that that was a very unwise question to ask because the next five chapters of Exodus are devoted to God systematically answering that question through the plagues.

And you read that, and you read through the plague narrative this phrase that repeats over and over and over again. And that's the Phrase, so that they might know that I am the Lord. And by the way, when you read Lord in your Bible, and depending on your translation, you might have Lord with all caps.

Now, that's a reference to the personal name of God. That's the name Yahweh. Yahweh is revealed to Israel for the first time in the burning bush. You know, that's Exodus chapter 3. And he says, This is my memorial name forevermore. So think about that for a second. God has a name, which means that God is not an abstraction, he has definable attributes, he is distinguished from the gods of Egypt.

And that's the whole point of the plague narrative. God is declaring war on the gods of Egypt and saying, I'm not like them. I am more powerful than they are. I am better than they are. I am more compassionate than they are. I redeem my people. I care for my people.

So I would argue, too, that the rest of the Old Testament continues to answer that question. Who is the Lord? Well, God has a, I'm just going to use the word memoir. It's not exactly that, but God tells the story of exactly who he is. And nowhere is this more clearly stated, I think, than in Exodus chapter 34, verses 6 through 7.

Which say, y'all can read it. Then the Lord passed by in front of. Of him and proclaim, by the way, this is the Lord passing before Moses on Mount Sinai. And he proclaims his name. He says, The Lord the Lord, God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in loving kindness and truth, who keeps loving kindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression, and sin.

Yet he will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generation. So let me ask you: does this description sound like the God of the Old Testament or the God of the New Testament?

Yes. Yes, very good. That's the point. The answer is both. Why? Because there is only one God. And his nature is constant and unchanging. So let's double-check this with the New Testament passage. You can turn to 2 Peter chapter 2. And this is one of several we could have turned to.

I almost chose Ephesians 2. But 2 Peter 2, verses 5 through 9 says, If God did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a herald of righteousness, with seven others, when he brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly, if by turning the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to ashes, he condemned the To extinction, making them an example of what is going to happen to the ungodly.

And if he rescued righteous Lot, greatly distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked, for as that righteous man lived among them day after day, he was tormenting his righteous soul over their lawless deeds that he saw and heard. Then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from trials and to keep the unrighteous under punishment until the day of judgment.

So you see in this passage that Peter is appealing to God's character in the Old Testament to give current Christians hope for God's return in the future. And this is only true because the Bible speaks to a consistent description of God's character. He's a God who will not let wickedness go unchecked, but he offers grace and rescue to his chosen saints.

Okay, so you might say that's all fine and good, but we believe in the Trinity. God has three persons. Could it be that God the Father is wrathful, but Jesus, He is merciful and kind. So it's kind of like a good cop, bad cop thing going on. Well, let's quickly turn to Acts chapter 10, verses 42 and 43.

I told you you'd be. Brief context, this is Peter speaking to Gentiles at this point. This is when he was told by the Holy Spirit to go to the house of Cornelius after the vision of the animals. And so Peter is presenting the gospel. And he says to Cornelius and his household, And he, which is Christ, ordered us to preach to the people and solemnly to testify that this is the one who has been appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.

Of him, all the prophets bear witness that through his name everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins. So here in Acts, there are two things worth mentioning. One is that this description of Jesus matches the description of Yahweh that we read in Exodus 34. It's exactly the same.

And second, Peter says that the prophets of the Old Testament, they understood this, and they bore witness to a Messiah that would come in the likeness and nature of Yahweh. So we read this in the words of Jesus: If you know me, you will know the Father. And that's because, that's because they are the same.

They have the same character. There is not a good cop, bad cop. Both the Father and the Son. Are Yahweh, and they fit the description: merciful, kind, abounding in lovingkindness, slow to anger, but also will not let sin and iniquity go unpunished. So, if that's true, why does it seem so different?

Why does the Old Testament seem so much harsher than the New Testament? I would suggest that it's not. I would suggest that you look again. Read the Old Testament, including the uncomfortable parts, and put away how you think God should be, and let him reveal who he really is.

And I think he might surprise you. And remember, the goal of reading Scripture, Old Testament and New Testament, is not to fit God into our notion of who God should be, but it's that we may know him. And how do you know someone? Well, read the book that he wrote about himself.

In this case, this would be his introduction. That is the Old Testament. So, same God. There's not two gods of the Bible. Reason number two: the Old Testament illuminates the teaching of Jesus. All right. So, the myth I want to push back on here is the myth that says we don't need the Old Testament to understand the New Testament.

Okay. Let's dissect that a little bit. At face value, that can seem true, right? Right? How many of y'all came to a saving faith without reading the Old Testament? And you don't have to raise your hands, but just food for thought. Can you come to a saving faith without reading the Old Testament?

I think you can. So, why bother with the Old Testament? Why go through the effort of reading it if we don't need it to understand what the New Testament teaches? Well, I think we just might underestimate just how important the Old Testament was to the New Testament authors and their audiences at the time.

So, this is a hermeneutical principle, which means this is one of the things that we take with us when we go to Scripture and we want to accurately dissect what it really means. That's the art of hermeneutics. And one of those principles is called authorial intent. This is to say that God wrote Scripture through men, and those men lived in a certain place in time, and they talked to and they wrote to people in that place and time.

And so, for us, we have a little bit of work to do. We have to get inside their heads, we have to work to understand those cultural references, the greater literary context that would have been obvious to the people at the time. And that's just the point. We live and think in a post-industrial society.

We have references and culture that reflect this. Jesus lived in an Old Testament world. This is what they talked about. They didn't have Marvel movies and, you know, collective American history to talk about. No, they talked about these stories. And we have the challenge of jumping into that 2,000 years later.

So, all that to say, if you want to truly understand the depth and the nuance behind these Old Testament references, and there are a lot of Old Testament references, I think the best way to do that truly, practically, is to become familiar with the Old Testament. Read it, cherish it, know the ins and out of the Old Testament.

So, briefly, to illustrate this, please turn to John chapter 6. I'm not giving you a verse because really, I want to reference the whole thing. And y'all can jump around in John chapter 6 with me. I didn't know that Mr. McGee would be teaching on the parable of leaven this morning, which is another great illustration to demonstrate the importance of the Old Testament.

But tonight, I'm going to talk about the product of leaven. I'm going to talk about bread. So, John chapter 6. Now, this is the Gospel of John's recording of the feeding of the 5,000. It's a miracle we're all very familiar with. It's the miracle that appears in all four Gospels.

But, unlike the other Gospels, the book of John records. The aftermath. It gives the miracle at the very beginning, and then that launches Jesus into this extended conversation with his disciples and his followers and the Pharisees at the synagogue. And John chapter 6 is where we get a record of that.

So you see, John 6:1 through 14, Jesus performs the miracle. And you have this note in verse 14. It says, When the people saw the sign which had been performed, they said, Truly, this is the prophet who has come into the world. All right, log that away for a minute.

So flip or fast forward to the end of the chapter, verse 66, and the text tells us, as a result of this, many of his disciples withdrew and were not walking with him anymore. Okay, this is just days later. There's not a whole lot of time that has passed.

So the natural question is, what happened? What happened between the people wanting to take Jesus as their prophet and then the people, the same people, wanting nothing to do with him? Well, right in the middle of John chapter 6, Jesus makes an extraordinary statement. He says in John 6, 35, he says, I am the bread of life.

He who comes to me shall never hunger. He who believes in me shall never thirst. Pretty familiar verse. And we usually read this as a nice little, you know, one-off. It's a good little kitchen decoration, bread of life. And that's true. Right, he is our sustainer, he is our provider, we can come to him, and you don't need Old Testament context to understand the truth of that statement.

However, this does not explain why people started to leave him. To that, we need to go back to the Old Testament to realize that there might just be a little bit going on here. So, if you look still in John chapter 6, verse 48, Jesus repeats the statement, I am the bread of life, and he goes on to elaborate.

He says, Your fathers ate manna in the wilderness, and they died. This is the bread which comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this, he will live forever.

And the bread also which I give for the life of the world is my flesh. So, I know we're just scratching the surface, and we don't have time to dig into all the nuances and the exposition here. However, I do want to draw your attention to this reference.

Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness. What is Jesus talking about here? So, that he is referencing the events of Exodus chapter 16. And you don't have to turn there, but just I'll briefly recap. In Exodus chapter 16, we find the Israelites, and they have already gone through the Red Sea at this point, and they are wandering in the wilderness, and they realize that they have no bread, and they're hungry.

But they match that hunger, the real physical need, with an accusation. And the accusation is against Moses, and he says, You have brought us into the wilderness to kill us. Which is pretty extraordinary considering that they just walked through a sea. And they saw the drowning of Pharaoh's armies.

But yet, you know, we are quick to forget when we're hungry. At least that applies to me. But Moses, he rightfully pushes back, and he says, No, no, no, you aren't grumbling against me. You're actually grumbling against God. And so Moses identifies the spiritual unbelief that is going on in the people of Israel right now.

It's a belief, it's a spiritual need that accompanies their physical need of hunger. And Moses, and as Yahweh's messenger, he says, Two things are going to happen. One, they are going to receive bread. The bread that they're asking for is going to come down from heaven. And two, the literal glory of God will appear before them.

And this is what you read in Exodus 16:10. You see these two things together. You see the bread to meet their physical need, and you see the appearance of Yahweh to meet their spiritual need. And they come down together. You might see where this is going. So go back.

To John chapter 6. Jesus has just done this powerful sign by multiplying the bread and the fishes, and he's feeding a bunch of hungry people. And I think a lot of people sitting there knowing their Old Testament, a little light bulb goes off and says, ah, this Jesus, this is the prophet.

And what they mean by that is, this is Moses who has come again. This is another Old Testament reference. Deuteronomy 15 says that a Moses will arise. Like, sorry, a prophet would arise like Moses to lead his people. And so these people that Jesus has just fed are thinking, aha, this is him.

This is the prophet like Moses. And in short, they're trying to make Jesus into Moses. But Jesus, he understands the Old Testament way better than those people did. And he says, no, no, no, no, no. I am not Moses because Moses actually never provided anything for you. He's not the one who provided the bread.

And he's not the one that you are grumbling against. And then comes the mic drop in verse 35. He says, I am not Moses. I am the bread. I am the bread of life. Talking about this, you know, referring back to this manna. And if you remember the divine name back in Exodus 3, Yahweh, I am that I am, then your, you know, antenna might be perking up a little bit.

So now we carry all of that with us from Exodus into the book of John. You have a grumbling people who have a spiritual need, who have a Physical need, and Yahweh is supernaturally providing for both by manifesting his glory. And here's Jesus saying, I am that. This is me.

It's happening again. I am the provision. I am the provider. And if you think that I'm just a prophet, then you're missing who I came to be and who I can be if you put your faith in me. And that message was difficult for them to swallow. No pun intended.

You see the disciples that leave him and no longer walk with him. But you also see from Simon Peter that it clicks. And Jesus asks him, Will you also depart? And he says, No, Lord. You have the words of eternal life. Where else would we go? We have believed and come to know that you are the Holy One of God.

Now, that's a name of God, a name of Yahweh. So, what's my point? My point is that this is an extraordinary passage, and it's still extraordinary if you don't know anything about Exodus chapter 16. However, I walk through it maybe to impress upon you how a simple, profound statement, like I am the bread of life.

Deepens and expands when you understand the Old Testament and the subtext that would have been immediately clear to the people who were standing next to Jesus. And this isn't true just of John chapter 6. The New Testament is full of these Old Testament references and these passages. And that's not even talking about the messianic prophecies that are directly fulfilled by Jesus.

You might remember in Luke 24, on the road to Emmaus, Luke says that Jesus is explaining to two of his disciples everything that's found in Moses and the prophets concerning him. And the two disciples, they still don't recognize Jesus. It's not until they sat down and Jesus broke bread with them that they recognized him.

And then they turn to each other and they say, Didn't our hearts burn within us while he was explaining the scripture to us? And that's my point for us here today, for the New Testament believer, is that our hearts can still burn with longing for Jesus when we read the Old Testament, when we revel in these stories and embrace the truth in them, and the truth that they are pointing forward to a Messiah.

We can still be moved and changed and persuaded, just like those disciples were. And in the end, for us all, just like it was for them, our goal is to know Christ. And we can know Christ by studying the Old Testament. And that leads into my third and final point for the evening.

The Old Testament lays the foundation for our faith in Christ. And the final myth to push back against is this idea that, well, when we read our Bibles, what really matters is the gospel. And everything else is just kind of decoration on the gospel. And the gospel is a New Testament story, right?

So therefore, we don't really need to look that closely at the Old Testament. So let me, once again, let me push back on this. You can turn to Genesis 15, 5 through 6. Genesis 15, 5 through 6. A little bit of context. This is God, Yahweh, talking to Abram.

And he's making Abram a promise. He says, look towards the heavens and count the stars, if you are able to count them. And Yahweh said to him, So shall your descendants be. And then he, Abram, believed in the Lord, and Yahweh reckoned it to him as righteousness. So, what's going on in this passage?

God had just given Abram an impossible promise. Nature and reason tell Abram that it is impossible for him and his wife to have children at their age. But God decreed it to be so. And so, Abram, now he's faced with this choice to believe in what his eyes tell him, or to believe in the promise of the Lord.

And we know what Abram chose. He chose belief. And the Bible says that this was credited to him as righteousness. So now you can flip over to Romans chapter 4, verses 19 through 25, keeping that in the back of your head. And here Paul is writing to believers.

He's going to give a little bit of commentary on this Genesis passage. Paul says, without becoming weak in faith, he, Abraham, contemplated his own body, now as good as dead, since he was about 100 years old, in the deadness of Sarah's womb. Yet, with respect to the promise of God, he did not waver in unbelief, but grew strong in faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured that what God had promised, he was able to also perform.

Therefore, it was also credited to him as righteousness. Now, not for his sake only was it written that it was credited to him, but for our sake also, to whom it will be credited. As those who believe in him who raised Jesus from the Lord, sorry, who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, he who was delivered over because of our transgression and was raised because of our justification.

A wonderful passage. A wonderful passage that is rooted in the Old Testament. And that's Paul's point. He points to this story of Abraham, and he says, Because of Abraham's faith, and because this was written for our instruction, we too can put our faith in the promises of God.

And that's the rest of the Old Testament, all the way through. It is God repeatedly, again after again and again and again and again, proving his faithfulness to the promises that he made to his people, to Abraham, to Moses, to David. So we recognize this because this is the foundation of our gospel.

Like Abraham, we also have been given an impossible promise. And what I mean by that is, nature and reason demand that sin leads to death. However, Jesus says that he who believes in me will live even though he dies. This is the, I am the resurrection in the life passage.

So where does that leave us? Well, that leaves us with a choice to believe in our own eyes or to put our faith in the promise of God. And just like Abraham, when we believe in God's promise, we are credited with Christ's righteousness by grace through faith. This is not a New Testament teaching.

This is an Old Testament reality. If you don't believe me, here's a few other passages. You don't need to turn here. I'll read them out loud. This is the gospel in the Old Testament. Romans 1, 1 through 2, Paul introduces his letter by saying, Paul, a bondservant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures.

That's the Old Testament. Galatians 3, 8, the scriptures, foreseeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel beforehand to Abraham, saying, All the nations will be blessed in you. 2 Timothy. 3, 14 through 15 says, You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings, which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation, which is in Christ Jesus.

You can turn quickly to Hebrews chapter 11. And we all know Hebrews chapter 11, right? You know, this is the passage on faith. Faith, the assurance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen. This is saving faith. And the writer of Hebrews, where does he go to talk about this faith?

In Hebrews chapter 11. He goes to the Old Testament. It's a chapter filled with Old Testament saints, including Abraham, who believed in the promises of God. And therefore, as it says, they obtain God's approval. And yet, here is how Hebrews 11 ends. In verse 39 through 40, it says, And all of these, meaning all these Old Testament saints, having gained approval through their faith, did not receive what was promised because God had provided something better for us, so that apart from us, they would not be made perfect.

So, what is the point of the author of Hebrews? Well, I think he gets to it in the very next verse, which for us. us is in chapter 12. So chapter, or Hebrews chapter 12, verse 1. It's a familiar passage. It talks about, well, since we have been surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, that's these Old Testament figures that you just talked about, since we are surrounded by this great cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every sin and weight which clings to us so closely and run with endurance the race that is before us, setting our eyes on Jesus, who is what?

The author and finisher, perfecter of our faith. These Old Testament stories, they give us inspiration, and that's good. Like, we ought to be inspired. However, Hebrews teaches that even through their mighty deeds that they did through their faith, they still rested on the assurance that their faith would be perfected in Christ.

And that's our assurance, too. The Old Testament gives us hope that God will complete the good work in us that he has set out to do. Romans 15:4 affirms this. For whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction, so that through perseverance and the encouragement of Scripture, We might have hope.

So, do you need the Old Testament to understand the gospel? No, I wouldn't say that. However, if you know the gospel and you have ever doubted your security or your assurance of salvation, if you have ever doubted the faithfulness and the sovereignty of God, has your faith in God's promises ever wavered?

And speaking from experience, mine has. Psalm 1 says, Blessed is the man whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and on it he meditates day and night, and describes that man. He is like a tree planted by streams of living water. That is the security that I believe comes from meditating, just like David says, day and night.

And I think we can do this by studying the Old Testament. This is what David's talking about. And this is the power of the Old Testament for the believer. It gives us the basis, not just of our faith, but also of our hope that Christ will complete the good work that he began in us.

So let me close with just a little bit of application. Should Christians study the Old Testament? Well, hopefully by now, you know that my answer is yes, they should. Thumbs up. If for no other reason than because it makes up the majority of our Bible. And you can't claim.

To know God, if you neglect the majority of his revealed word. But also, I would say yes, because it is profitable for believers. And we read that in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, which says, All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful, profitable for teaching, rebuke, correction, training, and righteousness.

And then it goes on, so that the man of God may be equipped for every good work. So do you want to be equipped for good works? Well, then embrace all scripture. All scripture, Old and New Testament. How can you do this? Well, a few practical tips. I would say purpose to read the Old Testament in your devotional times.

I think we all have a quiet time or times where we go to scripture, and usually we have some decision process or maybe a reading plan or something that decides for us, okay, what am I going to read today? So I would encourage you that as you're making that decision, make a conscious decision to pick a reading plan or to turn to an Old Testament passage, something that's going to incorporate the Old Testament in your daily devotion.

Just as a strategy I use to do this, I have bookmarks in my Bible, and Scripture has a lot of genres. Variety, so I have kind of a bookmark in each major genre. And so every day I'm going to turn to a few bookmarks, a couple in the Old Testament, a bookmark in the New Testament, and I'm going to pick up where I left off and make sure that I'm getting the whole counsel of God just through that little system.

So if you have a system that works for you, do that, but just make sure that it includes a good dose of the Old Testament. Secondly, my advice is that when you encounter an Old Testament quote or reference in the New Testament, I would say go back and read it.

Like turn to that passage. And a lot of our Bibles are real helpful in this. You know, they'll give us that cross-reference in the middle column. But even if it's not, it might take a little bit extra work to find it, but go back and read. Read the quotation in its proper context in the Old Testament.

And I think you'll find that that's worth your time. You'll see things often that aren't part of the direct quotation, but that bear weight on what the New Testament author is saying. Thirdly, and this one I would say is the most important one: pray as you read. And we should be doing this all the time when we read scripture.

But I think when it comes to the Old Testament, we may pray specifically for how to apply it. Because I admit, the Old Testament is harder to understand. You know, the big words, it comes from a different language. The wording sounds strange to my ears. Luckily, we have a helper.

The helper that comes from God who illuminates Scripture. That is the Holy Spirit. 2 Peter says, No prophecy was made by an act of human will, but men moved as the Holy Spirit spoke from God. He's talking about Old Testament prophets here. So, what that means for us is that if we need some help understanding the words of God, let's go to God and ask Him.

We have that access as New Testament believers. So, lastly, I have up there: read the Old Testament worshipfully. And by worshipfully, I mean humbly. I think, at least speaking for myself, I fight against the temptation to jump to the passages that seem more applicable and ignore the passages that I think aren't applicable.

And when I do this, I end up unintentionally exercising authority over the text by picking and choosing. Instead, I need to let the text speak authority into me. And here's the reality: Scripture is not divided into more applicable and less applicable passages. Scripture is just divided into what's in there and what's not in there.

I don't need to worry about what's not in there. I just need to worry about the whole counsel of God that He's given me. And so. That is my encouragement to you. Embrace your whole Bible. And you may just be surprised how some of these quote-unquote less applicable passages will draw you into deeper communion and worship with God, Yahweh, the same God, old and new, the God that we worship today.

So let's pray. Lord, Father, we come to you, thankful that you have given us life and breath, and not just our physical needs and our physical life, but your words. You are the bread of life. Father, I also thank you that you have given us your word. I thank you for the ways that you have spoken to me through the Old Testament.

And I pray that that would be true for everyone here, Father, that they would love their studies as they go through these passages, Lord, that you would reveal yourself to them. And Father, that it would deepen their faith, that you would draw each and every one of us into further repentance.

Lord, that we may know you. You. Not our idea of you, but who you reveal yourself to be. So, Lord, please guide us this week as we read and study and interact and apply. Lord, that your will may be done. In Jesus' name, amen. All right. Well, thank you very much.

Y'all are dismissed.