The Fabelmans is a semi-biographical movie directed by Stephen Spielberg, about his childhood.
In the film, a high school aged girl makes an awkward and misguided attempt at converting the Jewish teen aged Spielberg to Christianity.
I can’t call it sharing the gospel because there was no gospel in it.
She tells him that she could not imagine living without believing in Jesus…though she acts nothing like a Christian.
He responds that his people survived for 5,000 years without Jesus…so he is fine.
The truth is, the story of Jesus is not a different one than the story of the Jewish people.
The OT is not a separate book than the New Testament…the Bible is all one single book.
The Bible is like 66 puzzle pieces, all shaped differently but put together they form a single picture, a picture of Jesus.
Let’s read 1 Peter 1:10-12
Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
Let’s review what this salvation he is referring to is…verses 3-5
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.
This salvation is new birth in a new covenant…but it is not a new idea.
The prophets were the OT spokesmen of God.
They were searching through earlier Scripture and their own prophecies as well…to try and discover the who and the when of the Messiah.
“The person and the time” of the promised Savior…was of great interest to them.
The Holy Spirit is called here “Spirit of Christ”
His role was to point them forward to the Messiah…Jesus.
They were looking through all of Scripture to find out what they could of this promised gospel.
The amount of accurate prophetic information about Jesus in the Old Testament has caused many people over the years to put their full confidence in the Bible as the very word of God.
These prophets were given glimpses of the future suffering of Jesus and the glory that would follow…his crucifixion, resurrection, and glorification…is all there in the OT.
But to look for examples of this foretelling of the coming Messiah…we can look at the entire OT not just to what we call the books of the prophets.
Luke records in his gospel (24:27) that after his death and resurrection…
“…beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, Jesus explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
*Imagine someone saying…”the entire OT is about me”…that’s what Jesus did.
Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible…so beginning with Genesis we see the future Messiah.
And the “prophets” is sometimes used as shorthand in the NT for the rest of the OT.
Go back to the very beginning…after humanity’s fall into sin…God pronounces both judgement and then future gospel hope…Gen. 3:15…speaking to Satan, who has animated the serpent…
“And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he (singular) will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.”
Peter wrote that the OT prophets were searching the Scriptures to see who the Messiah would be and when he come.
But they came to realize that they were serving a future generation, this includes us…and not themselves.
It was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves but you, in the things that have now been announced to you through those who preached the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look.
Their words would have provided comfort then to the people of God, even if the Messiah was not going to come in their lifetime.
But God revealed to them that they were primarily ministering to New Covenant believers.
Paul, of course, agreed with Peter.
For everything that was written in the past was written to teach us, so that through endurance and the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope. Rom. 15:4
AND
These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come. 1 Cor. 10:11
This OT foretelling of Jesus, Peter says, are the things which have now been announced to you by those who preached the good news to you.
Peter actually preached this very point himself in his public sermon on the day of Pentecost in Acts 2…the day when the church was birthed by the Holy Spirit.
In that sermon Peter quotes generously from the OT and says, all of the OT is now fulfilled in Jesus.
This is quite astonishing…at least it is for the angels.
Peter writes that angels long to look into these things.
They are amazed by all this.
The word “long” speaks of very strong desires and the verb tense is not just past but ongoing.
This holy curiosity, intense interest…means they are watching, in amazement and delight at the ongoing glories of the gospel.
They marvel as they see Muslims coming to Christ at the cost of everything…and they are in numbers like never before.
They watch teen’s transformed by the gospel…standing with courage against the spirit of the age that tries to sweep away them in its path.
They see the gospel message forming Churches that live out the faith in ten thousand different contexts.
The gospel of Jesus transforming people is not newsworthy except among these powerful spiritual beings…they continually long to see this amazing thing that God has done.
Hopefully, not just them…hopefully it is newsworthy and praiseworthy to us…that’s why Peter is trying to encourage them (us) to give continually thanks for our salvation.
Let’s go back to verse 10, that is where I want to land this morning.
(Concerning this salvation, the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories.)
The entire Bible is the testimony of God’s good news in Jesus Christ.
Paul wrote that the church is …built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. Eph. 2:20
The church is built on the gospel…this gospel was poured as a foundation by NT apostles and OT prophets…Jesus is the cornerstone.
The church’s priority is mission, evangelism, discipleship…our organizing and mobilizing constitution is the gospel…as revealed in the whole of Scripture.
In Acts 28, Luke concludes his account of the birth and spread of the church with Paul in Rome for two-years under house arrest.
And what was Paul doing all that time?
From morning till evening, he explained and declared to them the kingdom of God and tried to convince them about Jesus from the Law of Moses(Gen,Exodus, Lev, Num, Deut) and from the Prophets (the rest of the Bible)
Remember, Paul was an expert on the Old Testament…he was a Jew of impeccable credentials and training.
Contrary to Spielberg’s movie version of himself…the gospel is not something new but something promised beforehand.
In fact, the gospel was announced before Israel as a nation was created.
it was promised in the garden, long before God called Abraham and a people unto himself.
Listen to Paul again…
Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy Scriptures, concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh Romans 1:1-3
There are many good reasons we believe the Bible is the authoritative, inspired, Word of God…chief among them is that Jesus confirms it as such.
Jesus, who validated his claims to be the Messiah, God incarnate…through his life, death and resurrection.
Also validated the OT in his teaching ministry and through his commissioning of apostles he authenticated the NT.
In John 5 (39-40( he told some Jewish OT experts…
“You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”
Remember, when Jesus said this, none of the NT had been written…the Scriptures Jesus referred to that testified about him was the OT.
And it’s not just in individual scriptures that we see Jesus but in the overall structure of the Bible.
The Bible speaks to us of God’s covenant…his promises…promises that are ultimately fulfilled in Jesus.
The Bible is, in fact, a covenantal book.
Old Testament means Old Covenant…and of course New Testament is the New Covenant.
A covenant is a contractual agreement…an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their agreement.
In Luke (24:44), Jesus describes the threefold division of the Old Testament, “Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms (or the writings)”
The OT’s original division was threefold: Law, Prophets, Writings.
You can think of this threefold division in terms of the Covenant, and how the covenant glues the Old and New Testaments together.
Law books=Covenant defined (What it is)
Prophetic books=Covenant History (How did it go for God’s people?…not well)
Writings=Covenant life (God’s intention for how his people are to live in covenant with him)
Covenant is what ties together the Old and New Testament and Jesus is predicted in the Old and he is the mediator of the new Covenant.
Old Covenant defined: Law books
Exodus, Lev, Numbers, Deut.
-These books are framed by the birth and death of Moses.
New Covenant defined: Gospels
Matt, Mark, Luke, John
-These books are each framed by the birth and death and resurrection of Jesus.
There are many similarities in the lives of Moses and Jesus:
-Both were born under the threat of death by a foreign ruler and flee to Egypt.
-Both deliver law from a mountain…Moses the 10 commandments, Jesus the sermon on the Mount
-Both experience transfiguration on the mountain, both perform miracles, deal with a difficult people.
-Moses offers himself on behalf of the sins of the people…and is denied.
-Jesus offers himself on behalf of our sins…and he of course goes to the cross for us.
Old Covenant History:
The Prophets: Give us covenant history, or more accurately the covenant failures of God’s people and God’s continued faithfulness.
There were the former prophets, who lived and wrote before the nation was exiled, and the later prophets who lived and wrote after exile.
The prophets served as the Lord’s covenant prosecuting attorneys.
The people broke faith with the covenant…judgment followed…these prophets delivered the verdict…the people are guilty…but God would bring a new covenant.
New Covenant History:
The New Testament has a single book of covenant history: Acts
Here we find the account of God’s people under the New Covenant.
In the Old Covenant…God’s people were to occupy the land and build a physical place to experience the glory of God, the Temple in Jerusalem.
In the New Covenant. God’s people are directed to take the gospel to the ends of the earth, his glory was to fill the earth, as his people become his living temples.
*Persecution broke out and the church spread out…from Jerusalem, to Judea, Samaria, and the ends of the earth…Just as Jesus said would happen in Acts 1.
Old Covenant life is described in what is called the “writings”
These are the “practical books”…they teach God’s people how-to live-in God’s kingdom.
Before the exile: Psalms, Job, Proverbs, Ruth, Song of Solomon, Ecc.
Then after the exile: how can they continue to live as God’s people in a foreign land: Books like Lamentations, Esther, Ezra-Nehemiah.
New Covenant life is described in the epistles or the letters. (The books we have been working our way through the past three years)
They train God’s people for life in the new covenant…what to believe (theology) and how to live (ethics).
How we are to live as citizens of the Kingdom of God…while, as Peter wrote, we are exiles in this land.
Scripture has over 40 different human authors, written on multiple continents, over thousands of years…and yet you can see it has a single divine author and single message and amazing coherence.
Jesus holds the Bible and the Cosmos together.
“He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.” Col. 1:17-20
Bold claims, absolutist claims…this is true and all that is not this is untrue…claims.
There are many ways Jesus is the connective tissue between Old and New covenant.
He is the seed of woman who has come to crush the serpent.
He is the offspring of Abraham who fulfills every covenantal promise.
He is the covenant Mediator, the true and better Temple, the true and better sacrifices.
Jesus came to keep and fulfill the law of God.
Jesus is true and better Israel, who was completely obedient to the law of Moses, earning the righteousness that we could not earn for ourselves.
He is the seed of David, the true King of the Kingdom of God.
He is the true and better prophet.
He did not say, like human prophets, “thus say the Lord” he said, “Truly I say to you”
He is the very wisdom of God; he is wisdom personified…he is the way truth and life.
Last week I began with: Something is true, and everything that is not that is untrue
It is not arrogant to believe you know what is true, it is essential that you do.
It is arrogant to believe you know the truth because you are good, smart or special.
But to believe you know the truth because God has, in his grace, revealed it…this should lead to gratitude…and confidence.
Part of the turmoil of the Covid years was that we knew it was really important to get the truth, it mattered for our health and other reasons…that we get this right…and it was really difficult to do so.
I sat in a meeting with the surgeon general for Kansas in March of 2020…he said masks didn’t have any impact.
Not a month later, he was strongly advocating for masks.
Now, listen to what I am saying…in April, he believed that he was telling the truth…but he believed he was telling the truth a month later as well.
He was doing the best he could.
I don’t blame him…or judge his motives…I have no reason to.
He was trying to get it right…most everyone was.
And, many were coming to different conclusions about what is right…what is true.
I read an article about a company that does health meta-analysis…meaning they piece together data from a number of different studies to give overarching conclusions.
They recently analyzed many studies on the effectiveness of wearing masks.
Now, you may be hoping I will give information that will confirm what you believe about mask wearing.
I’ll simply give you the conclusion of the author of the article.
“There is no methodology that can straightforwardly find answers in messy study data without many judgment calls by scientists, who are humans with their own strength, weaknesses, and eccentricities. A meta-analysis, after all, can’t meta-analyze itself.”
“There often aren’t easy answers even to seemingly easy questions, and there sometimes aren’t any answers — even to questions that we care about deeply and that have been studied in some depth.”
It is important to get health issues right…and so frustrating when don’t have firm answers.
It is more important to get eternal issues right.
Here’s why the gospel is so different than Covid, or any other similar issue.
God has not revealed to us the truth about Covid…he has revealed to us the truth about his Son, Jesus.
Confidence is essential when it comes to what you believe is true about God, salvation, life after death.
Again, even those who say you cannot know ultimate truth…are making an absolute truth claim.
I have spent time on the divine design of the Bible because Peter addresses it briefly here at this point in his letter to inspire confidence in his readers.
Let’s summarize his letter to this point:
1. Peter an inspired spokesperson for Jesus, is writing to those God has chosen in order that they may live lives of faithful obedience to Jesus.
2. Make praise reflexive for our living hope, for an inheritance that God himself keeps safe.
3. This is important because you are going to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These trials are not random or wasted but are of eternal significance…but you work to maintain perspective…it’s not going to be easy.
4. The full experience of your inheritance is in the future, but already, even now you love and follow Christ…you are experiencing real joy, the experiential fruit of your salvation is to be tasted in part now.
Now we are up to this week’s passage.
5. Concerning your salvation, that you are experiencing even now…you are included in the long plan of God.
“Though you have not seen Jesus, you love him”
But remember the prophets of Old did not see him with their eyes…but they saw him in Scripture, in God’s promises.
Peter writes to the church…You don’t see him now, but you too can see the promises of God in Scripture and believe…in fact, you have all of what those prophets of old had PLUS.
Christ has come…the Prophets looked for him…now he has come.
I would say that you and I have what the Prophets had, and what Peter’s readers had and what they didn’t even have…we have a completed Bible.
We have the prophets…plus, plus.
So, what will you believe, where will you place your confidence?
Last week I attended a training by a psychologist who kept referring to the “science” on certain topics as a sort of trump card…he was a nice guy.
But when he said, “The science says…”
He would then make some point as if it were absolute, infallible, and beyond dispute…because…”The science is there…”
But then, he would sometimes refer to the “old science” that has been disproven by the “new science.”
Do you see the problem here?
Am I to believe that what he is presenting to me in his (kind) but dogmatic fashion is the final science and it will not someday be the “old” science?
I am fully a fan of science…but science is by default, limited and open to revision…since humans do the science.
God’s revelation of himself in Scripture never needs revision.
It needs us to do the hard and good work of applying the Bible faithfully and accurately to our own time and setting…but we start with Scripture…not with our time and place and experience.
This morning, my hope is that you will conclude that Scripture is worthy of your full confidence.
*If you are not yet a follower of Christ…that you will see the gospel is the truth.
*Scientists like Stephen Hawking looked for the “theory of everything”…the one thing that would explain everything…this cannot be discovered; it can only be revealed.
The gospel is the one thing that explains everything…it has been revealed to us.
Scripture is amazing when seen in its accuracy, unity, ability to speak clearly to reality as it is.
“Terry, you are mostly preaching to the choir…of course we believe that, that’s why we are here?”
I understand…but the spirit of the times…in all its forms continually hammers on our confidence in Scripture.
Over and over, we hear, what Satan said at the dawn of humanity… “Has God really said…?”
There are many voices trying to undermine confidence in God’s word…there always have been, always will be.
So, I am hoping that today will serve to shore up your confidence in the Bible…a lot or little…either is good.
I’ll finish by cheating a little and jumping into Peter’s next letter.
He writes…
We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 2 Peter 1:16
“Look,” he writes, “we are not making this stuff up, we were there, we saw it.”
Then, Peter went out and lived and died just as you would expect of one who had experienced the majesty of the resurrected Jesus.
From a fisherman, to a coward, to a man willing to stand up to death threats, to a man who would die a painful death for his faith.
This requires real confidence…he had it.
Acts 4
Peter said, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”
And When the religious leaders saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus
Then they called them in again and commanded them not to speak or teach at all in the name of Jesus. But Peter and John replied, “Judge for yourselves whether it is right in God’s sight to obey you rather than God. For we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” 21 After further threats they let them go…until the time came, when they were killed.
This is the guy whose letter we are reading…he sounds convinced, doesn’t he?
He was. So must we be. So can we be.
The gospel is true. All that is not this, is untrue.