Paul David Tripp is a pastor, author, and speaker. He wrote the bestselling daily devotional, New Morning Mercies in 2014, and ten years later, a second daily devotional, Everyday Gospel. His not-for-profit organization, Paul Tripp Ministries, creates and distributes free gospel resources that are connecting the transforming power of Jesus Christ to everyday life. Paul and his wife, Luella, have been married since 1971 and have four adult children.
Teaching@PaulTripp.com 21 N. Main St., Suite 8, Coopersburg, PA 18036 (215) 338-4000
Permissions
You are permitted to print and/or electronically distribute this Study Guide provided that you do not charge for the material or alter the content in any way. You may download the video lessons for offline use, but please do not distribute the video in any way and rather link back to and use Paul Tripp Ministries' online video player. If you require exceptions, please email Teaching@PaulTripp.com.
Thank you for choosing this 3-session video series by Paul Tripp Ministries! Our prayer is that this resource will be used by God to encourage a deeper study in his Word, which will by grace, transform your everyday life! If you have any questions, please contact our team: Teaching@PaulTripp.com
Mining for Treasure can be used by individuals, couples, and groups. If in a group setting, we recommend a minimum of 60 minutes for each gathering, so you have enough time to watch the video teaching together and spend time discussing. Of course, there is flexibility based on your circumstances, but this curriculum has been written for you to simply follow the "order of service" outlined in the Study Guide.
Each session would begin with Group Participation:
• Begin with How Did It Go Last Week? (Which you can skip the first gathering) This is an opportunity to share successes and challenges with the group, based on what was learned and applied from the previous session.
• Then, someone (or all together) will read aloud the Bible verses found in And God Said...
• Likewise, someone may then read aloud What is the Point?, identifying the main points in the video session about to come so participants are prepared for what Paul Tripp will be teaching.
• Together, everyone may pray the Petition, preparing hearts to receive the Word.
• Watch the video session, Hear the Word. Each lesson is approximately 25 minutes, which is why a 60-to-90-minute gathering is ideal to allow for robust discussion and prayer.
• After watching the video, spend the remaining time in your gathering using Let's Talk About That. We have intentionally provided a large number of discussion questions! You don’t need to use them all and can choose which may be most relevant for your group. Or, you can start with the first and see how far you get in your discussion time—because just a few questions may take up most of the time.
• After the gathering concludes and before the next group session, For Personal Application material has been provided for individuals or couples to use as "homework" or part of your devotional practices.
Transcripts Are Included!
You will notice that full transcripts of Paul's three video lessons have been included at the end of this Study Guide. This is to allow for a quick keyword search or a full reading of the sessions for those who desire it. If you plan to print off a hard copy of this Study Guide to distribute to your group, you may want to only print off the Sessions and exclude the transcripts!
S ESSION 1
What Is the Bible?
FOR GROUP PARTICIPATION
These elements of the study are best used with others in a group setting.
How Did It Go Last Week?
Share your successes and trials with the group. (10 minutes)
In the coming sessions, questions and topics will be provided here for group discussion of your experiences in putting into practice what you learned each week.
And God Said…
Read aloud 2 Timothy 3:14-17.
What is the Point?
Read these statements aloud and keep them in mind during the video. (5 minutes)
• The Bible is the story of God's Gracious redemption of broken humanity.
• Jesus is the hero of the Bible story.
• All of the Bible is God-breathed, therefore all of the Bible is profitable.
Petition
Pray this together aloud.
Father of all glory and grace, whose Word is a lamp of truth and the story of life: Give us to love your Word, to joy in reading and to work for understanding, and to be diligent doers of your Word and not hearers only, that, by your Spirit, we may be ever conforming to the one who is your Word, our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Hear the Word
Watch the video. (25 minutes)
Let's Talk About That
Discuss these questions. (30 minutes)
1. Read aloud the following pairs of passages, noting the elements common to each passage in a pair:
• Genesis 1:1 and Revelation 21:1
• Genesis 2:16-17 and Revelation 21:4
• Genesis 3:17 and Revelation 22:3-4
2. Discuss how this collection of passages, taken from the beginning of the first book and the end of the last book in the Bible, suggests all by itself that the Bible is an epic story. What in these passages tells you that the plot of the story is redemption? Specifically, how does Revelation describe the blessedness of humanity in glory? Is it only humanity that will be redeemed, or does
God’s grace restore something else as well? Hint: read aloud Romans 8:18-25 and Revelation 21:1.
3. Every epic has a hero. Read aloud Exodus 12:1-3,5-7,13 (the institution of the Passover); Isaiah 53:4-8 (Isaiah’s prophecy of the coming redeemer); John 1:29 (John the Baptist speaking); and Revelation 5:6-10. In all these passages, what kind of animal is put forward to portray the hero in his role as redeemer? Discuss how this animal is an appropriate likeness for the redeemer in that role. So, who is the hero of the Bible epic? What act of heroism did he perform?
4. But now read aloud Revelation 5:1-6. What type of animal is the redeemer likened to in his role as victor? How can he be imaged by both kinds of animal at once? Discuss briefly* how these two animals present a helpful picture of the divine and human natures of our redeemer. [*Brief may prove difficult as it took the early Church 451 years to hash out this doctrine!]
5. Read aloud 2 Timothy 3:14-17. The Greek word theopneustos means literally “God (theos)breathed (pneuma, breath, wind or spirit).” The ESV and NIV Bibles translate the word literally, while some other versions interpret the word as “inspired.” But is Paul here saying anything about the writers of Scripture, or only about its ultimate source? What does the fact of Scripture’s Godbreathed-ness tell us about its authority? Its trustworthiness?
6. In the context of his letter, which large portion of the Bible does Paul describe as “sacred writings” and “Scripture”? And what are these writings “able to make [Timothy] wise” about? Does it surprise you that this portion of Scripture would so clearly teach that doctrine? Hold that thought—we will return to this compelling topic in the third session.
7. Discuss briefly the things that Paul says Scripture is profitable for (keeping in mind that his list is ad hoc and not exhaustive). How much of Scripture is profitable? Does this include the OT genealogies and the personal greetings in NT epistles? Discuss some ways in which each of these genres might be profitable. Also talk about books or parts of the Bible that you skip over or avoid completely—nobody judge, we’ve all done it! Maybe one has some knowledge about another’s skipped parts that will encourage all to read through?
FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
These aspects of the study can be used in between group sessions on your own, either with your spouse or individually as part of your devotional and confession life.
Do Something
During the week ahead, turn your learning into doing.
Pick a book of the Bible, or a long passage or chapter, that seems tedious to you. Read the text entirely through, every word. Read slowly, and think about both the details and the big picture, constantly asking yourself why such things are included in the text. Read all the footnotes you encounter (all “reference Bibles” have them) and check also the cross-references for verses that seem particularly odd or unclear to you. Be sure to read from a valid translation of the Bible and not a paraphrase or “thought for thought” edition—the English Standard Version and the New American Standard Bible are excellent options.
Search Me, O God
For introspection during the coming week.
Do you enjoy reading the Bible? Do you read it because you want to, or because you feel you are supposed to? Are you interested and engaged in the text, or does your mind wander? Do you see yourself in the Bible, and receive God’s comfort, teaching and correction for yourself? Are you cognizant as you read that the redemption story is your story, that the Savior of the Bible came to save you?
Want to Know More?
This session’s final group discussion question mentions OT genealogies and personal greetings in NT epistles as parts of the Bible that may seem “unprofitable.” As it turns out, these often provide information that, while not foundational, is very helpful toward a better understanding of Scripture. Here is one example from each of those categories, with questions to assist in drawing out that information:
• OT genealogy. Read 2 Samuel 8:15-16,23:18-19,24. The brothers Joab, Abishai and Asahel were all mighty warriors in King David’s army (Joab was the commander). Throughout the David narrative, as in these verses, they are most often given the epithet “son(s) of Zeruiah.” Now read the genealogy at 1 Chronicles 2:1-17. Who is Zeruiah? Therefore, what is the relationship between David and the three brothers? Might this have some bearing on why David appointed them to chief positions in his army? Now read 2 Samuel 18: all, the sad ending of Absalom’s rebellion. Who is Absalom? What is the relationship between Joab and Absalom? Finally read 1 Kings 2:1-6, David’s dying instructions to his son, Solomon, who will replace David as king; read also vv28-35 in the same chapter, Solomon’s response. Although David does not here mention Absalom, how might Joab’s participation in Absalom’s death have figured into David’s directive? Overall, how does this relational knowledge inform your reading of the David narrative whenever you see “the sons of Zeruiah” mentioned?
• NT greetings. [By the way, personal greetings in letters of the NT period generally came at the end of the letter, just before the closing—witness most of Paul’s letters. The salutation— from whom and to whom—were placed at the opening.] Read Ephesians 6:21-24, Colossians 4:7-18, and Philemon 8-12,23-24. Compare the names of the couriers and lists of Paul’s
co-workers. [It would also be very helpful to read Ephesians and Colossians in full, to see the interesting similarities in the two letters.] Based on what you learn, what can you at least begin to speculate about the relative timing of Paul’s writing and sending these three letters? On a different matter, see in Colossians that after Paul names Aristarchus, Mark, and Jesus/ Justus, he says “These are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers for the kingdom of God.” Then he names Epaphras, Luke—this is the same Luke who wrote the gospel—and Demas. Was Luke, then, a Gentile—the only non-Jewish author in the Bible? Does seeing this depth of information in mere greetings encourage you to read such things more carefully?
For
More from Paul
Tripp,
Read: Do You Believe?, Introduction: The Dangerous Dichotomy
S ESSION 2
Don't Miss the Good Stuff!
FOR GROUP PARTICIPATION
These elements of the study are best used with others in a group setting.
How Did It Go Last Week?
Share your successes and trials with the group. (10 minutes)
Tell the group which seemingly “unprofitable” book or passage you read last week, and talk about a few things you learned from it—perhaps to your surprise.
And God Said…
Read aloud Psalm 119:17-24; read vv17-18 again
What is the Point?
Read these statements aloud and keep them in mind during the video. (5 minutes)
• Read the Bible like an archaeologist digging for fossils, like a detective searching for clues.
• The “connections” throughout Scripture evince God’s sovereignty, wisdom, authority and grace.
Petition
Pray this together aloud.
Father of all good gifts, who have given your wondrous Word to all people: Give us to be diligent students and accurate learners of your Word, that by your Spirit we may know you, and how to glorify you and enjoy you forever, through Jesus Christ our Savior, your Word complete, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Amen.
Hear the Word
Watch the video. (25 minutes)
Let's Talk About That
Discuss these questions. (30 minutes)
1. Read aloud Proverbs 25:2; Acts 17:10-11; Colossians 2:1-3. What is the common theme? Discuss why it is necessary to dig deeply into God’s Word in order to see its meaning more clearly. Consider the following topics as a guide to your discussion:
• The nature of a translation from original languages into another language.
• God in his providence has commanded and blessed human work (effort).
• Should sound theology (doctrine and practice) require less effort than other endeavors (e.g. engineering, football, parenting, music)?
2. Read aloud 2 Peter 3:14-18. Note that Peter equates Paul’s letters with “the rest of Scripture”— to what “Scripture” is he referring? And what does this tell us about how soon after Christ’s
ascension the Church recognized apostolic writing as on par with sacred OT Scripture? Regarding our present topic, discuss briefly how Peter’s assessment of “some things” in Paul’s letters affirms the need to dig deeply and carefully in God’s Word. Could God have made all things in Scripture easy to understand? Given what you learned from the verses above, why did he not?
3. One of the traditional doctrines of the Bible itself is its perspicuity, its “see-through-able-ness.” While not all Scripture is obvious and plain, those things which are necessary to be known and believed for salvation are so clearly seen in some place or other that all people may gain a sufficient understanding of them. Discuss how this traditional doctrine does not in any way contradict God’s prescribed deep and careful study of his Word. Hint: is sufficient an appropriate stopping point in our walk with God?
4. Tripp talks about “connections” in Scripture—statements and events in one part of the Bible that draw on, allude to or fulfill another part—and he discusses several of them in John’s gospel. Consider these connections in Psalm 103, written by David around 1000 BC:
• Vv7-8: to what Pentateuch passage is David clearly referring? (The Pentateuch, the first five books of the OT, was written around 1500 BC). Hint: you might look in Exodus 34
• Vv13-14: to what well-known Pentateuch passage is David clearly referring in v14?
• Based solely on these two connections, what can you at least speculate about the timing of the canonization of the Pentateuch? Did David, an author of Scripture himself, consider Moses’s writings to be God-breathed? How does this knowledge affirm your confidence in the reliability of OT Scripture?
5. Tripp says that such scriptural connections preach to us many aspects of our glorious God, for example, his sovereignty: could a book, written by more than 40 authors on two different continents in three different languages and multiple literary genres over 1500 years, yet with thousands of such connections that definitively evidence a unity of plot and protagonist, be ultimately composed by a being with less than complete control over all things—including weather, wars, whales and dice? Talk about some of the other things that God, in his wisdom and by his authority, sovereignly controlled to bring such about amazing connections in his Word.
6. These connections also “preach to you the grace of God, because he wants you to have confidence as you read.” How is our confidence in the Bible a very practical grace from God— what difference does it make in how we live? Discuss how such connections give confidence generally. Then talk specifically about your own experience in which you were convinced by such a connection that the Bible is God’s infallible Word.
FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
These aspects of the study can be used in between group sessions on your own, either with your spouse or individually as part of your devotional and confession life.
Do Something
During the week ahead, turn your learning into doing.
Many NT books contain scores of “connections” to the OT, some of which are explicit—direct quotes or statements of fulfillment—while others are more subtle—unreferenced phrases, events and places that the original audience would catch but that we moderns might miss. Read the first chapter of Luke’s gospel and note all the connections to the OT. You will need to read it through a few times, and check all listed cross-references. Understand that some of the cross-references identify merely similar thoughts or particular places or things and do not indicate the type of connection that we have in view. Make notes about all the connections you find—there are many!—and the significance of each. Come next week ready to compare your findings.
Search Me, O God
For introspection during the coming week.
Do you read the Bible perfunctorily, as if just to complete a schedule, or do you read it carefully enough to see the connections that evince a thoroughgoing divine authorship? When you do see such things, or any of God’s fingerprints by which he manifests his careful control and wisdom over his Word, are you encouraged? Do you recognize that you are one of his people that he knows by name, and that he intends to teach, encourage, comfort and correct you through his Word? If not, how can you practically modify your Bible-reading plan to allow time for a little digging and reflection?
Want to Know More?
One of the discussion questions refers to Tripp’s description of the Bible (in the next session) as displaying a clear unity even though written by many people in many places at many times. This feature of God’s Word is referred to as “the consent of the parts,” and although it is not a proof of divine authorship, it is a weighty lump of evidence that has convinced and convicted students of Scripture through the centuries. Research this fascinating character of Scripture for yourself. To get you started, here are some classic quotes from saints gone by: the exercise will succeed in identifying “heart” passages (and cross-references are helpful, too). Look at a few each day (be sure to read them in context) during your personal devotions, and see if this practice won’t help you begin seeing your marriage issues as the Lord sees them. Here are just a few good ones to prime the pump:
• The Westminster Confession of Faith, 1647; Ch. I.5: “We may be moved and induced by the testimony of the Church to an high and reverent esteem of the holy Scripture; and the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God; yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth
and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”
• Charles Hodge, Systematic Theology, 1892; Vol I.1.3.c.4: “The several books of which the Scriptures are composed were written by some fifty different authors living in the course of fifteen hundred years; and yet they are found to be an organic whole, the product of one mind. They are as clearly a development as the oak from the acorn. The gospels and epistles are but the expansion, the fulfillment, the culmination of the protevangelium, “the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent’s head,” as uttered to our first parents (Gen 3:15). All that intervenes is to the New Testament what the roots, stem, branches, and foliage of the tree are to the fruit. No one book of Scripture can be understood by itself, any more than one part of a tree or member of the body can be understood without reference to the whole of which it is a part. Those who from want of attention do not perceive this organic relation of the different parts of the Bible, cannot appreciate the argument thence derived in favor of its divine origin. They who do perceive it, cannot resist it.”
• A. W. Pink, The Divine Inspiration of the Bible, 1917, Ch. 7: “The manner in which the Bible has been produced argues against its unity. The Bible was penned on two continents, written in three languages, and its composition and compilation extended through the slow progress of sixteen centuries. The various parts of the Bible were written at different times and under the most varying circumstances. Parts of it were written in tents, deserts, cities, palaces and dungeons; in times of imminent danger and in seasons of ecstatic joy. Among its writers were judges, kings, priests, prophets, patriarchs, prime ministers, herdsmen, scribes, soldiers, physicians and fishermen. Yet despite these varying circumstances, conditions and workmen, the Bible is one Book, behind its many parts there is an unmistakable organic unity. It contains one system of doctrine, one code of ethics, one plan of salvation and one rule of faith.”
For More from Paul Tripp, Read: Do You Believe?, Chapter 1: The Doctrine of Scripture
Look for Jesus
FOR GROUP PARTICIPATION
These elements of the study are best used with others in a group setting.
How Did It Go Last Week?
Share your successes and trials with the group. (10 minutes)
So, how many “connections” did Luke include in his text? More importantly, what is the significance of each? How did he show, whether directly or obliquely, that the OT pointed to the coming Messiah, and that Jesus is that Messiah?
And God Said…
Read aloud Luke 24:13-27,44-47
What is the Point?
Read these statements aloud and keep them in mind during the video. (5 minutes)
• Jesus is the central theme and unity of the entire Bible.
• Look for Jesus in every part of the Bible.
Petition
Pray this together aloud.
Lord Jesus, Word of God incarnate, Word of life to us: Thank you for giving us your written Word, through which, by your Spirit, we may know you with certainty. Give us, by the same Spirit, to see you at the center of all that we read there, and accordingly to keep you at the center of our hearts and minds and actions. Amen.
Hear the Word
Watch the video. (25 minutes)
Let's Talk About That
Discuss these questions. (30 minutes)
1. Tripp claims that “Jesus is the central theme of the Word of God.” There is no doubt of the “Christocentricity” of the New Testament. But to see just how Jesus-centered it is, skim the first chapter of Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and count the references to Jesus, whether by name, title or pronoun (he, him, his)—but note that some of the pronouns refer to the Father and should be excluded. How many do you count? Based on your findings, briefly discuss the meaning of this statement: “Christ is all to Paul.” And as all that Paul says of Christ he explains as blessings to God’s people, briefly discuss the truth of this statement: “Christ is all to all.” (Of course, a proper discussion of this topic would take an eternity!)
2. To confirm that Paul’s Jesus-centeredness is not unique in the NT, count also the Christ-
references in the first chapter of 1 Peter—how many this time? How has this exercise helped train you to “look for Jesus” in all your Bible reading?
3. But what of the Old Testament—is Jesus really at the center of it as well? Read aloud these New Testament excerpts (there are many more) and briefly answer the questions:
• Luke 24:25-26,44-47 (you read these within the context at the top of the session).
• John 5:39,45-47 (Jesus speaking to Jewish opposers).
4. Did Jesus believe the OT is about him? All of it, or just some of it?
• John 1:45 (Philip and Nathanael).
• Acts 8:30-35 (another Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch).
5. Did these two Philips believe the OT is about Jesus? All of it, or just some of it?
• Acts 3:17-24 (Peter preaching to the Jews).
• Acts 17:1-3 (Paul preaching at Thessalonica).
6. Did Peter and Paul believe the OT is about Jesus? All of it, or just some of it? We could go on, but you get the picture!
7. Jesus and his apostles claim that all the OT Law, Prophets and Psalms testify to Jesus’s coming (these are titles for the three general categories of the OT books). Let’s consider just one example in each category (read the passages aloud):
• Law: Deuteronomy 18:15-19; compare to Acts 3:22 (Peter preaching) and 7:37 (Stephen preaching).
• Prophets: Isaiah 53:1-5; compare to Matthew 8:16-17
• Psalms: Psalm 110:1-4; compare to Mark 12:35-37, Hebrews 7:15-22
8. What do you conclude about Christ being pointed to in all categories of the OT books?
9. This is not to say that Jesus is everywhere so obvious in the OT. But he is always present, even when not explicitly pictured or prophesied. Consider these passages, for example:
• Genesis 1:1-3: is Jesus at the creation event? Note in v3 that “God said…” and compare this passage to John 1:1-3 and Colossians 1:15-17.
• Psalm 32:1-2: whenever the forgiveness of sin is mentioned, who must be in the immediate background?
• Exodus 14:13-14, Moses and the Israelites at the Red Sea: here is God saving his people without any effort on their part—who does this event prefigure?
10. “The Old Testament looks forward to Christ, the New Testament looks backward to Christ—Christ is the center of Scripture.” Could you now support this saying? Talk about what you learned in this session about how to look for—and see—Jesus in all of Scripture. Share some practical measures that you find helpful.
FOR PERSONAL APPLICATION
These aspects of the study can be used in between group sessions on your own, either with your spouse or individually as part of your devotional and confession life.
Do Something
During the week ahead, turn your learning into doing.
From this time forward in all your Bible reading, make it your priority to look for and find Jesus, bringing to bear all that you learned in this series. Quality Bible resources such as “study Bibles” and commentaries can be very helpful, but always ensure that they are “orthodox” by consulting trusted Church leaders and knowledgeable friends. Keep in mind that Jesus is not seen with equal clarity in all cases, and he is not expressly present in every verse or passage or page, but he is surely there in the background and at the center—seek him and he will be found!
Search Me, O God
For introspection during the coming week.
Do you look for Jesus when you read your Bible? And when you see him, do you take into your heart and your walk whatever encouragement, teaching, comfort or correction he is giving in that context? Is much of this new to you? If so, that’s quite alright, we all start somewhere. Going forward, what practical measures can you install in your reading routine to remind and assist you to look for Christ?
Want to Know More?
Consider this quote from the great Christian scholar and historian, F. F. Bruce: “The Old Testament, as Christians in due course came to call these writings, was a book about Jesus. Here was the [early] church’s Bible…For Christians, the Old Testament pointed forward to Jesus; it was, in fact, meaningless without him” (The Canon of Scripture, InterVarsity Press, 1988, p28,49). Commence an intentional, thorough, researched reading of the entire Old Testament in which your goal is to find Jesus wherever he is validly pointed to, whether by picture, prophesy, theophany, rite or “type” (types are people whom God used to model the person and work of Christ, the archetype, such as Moses and Elijah—there are several others). You will need to routinely check your sightings by the New Testament—as the Westminster Confession rightly instructs, “The infallible rule of interpretation of Scripture, is the Scripture itself; and therefore, when there is a question about the true and full sense of any scripture (which is not manifold, but one), it may be searched and known by other places that speak more clearly” (Ch I.9). As said above, quality “study Bibles” and commentaries will be very helpful. Wherever you see Jesus, stop and study what he is revealing in that context about himself or his work; his offices as prophet, priest and king; his relations to the Father and the Spirit; his love for his people—his love for you. Keep notes on all your learnings.
For More from Paul Tripp, Read:
Do You Believe?, Chapter 2: Scripture in Everyday Life
Outline
SESSION 1
I. What Is the Bible?
A. A physical demonstration of the power and glory of the grace of your redeemer.
B. The story of God’s gracious redemption of broken humanity through Christ.
1. The story includes God’s theological explanations and applications.
2. The story has a plot:
a. Creation.
i. God is the maker, and therefore the owner, of all things.
ii. We are not the center of the story, God is.
b. Slavery: the entrance and results of sin in the world.
c. Redemption: God in Christ rescues you from you.
d. Restoration: God in Christ makes all things new.
3. The story has a hero: Jesus.
II. The biblical narrative is your narrative.
III. 2 Timothy 3:16: All of the Bible is God-breathed, therefore all of the Bible is profitable.
SESSION 2
I. Don't miss the good stuff!
A. Like an archaeologist: dig into the text for more details.
B. Like a detective: look for clues and connections to other parts of Scripture.Guilt.
II. Practical examples from John’s gospel:
a. John 1:47-51: “angels ascending and descending” connects to Genesis 28:10-17. Lasting change in your marriage will always travel through the pathway of the heart.
b. John 2:1-11:
i. John’s use of the word “sign” points to Christ.
ii. This sign specifically manifests Christ’s sovereign rule over everything.
c. John 2:23-25: Jesus knows “man,” Jesus knows you
d. John 6:23-35: Jesus is the fulfillment of OT sign of manna (Exodus 16, Numbers 11).
e. John 19-28-30: “hyssop branch” connects Jesus to the Passover in Exodus 12 (esp v22).
III. These details and connections throughout Scripture evince:
A. God’s sovereignty.
B. God’s wisdom.
C. God’s authority.
D. God’s grace.
SESSION 3
I. Look for Jesus
A. Jesus is the central theme in all of Scripture.
B. Jesus is the unity of all of Scripture.
II. Examples of Scripture that testify that Jesus is its central theme:
A. Luke 24:13-48.
1. Vv13-24: the story lead-up.
2. Vv25-27: Jesus shows that he is the message of the entire OT.
3. Vv44-48: Jesus affirms that he is the fulfillment of the entire OT.
B. John 5:39-40: Jesus asserts that the OT bears witness to his saving mission.
III. Two great crescendos in Scripture.
A. John 19:28-30: Jesus on his cross, “It is finished!”
B. Revelation 21:1-5: God on his throne, “I am making all things new!”
IV. 1 Corinthians 15:25-26: Jesus is even now reigning and righting for the sake of his Church.
Transcript
SESSION 1
Well, what is the Bible? If you had to write a paragraph or two of what the Bible is, what would you write? That's a rhetorical question. You don't have to answer it. Well, I want to talk about some of the things that you have to understand in order to get the best out of the Word of God. Here's the first thing. It's very, very important to understand the glorious gift that you are holding in your hands when you hold your Bible. Your Bible is a physical demonstration of the power and glory of the grace of your redeemer. Because without that redemptive zeal that's unstoppable and inexhaustible, you would not have a Bible.
Between the already of our conversion and the not yet of our homegoing, what is a better gift to us other than a replacement of Jesus than this book? Imagine how lost and tragic our lives would be. Imagine how trapped in our own foolishness we would be. Imagine how captive to sin we would be. Imagine the state of human culture throughout history without the magnitude of this book. It's an amazing gift. So you have to think about that, that glory of that gift. There are so many believers who have a distant relationship with the Word of God because they just don't understand the glory of what God has recorded and preserved for them.
Here's a second thing. Contrary to popular opinion, your Bible is not a collection of stories. It's not a systematic theology book. It's not a compendium of wisdom for everyday living. It's not morals to live by. The Bible is none of those things, and if you approach the Bible that way, you'll miss the helpfulness, I should say the lifetransforming helpfulness of the Word of God.
The Bible is a story from Genesis to Revelation. In fact, you could say that the Bible is, like the old movie says, the greatest story ever told. It's the great redemptive story. It's the awesome, mind-bending, heart-rattling, life-altering story of how God rescued this broken world by his grace. How God harnessed the forces of nature and controlled the events of human history so that at a certain time his son would come and offer the hope of escape out of this mess to live in peace and righteousness and to reign with him forever. There's no better story than that.
And so when you read the Bible, all those things that seem like separate stories are all connected to the one great story of redemption. That means those names that you've gotten to know, Moses and Joshua and Daniel and Peter and Paul, they're not the hero of the story. In fact, if you know those men's lies very well, you know they're not heroes. They're broken, weak, failing human beings empowered by God to propel this plan that he set in motion, which is the main story of your Bible.
That's another thing you have to say about this. It's not just a grand story. It's a story with God's edits because God understands that we may not get the core of the story. So alongside the story are God's theological, explanatory and applicatory notes. It's beautiful the way we aren't left to interpret the story because God right next to the story interprets it for us.
It's like reading Dickens. Has anybody ever read anything by Dickens? You know those 900-page novels, and he spends 50 pages describing a character, and you get to the end of the description and you've forgotten what the plot is, well, that's what happens to the Bible, right? You get into some crazy moment in Numbers, you think, what is this about? And that's why God's designed it for scripture to interpret scripture so along the way, God has given you hints and clues and explanations so you'll understand why he's preserved what he's preserved and what he's doing in the story and why he's doing it.
And then the big question is, well, how is this supposed to help me? How am I supposed to live in light of this story? And so God gives us these wonderful applications of the story in his wisdom literature, in his command so we know what it means to make that story our story where we live every day. It's beautiful. God knows us. He knows our limits. He doesn't expect we're going to be able to interpret the story without his help, and so he meets us in the story and he walks with us through the story helping us to understand where we are in this grand move of redemption. It's beautiful.
Well, that leads us to the next thing. This story that makes up the bulk of the biblical narrative has a plot. I want you to think with me for a minute. If you had a three-by-five card, could you write out the plot of the biblical story? Anybody could do that in 10 words? No one's going to raise their hand. Anybody can do that in six words?
Bring glory to God?
That's a good one. I can do it in four words. These four words capture all the things that you need to understand about the biblical story, and I'm going to explain to you why it's practical and important for you to understand.
Here's the first thing, the first word, it's creation. You could argue that the four most important words in the Bible are the first four words, "In the beginning, God," because immediately there are two things that you are confronted with. Here's the first thing, God is the maker of everything that is. And if he's the maker, if he's the creator of everything that is, he owns everything that is. I'm a painter by avocation. When I get done with the painting, guess who owns it? I do because I've made it. So I learned with the first four words of the Bible I don't own my mentality, I don't own my personality, I don't own my spirituality, I don't own my emotionality, I don't own my possessions, it all belongs to the Lord.
The second thing you learn in those first four words that life isn't about you and me. We will never be in the center of the story. We were created to live for someone and something bigger than ourselves. If you don't understand the beginning of the story, you'll never understand anything that happens after the story because the beginning of the story doesn't just define who God is, it defines who you are. And when you read the rest of the story with a knowledge of who God is and a knowledge who you are, all of a sudden you read the story in a totally different way.
Second word, slavery. That captures not only the dark and sad entrance of sin into the world, but what sin causes. The apostle Paul in Romans 7 says that sin is like a prison. It takes us captive. And so all of a sudden you have this beauty of who God is and this beauty of this glorious world he's made and this beauty of him making us as his creatures, and then all of a sudden this story hits this shocking turn. It's sad. And we are now dealing with something that we don't have the power to free ourselves, the inescapable tragedy of sin. And what sin does is turns all of us into addicts propelled by things that we should not be propelled by. Paul says again in Romans 7, "The good I want to do I don't do, and the evil I want to do I do." Who can't relate to that?
But thankfully God doesn't leave us there. The next word is beautiful. It's redemption. God in the glory of both his justice and his grace refused to leave this world in this horrible condition and refused to leave the people that he made in this horrible condition. So rather than wiping us out in an act of holy condemnation, he decides to act in mercy.
Now that mercy is humbling. The apostle Paul says that, "Jesus came so those who live," can you finish it, "would no longer live for themselves." The move of redemption, are you ready for this, is to rescue you from you. Because your biggest problem in life doesn't live outside of you. Your biggest problem in life lives inside of you. Because we have in our sin a scary and tragic ability to mess things up, to destroy the good that God creates because we insert ourselves in the middle of the story. We make life all about us. We curse people that are in our way. So God comes to do what we could never do to rescue us from us. Listen, I can run from a situation. I can run from a location. I can run from a relationship, but I can't run from me. I found when I try to run from me, I always show up with me at the end of the run. It doesn't work.
Creation, slavery, redemption, but there's one more glorious word. It's called restoration. You see, God is interested in doing more than rescue you from you. He's got one glorious divine intention. You know what it is? Behold, I will come and I will make all things new. God will renew everything that sin has broken. And there will be a day when we will live with him in a world where there is no more sin, there is no more suffering, there is no more sadness, there is no more grief. The son will rise from his throne and he will walk his way through the crowd of the redeemed and he'll dry every tear of every person who has wept their way into eternity and he'll say, "You will cry no more because I won."
Could there be a better story than that story? That's your Bible. This story has a central character. It's Jesus. I don't know if you've thought about this, but Jesus is introduced to you in the very first chapter of Genesis. No, you don't have to wait until Matthew to get to Jesus, for Pete's sake. Because Colossians tells us Jesus is the creator. You see Jesus right away in Genesis, and then you hit him in Genesis three because he's the promise of redemption. He's the seed of the woman that will come and crush the head of the serpent. That's Jesus. I mean, think about your Bible is so excited to get you to Jesus it starts right away with Jesus, and every portion of the Old Testament is a finger pointing to Jesus. Jesus is the hero of the Old Testament.
And if you can read the Old Testament and you can't see Jesus all the time, you're missing the main character of the story. It's Jesus. Jesus is the hope of the Old Testament. Jesus is the helper of the Old Testament. Jesus is the presence of God in the Old Testament. Jesus is the grace of the Old Testament, Jesus. Jesus, Jesus. It's beautiful.
And because it is Jesus and he's your savior, then there's something else you need to know. The biblical narrative is your narrative. The biblical story is your story because by God's beautiful grace, he embeds our story in the larger story of redemption. In that Bible, you see yourself, you see your needs, you see how those needs are met in Jesus. You see your past being taken care of. You see the help that you need in the present. You see your future destiny secured. It's your story. It's beautiful.
There's one final thing I want to say before we take a break. I love what Paul says in 2 Timothy 3 talking about scripture. He says, "All scripture," can you finish the next word, "is," not just inspired by God, but is, "profitable." Now, I don't know if you believe that. When you're doing your daily Bible reading or you're reading through the Bible in a year, do you jump over places? Be honest. Do you? Don't look at me like you don't know what I'm talking about. You know you do because you think what's that in there for, how's that going to help me? And so you don't actually believe that all scripture is profitable. It's helpful just to admit it. You think that God needed a better editor.
But Paul says to Timothy, "You've got to understand that there's nothing in the Word of God, not one word, not one paragraph, not one vignette, not one book that wasn't recorded and preserved for your benefit by a God who loves you and knows exactly what you need." I think just that if we would believe that all scripture is profitable, all scripture is profitable, all scripture is profitable, all scripture is profitable, I'll say it one more time for the people in the back row, all scripture is profitable, it would change the way we read the Word of God. But although that may be an item in our theology, it may not be an item of our practice because we come to hard places and we say, "Well, I don't really think there's much in Numbers, and if I read one more weird, arcane law in Leviticus, I'm going to shoot myself," and we just jump over and move on.
So I want to make a confession to you. I think I was there. With all of my training, with all my theology, with all my writing, I think I was there. I didn't realize I was there. And when I took this project, I decided I'm not going to write about all the big, familiar passages. It's too easy. And you've heard a lot about those. You've had plenty of writing about those. I want to focus on the hard places, and I want to believe that in those places I'll see my Lord and I'll see his grace and I'll learn things about me and life in this fallen world, and the list goes on.
I want to say to you, it changed me. I have a confidence in the Word of God and an affection in the Word of God that's deeper and fuller than I've ever had because I began to look into what's hard to look into and saw amazing things.
Do you believe that there's nothing in this story that wasn't recorded and preserved because God loves you and he knows what you need, and he knows you don't always need the comfortable thing. You don't always need the easy to understand thing. You don't always need the encouraging thing. Sometimes what you need is the hard thing.
Now you know that's true in life. You've never had anybody ever say to you, no one in this room has said, anybody ever say to you, "I had three of the easiest years of my life, and I learned so much." No one said that. Yet often when we read the Bible we get to the hard thing and we think that can't be helpful, that can't be for me, and we jump over.
May we believe that all scripture is profitable, that this glorious story is our story, every single piece of it, preserved for us by a God of awesome grace and inexhaustible love so that we would have everything we need for life and godliness. Isn't that beautiful? May we believe it. Let's pray.
Lord, thank you for the incredible gift of your Word. May we believe it is what you declare it to be, and may that rescue and transform us again and again, and again, not just for our good, but for your glory. In Jesus' name, amen.
Amen.
SESSION 2
If I would title this moment we're going to have together for the next few moments, I would title it, Don't Miss the Good Stuff. I want to give you two pieces of advice or counsel about how to approach the word of God. Read your Bible like an archeologist, digging for those civilizations that may exist under this dirt that you don't see on the surface. When an archeologist hits bone with his shovel, he doesn't just walk away and think, well, I hit something or start digging real hard and shovel. No, he gets out a little brush and he begins brushing and dirt away and he exposes his bone and he doesn't throw the bone over his shoulder. He thinks if there's a bone here, there may be more bones here and if there's a bone here, there may be a family here. And if there's a family here, there may be a town here. And if there's a town here, there may be a civilization here. He gets very excited.
Now, often we hit bones and we are not very excited because they're bony. You got to read like an archeologist stop and say, why is this bone here and what am I supposed to do with this? What am I supposed to understand with this? What's underneath this bone that will change the way I think about God, change the way I think about myself, change the way I think about life? Or read your Bible like a detective, search for clues and connections because this is actually one story. Everything connects to everything else and sometimes you can miss a connection and you miss something just beautiful about this story.
So here's what I want to do. I would like to walk you through Genesis to Revelation in 20 minutes and show you every bone in the Bible, but you would soon face bone fatigue. So I'm not going to do that. I want to just spend a little time in the Gospel of John with you and show you some of those things that you may skip over that you need to stop and say, why is this here? What is being said? What do I need to know about this? Those bony kinds of things.
Here's the first one. This is John one. Jesus is collecting His disciples and one of them is Nathan, Nathaniel. And as Nathaniel comes to Him, Jesus describes who He is. Nathaniel has his mind blown because He says, "You've never seen me. How do you know me?" And he says, "Rabbi, you are the Son of God. You are the king of Israel." And Jesus answered him, listen to these words, "'Because I said to you, I saw you under the fig tree, do you believe? You will see greater things than these.' And he said to him, 'truly, truly, I say to you, you will see heaven open and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.'" What in the world does that mean? Stop. Don't move on. If you don't understand it, stop.
This is one of the early connections to the glory of who Jesus is in the Gospel of John. You're meant to get this because if you don't get this, there'll be all kinds of things you'll miss that'll happen in John. Do you remember a moment anywhere in scripture where angels were ascending and descending on a ladder? Genesis, when Jacob had his vision and he saw a ladder and he saw angels ascending and descending. Jesus is saying, this is mind-blowing, I am Jacob's ladder. I'm the fulfillment of all the promises made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I am the seed of Abraham. I am the hope of humanity. It's me. I am access to God and I am provision from God. That is an outrageous claim by Jesus.
People who say Jesus never claimed to be God. Oh my goodness. I mean if you were standing there and you were schooled in the Old Testament, you at that moment are having your mind blown, your understanding of this
man from Nazareth completely rearranged. And yet there are hundreds of thousands of believers who blow by that passage and never stop and ask the question, what in the world is John talking about? It's majestic. Let me take you a little bit further. It's the marriage in Canaan, and you know the story. They run out of wine, poor party planning. Doesn't it frustrate you? And you know the story. Jesus is approached by Mary to do something and I love this moment where Mary walks away and she says to the servants, do whatever he tells you to do. You know why? She knows who her son is and Jesus turns that water into wine and it's better than any wine they've had so far. That's called party rescue. Now then John says these words, "This is the first of His signs Jesus did at Canaan and Galilee and manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him." Now, there are two things in this passage that clue you in to what John wants you to know about Jesus. The first word is that word sign. Sign, that one word is a clue to the entire theme of John. One word. What would you expect the word to be? Say it.
Congregation: Miracle.
He doesn't say miracle because John's making a point. The glory is not the miracle. The glory is the person who stands behind the miracle. A sign is not the thing. A sign points to the thing, and John never uses the word miracle. He uses sign all the way through because he wants you to understand that imagine I'm... My kids are still young, which they're not, and I tell them, we're going to go to Disney World and all year we're looking at the Disney World website and they're getting very excited and we're in the car and we're driving to Disney World and we get to that sign that says, Disney World 120 miles, and I stop the car and I unpack and say, let's get out and have vacation. If you were my children, what would you say? My dad's crazy. If you're my wife, you'd say the doctor said he'd be this way if he lived. Because you instinctively understand the sign is not the thing, it points you to the thing.
So this tells you every miracle is meant to preach the gospel, the gospel of human need and the gospel of divine intervention, the gospel of human need and divine intervention, the gospel of human need and divine intervention all the way through John. John wants you not to celebrate the miracle, celebrate the Jesus behind the miracle.
Now there's a second thing. It says here, if I could have that passage again, thank you, "And manifested His glory and His disciples believed in Him." I think, water into wine, couldn't he come up with a better miracle? I mean, could you do something a little more glorious than that? Well, think about this for a moment. When you read that, you need to ask yourself, what was the glory? Why was this so mind-boggling to these men that it engendered belief in them. They had followed him but they were still not sure. Why?
Well, think about this. What kind of sovereign control do you have to have over every microbe of creation to command the cells of water to transform into the cells of wine? That is utter specific control over everything. Only Lord Creator could do such a thing and these men are all of a sudden, this is Jesus of Nazareth, this is a physical person, they're now confronted with the absolute control He has over every microbe of His creation. That's why it's so glorious.
Now, this takes us to the end of chapter two. Chapter one and two of John is just meant to stick in your face the glory of who Jesus is. This is the word who became flesh and dwelled among us. The word who was with God and is God. And it declares that He came to make the Father known. So it's all about the glory of God. You're just singing the glory of God all the way through the chapter. Then you hit this.
"Now when He was in Jerusalem at the Passover feast, many believed in His name when they saw signs that He was doing, but Jesus on His part did not entrust Himself to them because he knew all people and needed no one to bear witness about man, for he Himself knew what was in man." Why? Why is that there? What is it that John is seeking to do in that moment telling us that Jesus wouldn't entrust Himself to these people because he knew what was in them? You see, John wants you to know, and this is another theme's going to travel through the book, that the gospel is not just about knowing God. The gospel is about being known by God.
The gospel is about accepting God's diagnosis of you and Jesus looks at the crowd, this is the best way to end these first two chapters because of what's going to happen in third chapter, and He says, there's something
broken inside of these people. These people aren't safe because their hearts have been stained by sin and they're not functioning the way God intended for the human heart to function. What happens next in John three? Do you know? Can you tell me? You can talk.
Congregation: Nicodemus.
Nicodemus. You see, it's only when you accept God's diagnosis of you that you'll ever be interested in His offer of the grace of forgiveness and eternal life. That little vignette flips the script and sets up exactly what John's going to talk about next. It's meant to prepare you to say, yes, I'm that crowd. I'm that kind of person. I have something broken in me. So John is trying to build on you a hunger for the grace of Jesus, a little passage that's so easy to skip over because it doesn't seem that interesting or glorious.
Well, let's move on. What about John six? You know the great story of the feeding of the 5,000. Remarkable story. And at the end of the story, the crowd sought Jesus to make Him king. And you think, that's it? That's what He came to be. This is a great moment. What does Jesus do? He runs and hides and when they find Him, they're confused and they said, "Why did you run away from us?" And He says, "Well, you want me to be king just because you had your bellies filled," we found the person who's going to be the endless buffet, that's cool. And He's calling people to believe in Him, eat His flesh and drink His blood. He's talking about faith.
And so they say to him, "What sign do you do that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform?" This is almost hysterical. "Our fathers ate manna in the wilderness as it is written. He gave them bread to eat." They're saying, Moses oversaw the physical sign of bread. There's something physical that we could get a hold of, and we had a reason to believe. And then he says this, Jesus says, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you bread from heaven, but my Father," not past tense, present tense, "gives you the true bread from heaven." What's He saying? I am the manna from heaven. I'm the bread that's come down. I'm the thing that will feed you from ever. He's pointing back to Exodus 16 and to Numbers 11 where these things are recorded and He said, that's me. That's a prophecy of me. I'm the fulfillment of that. God's given you better bread than Moses could ever give you. The bread of life. You eat that and you will live. Connections.
The one I'm about to talk about is the one I love the most. These connections are all throughout the Bible. They're everywhere you read. You got to stop and ask questions. Jesus is now on the cross, the most unthinkable moment in the history of humanity that the one perfect person who ever lived, is now dying an unjust death, public execution, hanging in shame with criminals. And at a moment in His suffering, Jesus says, "I thirst." Even those words are fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. And this is so beautiful. The Bible records that one of the soldiers dips a hyssop branch into sour wine and puts it up to the lips of Jesus.
Now, I'm reading that account and I think, why do I need to know it's a hyssop branch? Why would John give me that piece of information? Who cares what kind of branch it is? Jesus is suffering. He needs a drink. I don't need biology. Because you know the last time a hyssop branch was prominent in Scripture? It's that moment in Egypt when God is finally going to deliver His people once and for all from their captivity and there's going to be an angel death that's going to pass over and all the firstborn of Egypt will die. And God says, you take a hyssop branch and you dip it in the blood of that sacrificial lamb and you paint it on the doorpost of the house. John knows what he's writing. He's saying, don't you understand, this is the Passover lamb. Two words, hyssop branch, that connect the plot of Exodus and the Passover to the identity of Jesus and God's final provision of salvation. That's how you're meant to read the Bible.
Jesus is the lamb, and He doesn't just redeem me from political national slavery. His blood covers my sin. He delivers me from the ultimate human bondage and the promise of that shed blood will mean there'll be a day when we will all be able to attend the one funeral we long to attend. It's the funeral of sin and death because sin and death will die. Hyssop branch. Read your Bible like an archeologist. Read your Bible like a detective. Don't go beyond anything you don't understand. Stop, research, ask questions, grab some kind of help. Get a good study Bible. Do something because there's glories in those places that either don't make any sense to you or seem hard to understand.
I've talked about three or four of those in one passage of scripture. There are 50 of those in John, and there
are thousands of those in your Bible. And what they preach to you is the utter sovereignty of God, that He is in absolute control of every aspect of the plan. It preaches to you the wisdom of God, that He could weave together such a magnificent plan. It preaches to you the authority of God, that He does rule, and He can make things happen the way He wants them to happen. It preaches you the grace of God because He wants you to have confidence as you read and you see these connections and you see the glory of the plan that's being played out for you. And He wants you to look in the mirror and see yourself needy, broken, but loved and have hope.
Don't read your Bible with a mental, spiritual monotone. Stop, dig, brush the dirt away, grab a hold of those clues, look for connections, and celebrate the glory of who Jesus is and who you are as His children because this book will change you. Let's pray again.
Lord, we would confess that we do sometimes wonder why you've preserved things. We sometimes aren't like archeologists or aren't like detectives, and we take a quick pass through your word and move on and sometimes miss the stunning beauty of what is there preserved for us. Help us to be willing to stop, to dig, to brush away the dirt and to find you and find ourselves, and know the sweet comfort of redemption. In Jesus name. Amen.
SESSION 3
There's one final thing I want to say to you. Every time you open your Bible, no matter where you are in your Bible, look for Jesus. The cord that holds all of scripture together is not history. It's not miracles. It's Jesus. Jesus is the central theme of the word of God. Think about this, scripture was penned by 40 authors, different personalities, different periods of history, different cultures, different families, different occupations.
66 books written over 1500 years, what commonality can there be in that period of time? Written in three different languages. If you would tell somebody that you're handing them a book that I've just described, you would think there's no hope of there being unity in this book. But the unity is Jesus because what God wants you to know is that the hope of humanity is Jesus. This book is His biography. It's about Him. And I already said this, you don't have to wait to get to Matthew to encounter Jesus. You encounter Him all the way through.
I again, would just love for us to sit together. And I would love to grab your metaphorical hand and walk you through each book of the Bible and show you Jesus. But most of us have to work tomorrow and the next several months. So I want to just take you to a moment in Luke. We find ourselves after the death and resurrection of Jesus. The followers of Jesus, we know them as disciples, are confused because the unthinkable has happened. And the incomprehensible has happened and they don't know what to make of all of this. And we find a couple of those men walking on a road to the town of Emmaus, and Jesus shows up although they don't recognize him. And let me just read for you the setup to the passage I want to look at. "That very day two of them were going to a village named Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. And they were talking with each other." Yes, they were walking seven miles, something you do every day.
"And they were talking to each other about all these things that had happened. And while they were talking and discussing together, Jesus himself drew near and went with them but their eyes were kept from recognizing Him. And He said to them, what is this conversation that you are holding with each other as you walk? And they stood still looking sad." You can see the moment they're walking along and He asked the question, they just stop. Their heads are down. "Then one of them named Cleopas answered Him, 'Are you the only visitor to Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?' And He said to them, 'What things?' And they said to Him, 'Concerning Jesus of Nazareth, the man who was a prophet, mighty in deed. And word before God and all the people and how our chief priests and rulers delivered Him up to be condemned to death and crucified, but we had hoped that He was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since things happened.'
And then Jesus says to them, 'Oh, foolish and slow of heart to believe all the prophets have spoken. Was it
not necessary that Christ should suffer these things and enter in His glory? And beginning...'" Now listen to this, "...with Moses and all the prophets, He interpreted to them all the scriptures, the things concerning what? Himself." Now where is He looking for scriptures about himself, the Old Testament, Moses and the prophets. And He's saying to these men, how are you surprised? You should be prepared for what's happened because multiple places in scripture have talked about me, talked about my mission, talked about what would happen, how could it be possible that you've read your Bible and you've missed me?
When you read the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, in case you forgot, are you looking for Jesus? He's there intentionally written into the story for you. That's why Jesus says, you shouldn't be sad. You shouldn't be in panic. I've prepared you for this because I'm all over the story that you are familiar with. I think there are hundreds of thousands of believers who don't know what to do with the Old Testament. It seems dark and dusty and distant and weird to them. The culture is so strange. The personalities are so strange when we may not be so strange because we're pretty weird. And they just get discouraged.
Look for Jesus. Well, the disciples end up in Jerusalem. They made at the seven miles, they were fit. And Jesus appears to them again and he says, and they were talking about these things, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, "'Peace to you.' But they were startled and frightened and thought they saw a spirit. And He said to them, 'Why are you troubled and why do doubts arise in your heart? See my hands and see my feet, that as I myself touch me and see for a spirit does not have flesh and bones as you see I have.' And when He had said this, He showed them His hands and feet and while they still believed, disbelief for joy and when marveling He said to them, 'Have you anything to eat?' And then He said to them, 'These are my words I spoke to while I was still with you, that everything written about me and the law of Moses and the prophets and the Psalms must be fulfilled again.'"
Guys, why are you troubled? I am all over the book that you study. It's about me. You've read the book and you've missed me. I would say this, this will shock some of you, the devil will give you your Bible gladly. He'll give you your theology if he can blind your eyes to Jesus, because he loves to have people who have biblical literacy and theological knowledge and formal religion but don't know Jesus. Maybe that is one of the darkest tricks of the enemy, have your Bible but don't have Jesus. It is scary. I want to take you to one passage in John. I can't resist going back to John. As is typical Jewish religious leaders are arguing with Jesus and questioning the things He's saying about Himself. And Jesus' response is very crisp and clear.
"You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life and it is they that bear witness of me." Now remember, there was no New Testament when He's speaking. This is the Old Testament. He's saying from Genesis to Malachi, they bear witness of me, they're about me. And here's what happened to these men, this is so sad. They were schooled in the scriptures, but because they didn't see Jesus in the scriptures, when He was now present in front of them they did not recognize Him. And they sought his demise. What a tragedy.
You see, God knows the transition that needs to take place in the heart of every fallen human being. He knows that we have to move from self-sufficiency and self-reliance and self-righteousness to complete trust and dependence on him. And that scary thing you will only do when you're blown away by the person and the glory and the power and the love and the grace of Jesus, because you finally find someone that you can trust. Think about this, what's the two cries that are in the heart of every human being? Well, the first one, will somebody love me? There's a way in which every human being lives in search of love, it can be terrifying. But the second question is even scarier.
Once you get to know me, will you still love me? And that question is only perfectly answered by Jesus. I know every dark thing about you. I know things about you that you don't even know and I love you. I love you so much that I'll die for your sins. I'll take your penalty and I will give to you my righteousness so you can stand before God complete. I love two crescendos in Scripture. The first one is that moment when on the cross Jesus says it is finished. He's not just talking about His life. That moment Jesus in His torture is saying, I have completed the work. Everything that needed to be done, I have done for you. It's finished. It's complete. Nothing needs to be added to what I've done.
That's a beautiful message and you can embrace that today, but it doesn't feel complete, does it? Because although your sin has been forgiven and hasn't been eradicated, and you know this is true, it rears its ugly head all over, doesn't it? Why is marriage so hard? Some of you are looking at your spouse, saying, "Well, Paul, that's easy to answer." Because of sin inside of us. Paul says that Jesus came to those who live should no longer live for themselves. The DNA of sin is selfishness. Sin is antisocial. It messes up relationships. Why is it this person who you love to hear their voice on the phone, they could make your heart lift, has the ability to irritate you so much? Or why would you ever scream up the stairs? "You do not want me to come up there one more time, it'll be on the news."
Why does that woman with all of her groceries who happens to zoom in sun in front of you in the grocery line, when you only have one item, why do you immediately want to share something with her? But it wouldn't be Jesus. Why are there violence in the streets of our city? Why is government corrupt? Why is this all going on when Jesus says, I'm finished? Because He has something else to do? Paul says in Romans eight, talking about our address is that the whole world groans waiting for redemption. God has chosen for His glory and our good for us to live in a world that's broken, doesn't function the way God originally intended. And as much as you try to plan your life well and as smart as you think you are, that brokenness will enter your door.
Dark things happen, interrupt your story, break your heart, make you want to weep. How could this happen? You know this is true if you're not suffering now, you will someday. And if you're not suffering now, you're near someone who is. Although He completed everything that needs to be done, He's obviously not done. He can't leave us this way. This can't be it. And we all have these moments in our lives where we cry, God, why? I try so hard. And that's why the end of Revelation, there sits a glorious promise where this same Jesus that's introduced to you in Genesis now says, "You're right. I'm not done. I can't leave you like this. I can't leave you in this place. I am going to make all things new and there will be a time when peace and righteousness reign forever and ever and ever. It's yours because you're mine."
That promise begins way before the first verses of scripture. That promise begins in eternity. And so in Genesis we're introduced to Jesus. Jesus the Creator, Jesus the seed of the woman who will crush the head of the serpent. In Exodus we're introduced to Jesus the great deliverer, who lays down His life as a sacrifice for the freedom of His people. In Leviticus we're introduced to Jesus who fulfills God's law, who is the great high priest, who guarantees for us forgiveness of sins. In numbers we're introduced to Jesus, the living water. Jesus, the manna from heaven. In Deuteronomy we're introduced to Jesus the prophet greater than Moses, the word, God's final revelation to us. I could do this with every book in scripture because they're all pointing to Jesus, because it's meant to drive you out of yourself, to drive you to His cross, to drive you to His resurrection, to drive you to His ascension and to drive you to that final moment when He'll say, "All things are now ready. Enter my kingdom."
You know what? One Corinthians 15 says about what's happening now, that's the resurrection chapter. It says, "He must reign until every enemy is under his foot." The last enemy is death. You know what Jesus is doing right now, He's reigning over all things for the sake of His church. And he's putting enemies that you could not defeat under His feet. So there'll be a moment when He says, "My children, you've suffered and you've wept and you're broken, but all things are now ready. Enter my kingdom forever and ever and ever." Amen.
Now, don't you just want to live in the Bible? There's just nothing like it. I couldn't imagine where I would be if it weren't for the glory of the story of this book and my hero of heroes, Jesus. Look for Jesus. Let's pray. Father, how could you love us so much that you would put this book in our hands, that we would know you and know ourselves and know the hero of heroes, the king of kings, the Lamb of lambs, the Savior, Jesus. May we never stop digging. May we never stop searching. May we never stop placing our hope in Jesus. It's right right now for us to say that we love you, but we want to confess that the greatest fullest, deepest, expansive joy of our lives is that we've been loved by you. You are a rock and a fortress. You are a son and a shield. You are life and hope and reconciliation, restoration, and redemption. We are deeply grateful that we are your children and we have been embedded in your great story. Thank you. In Jesus name, amen. God bless.
