The Altogether Lovely One IV: The Sanctified Bride of Christ

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Welcome to the Whole Council Podcast. I'm Teddy James, the content producer for Media Gratia. Over the last three weeks, you've heard

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Dr. John Snyder and Jordan Thomas coming together and talking about Jordan's latest study for Media Gratia called

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Christ Our Treasure. And I hope that it's been a blessing to you following the comments.

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I know several of you have been encouraged by it, and honestly, that's the prayer that we have for this. This week, we want to present to you session four of that study.

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This is the one that John found particularly helpful and was kind of the focus of the conversation last week.

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So I thought it would just be a good idea to share that entire session with you this week.

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Now, if you want more information about the study or about anything that's coming up, a couple of weeks ago, we released an episode that was our annual update that kind of lets you know everything we've done throughout 2024, and then also what's coming in 2025.

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And I'll put a link to that in the show notes below. But if you're listening to this, you'll also have a link and that'll take you to our

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YouTube channel. So without further ado, let me present to you session four of Jordan's new study titled

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The Sanctified Bride of Christ, Treasuring Christ Together in His Word. Welcome to week four of our study on Christ's treasuring churches.

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So far, we have seen that we become like what we behold, and when we behold

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Christ, he becomes our treasure. So when we cluster together with other Christ treasurers, we help each other treasure him.

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That's weeks one to three. Week four, we're going to be talking especially about the nutrient of the body of Christ, the source, our food, our fuel that is, of course,

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God's word, but it is his Christ -centered word that we especially want to focus our attention on this week.

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In week one, we saw that the transforming power of being made more like Christ is, according to 2

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Corinthians 3, beholding his glory. It is by seeing

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Jesus that God changes us, transforms us into his likeness from one degree of glory to another.

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It's that picture of metamorphosis when a caterpillar enters the chrysalis and comes out a butterfly.

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The chrysalis of beholding the glory of Christ is how God the Holy Spirit transforms us into the image of his son, and that verse, 2

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Corinthians 3 .18, was written not to an individual but to a congregation, the church at Corinth.

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In week two, we saw that whole churches, like the letter of Hebrews written to one local church, whole churches are to fix our eyes on Jesus in the context of the cross where Jesus endured the cross for the joy that was set before him.

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And that joy is to have his people with him forever, to fix our eyes on him eternally.

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So churches on earth are to be a reflection of what the church in heaven will one day soon be, that is, a

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Jesus -gazing cohort. Then in week three, we saw from the book of Ephesians especially that when

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Christ -treasurers cluster together in a mutually accountable relationship, church membership, then we are to aid one another in the glorious task of helping each other enjoy the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

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But so far, we haven't really said much about the fuel that enables us to be a

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Christ -treasuring church. We must first receive from God to be able to have the right response to him.

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And his word is our food. Let's admit it, the

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Bible's a big book. We oftentimes are intimidated by it. Even those of us who've read through it year by year by year would sometimes admit that there are many parts of it that are hard for us to understand.

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And it's oftentimes hard to put the pieces together. How does it fit?

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What's the unifying principle? Well, according to Jesus, the

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Bible is one book with one author about one person.

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All of it, according to 2 Timothy, is inspired by God.

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So instead of seeing the Bible as a compilation of many books, we should rather read the

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Bible as one book. Christ -treasuring churches are people of the book. But the book is not an end in itself.

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It's a window through which we see the face of our King. It's the love letter from the heart of our

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Savior so that we may know him and enjoy him. Christ -treasuring churches are nourished on Christ as he is proclaimed to us and taught to us and shared with us from the pages of Scripture.

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He is our hunger -satiating daily bread. He is our soul -nourishing living water.

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And his word unfolds to us his endless supply.

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Vaughn Roberts said in his overview of the Bible, God's Big Picture, the

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Bible has one supreme subject that binds it all together, Jesus Christ, and the salvation

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God offers through him. You can be sure that whatever page of the Bible you are on,

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Jesus is the main point of the whole message. We are to aid one another in enjoying the immeasurable fullness of Christ by treasuring him together in his word.

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In this session, we want to get a taste of what Scripture has to say about itself. How does the

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Bible testify to its primary message? Is the Bible, as Roberts said, all about Jesus Christ and the full orb salvation, justification, all the way to our future glorification that God offers to us in him?

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I believe yes. While it may sound like a Sunday School answer from people who don't know what else to say, the

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Bible is about J -E -S -U -S. I want you to think about some of the phrases in the

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New Testament that testify to the Christocentricity, the

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Christ -centeredness of the entire Scriptures. In 1

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Corinthians 15, Paul rejoices in the resurrection of Jesus.

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And not only rejoices, he emphasizes the necessity of the resurrection of Jesus for the

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Christian faith, even saying, If Jesus is not raised from the dead, our faith is futile, our faith is vain.

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We are of all men most to be pitied. We might as well eat, drink, and be merry if Jesus is not raised. But if he is raised, then it changes everything.

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It's in that chapter where Paul gives maybe the most succinct distillation of the essence of the gospel.

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Listen to how Paul describes the gospel to the church at Corinth. He says in 1

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Corinthians 15 verses 3 and 4, For I delivered to you as of first importance what

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I also received. What's most important, Paul? Here it comes. That Christ died for our sins according to the

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Scriptures. And that he was buried and that he was raised on the third day according to the

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Scriptures. Well, of course, when 1 Corinthians 15 is being written, the only Scriptures that were then available were the

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Old Testament. The New Testament was literally under construction. But did you hear that Paul says to the church that Jesus died for our sins as the

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Scriptures said he would? He was buried and raised on the third day as the Scriptures said would be the case.

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He died for our sins as Isaac foreshadowed in Genesis 22 in his almost sacrifice.

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As all the Old Testament sacrifices, the countless thousands and hundreds of thousands of lambs whose throats were slit and blood was spilt and were offered on the altar of the priestly sacrifices,

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Christ died for our sins as the Scriptures foreshadowed.

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The book of Hebrews says it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

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But Jesus, the ultimate sacrifice to whom all the previous sacrifices pointed, he died for our sins according to the

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Scriptures. But Paul says he was also buried and raised again the third day according to the

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Scriptures. Just as the miraculous emergence of Israel from their servitude in Egypt for centuries, and just as Jonah being spewed out of the fish's belly on the seashore, so also was

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Christ raised from the dead. The empty catacombs, the barren wombs of the matriarchal figures in Old Testament history, their wombs were as tombs where death resided and God caused life to come forward.

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So also Christ in a borrowed tomb outside the city of Jerusalem, dusty cavernous cave laid his dead cadaver and God brought life out of that barren womb.

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Jesus was raised from the dead according to the Scriptures. All the passages of all the

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Old Testament books, as Graham Goldsworthy said, bear a striking semblance to the gospel of Jesus.

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He died for our sins, he was buried, and he was raised again on the third day according to the

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Scriptures. The gospel we preach is the gospel that the whole

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Bible is about. Consider our friend Charles Spurgeon who says to brothers like me who preach regularly, no

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Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.

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Every passage from beginning to end has a relationship to the glory and the gospel work of the

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Lord Jesus Christ. Think about 2 Timothy. Paul's writing to his protege in the ministry now for the second time.

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He loves young Timothy who had accompanied him on various missionary journeys. At the time Paul writes to Timothy, he,

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Timothy, is the pastor of the church at Ephesus. And in 2 Timothy 3, Paul's reminding

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Timothy how he, Timothy, became a Christian in the first place. Listen to this sentence in 2

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Timothy 3 .15. Paul says to him, From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Jesus Christ.

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Did you hear that? Timothy, don't forget the sacred writings.

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And don't forget the effect they had on your life as you pastor this church in Ephesus.

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Those sacred writings, those inspired texts, that Old Testament record of the

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God who is was able to make you wise unto salvation which is through faith in Jesus Christ.

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Do you see how Paul's saying? Timothy's whole salvation was predicated on the

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Christocentricity of the Old Testament. Of course, the

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New Testament wasn't available at the time that Paul wrote that statement to Timothy. Again, it, like Corinthians, was under construction as Paul was testifying to the

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Jesus -centeredness of God's Word. I was thinking about Timothy's experience.

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We don't know much about his life, but we do know that his mother and his grandmother had a significant influence on him,

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Lois and Eunice. And Paul says, from childhood, you learned the sacred writings.

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From childhood, you knew that they were all about salvation in Jesus Christ. So for all of you who are not preachers like me, who don't need to receive the rebuke that Spurgeon gave about no

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Christ in your sermon, sir, then please go home. But for you sisters in your local church, young mothers and young daughters, older women, who sometimes may wonder, what's my role in the kingdom, or what part do

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I play? Imagine if you were Timothy's mom or Timothy's grandmother, and you discipled him from childhood in the sacred writings, and you didn't just teach him

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Bible stories, and you didn't just try to fill him up with more knowledge of verses, but you used them in your discipleship of him as a window to help him see and savor the glory of God in Christ and trust him as Savior.

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That is a massive investment in the kingdom of Christ. Not only

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Paul to the church at Corinth, reminding them that the whole gospel is what the entire Old Testament is about, or Paul reminding his protege,

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Timothy, that the sacred writings are all about the way of salvation in Christ Jesus. Think about the

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Apostle Peter. He is a pretty interesting character. We all know some of his weakest moments in life.

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He was notorious for foot -in -the -mouth comments, or even those heartbreaking, eventually leading to tears and remorse, of denying

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Jesus the night before he died for Peter's sins. But then something changed.

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There's a moment, an inflection point in the life of Peter that we can see very clearly in hypercolor as we read the

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New Testament when he met the risen Jesus, and he was filled with the spirit of Jesus at Pentecost.

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Peter is markedly different for the rest of his days. Not perfect, he still needed to be rebuked by the

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Apostle Paul in the book of Galatians for really defecting on the essence of the gospel, is what

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Paul said. But for the most part, Peter is markedly different after he met the risen

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Jesus. What changed? Well, you may say, obviously, seeing the risen

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Christ. But if you listen to what Peter started to say, I believe it's that he saw that the whole

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Bible is about the risen Christ. When Peter wrote his first epistle to a cluster of local churches scattered out through Gentile regions, he said to them in 1

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Peter 1 .10, as to this salvation, we know what he's talking about, as to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries seeking to know what person or time the spirit of Christ within them was indicating as he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

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And then Peter says about the Old Testament prophets, it was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preach the gospel to you by the

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Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look. Do you hear what

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Peter's saying? The salvation that had made its way to these

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Gentile regions and caused people to be born again and among them

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God established local churches, that salvation was talked about 1 Peter 1 .10

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through the prophets who prophesied of that grace that would come to them. But then he says that all that those prophets wrote and preached and taught and proclaimed was about the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow.

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Peter wanted everyone to know that Jesus is the substance of the entire

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Old Testament and that the promises that God made then are fulfilled in him.

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When Peter stood at Cornelius' house in Acts chapter 10, he's in a Gentile's house and he says,

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Acts 10 .41, of Jesus all the prophets bear witness that forgiveness of sins is available through faith in his name.

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Do you see that Peter, like Paul, also announced that the entire

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Old Testament is about the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. Think about the apostle

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John, the beloved disciple, probably the youngest of the 12 disciples that walked with Jesus for three and a half years and had those intimate moments of being part of the inner circle, got to go to the

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Mount of Transfiguration and deeper into the Garden of Gethsemane and reclined on Jesus at the

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Last Supper. He was the beloved disciple. He knew Jesus in a very special relational way.

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Think about what he had to say about the Jesus -centeredness of the entire

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Bible. In his gospel, John chapter five, he said that all the books that Moses wrote, quoting

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Jesus, were about Jesus. In John chapter five, verses 39 and following,

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Jesus said to some people who were really devoted to the Bible that they never understood it.

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In fact, Jesus said, you search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

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Now, I don't know how diligent of a Bible student somebody would have to be for Jesus to say, you diligently search the scriptures.

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I don't know if Jesus would say that about me or about you. Wow, you're one of those people who are just totally devoted to the

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Bible. That's what he said to these people. But then he told them that they failed to understand any of it.

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Because they wanted eternal life, they therefore searched the scriptures. That's what

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Jesus said. Put another way, they didn't want to go to hell when they died, so they devoted themselves to Bible study.

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That's a good thing, right? Yes, if that study of scripture points us to the fountain of Christ about whom all the scriptures testify, the

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Bible's not an end in itself. We're not bibliolaters. We're Christian. The Bible is a means to the end of treasuring

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Christ. It's the food we need to see Him and to believe upon Him and to love

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Him. So John said, quoting Jesus, the scriptures testify about Jesus, John chapter 5.

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J .C. Ryle in his expository thoughts on the Gospel of Mark said, we should always read the

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Old Testament with a desire to find something in it about Jesus Christ. Let us search the books of the

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Old Testament more closely. It was said by Jesus, whose words can never pass away.

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These Old Testament scriptures are they which testify about me, John chapter 5.

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The beloved disciple, John, took pains to record many evidences that he believes the entire

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Bible is about Jesus. If you read his Gospel, it's in nearly every chapter. When he was recounting, for example, the call of the disciples, when

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Jesus was beckoning men to come to Him and follow Him, in John chapter 1,

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John records the calling of Philip. Jesus said, as He did to others, follow

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Me. Have you noticed that Philip did not follow Jesus immediately? Instead, he turned around and went the other way.

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It wasn't disobedience. He went to get his friend, Nathanael. And when he got to Nathanael, Philip said to Nathanael, John 1, 45,

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We found Him of whom Moses and the Law and all the prophets spoke,

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Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph. Can you feel the import of what

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Nathanael must have felt if he understood what Philip was saying? Philip was telling his friend, the man standing over there is the man about whom the entire

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Old Testament is written. You have to come meet him. And when

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Nathanael came to meet him, Jesus said, You're going to see something greater than the omnipotent, omniscient

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God standing in front of your face. Jesus told Nathanael, You're going to see the angels of God ascending and descending on the

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Son of Man. That's a reference to Genesis 28. Jacob's ladder. Jesus is saying,

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I'm the only mediator between heaven and earth. And now, Nathanael, when you read Genesis, you're not going to see just a ladder.

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You're going to see me. Jesus believes the whole Old Testament is about Jesus. The Apostle Paul cannot let go of this theme in all of his letters.

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The reason that he told the church at Corinth that he determined to know nothing among them except Jesus Christ and Him crucified is because according to Acts 18, he was devoted to the

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Word of God. That's what it sounds like to be truly devoted to the Scriptures. To know

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Jesus and to know His gospel labors, both His person and His work, to know

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Christ and Him crucified is the aftermath of a true saturation in God's Word.

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After conversion, Paul relearned the entire Old Testament. Many of us need to have that same experience.

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We need to repent from a Christless reading of Scripture. Paul was trained in the schools of Gamaliel.

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He was a Pharisee of Pharisees, tribe of Benjamin. He knew the law. He knew the

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Bible. But he didn't know it at all. The book of Acts records some of the last days of Paul's life.

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He's under house arrest. He is soon, tradition tells us, to be beheaded for his preaching of the gospel.

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So what does he do? He invites people to his house and all day long.

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Acts chapter 28, verse 23 tells us what Paul did. He explained to them and solemnly testified about the kingdom of God, trying to persuade them concerning Jesus.

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How was he doing that? From both the law of Moses and the prophets, from morning until evening.

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If you think this session has gone long trying to explain that the whole Bible is about Jesus, imagine sitting in Paul's house from early morning to late at night and he takes you from Genesis to Malachi to show you

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Jesus. That's what Acts 28, 23 tells us the apostle Paul was doing from morning until evening.

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Where did Paul and all the apostles get such a Christ -centered hermeneutic of the whole

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Bible? They got it from Jesus. After Paul's conversion, he went away to the desert of Arabia for three plus years and he relearned the

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Old Testament with a Christ -centered lens. He got to know his Savior from the pages of the

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Bible that he thought he already knew so well. Every sermon that Paul preached in his three missionary journeys that are recorded for us in the book of Acts are drenched with connections to Christ from the

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Old Testament scriptures. And I say that the apostles got their hermeneutic of Christ -centeredness from Jesus because the day

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Jesus got up from the dead, the first thing he did is opened a

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Bible and said, do you really want to know me? On the road to Emmaus with two men who were dejected because they thought that Jesus might be the

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Savior, but he died a few days before and now they're going home on the road to Emmaus from Jerusalem.

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Alongside them comes the resurrected Lord Jesus, but they don't recognize him. He asks them what they're talking about.

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They say, uh, how can you not know? Surely everybody's heard. Jesus died in Jerusalem a few days ago.

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We thought that he was going to be the Messiah. To those men, Jesus said,

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O foolish men and slow of heart, to believe in all that the prophets have spoken. Was it not necessary for the

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Christ to suffer these things and to enter his glory? And Luke says, then beginning with Moses and all the prophets,

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Jesus explained to them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures.

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Wouldn't you have loved to have been on that walk on that day with Jesus and those men? Friends, we have that walk.

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It's called the New Testament, where the apostolic witness continues to bring out of the treasury of Christ's fullness from God's Word what it means to really know him.

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The nutrient of Christ's treasuring churches is his Christ -centered

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Word. That's why Isaac Ambrose said, we can preach nothing else as the object of our faith.

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We can proclaim nothing else as the necessary element of our soul's salvation, which does not some way or other meet in Christ or refer to Christ.

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He's the sum total, David Dixon said. He is the sum total of saving knowledge.

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We must look to Christ together in his Word so that we may treasure him as he ought to be.

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As we feast on the Word incarnate through his Word written, our churches will grow up in all aspects into him who is the head and the church will be filled with the all -sufficient supply of the fullness of Jesus.

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Next week, we'll turn our attention from treasuring him in his Word to treasuring him together in our worship.

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Well, I pray that this session has been encouraging and maybe even a little convicting for you. Next week, we're going to start a new series where I actually am in front of the camera for the entire series.

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I know some of you will be shocked by that. But to give you a little heads up, I listened to a sermon, a series of sermons, by Jeremy Walker on the

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Corporate Prayer Meeting, and I was so impacted by it that I really wanted desperately to share it with you.

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So I talked with John, and he agreed. He thought that it would be a worthwhile time.

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And so next week, we'll begin that. That'll be a four -week series. And then after that, after that four -week series,

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John and I will come back into the studio and make a special episode where we just kind of talk to you and let you know what's going to be coming in the podcast for 2025.