This is a very powerful scripture. As we look at it today I believe we are going to learn some very wonderful things concerning God’s nature and His plans for us, individually and as His Church. I want to remind you of JER.29:11. The realization that God loves us enough to think and make plans for us is so amazing. When I was studying the book of Heb. I was amazed at the fact that God would invest so much time and energy into a relationship with us because the book of Heb. taught me that the old testament was God revealing His plan to redeem each of us through the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and bring us into relationship with Him. He kind of told us the gospel in 3d as He set up the old covenant. We can look back at it and see God’s incredible love and plan for our redemption. They say hindsight is 2020. We are going to look back and learn some great things this morning.
As we look at this we see that God not only led the Children of Israel out of Egypt that was a type of the world but that He wanted as His Children to lead them into something. A great land full of promise, freedom, and victory It is the same with us. As God’s children, God doesn’t just want us to survive in this world struggling through, barely making it with our heads bobbing up once in a while. No He has a plan and a purpose for each of us. Say: God has a plan for me. We see that God had a plan for Israel. He wanted them to be different than the rest of the world. He dosen’t want us to live with the same bondage and limitations as the world. 2COR.6:14-18. What God was showing us in our scripture in Deut. and here is the relationship that He created us for. In the old covenant, testament He set up the temple so He could be in there midst, in the new covenant, testament we are the temple individually and collectively.
The daily application we can take from this passage of the Bible is the power of Godly wisdom. Without His wisdom, we will make choices that would not fully benefit us. God’s wisdom should be applied to every decision we make in our lives. God desires to be a part of every intricate detail of our lives, because He loves us so much. When we allow Him to be there for us, we will see no sorrow in it. What the Lord gives comes with no sorrow. Queen Esther, Mordecai and the Jews of Susa were made firm believers of this very true virtue as a believer of Jesus Christ. Just the Esther and her people discovered there is nothing impossible for Him to do for us. His wisdom will always prevail if we are willing to apply it to our daily lives. God is here to be our partner. He is our testimony of who we are in Him.
"This famous prophecy provides the foundation and the core of the central theological teaching of the New Testament," said The Collegeville Bible Commentary on the Old Testament. "It underlies, but without explicit references, much of the 'new life' theology of St. John and is central to the teaching of Jesus in John's Last Supper discourse." (Collegeville 469).
Following the creation story of the book of Genesis is the book of Exodus. In Genesis, God promised Abraham a “great nation from which all nations of the earth will be blessed (Gen 12:1-3)” and in Exodus God completes this promise through the creation of the holy nation, Israel. Exodus tells the story of the God who rescued his people out of Egypt because of the promise he had made to Abraham. God calls to Moses to complete his promise. God’s call to Moses is not only important because he liberates the Israelites but also because God reveals His name(s) along with His true Nature. God calls upon Moses and tells him that He’s back to help the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt and that Moses is to lead them. God then gives him full instructions on what to tell the Pharaoh and, more importantly, the Israelites, who are promised, land “flowing with milk and honey”.
In Deuteronomy 30:6 that the covenant promise established is still in place and as we believe we understand that through righteous faith in following the Lord we will receive underserved blessings from the Lord.In Deuteronomy 6:5 Shows the duty we have as Christians to obey the first commandment of God’s love by emerging ourselves whole heartedly into service, enjoyment, and obedience to Him based on the principle of love.
The Old Testament and the Bible itself has been studied extensively for centuries. Archeologists and Scholars have labored and pondered over texts trying to decipher its clues. It does not matter how many times the Old Testament has been studied there will always be something new to learn about it or the history surrounding it. In the book Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction, the author Lawrence Boadt presents us with a few different authors of the Old Testament that used different names for God and had a unique insight into the texts. These four sources are titled P for priests, E for Elohim, J for Jehovah, and Y for Yahweh (95). These four unique sources help us realize that there is more than one author of the Pentateuch. These authors took the text and adapted for their culture. This independent source is used by scholars to help gain insight into what was behind the texts of the bible so we are not left with an incomplete picture of what went into the creation of the bible. Julius Wellhausen used these four sources to publish a book to able us to better understand the sources and to give it credibility with the Protestant scholars at the time (Boadt 94). These sources that is independent of the bible as in the DVD Who Wrote the Bible? and the Nova website aide in shedding light on the history that surrounded the writers who wrote the text and what inspired them to write it in the first place. The DVD shows the discovery of The Dead Sea Scrolls and the extensive history of the texts and all its sources in an effort to try to find exactly who wrote the bible (Who Wrote). These scrolls have aided scholars immensely by giving us some of the oldest known manuscripts of the bible in the world today. It shows that the bible w...
...ions, through bondage of exile for the trails of our faith may be established in true form of obedience and worship to the one true God. He has sent and established prophets to administer his word and lead his people in the path of righteousness. The promises of God have been proved and test to be genuine. God that our redeemer would come to the tribe of Judah and His protecting hands was upon His chosen through the exile and has guided the restoration of a nation of people that would obey His covenant and worship with a pure and undefiled heart. Today we can rejoice in the fact that God word can be trusted and the reliance of His spirit is an ever beacon of hope to all that believe.
In God’s Design chapter 13 and 14, the temple bore witness to the honour of God, in a double sense. Nevertheless, the temple was a way of preserving the importance as well as the awe and wonder of God revealing himself to man. Ezekiel 36 is pertinent to the issue of the knowledge of God in the wider world. The divine act which is calculated to reverse the assessment of the nations is the return of Israel to her land. As for the nations, it is especially the return of Israel to her land which is to lead to the recognition of God, God declared that he would bring out his people, the sons of Israel, from the land of Egypt, and the Egyptians shall know that I am the Lord.
Spanning fifteen hundred years with over 30,700 manuscripts, extensive archaeological evidence and 2000 prophecies that have been fulfilled, the Bible is God 's word to us. (Yohn, 2013). In the Bible, the Father is essentially giving us a picture of the history of the world and is also leading us to a place where we must make a decision that involves whether we choose to accept his son or reject him and remain guilty. Additionally, the Word of God tells us what happened that caused this breach between us and God, the result of this and how God has rectified it through the blood of his son. In fact, from the beginning of the Bible (written 1400 B.C.) to the last book (A.D. 96), God is showing us why we need Jesus and how to find him. Just as a plant’s root system propagates and occupies the pot that encloses it, Jesus permeates the entire Bible. Therefore, the motif of the Bible is the story of the redemption of mankind and it all points to Jesus as the messiah and savior who secures this for all.
This verse has greatly impacted my life for many years. 20 plus years ago, while I was in nursing school, I had two sisters killed due to domestic violence. This was a most devastating time in my life. I wasn’t sure if I could even continue my college education. The most vital part of this story is that along with my sisters in that house was also my 6 year old niece. She survived this tragic event. It was a double homicide, suicide. I completed my associate degree in applied science. The rest is now history. This verse has already brought me peace in my past and I believe will continue to offer peace in my future. Most importantly is the “hope” that the Lord gives us. Sometimes in this life, hope is the only thing we have to make it through the day. My belief in God has been so ever strong because of my life experiences. I have thought about this scripture for I know the plans I have for you many times. I still am in awe of his promise for a future and hope for
However this was the plan of God from all eternity. God “elected” Israel to receive the promises of goodness and love and salvation. God “elected” Israel to receive the law of God and to live in his presence and to be called by his name. God “elected Israel to the be lineage through which the savior of the world would come. God “elected” Israel to kill the messiah and bring about the shedding of blood for the remission of sins. God “elected” Israel to the hardness of heart required for the purpose of giving salvation to the rest of the world. But God also went inside of the nation of Israel and elected and remnant unto the fulness of salvation so that “...all families of the earth be blessed.”(Genesis 12:3,
Scripture holds a prominent role in the sermon. In 2 Timothy 4:2, it states to “preach the word in season and out of season”. The Greek word for preach is ‘Kerusso’. It means to be a herald (proclaim) and to preach (announce) a message publicly and with conviction (persuasion). In this verse, Paul gave Timothy and the others ministers a charge and a commission to preach the Word. In order to be an effective preacher, the Word of God must be the foundation. In 2 Timothy 3:16, it states that “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness”. In other words, the Word of God was written by man, God-breathed and divinely inspired. The Scripture is important because it creates an argument or appeal that is persuading the audience to do something. The substance of our preaching must come from the Bible because the Bible comes from God. As messenger and ambassadors of God, we are obligated to speak the mind and thoughts of God.
Even though God saw people as evil, he wanted to show his grace. He wanted to separate certain people in the world as His chosen people. “He wanted a chosen people: 1. To whom He might entrust the Holy Scriptures. 2. To be His witness to the other nations. 3. Through whom the promised Messiah could come” (Mears 47). This covenant is made between God and Abram. This covenant marks the beginning history of Israel, God’s chosen people.
...Wright has a style of writing that immediately grasps the reader’s attention of the subject as early as his introductory pages of the book. Wright accomplishes his goal of reminding the reader that Israel was to bring salvation and truth to all nations. His goal of persuading the audience that Jesus is a pivotal part of the history of Israel is established. In many passages of this book Wright early on shows Christ as the answer/fulfilment to Israel’s many years of exodus, exile, enslavement and many sufferings. He describes how he reaches this goal and introduces the audience to typology. Through typology Wright and others can understand God and Christ through out the entire scripture. “The correspondence between the Old Testament is not merely analogous, but points to the repeating patterns of God’s actual activity in history.”
There are five aspects of covenant. For the purposes of this paper I am going to be referring to primarily the new covenant that is offered us through Jesus. The first aspect is the parties involved. There are two parties: God and the elect. Unlike the old covenant, the elect goes beyond the Jews. It also includes the gentile, or non-Jew in all the nations. This is one aspect of covenant that has helped shape my worldview. I have spoken to people who believe that God only selects a few privileged people to be saved, and condemns the rest to eternal punishment in hell. I now wholeheartedly believe this to be completely false, and even a heresy. In John 3:16 God uses the phrase “panta ta ethne” which means “all the nations.” There are other places in scripture, for example, when Paul says in Romans 1:16, “I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes…” He clearly says ‘everyone who believes’ not leaving anyone out. There are places in scripture, such as Ephesians 1:11 that talk about things which are predestined for believers. This verse is commonly taken out of context by those who believe in predestination. He has indeed planned out things He wants those in covenant relationship to accomplish for His kingdom once we accept Jesus and make Him Lord of our life. He does not, however, make the choice beforehand to save some, and damn some to hell! God created us in His image, therefore we have also been given the gift of free will to choose to love Him or love the world. This is the depraved condition of mankind in our fallen state.
As mentioned before Genesis 3:21 portrayed the future of what was to come because Jesus Christ is the redemptive embodiment of the Missio Dei; John 5:39-41 says, “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.”The entire Old Testament was portraying Jesus, “The Bible is about God who loves the world so much. This Bibles is about Jesus, God’s gift to the world” (Hanes, 197). John 3:16 says, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” In scripture it says, “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” John 1:17. In the Old Testament God displays His grace during Noah’s flood, the exodus, and even God using Joseph to save his family in Egypt. God’s grace is flooded throughout the Old Testament as well. However, Wright says, “the exodus stands in the Hebrew Scriptures as the great defining demonstration of YHWH’s power, love, faithfulness and liberating intervention on behalf of His people” (75). Wright also says, “Jesus Christ is typical of what we have already seen- the identification of Jesus with the great defining functions of Israel’s God” (118). Moreover, since Jesus is God in flesh, Jesus is also brings salvation. “The name Jehoshua, Jeshua,