Sunday, 27 December 2020 // God's Story: Old Testament
"You got to read the Old Testament faith to grow as a Christian in your faith." - Elder Robin
In Part 1, we saw the need to understand the Gospel from the Old Testament. In Part 2, we will see why properly understanding faith, hope, and love is essential to understanding the gospel and growing in our faith.
Faith, hope, and love are concepts and not mere word studies.
In the Old Testament we see the covenant between God and His people, however, throughout Israel's history, all we see is faithlessness in the people and their kings, even in King David himself. They failed to keep God's law, failed to love God, failed to love their neighbour. Israel's situation was hopeless, God's righteous judgment was upon them.
Israel is a representation of humanity and we need to learn from them. Faith in God is a covenantal concept that requires mutual faithfulness. Faith requires obedience to God as Lord. In knowing what is required of faith, we see our faithlessness, our hopelessness, our lack of love.
This is where the gospel is good news, that God in His steadfast love is faithful. God's story throughout the Old Testament and even today is that God entered the story of His faithless people and established faithfulness.
In Abraham, Moses, the law, the temple, the prophets, the priests, the kings, the entire narrative of the covenant relationship, we see the faithfulness of God in the Old Testament. This faithfulness is fulfilled in Jesus Christ, Immanuel, this is good news.
The Gospel Was Promised; He Is Our God
