The Gospel in the Old Testament: Loving God

In the Old Testament, God gave the first tablet of the Ten Commandments outlining our duties to Him. Jesus summarized this as loving God with everything we have!! What does it mean to love God supremely and how do we do that?

Exodus 20:1-17
Mark 12:28-34
Matthew 5:17-20
Ephesians 5:5

The Purpose of the Law:
1. To reveal God’s holiness: special, pure, supreme
2. To reveal what it means to have a relationship with the holy God:
   1. What a holy life looks like
   2. As a pathway to life: human flourishing and blessing
3. To reveal how sinful we are
4. To reveal our need for Christ:
1. For the forgiveness of sins
2. For a new heart to overcome sins

What a privilege to have God as our God! What a happy condition when nothing can hurt you! If one loses his name, it is written in the Lamb’s book of Life. If he loses his liberty, his conscience is free. If he loses his estate, he owns the pearl of great price. If he meets a storm, he has a harbor; God is his God, and heaven is his heaven. If God is our God, our soul is safe. It is hidden in the promises, in the wounds of Christ, and in the decrees of God. If God is our God, then all that is in God is ours. How happy is who not only inherits the gifts of God, but inherits God Himself! If God is our God, then all that is in God is ours. How happy is he who does not only inherits the gifts of God, but inherits God himself! In his wisdom, he is ours to teach us, his power shall support us, and his mercy shall save us. God is an infinite ocean of blessedness, and there is enough in him to fill us. He gives us peace in trouble, and when there is a storm without, he will make music within. The world gives trouble in peace, but God gives peace in trouble. He loves us, and we are the 'beloved of his soul' (Jeremiah 12:7). Thomas Watson Voices from the Past – Puritan Devotional Readings/Banner of Truth

Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship… is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things — if they are where you tap real meaning in life — then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough... Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you... Worship power — you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart — you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out... Look, the insidious thing about these forms of worship is... they are unconscious. They are default-settings. David Foster Wallace This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How did Jesus summarize the Law?
• What is an idol?
• What are the idols we have to resist?
• What will an idol do to you?
• What does it mean to love God with all we have?
• What should we do when we fail?
• How can we get to where Jesus calls us to be in all this?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Gospel in the Old Testament: Being Related to the God Who Saves

If you are the infinite, holy, great, immense, loving God... how do you reveal this to mere mortals. The answer is progressively, over time, and dramatically at times. In the Old Testament, Mount Sinai is one of those pivotal, powerful revelations of who God is. And it is important for us to grasp His message.

Exodus 19:1-20:21,14:11-12,16:2-3,17:3
1 Thessalonians 4:16
1 Corinthians 15:52
Proverbs 9:10
Job 28:28

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• How does God answer the question: What are You like? In this text?
• Why did God reveal Himself in such scary ways on Mount Sinai?
• What were some of the reasons God gave the Ten Commandments?
• Why is the fear of God the beginning of wisdom?
• What are the advantages to those who understand how great God is?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Gospel in the Old Testament: A Justified Patriarch

Christians are justified through faith in Jesus... in the Old Testament so was Abraham... in fact he is our role model for exercising audacious faith.

Genesis 11:27-12:20,13:14-16,14:22-15:6
Galatians 3:5-9,3:15-18,3:26-29
John 8:51-59
Romans 3:21-24,4:1-5,4:13,4:16-25

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• Why is Abraham so important?
• Why will only true children of Abraham be saved?
• What was so audacious about Abraham's faith?
• Why do we need to exercise such faith?
• Why is it hard to follow his example?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Gospel in the Old Testament: The First Promise of a Deliverer

In the Old Testament Adam and Eve experienced terrible results from their sin... and grace, love, mercy, and a wonderful promise.

Revelation 12,20:10
Genesis 3:1-4:8,4:23-26
John 8:44
Romans 8:19-22,16:17-20
1 John 3:10-13,3:8
Colossians 2:14-15

Sermon discussion topics for parents to use with their children:

• What were some of the horrible results of Adam's sin?
• How was God's love and grace also experienced at the same time?
• How has the enmity between the woman's and the serpent's seed worked out in history?
• Today?
• Who was the great deliverer promised, and how will He crush the serpent's head?
• What does this mean for you?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA

The Holiness of God: Part 1

The Holiness of God is such an important doctrine and reality to understand. It will help us all appreciate God's specialness and majesty as well as how wonderful it is that He has provided a way for mere creatures to come to Him and be adopted by Him.

Exodus 19:10-24,15:11,3:2-6,20:18-21,33:17-23
Psalm 50,104:1
1 Samuel 2:2
Hosea 11:9
Revelation 15:4
Judges 13:22

From this it already appears that it is not correct to think of holiness primarily as a moral or religious quality, as is generally done. Its fundamental idea is that of a position or relationship existing between God and some person or thing.

It is this holiness of God which Otto, in his important work on Das Heilige,... includes such ideas as "absolute unapproachability" and "absolute overpoweringness" or "aweful majesty". It awakens in a man a sense of absolute nothingness, a "creature-consciousness" or "creature-feeling" leading to absolute self-abasement.

...the response to it: "Mere awe, mere need of shelter from the 'tremendum', has here been elevated to the feeling that man in his 'profaneness' is not worthy to stand in the presence of the Holy One, and that his entire personal unworthiness might defile even holiness itself." Louis Berkhof Systematic Theology

Sermon discussion questions for parents to use with their children:

• Why is it so important to understand God's Holiness?
• What significance is the fact that the basic idea of holiness is to separate?
• Why is God's holiness also understood as God's specialness and His aboveness?
• How did God teach these things to Moses and the people of Israel at the burning bush, at Mt. Sinai and when Moses saw God pass by?
• What are the implications of all of this for us?
• What will it be like to see God for the believer?
• For the unbeliever?
• For you?

Pastor Todd Jaussen
Crossroads Christian Fellowship Church
Greenville, PA