It’s all about Jesus (Kirk Giles) | Jesus in the Old Testament

Well, good morning, everyone. I want to also welcome those of

you who are new with us here to Forward.

And if you're already connected to forward, you've been

journeying with us for a while, you know that we've been walking

through the book of Luke for the last number of months, but we're

going to take a pause on the book of Luke as we move into the

Easter season. So if you would take your

Bibles, open up to the Gospel of John chapter 5, John chapter 5,

John 5 · chapter mention John 5 · chapter mention

it's page 946. If you are using one of the

Bibles in the seat underneath of you, you can grab that.

If you don't have a Bible that is our gift to you, please take

that home with you and use that just as you're opening up to

John chapter 5. I was reflecting this week on

John 5 · chapter mention

how much I love a good mystery story.

I I love like seeing what's at the end, whether it's a like a

good murder mystery as a pastor allowed to say that, I don't

know, but I just did And I just seeing that and then trying to

put all the pieces together of the evidence.

Where does the evidence take us to to come to a conclusion at

the end of things, to try and figure out what exactly

happened. Sometimes there are mysteries

that they're so big that when you follow the evidence, they

can be potentially life changing for yourself or for the other

people that are around you. For example, I want to show you

a picture up on the screen. This this is a picture of what's

called the Copper Scroll. It was found in 1952 right

beside the Dead Sea Scrolls in Qumran in Israel.

Now, it is believed that this is actually a treasure map, a

treasure map that will take you to over $3 billion worth of gold

and silver that was hidden in the 1st century.

Here's the cool thing, nobody has solved it yet.

So this is your opportunity. And I want to say if you decide

to take the challenge and go and solve the mystery, your tithes

and offerings can be made payable to Forward Church.

All right. Over the last number of weeks,

we've also been looking at the evidence for Jesus.

We've been exploring the question, who exactly is Jesus?

And we've looked at stories that tell us more and more about his

character, the way he operates, his nature.

And one of the things we know about Jesus is that he lived in

a Jewish culture. He was a Jew living in a Jewish

culture. And himself and some other

people around him are making a bold claim about him.

They are claiming that he is the Messiah, the Savior of the

world. But Jesus knew that simply

making the claim that he was the Messiah was not going to be

enough, because in the culture in which he lived, he was going

to be required to have multiple witnesses to that claim before

it could be verified as being true.

That Jewish culture required at least two valid witnesses for

something to be established as fact.

So in John chapter 5, Jesus is beginning to unpacked a number

John 5 · chapter mention

of the witnesses that exist for who He is as the Messiah.

We're not going to take the time to read the first number of

witnesses, but from verse 31 down to verse 37, we see several

witnesses show up. Jesus says hey, John the Baptist

testifies to who I am. John said that there would be 1

greater than me who was coming. And so John is testifying to who

Jesus is. He, he says, Jesus says even the

works and the miracles that I do, the things that I do to heal

people, to set people free from demonic oppression, all those

things testify to who I am. And then Jesus says even God the

Father testifies to who I am. When Jesus is baptized, we hear

the words well done, good and faithful servant from we hear

the words, this is my beloved son in him.

I'm well pleased. That's what the Father speaks

over Jesus. But then Jesus gives us one more

witness for who He is. I want to begin reading at verse

39 of John chapter 5. Jesus says you pour over the

John 5 · chapter mention

Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and

yet they testify about me, but you're not willing to come to me

so that you may have life. I do not accept glory from

people, but I know you, that you have no love for God within you.

I have come in my Father's name, and yet you don't accept me.

If someone else comes in His own name, you will accept Him.

How Can you believe, since you accept glory from one another,

but don't seek the glory that comes from the only God?

Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father.

Your accuser is Moses, on whom you have set your hope for.

If you believe Moses, you would believe me because he wrote

about me. But if you don't believe what he

wrote, how will you believe my words?

So here's the big idea of what Jesus is unpacking.

And this 4th witness in these verses.

And he's saying the entire Bible is a witness to who Jesus is and

the truth that you can only find life in him.

Now, if you're a Christian, you're going, well, duh, of

course that is true. We know that Matthew, Mark,

Luke, and John are all the stories of Jesus and his life

and his death and his resurrection.

We know that Acts, in a number of the early epistles, letters

that are written to the early church, are really unpacking the

story of people who are living in light of the life of Jesus.

Even the Book of Revelation is a book that is centered on Jesus

as being the sovereign king over all things and the judge of the

world. Most of us who are believers in

Jesus followers in Jesus understand that the New

Testament is all about Jesus. But very few people think of the

Old Testament as also testifying about Jesus.

But here in the moment that Jesus is speaking in, in these

verses S not referring to how the New Testament speaks about

him because the New Testament hasn't been written yet.

He's referring to how the Old Testament speaks about him and

testifies about him. Jesus is saying the Old

Testament is also a witness to who he is.

Now if that's new language for you, you don't know the words

Old Testament and New Testament. Let me just take a minute to

unpack that for you. The Old Testament are the

scriptures before Jesus is born. They tell they tell the story of

creation, they tell the story of God's relationship with the

people of Israel, his deep covenant faithful love, and they

tell the story of a group of people waiting for a Messiah to

come and rescue them. The New Testament starting the

book of Matthew is telling us the story of Jesus from from the

point of Jesus birth on to the rest of his life.

If you were a Jew in the day listening to Jesus say these

words, this would have rocked your world because your entire

life has been built around this set of scriptures.

Your entire life has been built around understanding it,

believing it, memorizing it. And so all they knew was the Old

Testament and Jesus is saying all the things you've ever

studied. It's ultimately pointing to me.

It's about me Now I know that while that meant something for

people in that day, for us today, the Old Testament tends

to mean something very different.

For most people, the Old Testament is something that's

one of the most difficult, highly controversial, and easily

ignored parts of the Bible. There are not a lot of people

who, when they are going through a hardship in life, are going,

hey, I wonder what Joel and Amos and Obadiah have to say right

now. That is not where we tend to go

when we're going through it. But as we move towards Easter

over the next few weeks, we're going to unpack more about the

Old Testament and how exactly the Old Testament testifies to

who Jesus is. But for today, I just want to

spend some time unpacking the words of Jesus in John chapter 5

John 5 · chapter mention

as an introduction to the next few weeks as we move towards

Easter. And in these verses, Jesus is

going to identify three mistakes that people then and now make

when it comes to the Old, the Old Testament, both in reading

it and understanding it. Here's the first mistake.

Mistake number one is studying the Old Testament and missing

how it points to Jesus. In verse 39, Jesus talks about,

you pour over the Scriptures and you think they've got eternal

life in them, but yet they testify about me.

Verse 46, he says the same thing.

If you believe Moses, you would believe me.

Now, if you grew up going to church, you probably learned all

the stories of the Old Testament.

And there are some pretty epic stories in the Old Testament,

aren't there? Like you've got Noah's ark and

you've got Moses and the people of Israel coming out of Egypt.

You've got David and Goliath, which is way more violent than

what it was when I was six years old.

Honestly, when you read the Bible, you got Daniel in the

lion's den, you got Daniel in the fiery furnace.

You got so many things that are going on going on in those

passages. And we often look at the stories

of the Old Testament and we think, boy, those are cool or

they're confusing. We're not really sure which we

land on depending on the story, but the mistake that often gets

made is that people will miss seeing how each individual story

fits into a grander narrative, a grander story that the Bible is

unfolding. We we look at each individual

story and go, man, that's cool, or I don't understand it, but

actually each individual story is pointing us to a bigger

story, the story of the whole of Scripture that is centered

around Jesus. That's what Jesus trying to tell

us here. The Bible is not this series of

disconnected moral stories. We, we look at the people and

the stories and we look for the moral lessons that we can learn

for ourselves. We go like, how do I have faith

like this person or courage like this person?

And, and it's good to think about that and challenges

ourselves with that, but that's limiting the whole perspective

that the Bible wants us to see. All of those stories are

designed to point us to Jesus. Or maybe you're like Kirk.

I'm way past all the Bible stories.

I like to go deeper into all the hidden meaning of all the words

in the Old Testament. I want to dive in deep and

really understand what the Old Testament is saying in these

passages. So you want to understand every

possible interpretation of a passage, and it's great that you

want to do that. But Jesus tells us that the

mistake we make when we pour over the Scriptures is we miss

seeing how they testify about him.

There are so many people who are great students of the

scriptures, but if your Bible knowledge does not lead you to

know Jesus and see Jesus, you've missed the point.

The the Old Testament consistently points us to Jesus.

It's it's not like we get through the Old Testament and

suddenly we get to the good parts of the Bible in the New

Testament. OK, The Old Testament has things

like prophecies, prophecies that talk about the Messiah,

including his life and his birth and his death and his

resurrection. Over 350 prophecies in the Old

Testament about the Messiah are fulfilled by Jesus.

The Old Testament has what's called types and shadows of

Jesus showing up, people, events, institutions that give

us this foreshadowing of Jesus. And we're going to talk more

about how that shows up next Sunday.

But let me give you a quick example of what that looks like.

Think about the story of Joseph, the coat of many colors that

shows up on Joseph. And with Joseph, you have a guy

who is sold out by his brothers, who suffers and lives in

isolation and ultimately rescues and saves his family.

Sound familiar to anybody? The Old Testament sacrificial

system easily one of the most confusing things for us in 2026.

But the rituals of the Tabernacle and the temple are

all given to symbolize the need for atonement of sins and the

future sacrifice of Jesus. We even have times in the Old

Testament where the Son of God before he is born as Jesus

appears in the Old Testament. One of the most powerful

pictures of Jesus showing up in the Old Testament is found in

Isaiah chapter 6. And we're not going to take the

Isaiah 6 · chapter mention

time to look there. If you want to look there

quickly, you can. I'm going to paint this picture

of the first few verses of Isaiah 6.

Isaiah is brought into the throne room of God himself.

He's brought into this space where he is able to be in the

presence of God. And when he walks into the

presence of God in God's throne room, what he sees is, is the

robe of God that fills the entire temple.

And he sees this, this reality of angels, seraphim, angels all

around the throne and, and they are crying out holy, holy, holy

is the Lord God Almighty, Holy is the Lord of armies.

This majestic scene is unfolding in front of Isaiah.

And as he hears the voice of these angels, it says that the

foundation of the temple literally started to shake at

their voice and it was filled with smoke.

And Isaiah's only response is, woe is me.

He recognizes the holiness of the presence of God, that he is

completely unworthy to stand in the presence of God.

He says I'm a man of unclean lips.

But then Isaiah says something else.

He says, my eyes have seen the king, the Lord of armies.

Now, who in the world is Isaiah talking about?

If you turn over to John chapter 12, go ahead and do that.

John 12 · chapter mention

Let's we're in John already. Look at John chapter 12 and look

John 12 · chapter mention

at verse 41 of John chapter 12. Here's what John writes.

John 12 · chapter mention

Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory, meaning Jesus

glory, and spoke about him. Isaiah saw the Son of God in

Isaiah 6 before the Son of God was ever born.

Jesus shows up in the Old Testament.

But then back in John chapter 5, Jesus throws down the big weight

John 5 · chapter mention

of evidence for a Jew and he says even Moses wrote about me.

Now that's a big deal to a Jew because for them Moses is the

supreme prophet because he spoke with God directly.

You might be going, well where did Moses talk about Jesus?

I'm glad you asked. The first Christian said this.

I'm going to put a verse up on the screen in Acts chapter 3

Acts 3 · chapter mention

quoting Moses. Moses said the Lord your God

will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your

brothers. You must listen to everything

that he tells you, and everyone who does not listen to that

prophet will be completely cut off from the people.

The very first Christians quote Moses from Deuteronomy to say

that Moses is talking about Jesus.

Way back in the book of Deuteronomy, even Moses said

there's another prophet that the people would need to listen to

everything that he tells them. That's not where it ends for

Moses. When you read the writings of

Moses, you will see again and again how the grand story of

redemption is designed to foreshadow Jesus.

We're going to see that through a story we're going to look at

in a couple of weeks from now. Moses shows us so many signs

that point to God's redemption for humanity through Jesus.

Now a lot of us go looking for signs and they're saying like

God, would you just give me a sign to show me that you're

there? Would you give me a sign to show

me that you care? There's a reminds me of a movie

from probably about 20 years ago now.

Jim Carrey starred in a movie, Bruce Almighty.

I do not recommend it for theological purposes, but one of

my favorite parts of the movie is Jim Carrey's in his car and

he's kind of going through it and he's driving and he's

saying, God, would you just give me some guidance, please?

Would you just give me a sign that that you're there?

Would you give me a sign that you care?

Just give me a sign. And the whole time he's saying,

God, give me a sign. He's driving his car on a

highway and there's signs showing up everywhere.

Stop driving. This is dangerous.

Don't go there wrong way. Stop.

And he's like, God, please give me a sign.

And he just keeps going and driving and missing all the

signs that are already in front of him.

And so many of us, we keep saying, God, would you give me a

sign that you're really there? And sometimes we miss paying

attention to the signs that God's already given us.

Sometimes we just ignore and walk past all the signs that are

there. And, and God's saying like when

it comes to is Jesus really God? Is Jesus who he says he is?

He's saying the signs are there, you just have to pay attention

to them. That's what Jesus is trying to

tell us about the Old Testament. The signs are there.

The only question is, will you pay attention to them?

The second mistake that we make is being unwilling to interpret

the Old Testament through the person of Jesus.

In verse 40, Jesus says these words and back in John chapter

John 5 · chapter mention

5, you're not willing to come to me so that you may have life.

Every time that you and I read the Bible and in particular Old

Testament passages, you're going to be faced with a challenge of

trying to interpret what does this mean for me today?

If you are unwilling to interpret the Old Testament

through the person of Jesus, you are going to miss finding the

life that God wants for you. Sometimes we already have in our

mind our our own idea of what we want the Bible to say.

We, we often want the Scriptures to give us the life that we've

already decided that we want for ourselves.

And we try to interpret the scriptures through the lens of

what I already want them to say for me.

OK. And, and, and sometimes many

times when you interpret Old Testament passages through the

person of Jesus, it is going to upset you because it's going to

change the way you should be responding in any given

situation. Let me give you a couple of

examples of how that shows up today.

The way that you choose to interpret the Old Testament can

lead you to two very different places.

There are some of us who we love our rules.

We love everything to be just structured just so.

All of life needs to be about the rules and structures.

So you love the Old Testament because it is filled with all

kinds of rules. When you read the Old Testament,

you see rule after rule of what needs to happen if you're going

to honor God with your life. And, and deep down inside, you

carry that thought with you, that if everyone just obeyed all

the rules, life would be so much better.

And so we end up playing the role of referee.

We look at how to enforce the rules on anyone and everyone.

And honestly, you can have a great biblical case for rules.

You can quote all kinds of passages from the Old Testament

and say God commanded this. The the Jews of Jesus day would

have understood the Old Testament to have over 600

different laws or rules for them to follow.

Now, if you're a parent, you probably have rules at home, and

you probably also know that every single one of your

children break the rules that you have at home or have at some

point broken those rules. Without fail, every single rule

ends up getting broken. What's the old saying?

Rules are made what to be broken?

Why do we all inherently know that in workplaces you have

policies at work? Why do we have policies at work?

Because at some point in time somebody did something really

dumb, and so somebody said we need to have a policy so that

nobody does this again. But guess what?

Somebody goes and breaks that policy.

Now you need a new policy to replace the old policy because

somebody else did something dumb.

And it just keeps going on and on and on.

It's why we have policies. Jesus is trying to say to us,

like, if you think everything's going to be better if everyone

will just keep the rules, you're sadly mistaken.

Romans chapter 5 tells us that the law, the Old Testament law,

Romans 5 · chapter mention

came along to multiply the trespass.

If the law of the Old Testament was not created just to inspire

people to be better, that it's actually a mirror of what's

really going on inside our hearts.

That what the law does is it reveals the truth that you and I

and every other human being are not able to keep the rules.

If we only focus on the commands of the Old Testament without

interpreting them through the person of Jesus.

Here's what you end up doing. You end up piling more and more

and more guilt on yourself and other people with no real way

out. You you focus on behavior

transformation first. When Jesus focuses on heart

transformation, that leads to behavior transformation.

Yeah, of course Jesus had rules. But but when we interpret the

Old Testament through Jesus, we understand which rules are

timeless and which are for a particular group of people in a

particular time and place. Here's another way that

interpreting the Old Testament through the person of Jesus

makes a difference when it comes to our thoughts and our desire

to have God honoring cities and countries.

Now please listen carefully to what I'm about to say because

some of you are going to Take Me Out of context.

Wanting a community and country to operate in a way that honors

God is good. The Old Testament teaches us to

seek the welfare of the place we live in.

The New Testament says that we are to be salt and light in the

world in which we live. But don't make the mistake of

only quoting Old Testament passages about how a country

should be run without interpreting those passages

through the lens of how Jesus navigated an incredibly

difficult political environment. There are way too many

Christians who have made their highest priority the country

that they live in over their citizenship in the Kingdom of

God. There are too many times where

people are using Bible language to mask what is really a desire

for power and our own agenda, and we miss being people who

genuinely love our neighbors. NT Wright said this.

He said Christian nationalism is impoverished because it seeks a

Kingdom without a cross. It pursues victory without

mercy. It acclaims God's love of power

rather than the power of God's love.

You see, the lens that you use to interpret the Old Testament

is critical because it's not only going to shape your life,

it's going to shape the lives of the people around you and how

you relate to them as well. Always make sure your

interpretation is filtered through the person of Jesus.

Third mistake that we make not believing the Old Testament is

valuable or true. In verse 47, Jesus says this.

If you don't believe what Moses wrote, you're not going to

believe my words there. There are a lot of people who

go, well, if we just interpret it through Jesus, then why do we

even need the Old Testament? Let's just start with Jesus and

go on from there. The Old Testament is filled with

all kinds of stuff I don't like, I don't understand, I don't even

know if I believe to be true. Like, it's got wild stories

about a global flood and a guy who lands in the belly of a big

fish. It's got pages and pages and

pages and pages and pages of genealogies.

What's up with that? It's got violence.

Tons of violence, some of it even commanded by God.

It's got weird rules and laws like in Leviticus Chapter 11.

Leviticus 11 · chapter mention

Don't eat bats. Who needs to be told don't eat

bats. Don't eat bacon.

Come on now. And then it's got like poetry, I

hated poetry when I was in school, and it's got hundreds of

psalms of poetry. Who can possibly understand any

of the poetry? What's the point?

And so many people have that kind of attitude when it comes

to approaching the Old Testament.

But Jesus wants us to see that the Old Testament has incredible

value all on its own. Jesus thought so highly of the

Old Testament that he frequently quotes it.

In fact, Jesus quotes from 19 different Old Testament books.

When the apostles preach sermons in the New Testament, they are

quoting again and again from the Old Testament for their sermons.

What one person I read this week actually went into a sermon that

Stephen preached in the book of Acts and counted.

He quoted the Old Testament 50 times in one sermon.

The New Testament is great. It's got passages that say, hey,

if any of you lacks wisdom, and who doesn't lack wisdom right

now, right? Different things going on.

It says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let them ask of God and

God will give it to you generously.

That's a great promise for us to lean into.

The Old Testament says we've already got much of God's wisdom

written down for us in books in the Old Testament.

Sometimes we ask God to give us wisdom.

And God's like, I've already given you wisdom, just read

Proverbs. The Old Testament is incredibly

important to unfolding God's grand story.

The brokenness of the world makes so much sense when you

understand the Old Testament. The Old Testament is filled with

real people like you and me, who in a real moment in time we're

struggling with real life and trying to understand what does

it mean and look like to follow and trust and have faith in God.

You learned so many things about the character of God from the

Old Testament. You learn about God's deep love

for people. You learn how patient God is.

It's the Old Testament that teaches us that God is merciful,

that that he is slow to get angry, that he's abounding in

steadfast love and faithfulness. The Old Testament teaches us

things about the the character, the attributes of God, the

majesty of who God is. It tells us that God is eternal.

He's always been and always will be, tells us that he's the

Creator and He's holy. He's unlike anyone else.

In the Old Testament, we learn how to lament the grief that we

carry in life and how to maintain hope while we're

waiting on God to fulfill His promises.

The Old Testament also shows us just how much God hates sin.

You see how offensive sin really is to God.

When you study the Old Testament, you see how much He

hates it. He hates what sin does to people

made in His image. He hates what sin does to His

creation, all the things that He called very good.

He hates the damage that sin does.

And you also see the extent to which God is willing to go for

justice and freedom to happen. When you read Old Testament

books and you put them in the context they were written in,

when you understand the difference between wisdom books

and poetic and prophetic and historical books, you see this

incredible picture of God unfolding human history.

And as the New Testament teaches us, all Scripture, all Scripture

is inspired by God, and it's profitable for teaching and

rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness, even

a genealogy. All Scripture, the Old Testament

is like a treasure map. Now, not all of us are old

enough to remember using printed copies of maps, but we all

understand how important it is to read a map properly.

I I've had all kinds of strange adventures with maps.

Shannon and I had our first date 34 years ago this week and I

didn't have Google Maps back in the day.

All I had was a paper map in front of me and use this paper

map to try and navigate my way through the thriving metropolis

of Paris ON. And as I use this paper map to

get into Paris ON, I ended up still getting lost and miss

reading the map and being half an hour late for our first date

and she's still with me. It's a miracle.

Reading a map properly is the difference between getting to

the right destination or getting lost.

Reading a treasure map properly is the difference between

finding the treasure or missing out on it.

If you've ever watched any movies, you know that reading a

treasure map properly can be the difference between life and

death. And the single most important

message of the Old Testament is this.

Jesus is the treasure the Old Testament is designed to help

you find. See, the one thing that is part

of the human condition, both then and now, is the constant

desire and need to find life. We all go looking for a purpose.

We all go look looking for meaning.

We all go looking for peace and joy.

It's been the story of humanity since humanity had a story.

We go searching for it everywhere.

We go searching for it in money and in relationships and in

power. We go looking for it in sex and

whatever we put our identity in. We go looking for it in our

careers. We look to our goals and our

dreams to give us that sense of life.

But if there is one thing that we can observe about the human

reality is this. Humans are never satisfied.

We're never satisfied. There's always this sense in us

that I still need to find life. No matter how hard we try, it

always feels slightly out of reach.

And so we go looking to religion to give us answers.

We study religious texts like the Bible.

Over 80% of the world's population identifies with a

religious group. Why?

Because there's something about religion that draws our

attention that says, hey, I can find peace and hope in religion,

even. But Jesus wants you and I to

know that hope and life is not found in your ability to be good

or to have more knowledge of religious scriptures or even

doing more religious activity. Like if I could simplify the

entire Christian message for you into one sentence, it would be

this. It's all about Jesus.

It's all about Jesus. I know that in this room and

watching online, there are some people who you've got no

personal faith in Jesus. You're here, you're exploring,

you're asking questions. But what the Bible constantly

points us to, and what the Old Testament even points us to, is

that as much as humans may try to be good, we will always

consistently fail in measuring up to God's standards.

The Old Testament also promises that God would one day send

someone to rescue us from the penalty of our sins.

But God doesn't just send anyone, He sends his only

begotten Son, Jesus. If you want to find true life,

Jesus says, put your faith in me.

If you want to be made right with God, put your trust in

Jesus. If you want to become the person

you are always created and designed to be, trust Jesus.

Jesus says I've come to give you life and life more abundantly,

not not by us working harder to be better people, but by us

placing and our our trust in our lives in his hands.

Jesus is the way, he is the truth.

He is the life. No one gets to the Father except

through him. And for those of us who are

already believers in Jesus, you always hear us talking about the

importance of doing things like reading your Bible.

And it is important for you to read your Bible.

But I want you to hear this. The treasure of the Christian

life is not having more information about the Bible.

Read your Bible because it brings you to the real treasure,

Jesus. Read your Bible because it's

going to help you know Jesus more.

Read your Bible because it's going to help you love Jesus

more. Read your Bible because it's

going to help you see Jesus. Think like Jesus, love Jesus,

and know how great His love is for you.

Jesus is our King and our Savior.

He is our Lord, He's our friend, He's our brother, He's our

teacher. We are here because of Jesus

like none of this happens apart from Jesus.

Most of us would never choose to hang out with each other, never

mind hang out with each other first thing on a Sunday morning.

But why do we do it? Because of Jesus.

He's the reason all of this exists.

He's who we serve, He's who we worship, He's who we love, He's

who we celebrate. It's all about Jesus.

We pray. Father, thank you for how great

Your love is for us. Thank you for sending your son

for us. Thank you that all of Scripture

points us to Jesus that I pray that you would help us to have a

new level of appreciation for how you've intricately woven the

fullness of the Bible, both the New Testament and the Old

Testament to draw our attention to lift high Jesus.

God, I pray that even this week it would change the way that

some of us are reading our Bibles, the way we're

interpreting our Bibles and maybe God, some of us have

walked away from even paying any attention to the Old Testament.

I pray it would give us a new passion and vision to read and

study and understand the grand story that you give to us.

God, we are so grateful for how you've given us sign after sign

after sign to say that Jesus is the one worth treasuring.

Jesus is the one worth placing our faith in, our hope, and our

trust in. I pray that you would help us to

do that. Above all else, help us to find

life and the only one who can give us life, King Jesus and his

name, I pray. Amen.

Amen. Would you stand together as we

close our service in Psalm?