Andy Stanley - Ninety Part 4 New World Order

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
Now, if you are not a particularly religious person, or
you used to be, and then you walked away from that,
I am absolutely confident that you had a good reason
to do so. And the reason I think you had
a good reason to do so is because you're a
reasonable person. So today I want to give you a
reason to reconsider faith. But more specifically, I want to

(00:23):
give you a reason to reconsider specifically Jesus. Now, what
we said throughout this series is that Jesus came into
this world to introduce something brand new. He came introduce
something brand new. This was not He didn't come to
introduce the extension of something. This wasn't some kind of
religion two point zero. He didn't show up to complete
a book. He came to replace something and to bring

(00:45):
something absolutely brand new to the world, but also for
the world. And the part that is indisputable, the part
that you can verify, is that, and this is the
most amazing thing to me, is that, against all odds,
against all odds, a band of Jewish blasphemers who were
following a dead carpenter went into the streets of Jerusalem

(01:07):
with no territys. They had no territory, they had no military,
and in the beginning, they had no sacred text, and
they had the audacity to announce to their world that
the final sacrifice, the final sacrifice for sin, had already
been made, not just for Jewish people, but the final
sacrifice for sin had been made to for everybody in

(01:27):
the whole world, for every generation. And that sacrifice for
sin had been made right outside the walls Jerusalem. I mean,
this was crazy. I mean, it just goes right by us.
But they declared that animal sacrifice for every nation and
every generation was no longer needed. Now this flew right
in the face of all Roman religion, Greek religion, Egyptian religion,

(01:50):
and even Jewish religion. There was a sense in which
the whole world could have looked at this little group
of Jesus followers and said, hey, who died and left
jew in charge? A question that they actually had an
answer to. Now the most amazing thing, I mean, this
should just make you sit up straight. Three hundred and
forty seven years later, or about three hundred and forty

(02:11):
seven years later, with no territory, no authority, and no
military in the year a d three eighty Emperor Theodosius
the First, and that through the theessal and Ika declared
Christianity the soul authorized religion of the very empire that
crucified Jesus and tried to crush his movement. Unbelievable. Just

(02:37):
three hundred or so years later, the very religion, the
very movement, the very person that the Roman Empire crucified
in the movement they tried to crush, became the empire,
became the religion of the Empire. Now that's that's unimaginable,
but it was. It was particularly unimaginable to John the
Baptist a bunch of years earlier, standing there and hip

(02:58):
deep water, he just and he's baptizing somebody. He looks
up and there stands Jesus, and he announces to the
world for the first time, please welcome, you know, the
look the Lamb of God who comes to take away
the sin of the world. And sure enough, over time,
not that much time went by, and before long pagan

(03:19):
temples were being torn down because of Christianity. Other pagan
temples were being repurposed to become houses of worship for Christians,
and ultimately, pagan worship in the Roman Empire was outlawed.
All because a group of people who declared that the
final sacrifice for sin had been made outside the walls

(03:40):
of Jerusalem, and nothing could shut them up. They were
shoved in between the power of the temple and empire.
And in the end, and in the end, they not
only won an empire. In the end, their message reached
all the way around the world. Unimaginable. But I'm getting

(04:01):
way ahead of myself. So yeah, So last time that
we met, you know, previously on ninety here's where we were.
Jesus had been baptized, Jesus had been tempted. Jesus had
gathered a few followers, you know, we met Peter, Andrew, James,
and John. And the text tells us that news about
him spread through the whole countryside. He was teaching in
their synagogues, and everyone praised him. But everyone was praising

(04:24):
him as a teacher. Everyone was praising him as a
new rabbi with a new spin on things. Everybody was
praising him as a prophet. They viewed Jesus as an
extension of something old, rather than the beginning of something new.
In fact, the text says of Jesus, they said, a
great prophet, a great prophet has appeared among us. They said,

(04:46):
God has come to help who God has come to
help his people. But Jesus had come to do a
lot more than that. Jesus had come for a broader
audience than that. And so very early on in his teaching,
Jesus begins to drop hints that something new was coming.
Jesus began to drop hints that something new is coming,
that he was about to replace just about everything that

(05:08):
was in place. He began dropping bread crumbs. There were hints,
there were parables, there was teaching, There were things that
created tension with his audience. But he was so good
and he was so powerful, and he would heal as
he went along. So he kept the crowd even though
his teaching was so different and so new. And the
Sermon on the Mount, or we call it the Sermon
on the Mount, really represents a sharp curve in the

(05:29):
road in terms of his messaging. Now we call it
the Sermon on the Mount. This that's the title somebody
gave to this particular teaching many many years ago, But
it wasn't the title that Jesus necessarily gave it. And
the reason he didn't call it that is because scholars
believe New Testament scholars believe that the content of the
Sermon on the Mount is content that Jesus delivered over
and over and over and over and over and over.

(05:52):
In fact, if you took Matthew, Martin Luke and John
and put it together chronologically, all of that could have
happened in about, you know, six months or eight months,
except for the passovers. So we know in the festivals,
we know that there was a whole lot more that
Jesus taught and Jesus did. In fact, John, the gospel
writer John, Matthew Martin Luke, John said he said, look,
we just scratched the surface. He says this at the
end of his gospel. He said, if we had written

(06:14):
down everything that he had done, if we had written
down everything he would taught, the world would not be
able to contain the books. Now, clearly this was hyperbole,
but it was his way of saying, hey, we just
gave you the highlights. So people believe in scholars believe
that the content of this particular message, Sermon on the Mount,
was something that Jesus repeated over and over and over.

(06:35):
But here's the fascinating thing, and here's the thing we miss.
This content represented his upside down, not of this kingdom,
not the kingdoms, of this world worldview. This particular content
was so contrary to everything these Jewish men and women
had been taught that it was very difficult for them
to get their minds around. Now when we read it
in the twenty first century as English Bible readers, we

(06:58):
missed the tension in these words. So I want to
try to extrapolate some of that surface, some of that
for you, so you can understand what they must have
thought and felt. It begins like this, and many of
you have memorized these verses, perhaps as children. He said,
blessed are you who are poor, which was absolutely crazy
because they had been brought up with the worldview. They said,

(07:18):
God blesses the rich, and if you're rich, or blessed
by God. Besides, all the patriarchs were rich. Abraham was rich,
Isaac was rich, Jacob was rich, David was rich, Solomon
was rich. How can you say that God has special
favor for the poor, the poor or out of favor
with God. That's what we've been taught all of our lives.
He said, blessed are the poor, for yours is the

(07:40):
kingdom of God. Or another case, yours is the Kingdom
of Heaven. And this was good news to the poor
because they thought they had been left out of the
Kingdom of God. They'd been left out of the Kingdom
of Heaven. And everything that follows in this message, every
single time he gave it was completely upside down and
backwards to what they had been taught childhood. He said,

(08:01):
the meek would inherit, the merciful were blessed. The peacemakers,
not the power brokers, were in God's favor. And then
he said this, This is one of my favorite lines.
He said, Blessed are the pure in heart. Blessed are
the pure in heart. And to think of this, for
they shall see God. And there was a murmur in

(08:23):
the crowd, because blessed are the pure in heart. It's
such an internal thing we've been taught all our lives.
That blessed are the ceremonially clean, the ceremonial pure, those
that have done the right washings, those that kept themselves
from contaminated things, those that stayed away from gentiles, those
that stayed out of gentile homes, those that never touched
dead things. Those were the people that were pleasing to

(08:43):
God and Jesus is no, the things are changing. Blessed
are the pure in heart. The pure in heart will
have the ability to see and to recognize the activity
and the work of God. And then he blew their minds.
He said, you, you Jewish people who have chosen to
fill me. You're the salt of the earth. You are
the light of the world, to which they thought, wait

(09:07):
a minute, we're not the salt of the earth and
the light of the world. We've been taught to stay
away from the world. We don't dress like the world.
We don't eat like the world. We don't wear their clothes,
we don't eat their food. We don't marry their daughters,
we don't allow our daughters to marry their sons. We've
been taught since childhood that we were to stay away
from all things gentile. And now you're telling us that

(09:27):
somehow we're the salt of the earth and we're the
light of the world. In the same way he said,
he just kept going, in the same way, let your light,
your life shine before others. And they knew what this meant.
This meant non Jewish people. It's like, no, wait, let
our lives shine beyond you know, non Jewish people. We
don't even like others. We want, we don't want the

(09:50):
others around. In fact, the reason we're hoping for Messiah
is so that Messiah will come and get rid of
all the others, so we could have our nation back,
that they may he just keeps going, that they may
see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven.
And they thought, we don't care if outsiders glorify our God.

(10:10):
We want outsiders to fear our God, like the days
of Joshua when we had power, in the days of David,
when people feared our king, the days of Solomon, when
we were a wealthy nation. And they thought to themselves,
this is not very messianic. This does not sound like Moses,
This does not sound like the prophets. This is this

(10:35):
is new. And Jesus knew that they knew that it
was new, because he knew the hearts of men. And
so he says, he anticipates this. He says, wait, wait, wait,
before we leave, do not think, do not assume, do
not think that I have come to abolish the law
or the prophets. Now I got to stop here and
explain something to you. If you ever read the New Testament,

(10:56):
which I hope you do. This is big. During the
first century, in preceding centuries, the Jewish people did not
call their Bible the Old Testament. In fact, Christians are
the ones that started calling it the Old Testament. That
started about one hundred and thirty and about eighty one
hundred and thirty. Way long after all of this, Jewish
people in the first century referred to their sacred Scripture
as the Law and the Prophets, which included all the history,

(11:17):
included the poetry, included everything basically that we would consider
the Old Testament. They didn't call it the Old Covenant
because it wasn't old, it was the current Covenant. They
didn't call it the Old Testament because testament means covenant
and it wasn't old. Jesus, the Apostle, Paul, everybody in
this region during this time they referred to what we
call the Old Testament. They just called it the Law
and the Prophets. So Jesus says, look, I've not come

(11:40):
to abolish your Bible. I've not come to destroy it
abolish it. I've not come to change it. I've not
even come to edit it. Now, why would he say this,
Why would he say, do not think that. And the
reason he said that is because the things that he
had said before that would lead them to think that.
That's exactly what he came to do. Goes on. He says,

(12:00):
I have not come to abolish them. But but you
aren't imagining things, but you aren't hearing things. But the
tension that you feel in my words, the contrast between
what you grew up hearing and what I'm saying, that
contrast is real. Change is coming. I'm not adding to

(12:21):
I am, in fact replacing. I'm not gonna change what
you've always been taught. I'm going to challenge you to
abandon what you have been taught. I'm not come to
abolish them, but to fulfill them. In other words, if

(12:41):
the Old Covenant, if the Old Testament, if the Law
and the Profits was an assignment, Jesus said, I'm here
to complete it. If the Old Testament, if the Old Covenant,
if the Law and the Profits was a math problem,
Jesus says, I'm here to solve it. If the Old Covenant,
if our Old Testament at the Law and the Profits
was a he says, I'm here to land it, and

(13:03):
eventually I'm going to invite everyone, including the Jews, to
dis embark that the Law and the prophets, the Old Covenant,
the Old Testament had an expiration date. Something was about
to change. In fact, the Old Testament approach to life,

(13:23):
the Old Testament way, was going away. It was about
to expire. For truly, I tell you, he says, I mean,
you could have heard a pin drop at this point
in the message every time he shared this message. For truly,
I tell you, until Heaven and Earth disappear, not the
smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will
by any means, disappear from the law. And they all

(13:47):
exhaled like ah, and he smiled and said, until that,
it's not going to disappear. I'm not here to edit it.
I'm not here to change it. I believe this my
personal opinion, this is the most overlooked preposition in the
entire New Testament. And the fact that the Church has
overlooked this for so long, and I understand why, and

(14:08):
I'm not throwing stones, and I'm not being critical. We
can talk about that on another day. But because we
have overlooked this preposition, and because we have overlooked the
implications of what comes next. There has been so much confusion,
there has been so much legalism, there has been so
much gracelessness, there has been so much faithlessness, there's been

(14:29):
so much loss of faith. In fact, the fact that
you have not been taught what's on the other side
of this preposition is one of the reasons perhaps that
you lost faith, that you walked away from faith, or
that you're reaching for the door to leave faith. He said,
none of it's going to disappear. None of it's going
to change until until everything is accomplished, until everything is

(14:57):
in place, and then it will disappear, along with everything
associated with it. That was unimaginable. Jesus, Wait, Jesus, I
mean you're good. I mean you're good. You are, But okay,
you're telling us that our whole understanding of God, and

(15:19):
our whole approach to God, and everything associated with our
covenant with God and the temple system and the sacrificial system.
You're saying all of that, at some point it's going
to disappear. That's impossible. Forty years later, on August sixth
AD seventy August sixth a d seventy, at the hands

(15:43):
of Titus and the Roman tenth legion. Ancient Judaism went
out of business and it has never been practiced since
you can't practice it without a temple on that next week.
Do not miss next week. Now, here's the point of

(16:04):
all this, and here's the point Jesus was eventually going
to make. This is the point that the apostle Paul
would look back later and explain to the rest of
the gentile world that Jesus came to introduce something new
to the world and for the world. But in order
for that to happen, Jesus was born under God's covenant
with Israel. In other words, he was born to obey
the law that God had given Israel through Moses on

(16:26):
Mount Sinai. He was born under the law. But he
came into this world under the law to fulfill it,
to end it. And here's the good news, and to
replace it, and to replace it with something new and
something better, to replace it with a covenant that was
not between a God and a nation, but to replace
it with a covenant that was between God and all mankind.

(16:49):
And all of this teaching and all of these parables
were foreshadowing, foreshadowing, foreshadowing. Here it comes. Here it comes.
Get ready, here it comes. Change is in the wind.
I'm not going to add on. I'm going to take
out what is here and replace it with something new,
something better, something broader, something for the whole world. A

(17:10):
complete and total break was coming. And here's the thing.
The early Church, and when I say the early Church,
I mean after the Resurrection, when the church launched, the
early Church had a difficult time making a clean break
from all that came before. In fact, we're going to
see twenty twenty five years after the Resurrection that the

(17:31):
first century Church they're still struggling, to say, wait a minute,
like a complete and a complete and total break. And
the twenty first century Church, and the twentieth century Church,
and the nineteenth century Church and the eighteenth century Church
has struggled with this as well. And this is why
for many of you it is so difficult to maintain
faith in the world in which you live. Now. If

(17:55):
there was any question in Jesus' audience that he really
had come to contrast himself and to pitch himself against
all that came before, this made it abundantly clear that
they were not hearing things and that they weren't misunderstanding
because six times in the message that we have recorded
in Matthew. Six times he says something like this. You
have heard it said that you have heard that it
was said to the people long ago. But I tell

(18:17):
you you have heard it said that you have heard
that it was said to the people long ago. But
I tell you six times he repeats this. He says,
you have heard it said do not murder, But I say,
don't even hate. You've heard it said don't commit adultery.
I say, lust is a sin. You men, He said,
you've heard it said that if you write your wife
a certificate of divorced, then you're good to go with God.

(18:38):
I say not so fast, and over and over and over.
He pitched himself against the law of Moses. And his
audience sat there and they thought, wait a minute. When
you say you have heard that it was said to
the people long ago, you're talking about what Moses said. Wait. Wait,
you can't set yourself up against Moses. Who do you
think you are. You can't replace the lawgiver Moses. You

(18:59):
can't replace the covenant maker Moses. It was Moses that
came down from Mount Sinai with the ten commandments and
all six hundred other commandments. It was Moses that said,
our nation has a unique relationship and covenant with Almighty God.
And you're showing up and saying that somehow your law
is better than his, that your law is to take
the place of his. Who do you think you are?

(19:22):
So he wraps up with something so simple and so
powerful that we have been quoting it for two thousand years.
And he knew the tension in that audience every time
he shared this message, and he says, so, so let
me wrap it up for you. Let me make it simple.
We've covered a lot of territory. I know you're confused,

(19:44):
so let me put the cookies on the lower shelf.
Let's get down to the first rung of the latter.
So in everything, and I'm telling you, the crowd loved this.
So in everything, due to others, what you would have
them do to you for this sums up for this,

(20:05):
wraps up for this is the bottom line of the
law and the prophets. And I'm telling you we're going
to see in a few weeks. This was foreshadowing that
something new was coming, something far less complicated, but something
far more demanding. And when Jesus finished, when Jesus finished

(20:30):
saying these things. The crowds were amazed at his teaching.
Why because he taught as one having authority, and not
as their teachers of the law. The teachers of the law,
the temple leaders, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the groups of

(20:53):
people that didn't even get along found a common enemy
with Jesus. And throughout the Gospels we find them coming
to Jesus saying, the law says, the loss says, the
low says, Moses says, Moses says, what about the temple?
What about the Temple? On and on and on they
would go. In one day, Matthew says, he finally just
got fed up, and he turns to these religious leaders
and he says something that when you read it in

(21:13):
your English Bible you go right by it. But I'm
telling you, this was a show stopper. This was a
game changer, This was an Oh my goodness, this guy
has lost his mind. He turns to them, I think again,
with a grin on his face, and he says, I
tell you, I tell you that something greater than the
Temple is here. Hey, Jesus, you've been in the sun

(21:38):
too long, Okay, there's nothing greater than the temple. How
can there be something great? Have you seen the temple?
I mean, there is nothing greater than the Temple. People
come from miles around to see our fabulous the temple
that Herod rebuilt for us. There's not what Jesus. If
there's something greater than the Temple, then we don't need
the temple, because the temple represents the presence of God.

(22:00):
The temple represents the law. The temple represents reconciliation between
God and the nation. The temple is where we house
the Torah, the law. There is nothing greater than the Temple.
If there's something greater than the temple, then we don't
need the temple any longer, to which Jesus would have

(22:20):
smiled and said, just wait, just wait, just wait. Now
back to us, So is this important? Let me put
it this way. Is this important to tenth grade boys?
Is this important to seniors in high school who are
just thinking about And you know, I didn't get my
stretch school, so I'm gonna get into my less stretched school.

(22:42):
But then maybe I can getting to my stretch school.
And how long is this gonna tell? How long has
he been talking? You know? Is this important to twenty
five year olds who just moved to our city and
you got that first really really good job and you're
trying to figure it all out, and you know your
mom back in wherever Madison, you know, or Rome, she
wants to make sure you're in church. So you came
today so you get say you're here and you're want
is this important to you? Is this? Is this important

(23:03):
to seniors? You know you're looking at the retirement thing.
Is this important to me? Is this important? Yes? Let
me tell you how important it is. It's important because
once upon a time in our country and in the West,
but let's just talk about us. Because once upon a
time in our country, people took the Bible seriously. They
didn't read it, but they took it seriously. I'm not

(23:25):
going to read it, but don't put anything on top
of it on Grandmama's coffee table. And the Bible was,
you know, this was God's word. And then the Internet
and now we have a generation of people who have
so much misinformation about Christianity and so much misinformation specifically

(23:45):
about the Bible, and people are leaving the faith and droves,
especially teenagers, millennials and all mom and Dad have when
they come home. Is well, the Bible says, The Bible says,
the Bible says, So once upon a time, what I'm
about to tell you really and all that important. But
those days are long gone. And what Jesus said and

(24:06):
what the New Testament represents, that it is represented for
two thousand years that we've missed because it really wasn't
all that important. It's more important than ever now. If
you're a Christian and you love your church, and you've
got your church friends, everything's church, church, church, and you
know the hymns, and you know most of your friends
are Christians. Anyway, you don't need this. But if you
have seniors in high school, if you have college freshmen,

(24:29):
if you care about your unchurch friends and your lost friends,
if you're a person that grew up in church and
you lost faith, and every once in a while you
come and you sit on the back road at a
church because you just there's something that just draws you,
but you have so many unanswered questions. Then what Jesus
taught over and over and over, the fact that he
came to introduce something new, it's real important because you see,

(24:55):
you have heard it said that if the Bible says it,
that's it. Jesus said that the world view and the
values from Exodus to Malachi had a shelf life, and
they came to an end. That he came to fulfill them,

(25:15):
to land that plane, to bring it to an end,
and to introduce something brand new. And my friends, history
proved him correct. You see, you've heard it said. There
is no conflict between the Old and the New Testaments,
the Old and the New Covenants. Jesus said, they are irreconcilable.

(25:40):
So he closed the curtain on one, and he ripped
the curtain away on the other, the Old. And please
don't miss this, because I know I'll be misunderstood. The
Old Covenant, the Old Testament, was a divinely created, a
divinely inspired, and the purpose of that divinely inspired, divinely

(26:05):
scripted cocoon, which was to release the love and the
light of God into the world. For the world. This
was Israel's purpose from the very beginning. But once the
light of the world, once the love of God had

(26:28):
been revealed, the cocoon is something we appreciate, it's part
of the story, but it is to be left behind.
You've heard it said, the Bible is our guide for life.
Jesus never said that. Of course, when Jesus spoke, there

(26:49):
was no the Bible. There was just the law and
the prophets. But Jesus did say something about who would
be your guide for life. Here's what he said. He said,
look at me, I am the way, I am the truth.
I am where you find life. Follow And this drove

(27:12):
the Jewish religious leaders crazy. Follow me. And then in
the end he made this unmistakably clear. And we've missed
this for years because it really wasn't all that important.
But it's important now. It's been important for about thirty
or forty years, but it's more important than ever in

(27:33):
the very end. And if you grew up in church,
you've read this so many times. You've heard it preach
on so many times. If you taught Sunday school, you've
taught this so many times. If you left the church,
when I read these words, you're going to go, oh, yeah,
I remember that after he was crucified, after he was
raised from the dead and was seen, he gathers with
his followers and he gives them a farewell address. And

(27:56):
I want to read it to you. And now I
want you to listen to it through the ears years
of someone who's been introduced to the idea that Jesus
did not come to continue something, he came to replace something.
Then Jesus came, The text says Matthew tells us he
was there. Then Jesus came to them, and he said,
and who would say this all authority? Remember when he taught.

(28:19):
They were amazed because he spoke with authority. When he
went into the temple and he cleaned the temple. And
I wish we had time to look at those texts
when he goes in and it just creates chaos in the temple.
And this is so powerful. When he created chaos in
the temple, the temple leaders did not say to him, Hey,
what do you think you're doing? They did not ask
him that question. Do you know what they ask him?

(28:40):
They said, who do you think you are? Because he spoke,
and he moved, and he behaved with an authority never
seen before in the history of mankind. And he stood
on the hill that day with the men and women
who had seen him crucified and now back from the dead,

(29:02):
and he said, all authority and heaven and on earth
has been given to me. And when you're standing in
front of someone who if you'd seen die and now
they're alive, and they say they have all authority, you
just go with it. All authority on heaven and earth
has been given to me, not Moses, not the Law,
not the Temple, not the Ten Commandments. And this rattled

(29:26):
his audience, except they had seen him die. He says, Therefore,
since I am the embodiment of the authority of God,
here's what I want you to do, Matthew, write this down. Therefore,
in light of that, I want you to go. Now,
this is gonna be different. This is gonna be aye,

(29:47):
this is gonna be uncomfortable, this is gonna be in
contrast to everything you've been taught since you were little
boys and girls. I want you to go, and I
want you to make disciples of all nations. Oh what
if we just stick around here. No. I understand that
in the old days you were taught to secure your
borders and expel the foreigners. I know that's what you
grew up thinking. I know you've been praying for a

(30:08):
Messiah that would secure the borders and expel the foreigners.
I'm saying to you something new has happened. It is
time that you cross your borders and you take the
love of God to foreigners wherever you find them, and
you instruct them on what it means to follow Me.

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And you are to do for them what John the
Baptist did for you, what my disciples did for you. You
are to baptize them. That is, you were to ask
them to identify with me and my message. And you're
to baptize them in the name of and see, if
we grew up in church, we know how this ends.
In the name of We d dah d da da
da da dah da da da dah. We've memorized that
for the Jews in his audience, someone was conspicuously missing

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from the list. And you'll baptize them in the name
of the Father and of the Son, and not Moses,
and not of the prophets, and of the Holy Spirit
of God. A lot of you were raised like me.

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You've said, the Bible, that's our guide for life. Jesus
said something very different, he said, and after you've baptized them,
you're to teach them to obey everything and the Bible no,
and the Law no, and the Ten Commandments no. You're
to teach them and my friends, this is so important.

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Do you know who them is? Them is you? Because
eventually they would cross their borders. Come on, Eventually they
would take this message all over the world. Eventually, this
persecuted band of nobody's would topple an empire, and they

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wouldn't do it withy or military. They would do it
with the love of God and the light of life.
Who is Jesus and Jesus is Look at me, guys,
I want you to teach them everything I have commanded you. Well,
what did Jesus command? Don't miss week eleven. Now here's

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the point. I'm done. This is what I want you
to understand. A new era had begun. It was the
end of something old and something important. It was the
end of something old and something necessary. It was the end.
It was the end of the context that would release

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into the world the light of God and the love
of God. That Jesus replaced everything that Moses and Solomon
put in place. And the reason this isn't and the
reason this is especially important for some of you, for
those of you who have lost faith or have begun
to doubt because of something in the Old Covenant, the

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Old Testament because of something you were taught in school,
are something that you've sort of found on the internet,
and it sort of confirms your suspicions. Here's why this
is extraordinarily good news for you. It means that Christianity
can stand on its own two nail scarred resurrection feet.
It does not need propping up by the old Covenant

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because it is a standalone, brand new message for the
entire world. And it stands straighter this way, it stands
more defensible this way, and it has stood the test
of time and the test of an empire this way.
And if this is also confusing for you, and I

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can understand that, and if it seems a bit wrong
and heretical, and you can understand, you can appreciate exactly
how Jesus' first century audience felt when he began to
take away the old and replace it with something better,

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something new, because after all, Moses was their guy, and
after all, the Bible is our book. So don't miss
next week