The Person and Work of the Holy Spirit Lesson 37 cont.
JD McCulley · Dec 4, 2022
Holy Spirit (2021-23), No. 89
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/49261929241442

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Alright, well we're on lesson 37, and Don is going to be super prepared. Just kidding. Okay, so we're looking at question number 4 on lesson 37. Must the Bible be read in its entirety to see its purpose? And just so you know, I didn't write this question. That guy sitting over there in the vest wrote that question. It's a kind of a trick question. I struggle with it a little bit. What do you guys think? Must the Bible be read in its entirety to see its purpose?

So I come from a lot of background where chronological teaching is really important. I was involved with the Bible Framework from Charlie Clough for years, actually built the bibleframework.com website, provided all those notes in support of that, taught it a number of times. Miles was actually one of the folks that worked through that with me early on years ago. So I've been pretty dedicated to a big picture understanding and chronological perspective of the scripture.

Then we ended up moving to Canada, kind of not in order here in terms of the story, but we got involved with Goodseed where we also taught the Bible chronologically. But one of the things that Goodseed said, and as a ministry. Good Seed was an offshoot of New Tribes Missions. So New Tribes Missions also took a chronological approach and developed it not only for their school and for their trainees, but also as a way to communicate to the tribal audiences that they were communicating with and involved with. And so there's just a steep amount of chronological, big picture, all the way through the scripture, in a broad stroke sense, in my blood. Like, that's just the way I think.

So, we're talking about the Holy Spirit here, and what's the Holy Spirit's involvement in authoring the scripture? And that's just it. He is the author. Being an author of the scripture, is there any part of it that's not important to the purpose? Must the Bible be read in its entirety to see its purpose? I think it's true that every bit of it is useful for understanding the whole story, but the thief on the cross, and ended up in heaven with Jesus in one day and didn't know any of it.

So, yeah, that makes sense. It does. So let me clarify the question then. Or maybe I'll say this. Is just understanding the gospel, understanding the purpose of the Bible, I was going to say that I think it's really important. I share a lot of the same kind of background as you with the framework and good seed stuff and that kind of thing for a long time.

And it does come in contact with our evangelism because sometimes we're like, well, I don't have six weeks to back up and tell the whole story to get to the gospel. And it kind of, in some ways, hampers that a little bit. I mean, it's good if you can set up all that with a person, but sometimes, you know, you got five minutes to get to the truth of the gospel.

But I think there's something in our way of thinking, maybe it's kind of a Western Greek way of thinking, I don't know, but it's that we don't think that we understand something until we feel like we've got it completely wrapped up in our brains. So we, you know, got our hands completely around it. The problem is with the word of God is you're never going to have every detail tied up with both, you know, it's, there's always more and more. And so if you can't understand the Bible, Until we know all of it, well, we'll never understand it. But I think that the Lord allows us to understand truly. This goes back to something you taught me. The Lord allows us to understand truly without understanding fully every detail.

Is that? Oh, I like that statement. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the thing is that we can understand the gospel in a very short amount of time. But this question really speaks to the larger purpose of the scripture. And I think the gospel is a summarization of this exact thing, right?

So, and we don't understand it all at first. It will take mostly our lifetime to understand the fullness of God's purpose through the scripture. But there's a theme that Rite Out talks about, and that theme is around the condition of man. We'll talk about that in a little bit. But I do want to just say that it's not our job to, maybe it is our job as teachers to help understand the purpose of God in scripture, but it's not required fully to understand the gospel.

So a lot of what Rideout's getting at with scripture in this particular part of the book is just that God unfolds himself and his purpose over time and he unfolds it in humanity. a broken humanity. This is not something like the Book of Mormon where you can write the kind of story you'd like to see man be in. This is a situation where man is revealed in his human condition. consistently. So as we spend more time in the word, it unfolds itself.

The answer that I wrote to this question, must the Bible be read in its entirety to see its purpose? I said, well, kind of. I mean, it's a bit of a trick question. It doesn't mean you can't see the thread of God's purpose with the gospel itself, but understanding God's purpose is seen in its entirety. Mike, is that a fair statement of the answer to the question that you asked there? Yeah.

I would define the purpose. Let's get there. So let's move to question five because I think we're going to start to define that purpose. Hey, J.D. Hey, Courtney. It's Courtney. I have a few minutes while I'm sitting here watching the work done, sitting in my truck.

You know, the one thing I don't think, you know, the purpose and maybe the purpose is, you know, I always go back to Galatians 3, 24 and 25, that the law was a tutor to point us to Christ. And once Christ came, we don't need that tutor. But I guess the point being is that the law and all before it points to Christ. So there is, there is the, the Old Testament that, that all points to Christ. And then we move on from there once Christ came.

So I don't think it's, you know, maybe Mike's getting to the thing. What is the purpose of it? You know, for the gospel, and I think Russ had the point, you know, the thief on the cross, you know, didn't have all the background, but you know, he would meet him in paradise. And so from the gospel standpoint, I think it's, it's simple, but from, the whole purpose of the Bible.

I think the Old Testament pointed to Christ and then we have the Christ and the cross and then everything on the other side of the cross. So I think scripture as a whole paints a picture before the cross and then after the cross. So I think there's a deeper understanding of Christ if you know the background behind it. Absolutely that you're right the law points to Christ and then we have Paul which is the most recent revelation that we have that applies to What what we often refer to is this that it's been saying this church age And so I'm trying not to steal from miles in the next lesson a little bit here But yeah, so let's talk a little bit more about the Old Testament question five says is the Old Testament a history of things as they are and That's a little bit, maybe we should say it.

Is the Old Testament a history of things as in human reality? I mean, we know that that's true, right? The book is a record. Scripture was written by the Spirit, or the Holy Spirit directed the recording of all those events. And it is the history of the things as they are.

And I think an interesting comment that Rideout made was that there's no forcing of events in an unnatural way or artificial way. And you would expect that if man is going to write something down about himself, Um, he would probably avoid some of the really naughty stuff, right? You know, I'll leave this human characteristic out. I'll leave this one out. No, no reason to paint myself as, you know, uh, Noah, you know, coming out of drunkenness, you know, no reason to record that part. Um, you know, Abraham struggling with this unbelief. How about we focus on that righteousness part, that faith part that I had, not my unbelief part. What are some other examples that you guys have seen in the scripture where you see the raw, no forcing of events, this is the human characteristics of mankind. And the Old Testament does a really good job of it. It brings out the nature of mankind.

Well, when Abraham was thinking about letting Sarah be taken by the king, and Boba got the right Bible guy. But you know, it's like, is that the right story where Abraham? Yeah. So that's kind of like a shady thing. But it's reality. It's funny you say shady, because that's what the Old Testament has a lot of. Shady human characteristics. And we're like, oh, I kind of get that. Moses had a tremendous privilege of being a leader, a lawgiver, receiving the law.

And yet, what happens at the end? That's not the legacy you want to leave. But probably one of the ones I think of the most is David. You know, man after man is God's art. Let me look out off the patio here and oh, there's Uzziah's wife. Hey, hmm. You know, here's man, you know, that much of scripture is centered around and yet he fails. And yeah, stupendously. And then he gets Uzziah killed. So I think it's Uzziah, I think. Yeah, has him go out and get him killed. There's a sterling history or background.

The man after God's heart. Well, you know, and you know, like these days, the guy who wrote the worship book or whatever, the, the ministry head of worship, you know, if he pulls off some stunt like that, he's fired. And we get rid of his material so fast, it makes your head spin. And here, David, the guy who wrote the whole worship book for, you know, the whole nation is laser right out in front of us. Like, this is who he is. This is what he did, you know? Yeah.

I think that this reality in the Old Testament really brings out the absolute truthfulness of God's word. It doesn't paint a pretty picture, but what it does communicate is a consistent mercy and grace that surrounds mankind in his absolute failure. And without an understanding of the purpose of what God's doing with broken mankind, you're not going to see the true God of the scripture. And the Old Testament absolutely represents a history of the way things are, even for us.

Right? So question number six says, any other thoughts there before I move on to question six? Judy, I think that, I don't know if that's the purpose of the question, but I think it gives comfort. It's like with Romans 7 and Paul. You know, it gives us comfort that, you know, are we to be perfect or will we be perfect? Are there sinful fleshes? Romans 7. I think it gives us, I think, an understanding of our humanness, our sinful flesh. And he puts it in there that these guys all weren't just perfect saints. And does that mean we have to be perfect saints? So I think it's put in there to give us, I think, comfort somewhat. Yeah. Yeah, I think so.

We were talking the other night about the hamster wheel of the law and how the law gives you a measurement of which to constantly evaluate yourself against. And here you see the law in the Old Testament, and you see men, women constantly trying to measure themselves and failing against it. which brings up a reality that we need a savior. We cannot hamster wheel ourselves through this life. And Roman 7 is a really good example, Courtney, because From a New Testament perspective, now that hamster wheel is the sin nature and the principles of the law working in our hearts as Gentiles, and it constantly causes us to measure ourselves and to see ourselves fail. having walked by faith, right?

So that's where we're headed. But I think Rideout really, he has some, this whole chapter is just very great. There's so much content there that he talks about through the Old Testament. And as a review, we're not going to go into all of it, but I did want to look at the last question here.

Question six, it says, why does the Bible point out all the faults of its characters? And we've already started kind of talking about that, but You just can't find a book where the narrators describe their own shame consistently. Why would we do that? I mean, we're writing the history of our nation and we're talking about the shame that went into the entire history of our own nation.

So I wrote down this and maybe we can talk about it from here, but it says the purpose of scripture was not to glorify man. And Courtney always talks about the glory of God is the ultimate purpose, is to glorify himself. So in the scripture, there's no intention to really glorify man individually or even the nation of Israel in the Old Testament. It's really to unfold the way that God thinks. And I thought that, what do you think about that statement? It's the thoughts and counsels of God regarding the condition that man is bound in.

JD, unfortunately, I'm just going to tell you, I've got to skip out here. I've got to run out to the job site here. Okay. And wife, I will be there by the Christmas party. You got it. You got a thumbs up. Okay. Thanks, Courtney. Appreciate your thoughts there. Yep. Take care. Yep. Bye. Bye. At JD, I wrote down that same quote from right out there. I think it's the one that Mike had in mind writing that question.

And, but it is really, it's really significant, you know, that God's purpose was not to glorify man individually or nationally. Right. But, um, Yeah, it's just, yeah, that's a really, I guess, yeah, for me, like to glorify myself, the idea, the whole idea is that through all of Scripture, we come to know Him more, more intimately, right? More personally. Through every, every verse and every page, it's all about knowing, knowing Him as a person, right? I think you're right. His thoughts and his counsels are not meant to be just that. They're meant to introduce you to a person.

And I really think that understanding our own condition is obviously a big part of the purpose of the scripture, especially through the Old Testament. What is the condition of man? Well, he screws up. Noah, Abraham, Moses, David, all these guys, it recorded their shame, but it reveals their condition. And their condition is they need a savior. They need to walk by faith. And here you have that, that whole revelation, uh, surrounded and what Rideout calls councils of grace. I really liked that statement. What counsels of grace do you see throughout all of scripture?

You've got man, he's a moral free agent, but he's responsible because he is a free agent. And you see God constantly reaching out to man to bring him back. And this is the whole reality of scripture, to take man in his broken condition and to bring him back.

And that's just the purpose of the Redeemer, right? That's the heart of the Redeemer. It's the hopeless ruin of mankind and the absolute need of a divine Redeemer. I really like that statement. Man is constantly excusing himself, constantly demanding something better, and God is constantly bringing man back to the Redeemer. need for a Redeemer. Can you hear me? Yes, I can. Can you hear the beep in the background? Not at the moment. Oh, great. You know, this subject I've been thinking about for a couple of weeks now.

God created man in the beginning so that he could have a creature just like him, who he could share who he was with and who would respond in kind. So he creates Adam, and then Adam sins, and all of that relationship goes away, but God never changed his agenda. He always has been about having someone with him.

It's like the thief on the cross. He told the thief on the cross, today you'll be with me in paradise. The be with me part is the most important part. And someone was saying, I think, miles before that everything in scripture is designed to reveal Christ to us.

In the preliminary study I'm doing on Romans, talking about the righteousness of God is what Romans is really about. Well, God is righteous unto himself. He's perfectly perfect in everything he does, yet he desires that there be creatures who are righteous just like he is, so that they can hang out with him on his level. And I think a lot of times, especially the study of scripture and all of the gymnastics we go through, we miss that main point that what God is really about. The thing that God is really about is to have fellowship with those he has created to do just that. And that we would find all of our joy and everything in him.

I got to mute you guys again. No, thank you. Yeah, no, we've been talking a lot about being created in the image of God, and why does he want to make a creature like himself? And I think Mike's explanation there is spot on. The whole point is so he can spend time with you. He's not spending time with my dog, Ash. It's not what he's up to. He's about mankind.

He loves man, and the whole... totality of the purpose of scripture is He doesn't glorify man. He glorifies himself, but he does it through Redemption he does it through a redemptive act. He does it through grace. He does it through the mercy so the grace that that sustains us and the mercy that The mercy that delivers us right and he's he's about sustaining and delivering and I Every single turn, God is interested in spending time with us. And he was interested in spending time with Noah and David and Abraham amidst all their various trials and human conditions.

So I'll leave it at that. I'm going to close maybe just a few minutes early, if that's okay. And we'll wrap up. Mike, did you have any other thoughts here? Yeah, I just got a call from the police. They recovered my car. Well, I'm glad I prayed for you this morning. I'm just kidding. Is it in good shape? I have no idea. It's in the Denver pound. Somebody's got to go get it today. Oh man. I'm glad to hear that. That's awesome. Alright, well let's pray. We'll break a little early today.

Father, how we thank you that really your whole purpose is not to glorify us, but to show how you want to be glorified through the redemptive work of ultimately the Lord Jesus, that you created us in your image with personhood so that we could know you as a person. And so Lord, we just pray that we would continue to recognize where you're desiring fellowship in our life and where we're not having that. That we could be honest with ourselves just like those Old Testament characters throughout the scripture who found themselves in a lot of difficult situations, but yet ultimately believing and having faith in the God who would redeem them and sustain them through grace. And so, Father, we just pray that for ourselves.

We pray that as folks get ready for the Christmas events tonight and the party and the time that we have to fellowship together, Lord, that we would just have a great evening together and ultimately, Lord, enjoy the fellowship that is In the body and it's in your name. We pray amen