Glimpses of Truth
Apr 23 2017 • David Morrow, Greg Boyd
The Old Testament depicts the people of God as stubborn, unfaithful, and ignorant about what God is really like. Yet, the Spirit of God worked in their hearts to reveal as much of his true character as possible. So, despite their overall misunderstanding, they sometimes got “glimpses of truth.” In this series, we will explore the most significant ways that the Spirit broke through in the Old Testament to give God’s people revelations of his true character and will.
Sermons in this series:
Throughout the Old Testament we get clouded pictures of the character of God. Hebrews tells us that God gave our forefathers many glimpses of the truth. But through Jesus Christ, God gives us the full revelation of the truth. So what are we to do with the pictures that suggest God is an angry, wrathful, violent God? In this sermon, Greg points out various Old Testament stories that are glimpses of the truth of God’s character. With a careful reading that goes beyond the surface picture of the story we see that the greater revelation of the truth that God is a God who is rich in mercy, slow to anger, gracious and compassionate, that God is love.
Topics: Kingdom of God,
Love,
Transformation
The underlying theme behind our 'Glimpses of Truth' series is the idea that before we had the full revelation of God in Jesus, people only caught glimpses of him. He showed himself, but like the sun on a cloudy day, people's view was obscured by their culture, so what they saw was not the full revelation but one marred by their own expectations and fallenness.
But despite this, there were still a few instances in the Old Testament where we can see glimpses of the Christ-like God that we know.
Topics: Grace,
Kingdom of God,
Non-Violence
In week three of our 'Glimpses of Truth' sermon series we continue to look for portraits of God in the Old Testament that look like Jesus. This week we look at rules. The first five books of the Old Testament alone contain 613 different rules. Using Hebrews 1:1-3 as our springboard we can see that God gave rules to accommodate Israel’s needs as well as to protect and bless. In fact, in Jesus we see the ultimate expression of God’s desire, not for rule following, but for hearts given to Him in love.
Topics: Grace,
Relationships
A surface level reading of the Old Testament gives the appearance that God has chosen Israel as a favorite nation, and has therefore discriminately blessed and protected them in and against other nations. Just as we discovered during the cross centered series, if one looks below the surface there actually is much more than is first apparent about the cultural understanding of God’s interactions with His people, the Israelites’ hearts, and God’s true calling and intention for their nation.
Topics: Calling,
God's Will,
Presence of God
This weekend we kicked off our new sermon series, Glimpses of Truth. For the next six weeks Greg will be covering the ways in which the Spirit of God was consistently working in the hearts of God’s people to reveal as much of God’s true character as possible. Throughout the Old Testament we read many examples of how the spiritual immaturity of God’s people determines their understanding of God’s true character. Never coercing nor shaming, but through love and immeasurable patience, God meets us exactly where we are and carries us on to the full revelation of Godself that is finally found in Jesus Christ.
Topics: God's Will,
Holy Spirit,
Transformation
