God takes ordinary people and fills them with His Spirit to do extraordinary things. The journey from the Old Testament to the New is not a rejection of what came before, but a movement into the fullness of God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. It is through repentance and faith in Christ’s once‑for‑all atonement that believers receive not only forgiveness but also the indwelling Holy Spirit, who transforms common lives for eternal purposes.

Automatically Generated Transcript

[00:00:00] Something I learned this week is that the Bible does call some people idiots. Did you know that the word idiot is in the Bible? It comes from a little Greek word that doesn’t quite mean exactly our idea of idiot, but it’s in Acts 4. We’ll put it up on the screen. And this is the storyline of Peter and John and they’re performing a miracle and they’re getting themselves into trouble with the Jewish leadership. And so when they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were uneducated, common men. The word common is from the Greek idiotes. And it’s where we get our word idiot. Common people are meant to be, in the minds of the hoi polloi, idiots. Yeah, that was a surprise to me to find that that was how they looked at Peter and John as common. They shouldn’t know anything.

[00:01:07] They’re too busy doing their fishing. They haven’t been educated. They’ve not been attending the big conferences. This is going strange on my hearing. Is that getting across? Good. So they were called common because they didn’t know anything and they’re not to be taken seriously. Now what’s actually happening is that at the beginning of the Bible, you know that the Bible is the Christian book, a whole lot of it, Old Testament and New Testament. At the beginning of the Old Testament, you discover the mention about the Holy Spirit. And you’ll find that again and again it talks about the Holy Spirit coming on people and causing them to do things extraordinary away from commonality. And when they saw Peter and John having boldness who were acting out not how they expected these fishermen

[00:02:12] who basically spend their time in things other than thinking, that’s how the hoi polloi thought of them, they called them common men. But it’s one of the facts of the New Testament that the chief person Peter they’re talking about there showed himself to be very much not always saying and doing the right things. He’s just come through a period of time when he denied Jesus three times, when he let down all his big boasting promises and couldn’t perform them, when he showed himself to be probably in many respects the fisherman that he was. But the fantastic thing in the story of the Gospel is that God was going to be able to take common men, common people, and by the fact that they were to come into the experience of the Holy Spirit, they were going to do extraordinary things.

[00:03:16] And these leaders didn’t know about enough of the Holy Spirit, but they certainly noticed the change and the difference when the common people had done some amazing things and seen a miracle happen and had shown themselves to be completely unstoppable and did not listen to the threats of the leaders. But they were prepared to go to jail rather than to give in in their preaching on the name of Jesus. But seeing the man who was healed standing beside them, they had nothing to say in opposition. But when they had commanded them to leave the council, they conferred with one another saying, what shall we do with these men? For it is a notable sign that has been performed through them. We have here the key to the success of Christianity, not only what happened back then, but what can happen through us.

[00:04:18] Not that we’re anything other than, I won’t say idiots, but we’re not anything different from common people, but when the Holy Spirit comes on someone who might otherwise be called a common person, just average, more than average, above average, supernatural things can happen because of the power of the Holy Spirit. And the secret of the church is the coming of the Holy Spirit, just as in the beginning of time creation happened, just as through the Old Testament God had special people anointed to be prophets. There has been something that you’ll never understand between the Old Testament and the New Testament if you don’t listen to what I’m trying to be saying over these last weeks, that there is to be perceived what is called a progressive revelation through the Bible.

[00:05:11] So I’m talking this morning on a topic about the progress from the Old Testament into the New. And I’m calling on us as individuals and as a group to do the journey between just being Old Testament types to become New Testament ones. That’s what it is to be a Christian. It’s not to be left in the Old Testament. Now I better carefully say that I’m not saying that the Old Testament is to be disbelieved or not to be taken into account and not to be understood as a part of the word of God because it is the word of God. Progressive revelation is not that the early things that were revealed are wrong, but it is that God has got a progress, a journey that he sets out for us, the human race, to discover and to put into practice. We’re meant to journey from an Old Testament experience of God

[00:06:09] into a New Testament one and I’m asking you have you made the journey? The journey is not in terms of whether we disbelieve the old because Jesus vindicated the Old Testament and it’s truth. He vindicated right at the beginning they were made male and female. What a foolish generation we’re in that doesn’t understand that male and female has been set by God, the God of heaven, for humanity. It’ll never be changed and I’m not speaking this morning against the truths of the Old Testament not being held dear. I think we should hold them close because they are the revelation that Jesus believed in and he spoke this way about the facts. I think it is in a Bible verse that we’ll see in Matthew 18 that we’ll go to now, Matthew 18. And we’ll find I’ve jumped ahead.

[00:07:09] I wanted to pick up my trace through the book of Matthew but because this sermon weighed on my heart I’ve jumped to chapter 18 but it’s one of the parables. It’s interesting in the parables of the New Testament that there is a revelation that is going on as to how we should be with God Jesus speaking about the facts of there being this new era that’s coming where the real choice that makes you right with God is not because of the old covenant but because of the new covenant that is revealed and that new covenant says that if you want to be right with God it’s not sufficient any longer just to uphold the Jewish ethos or to go to the temple but there’s something new that’s been introduced. How do I know that? Maybe the verse I need to go to is in Hebrews. Go to Hebrews 1 verses 1 to 2.

[00:08:02] Hebrews, thank you, Hebrews 1 verses 1 to 2. And this, long ago and many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers through the prophets. That’s the Old Testament regime. They were dynamic. Those prophets were inspired. They showed the power of the Holy Spirit. Some of them, other leaders, not prophets, but people like Samson showed the power in other ways. and in his death he pushed down a whole arena full of the enemies of the people of God but in these last days, this is God he has spoken to us by his son and the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ in the world was a step of progress for God to reveal more particularly how it is that he’d intended all the time and he spoke to us by his son whom he appointed the heir of all things and through whom he created the world

[00:08:58] there is vindicated in this verse of Hebrews one of the most theological and deepest books of the New Testament a vindication of the truth of the Old Testament and I’m not calling on us to leave the truth of the Old Testament I’m calling us to pick up on the experience of God that is a progressively revealed through the Bible culminating in the New Testament. What makes it new is the person of Jesus coming into the world and him being there the one that would lead all things and him be the one who reveals how to be related to the Father. He talks about the fact that he was the way, I am the way, the truth and the life. No man comes to the Father but by me. And until you’ve come to do business with Jesus, you’ve not gotten out of the Old Testament.

[00:09:50] until you’ve had a moment when Christ got you and you got him and you put your faith in him because he died for your sins and you trusted in that forgiveness and entered into a relationship with the Father which was only available when the New Testament times came. Not that the Old Testament people didn’t know God and the respective ways that he revealed himself to them, but that needed them to be a prophet or a priest or a king. It says a little Samuel when he was a boy. Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he is going to become a mighty prophet when God spoke to him, but everybody didn’t have that happen to them. That was a special part of the Old Testament revelation God did through his prophets, but now in these last days, and the last days is not just for the future when the world all blows up

[00:10:48] or when Christ returns. Only the last days began on the day of Pentecost when the promise of the Holy Spirit was announced by Peter as a part of what it is for a person to come to know God, to answer the call for the forgiveness of sins. And if you step forward to answer the call to Jesus, that Jesus gives for the forgiveness of sins, you not only get that forgiveness, but you get the gift of the Holy Spirit. And when you have the gift of the Spirit, he comes permanently to live. Different from the Old Testament where the Spirit would come and go, but in the New Testament offering, God’s latest revelation in these last days, this is God’s final work that he’s done in sending his son into the world and making available that if you come to this Jesus and trust in him,

[00:11:39] you will get the Holy Spirit permanently and he’ll never leave you. He takes on board to be your called alongside one. He takes on board, not as the Holy Spirit, to be the one who brings the closeness of Jesus. If you study the book of Ephesians, you just study about the coming of Jesus to the heart. This really had me sent for six when I began to read the book of Ephesians in my theological studies. And I used to have an order that you come to Jesus first and you get the Holy Spirit at the same time or some people think second later. But then in the book of Ephesians it says it’s the Spirit that comes first and he makes your personage capable of taking the explosive power of the indwelling of Jesus

[00:12:28] to live in your life and the indwelling of Christ is made possible because you got the Holy Spirit when you came to do business with Jesus the New Testament way and trusted him for that once and for all forgiveness of sins. We call it about the fact that he died for us on the cross. It’s a part of how Jesus did what was necessary once and for all to handle your sin. It’s been finished. He handled it on the cross and he died in your place and he opened the door for you to come into a relationship with God which is a relationship that will be intact and permanent and take you eventually to heaven. There will be a lot of sanctification you’ll have to do in you to get you ready for heaven or you’ll be a sick fish in heaven if he didn’t do that sanctification. oh yes, what a joy

[00:13:24] the book of Ephesians tells us it is by the indwelling spirit that we’re able to catch the effect of the indwelling of Christ and so my old order that you got sort of Christ first and then the spirit later or something was blown apart by the book of Ephesians for where you get into the New Testament is you simply come to the Christ who died for you. You receive his forgiveness, his once and for all forgiveness. And along with the forgiveness he gives you, the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. And the Holy Spirit’s first task is to make you capable to take the indwelling of Jesus in your life. This might be strange to your ears, but just read the book of Ephesians about how Christ comes. You need your heart strengthened by the Holy Spirit to take the moral impact of Jesus coming into your life.

[00:14:29] What that means is that we need to be careful in our language when we simplify the gospel. We do it with little children, which we understand because they’ve got to get little bits of understanding at a time. But the essence of the gospel is not just to receive Jesus into your heart. That’s a language that’s oversimplified. The New Testament gospel is that you come to Christ as a saviour and trust him for the forgiveness of sin because he has died in your place and he’s finished all that’s necessary for your forgiveness. And then as Jesus is your saviour, the first thing that’s happening is that the Holy Spirit strengthens your heart to take his indwelling. And yeah, it’s true that Jesus comes to the heart. Go back to Revelation 3.20, that verse that people often quote, Behold, I stand at the door and knock.

[00:15:30] If any person hear my voice and will open the door, I will come into him and on up to him and fellowship with him and he with me. He’s talking about Jesus wanting to be welcomed by the church. He’s talking about Jesus in his desire to be indwelling in you. He’s talking about the fact that you can be totally forgiven of your sin, the once and for all forgiveness that you’ll never need to go back on again. You may need to confess your missteps in your sins and he’ll forgive you because he’s already died for you. That’s why that 1 John 1.9 verse says, If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. God has provided for us how we can walk with him and the progressive revelation is that you move from being acceptable because of the Jewish requisites

[00:16:28] in the old covenant to what was the Jewish requisites for a new covenant it’s the new covenant that we’ve gotten in on to become Christians and there’s a journey now what I’m trying to say to sum it up so you don’t miss the point I believe in the Old Testament and I’m not lessening the truth value of all the teaching that’s there. It’s wonderful. One little illustration. Jesus, as I’ve already quoted, he talked about he made them male and female at the beginning. Now, living in South Australia, our family had a favourite holiday place to go and it was down the coast. It was a place near a beach, a beautiful beach. Hardly anybody else had found. A few fishermen had and they’d walk out into the water with their nets and walk around in a sort of square and as they pulled in the net, they’d then get another friend.

[00:17:21] They pulled the net in. I watched them and they found a big shark in the middle. I said, I’m not going to be doing that, walking around. But it was an empty beach. But then some people got another idea for the beach and they made it a nudist beach which ruined it for the rest of us to go. Why? Well, some might say, surely if you believed in the truth of the book of Genesis and the scenario painted of Adam and Eve, I understand they say they were naked. And therefore, what’s wrong with nudist beaches? Make sure you’ve got one thing you get from my sermon about nudist beaches today. Logic doesn’t apply because there’s two big differences between the Garden of Eden. One is there’s only one man and one woman, right? And as marriages allow, that’s normal. Being nude, I mean, at times.

[00:18:26] But secondly, there’s no sin in the Garden of Eden. And the problem with nudity is nothing about anything wrong with our bodies. As a matter of fact, theologians struggled to try and explain why it was so visible even to God to say, you know, something had been lost when they sinned. I believe that they had a glory about their body. I think the body is glorious. They had a glory about their bodies, which covered them, but not covered to cover them up, but shone out of them and made glorious the body. But when sin came, they lost it. That’s why they went and hid themselves in the Garden, as if you could undo the fact that you’d lost the glory. It’s a terrible thing to be a glorious creature and then lose the glory. And so they hid themselves. And God came walking in the Garden.

[00:19:28] And I believe that’s the pre-incarnate Christ. That’s a Christophany appearance of Christ, the second person of the Trinity, before he takes on humanity. So he’s pre-incarnate. Walking then in the Garden of Eden, calling Adam, where are you? Not that he didn’t know. But he was calling them out of hiding because they realised when they sinned, they lost the glory. Now I can’t prove the glory, but that’s my supposition to explain why they were hiding. How do they know? In fact, they’re asked that. How did you know that you were naked? Because it was obvious. And anyway, the scene of the Old Testament is one that can never be answered until finally we get to glory again in heaven. And so for people to have nudist speeches thinking it’s wonderful, they’re completely ignorant of what we lost in the Garden.

[00:20:26] You can’t get people into a nudist speech who are sinners and not have that introduced a difficulty. Anyway, I better get off the subject of the nudist speeches because what I’m trying to say to you today is that there’s nothing wrong with the truths of the Old Testament. What I’m talking about by announcing the topic that we’re to journey from the Old Testament to the U is in terms of the experience that God in his progressive revelation has opened up. Don’t stay in the Old Testament and seeking to be obedient and do all the right things. I find amazing when people want to put on extra ceremonies for the Christian church. You know, we do it at Easter. Sometimes it’s just a teaching mechanism when you have a Maundy service, isn’t it, or a Thursday night thing, as to help people understand

[00:21:21] the progress of what happened in the death and resurrection of Jesus. I think it’s a good way to teach some of those ideas, but some people think it’s an extra service ceremony that will do something to you. We don’t need the experience of the Old Testament when God has progressed in his revelation into a New Testament. And as in some previous Sundays, I’ve been making the point that the word testament is just in the Greek. It’s the same word as covenant. I never knew that and I used to look at my little Bible that had Old Testament, New Testament and see the word testament and I went away and looked up the Greek to find what word was used. You know, there is a Greek version of the Old Testament. It’s called the Septuagint. So you can see the word used that would be used for covenant when it talks about the old covenant

[00:22:14] and lo and behold it’s the same word for testament that was in my Bible when I saw it move from Old Testament to New Testament and suddenly I woke up to the fact that we use the word testament in our legal scenes when someone dies. Jesus died on the cross for our sins in order that there might be a New Testament in his blood because the will of God is revealed in his death on the cross and his sufficiency of handling your sin there’s nothing more that needs to be said because Jesus died in your place and invites you to come and receive a once and for all totally needed, only needed sacrifice for sin that he has finished on the cross and you know one of the greatest things of being a Christian whose journey from the Old Testament into the New Testament is that you’re no longer fretting about your sins

[00:23:17] the sacrifice was sufficient the once and for all death for Jesus on the cross is enough and you just rest in it and if you fall into some sin there’s a progress of sanctification has your ups and downs it happens to all of us with ups and downs you just confess your sin and he is faithful God is faithful why faithful? because he saw the sacrifice on the cross as enough and God is faithful to keep his word to apply what that death of Jesus on the cross gives to us and so you don’t have to be a person always moaning about your sins I think moaning about your sins is when you’re guilty of them and heaven confess them but when you confess them you can move on you can walk with a heart that’s free you can trust in God that he’s going to get you into glory the glory will be finished in the end when we go to be with Jesus

[00:24:27] and we’re going to be like him why did he go through the whole thing of being glorified on the event of the glorification it’s because he’s our forerunner and we’re headed for glory. Do you understand this? We’re headed for glory. It’s the journey from the Old Testament into the New that we’re talking about how you relate to God’s provision because he hadn’t revealed it all until the New. There were hints of it for sure in the Olds. You can find the traces of the Gospel in the Olds but it is actually made available to be stepped into at the moment of the offering of the New Covenant that was prophesied in the Old and the person who announced it was our fellow idiot, common man, Peter, who showed himself as just common and how he denied the Lord and he backslid and he got himself out

[00:25:25] having boasted of all sorts of things he’s going to do, he couldn’t do them. That’s a common man. But Peter, when the Holy Spirit came on him at the day of Pentecost, he was very much not common and that’s why those Jewish people were saying, how come these ones can be like this with they’re just commoners or idioters? And the reason is they didn’t understand the availability of the Holy Spirit. I’m asking you this morning if you come into the receipt of a heart that has the Holy Spirit, how do you get it? Repent of your sins, confess Christ, the biblical way to do that is get baptised, and you shall receive not only the forgiveness of sins but the gift of the Holy Spirit and he will do things in you to help you in your sanctification and your journey towards the glory that the human race lost right at the beginning.

[00:26:31] Have you responded to that? If you’re not certain what I would do if I were in your shoes is when you get out of here, what you could do is go and speak to someone you know and say, can you help me? I’m not certain I’m in the door. Jim was talking about something that’s not my experience. Some of you might be better believing and better behaving. You might be very good at knowing the creation story. You might be people who seeks to obey God but I want to tell you your salvation is not leaning on your obedience. Your obedience. His leaning on your salvation and you get that simply by faith. In these last days God has spoken through His Son. We’re in the last days all up to the second coming and all those things that happen after Christ comes are all in the last days. We’re in it now. In these last days God has spoken

[00:27:39] through His Son and the event of people getting spoken to by Jesus, sometimes it’s a mysterious sense of his presence that gets on your goat until you repent. Sometimes it is a vision like the Apostle Paul had. Sometimes it is a call that comes to you at evangelistic meetings or meetings like right now where this is being proclaimed. It’s what the Holy Spirit does when the church knows its New Testament power in the gospel and makes it the centrepiece of what it is to be in church and has services where people pray beforehand, they’re praying for God, they did so, the table or the prayer in that room before this service was packed out I had to sort of get to surprise when I walked in to get a seat. They were praying for God to speak this morning and I believe that he is and what he’s doing is talking to somebody

[00:28:44] here who may never have been certain of actually knowing Christ and you’ve longed in your heart many times, I wish I could be so certain like those other people appear to be. Well you can. It’s simple. Take Jesus at his word. Come unto me all you who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you. There is a yoke of being obedient to Jesus. You come to him to be the one who says speak Lord, your servant’s listening. You’re to be the one who says Lord I will no matter what I’ll obey you. You’re the one Lord who is my Lord. I want you to be my Lord as well as my saviour. When you speak to Jesus and give him the power and right over you, that’s what answering the gospel call means. And when you trust him that his death on the cross was sufficient

[00:29:42] that you’re not going to add anything to it. You’re not going to try and somehow pull in your pocket, I’ve got another 45 cents, I’ll add to the payment for my sin. No, no. How can you have him shed his precious blood? This eternal son of God has taken on humanity and lived a spotless life. And he gave that on the cross to make a once and for all atonement for your sin. The once and for all nature of the atonement then means that you walk free, you walk at peace with God. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Is there someone, there might be some many, but is there someone this morning that God is speaking to that he wants you to step into the blessing of the New Testament at the heart of it all is the atonement that Jesus gave that you might have the total forgiveness of sins

[00:30:52] and you might be headed for glory and when you get to glory you’ll look back and say what a blessed day that was what a wonderful thing I got to understand to simply come to Jesus and when you come to Jesus for the forgiveness of sins you get not only you get a bargain deal not only forgiveness but you get the gift of the Holy Spirit in a permanent way to lead you to glory as we finish the service this morning as sometimes we do just we have a bit of music and then we eventually have opportunity for coffee and talking fellowship but before that final music I want to give an opportunity if someone says Jim I need you to help me take a bold step and the way we’ll do this I don’t do this often in our church lest I wear you out with appeals or whatever but sometimes I think the time has come to communicate

[00:32:04] that God is calling somebody here to step out of the Old Testament way you might have seen things and follow the call of Jesus to let him apply what he did on the cross the atonement totally to you and to give you this morning the gift of the Holy Spirit who will lead you to glory in the up-and-run and the way I’m going to ask you to do that is that we’ll vacate here just before we have any singing and more talking or anything and maybe the musicians can think of something appropriate to play but an opportunity as we all just stand and are listening to the music if someone needs to take that step to leave where you are don’t stay a common man I think if you do you’re an idiot sorry but the word idiotaires in the Bible was how they saw Peter and John before they saw them full of the Holy Spirit and what you need is to come to Jesus

[00:33:25] for the forgiveness the once of all forgiveness of sin and I’m telling you you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit complete what he does with you what gifts he comes out of brings out of you they’re up to him we don’t decide those things but you need him the Holy Spirit to make you a New Testament Christian. There’s no such thing as being a Christian without the permanent residence of the Holy Spirit in your life. But that’s what’s on offer this morning. So leave where you’ll be. We’ll get you all to stand in a minute and to come and kneel down here and say to Jesus in your own words, even if it’s just thoughts, what he needs to hear from you, that you want him, that you thank him for how he died for you and you want him to be the Lord of your living to make you a Christian. That’s the journey out of the Old Testament

[00:34:31] into the New Testament that he’s calling you to make. So whether you’re the only person that comes, sometimes that’s the case, or whether there’s others that come, neither matters. what counts is that you respond to Jesus when he calls when Jesus calls you he is such a powerful person such a wonderful person he’ll help you do everything that’s needed to be a genuine Christian first I’ll pray and then I’m going to get you to stand and get the musicians to lead us in some music and while the music is playing and we’re standing someone here for whom this message is particularly designed I want you to come and kneel down here and tell Jesus what he needs to hear you say under your breath or out words out loud doesn’t matter will you do it? in this moment Christ is calling and he’s calling for people to come to him

[00:35:41] first I pray and then we’ll stand Heavenly Father thank you for the journey from the Old Testament into the New thank you that in these last days you’ve spoken to us through a son thank you that the speaking of the son is to call people to come to him and I ask that you help someone to make it to Jesus this morning maybe more than one who knows would you be operative to bring that spirit calling right now Jesus on those who need to hear it we pray in your name Amen Amen Thank you.