The one whom Jesus calls Father is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob,

it's the same God.

I honestly don't know how we can ever understand Jesus if we don't first master the Old Testament.

When we come into church on Sunday morning, do we tend to bring with us only the New Testament?

And think of God as merely the father of Jesus Christ. I hear people

all the time in the context of church say to me, well I believe in the God of the New Testament it's the

God of the Old Testament that I can't stomach. But do you find that disjunction

between the God of the Old Testament and the God of the New Testament in the New Testament?

Do you find it in the lips of Jesus?

The one whom Jesus calls Father is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of

Jacob, the God of Joseph, the God of David, the God of Jeremiah, the God of Ezekiel, the God of Nehemiah, the God of

Malachai, the God of John the Baptist, the God of Jesus, the God of Paul, the God of Peter. It's the same God who remains the same

forever. And I think one of the reasons why we have a crisis in our worship and in the life of the

church is the fact that we have been dreadfully negligent of mastering the history of God's revelation through the centuries that

are contained within the Old Testament. I honestly don't know how we can ever understand Jesus if we

don't first master the Old Testament. So we go back here now to understand God's character, God's self-revelation,

understanding that he has a name, that he is personal, that he has a history.

The New Testament occurs, what, in the fullness of time, in the father's appointed

time. It is the father who sends the son into the world and it is the son's mission to do all that the father

commissions him to do. It is his good pleasure to fulfill the mandate of the

father. Well who is this father? He is the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

the God of Jacob.

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