Bella: Today, I'm going to be sharing with you. One of my favorite topics, the big picture of the old Testament, the we're going to look at the main people and the promises that God made to them. And we're going to see how we can find Jesus there because where we know where to look, Jesus is absolutely everywhere in the old Testament.

Now you might be asking why is it important for us as modern day moms to know about these things? Learning about God's promises in the old Testament. Isn't some dry academic thing that doesn't match up for life today. It is profoundly relevant for us today because when we see Jesus fulfilling those old Testament promises, it reveals so much about God's character.

And that's also what we're going to have a look at. The study of the Bible should always lead us to know God more, to love him more. And that then shapes the way that we live, because God does not change. He is the same yesterday, today and forever.

So anything that we learn about God in the Bible, Those things were true back then. And they're true for us now, the way that God relates to us is grounded in thousands of years of faithfulness, thousands of years of promises made and fulfilled in Jesus. So let's begin our journey through the old Testament.

We're going to go right back to the very beginning with Adam and Eve, God created Adam and Eve to be in perfect fellowship with him. But you probably know this story, Adam and Eve ate the fruit and they disobeyed, and this led to judgment for their sin. But even before God brought judgment on Adam and Eve, God put a curse on the snake.

And here we have the very first time that God promised to make things right. Genesis three, verse 15, it says I will put enmity between you and the woman between your offspring and hers. He will crush your head and you will strike his heel. Here we have the very first hint of Jesus. God promises, someone descended from a line of eighth and this person would, his heel would be struck by the serpent, but he would crush the hedge of the serpent.

And through the old Testament, God's people were waiting for this promise. One to arrive. When Jesus finally comes on the scene, we might think about his death now that was like his heel being struck by the enemy, but in his resurrection. And he crushed the head of the enemy. He has complete victory over evil and over death.

Jesus is the fulfillment of this promise that God made thousands of years before. Let's now move on to Abraham. So God calls Abraham and in Genesis 12, he makes a big promise to him. He says, I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you. I will make your name great. And you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who do, and whoever curses you, I will. And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So this is a big promise that God makes to Abraham. And there's three main parts to this promise. First, we have a promised land, second promised, great nation of descendants, and thirdly, that Abraham will be a blessing to all nations.

So how does this connect to this? Well, Jesus was a descendant of Abraham. He was the rightful heir of all those promises made to Abraham. So if we have faith in Jesus, if we are United to him, the waiver saved those promises too. We have a promised land. This is our eternal life in heaven, even greater than a physical.

We are a great nation. We are the sons and daughters of God. And I want to think now about the promise. All nations will be blessed through you. We have faith in Jesus. We are given every spiritual blessing. We are given forgiveness of sins. We are adopted into God's family. We are given the holy spirit.

These blessings are for old people who have faith in Jesus, no matter what mission they're from. So three Abraham's descendant and Jesus people of all nations can be blessed far beyond what Abraham could even have ever imagined.

Abraham's descendants increase and they become a great nation, the Israelites, but the problem is about 400 years later. They're not in the promise land. They are slaves in Egypt. So under the leadership of most. God performs a miracle and he delivers some through the red sea. He frees them from slavery and it's here.

The God makes another promise to them. Exodus 19 verse five to six. Now, if you a Baney fully and keep my covenant, then out of all the nations, you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine. You will be for me, a kingdom of priests and a holy nation. God calls the Israelites into a covenant relationship.

He calls him to be his treasured possession. He calls them to be a kingdom of priests. So this means representing God to the other nations. He also calls them to be holy, to be set up heart for him. But the problem is the Israelites are sinful. If they're going to be in covenant relationship with God, they need a way for their sins to be dealt with.

And here God gives them a sacrificial system. And in the sacrificial system, we see Jesus. Very clearly. So once a year, they had the day of atonement and here the priests went to the tabernacle and they sacrificed animals. They sprinkled the blood of these animals on the alter, and it couldn't just be any animal that they liked.

This had to be an animal without blemish or. And the sacrifice, the blood of this animal, this atoned for the people sin, it covered their sin and it made them right with God. And we can see that this was pointing towards Jesus. He is our perfect sacrifice without blemish. We are forgiven and made right with God through the shedding of his blood.

But unlike the old Testament sacrifice, which had to be offered up year after year, Jesus sacrificed only needed to happen once it was sufficient to cover as soon.

 Let's jump forward now to king David. Now, David, when we look at king David, we very clearly see a foreshadowing of who Christ is. David is what we call a type of Jesus. David was a king who lived according to God's way. He led his people in victory over the surrounding nations, but he also led people back to worshiping God.

And David wanted to build a temple for God somewhere where people could worship God and God could dwell in glory, but God promises something even greater God promises to build a house for David. So when we think of house, we think about. The house of Judah or the house of Windsor? No, this is a line of Kings coming from David's family line, but it gets even more amazing.

Listen to this from two Samuel seven verse 12 to 13, when your days are over and you rest with your ancestors, I will raise up your own offspring to succeed. You are your own flesh and blood. And I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever here.

We have a descendant of David who would have a very special relationship with God. It would be a father, son relationship. This person would be king forever. Introduces the concept of the Messiah. This promise ruler sent by God who had ruled over God's people with wisdom and justice and victory over their enemies.

How does Jesus feed into this promise? We know that when Jesus died, he also rose again and it's through his resurrection that he defeated the power of. Death now has no hold on Jesus. And he lives forever. He is in heaven right now. He is seated at the right hand of the father. He is exalted to the highest place.

Jesus is that eternal king. He is the promised Messiah ruling God's people. And that's us the first thing God is consistent. Sometimes I think we have this false idea that the new Testament God is all about. Love and forgive. While the old Testament, God is all about judgment and anger, but it's the same, God, God does not change. So the same characteristics that we see in the new Testament, we also see in the old Testament, no, we say his love, his faithfulness, his forgiveness, his mercy.

God makes a promise right at the beginning. And he's purposes to save humanity. They stay the same all the way throughout the old Testament until they were finally fulfilled in Jesus. So then now when we think about God's consistency and his faithfulness to us, when we think about the promises that he's made to us to never leave us, never forsake.

To work, all things for our good, we look back and we see that he's a promise keeping God. So then when we think about God's consistency and his faithfulness to us, we can look back and see that he's a promise, keeping God, he is faithful to do what he has said. He does not change his character.

Secondly God is in control. God's plan of salvation through Jesus, God planned something, and he brought it to completion. This plan to bring salvation through Jesus. It was announced right off to Adam and Eve sinned.

But did you know that the plan actually went even earlier than that? So occasions, chapter one, it says that God chose us in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world, even before the world was created. God saw that we would sin. He saw that we would need a savior. He planned to send Jesus even before he created the world.

And as his true Anton now all through the old Testament, the people was sinful. They kept turning away from him, but this did not catch God by surprise. And it didn't throw his plans into. Got always had a plan to save his people and he made that plan happen in Jesus. So when we see how God was in control in the Bible, we can trust that God has the same control over our lives.

Our sin doesn't catch God by surprise. And even when we come up against things that seem to completely derail. They do not stop God's plan for our life. God has many plans for our life and for each one of us, it's a bit different and god is in control of all of it, but there are some things that are in God's plan for every Christian we're thinking to transform us to be more likely.

To bring us to salvation from beginning to end. No God is going to work all things to come together for those plans. And we can trust that God is in control and that he will do this.

Finally, we say that God is compassionate. Now God could have destroyed Adam and Eve for their sin. Right? At the beginning, he would have been holy and just in doing that, but he didn't. Instead he showed mercy and compassion. He promised to one day make things right. We see this unfailing compassion time and time again in the old test.

He's people keep sinning and God keeps showing them grace. Jesus is the fulfillment of this grace and compassion. Now think about that. Very famous verse, John three 16, it says for God, so loved the world that he gave his own news. It is because of God's love that he sent Jesus to bring us into relationship with himself and the same love that sent Jesus it's available for us.

Now, there is grace when we seen there's unfailing compassion through the storms of life and for our everyday mode. Those things that we see of God in the Bible they would treat then. And they're true for us now, when we want to know what God is like, we only have to look at the story revealed in the Bible, God making promises and fulfilling them in Jesus.

Let's be people grounded in the word. Standing in confidence of who God is and what he has done for us. I'd like to finish by leading us in prayer. Please pray with me, father. I thank you for Jesus. I thank you for the promises that you made in the old Testament. I thank you for the way that Jesus fulfills all of them.

I thank you. That you are compassionate, that you are consistent and in control, I sent you that your character has not changed, that you are still all of those things for us today. And I pray that you will help us to walk in that, walk in that knowledge and to know and love you more. I pray that as we go about our lives, we will grow to know and love him.

In the name of Jesus, we pray. Amen.