Bokeh

Restored! (Isaiah 42:22) -Acts 3:21

Intro: Eph. 1:4-5 (Before the foundation of the world.

  • Adam and Eve created in the image and likeness of God.

  • The Fall – separation, darkened in understanding and alienated in their mind.

  • Mankind then walked according to the course of this world. Eph. 2:1-2

  • They lost who God was and their own Identity

  • They began to believe the lies and deceptions of a false identity.

  • Block of word illustration

God starts with Abraham – Gives promises (his own identity incapable of being. - Gid gives new name.

  • Abraham evolves into a family, then 12 tribes into a nation

  • This nation does not know who they are, slaves 400 years.

  • God begins to unveil who He is by what they encounter in life.

  • He also unveils who they are...

The book of Deuteronomy and Isaiah.

  • He is chipping away the wood to get to who they were before the foundation of the world. (The Potter and the clay)

  • Problem – they don’t get it completely – they still miss who God is

  • And they still see themselves as slaves, grasshoppers, etc.

Jesus comes to reveal the Father and us as sons and daughters of God as Father. Our identity is in Christ.

  • Paul also will develop this in greater revelation. Gal. 1:15-16/Gal. 2:20

  • Romans 8:19 Creation is waiting for the manifestations of the sons of God

  • The heavens are waiting for the restoration of all things by way of the sons of God.

The Bible must be seen through the proper lens of covenant and the unfolding of the plan of God.

  • The division of the two covenants.

  • Israel or the church or now both – one new man

  • No Jew or Greek. In the new covenant.

  • The 10 commandments were for Israel

  • The Gospels were for the Jew. Note: nobody wants to preach this part of Jesus from the gospels, because that was under the old covenant to a specific group of people; we are now under the new covenant.

  • Acts on is for all.

  • We can now see where all this was going.

  • The church is not a replacement but the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant – all the families of the earth, not a special group. One body.

So, we don’t throw any scriptures to a future time. All was fulfilled in Christ.

  • Hebrews 8:13

  • And now are being fulfilled in us, His body.

  • We rule and reign from our identity, new man realities, who we now are and have always been.