Fulfillment, Not Abolishment: Living in the Righteousness of Christ

What does it mean to truly follow Jesus without leaving behind the fullness of what God has revealed? In this message drawn from Matthew 5:17-20, we are confronted with a surprising and clarifying declaration from Jesus himself: he did not come to throw out the law and the prophets but to bring them to their ultimate completion. This reframes how we think about the entire Bible. Rather than seeing the Old and New Testaments as two separate and competing stories, we are invited to see one unified revelation of a God who has been faithfully pointing humanity toward redemption from the very beginning. The law was never just a rulebook. It was a mirror showing us our need for grace, and every sacrifice, every prophecy, every commandment was quietly whispering the name of the one who was coming. When we learn to read Scripture by asking where Jesus appears in it, the whole of God's Word comes alive in a way that changes how we encounter him. This is not just an academic exercise. It is an invitation to know God more deeply, to see his character more clearly, and to find ourselves drawn into a story far grander than we imagined.