The Word Does The Work

INTRODUCTION:

This morning we’re going to continue our series on the local church entitled “Family Matters.” Doing a series on the church may sound irrelevant but I think it’s one of the most relevant topics we can address in 2022.

There is a growing apathy in the heart of people - even Christian people - towards involvement in the local church. COVID accelerated this apathy but it has existed for a long time and it’s doing damage to local church and Christians throughout the culture.

A Christian without a Church is a Christian in trouble.

You may not feel like you’re in trouble but it’s just a matter of time until it begins to surface in your life. We were made for community. It’s part of our original design: introvert, extrovert, doesn’t matter.

If that’s true, then it’s also relevant for us to understand why the church matters and what matters in the church.

Review

Because these messages I’ve been preaching build upon each other I want to do a quick review of where we’ve been.

In week 1 we saw that the church should matter to us because it matters to GOD.

The Church was purchased with Christ’s blood. (Acts 20:28)

The Church continues Christ’s presence/ministry on the earth. (Acts 9:4-5)

The Church stewards Christ’s authority on the earth. (Matthew 16:18-19)

Notice how all of these reasons are wrapped up in the person of Christ. The Church matters be Christ matters.

The church matters to God because Christ matters to God and the Church is inextricably linked with the person and work of Christ.

If that’s true it’s also true that certain things really matter IN the church.

Members of a church need to be truly saved.

Members of a church need to be progressively sanctified.

Members of the church need to be joyfully submitted to Jesus.

Thankfully, Christ didn’t give us those expectations without also giving us the needed tools and resources to achieve those ends. Those four things are...

Church ordinances (baptism and the Lord’s Supper)

Church offices (pastors and deacons)

The Spirit (the Holy Spirit)

The Word (the Gospel/Scriptures)

We’ve already gone over the ordinances and the offices. This morning we’re going to shift our attention the God’s Word.

The Word Does the Work

If we’re going to be a church submitted to the Lordship of Christ, we must also be a church that is commited to God’s Word.

A church that prioritizes the Word of God is a church that prioritizes the person of Christ. You can’t have one without the other. They always go together.

One of the things that brings me great comfort as a pastor is the conviction that God’s Word does the work. All I am responsible to do is unleash it and reveal it.

The Power of God’s Word

God’s Word is POWERFUL. Through His Word He...

Created Everything (Gen 1:1)

Cursed the Serpent (Gen 3:14)

Comforted Adam & Eve in their brokenness (Gen 3:15)

Called Abraham out of Ur into the Land of Promise (Gen 12)

Commissioned Moses to lead the Exodus (Exo 3:4)

Consecrated His people through the 10 Commandments (Exo 20:)

Confronted Them in their sin through the Prophets. (1 Kings 18:1)

Ezekiel’s dream of dead bones living again came about because of the Word of God being preached to them. (Ezk 37)

Before Jesus died on the cross for our sins he preached the Gospel to every city. Before God acted to bring about our salvation he spoke so we could understand his acts.

In Romans 10:17 Paul makes clear that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the WORD of Christ.

Rom 10:9 if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead YOU WILL BE SAVED.

God’s Word is power. God’s Word is Life. That’s why Broadview will forever be a church in which the Word of God dwells and lives.

Paul’s Theology of the Word

This morning we’re going to look at a passage of Scripture that gives us insight on the nature of God’s Word and why God has chosen to use His word to create his people and construct them into Christ’s image. It’s in 2nd Timothy 3:14-17.

To give you some context, 2 Timothy was Paul’s final letter to a young pastor named Timothy. He was responsible to pastor the church in Ephesus.

This letter is one of the “pastoral epistles” because they outline how local churches are to be structured and how pastors are to lead within those churches.

Near the end of the book he offers Timothy some encouragement. He warns Timothy that the world is probably going to go from bad to worse.

People are going to become more wicked, deceived, deceptive and violent towards those who live godly lives in Christ Jesus.

Timothy’s hope and power for moving forward was grounded in the Word of God.

2 Timothy 3:14–17 (CSB)

14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, 15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I want us to examine two things from this text. God’s Word creates and God’s Word constructs.

God’s Word Creates

First, God creates his people through His Word. You can see this theme throughout all of Scripture but you see it explicitly right here in 2 Timothy.

Paul tells Timothy “Keep abiding in God’s Word (and preaching God’s Word) because that Word “is able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.”

That sentence is profound because it creates a connection between the Words of Scripture and the person and work of Christ.

One of the reasons I’m so committed to expository preaching where the main point of the sermon is the main point of my text is because God has uniquely inspired His Word to point people to Jesus.

The written Word and the living Word always go together.

The OT and Jesus

Now the “Scriptures” that Paul is referencing here are not the completed 66 books of the Bible we have today. The Scriptures as Timothy would’ve understood them would’ve been the Old Testament.

But even the Old Testament, Paul says, is able to make someone wise for salvation in the Lord Jesus Christ.

We also saw this in Luke 24 after Jesus had risen from the dead and he was walking on the Emmaus road with his disciples. "Starting with Moses and all the prophets he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the Scriptures.” (Luke 24:27)

In the Gospels Jesus rebukes the Pharisees and other religious leaders. He says, John 5:39 “You pore over the Scriptures because you think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me.”

The Scriptures are inspired by God and worthy of our trust and submission because they lead us into an awareness of our need for Christ and the Gospel.

God’s Word makes us wise for salvation by showing us Jesus.

Paul’s Theology of Revelation

There’s another place where Paul makes idea even more explicit. It’s in his letter to the local church in Corinth. 2 Corinthians 4:1-6

2 Corinthians 4:1–6 (CSB)

1 Therefore, since we have this ministry because we were shown mercy, we do not give up. 2 Instead, we have renounced secret and shameful things, not acting deceitfully or distorting the word of God, but commending ourselves before God to everyone’s conscience by an open display of the truth. 3 But if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. 4 In their case, the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. 5 For we are not proclaiming ourselves but Jesus Christ as Lord, and ourselves as your servants for Jesus’s sake. 6 For God who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ.

Notice the logic of Paul’s argument here. He’s explaining to the Corinthians why his preaching and teaching ministry was grounded in the Gospel.

Unlike the sophists of that day and age Paul wasn’t preaching himself or using his rhetorical skills to impress his audience. He was preaching Christ and Him crucified. Simple, Biblical, expository preaching.

Why? Because the people he’s preaching to people are spiritually blind.

You could be witnessing the most glorious West Texas sunset but if you’re unable to see you’re not going to be amazed by it. Similarly, unbelievers are not able to see the glory of Christ in the Gospel. They’re spiritually dead in their sin. Somebody has to turn on the light.

How does that light get turned on?

God turns on the light when the person delivering the Word speaks the Word as it was originally spoken by God.

That’s why Paul says, “I don’t distort the Word of God because then it would lose it’s supernatural power.” It is inspired by God AS IS. When I preach the Word God turns on the lights so that people can finally see the glory of Christ.

Revelation Funnel

Christ shows us the Father (the image of the invisible God) and God’s Word shows us Christ.

CHART:

Satan does everything in his power to blind people to the preached word because the preached Word is what God uses to turn on the lights so people can see Christ!

The Scriptures reveal Christ and Christ reveals the Father so the BEST thing a preacher can do is simply reveal what God has already spoken.

I’m not up here to preach myself or some human wisdom. I’m not up here to wow you with academic knowledge or the latest “life hacks” from our culture or socially sourced wisdom.

I’m here to speak the Words of God so you can see the person of Christ and understand the God who created everything.

Christ shows us the Father (the image of the invisible God) and God’s Word shows us Christ. That is how God chose to reveal himself to us.

God creates his people through his Word. The members of a local church must be saved. There is no salvation outside of Christ and there is no seeing Christ outside of God’s Word. THIS is why we’re a church committed to God’s word.

The Word & Our Construction

But God doesn’t just create his people through his Word. God also constructs his people through his Word.

When I hear the word construction I think of tearing down and building back up. That’s exactly why Christ has given us His Word in the local church.

Through the preaching of the Word Jesus Christ tears down our idolatry and sinful desires so he can then build up faith and love and righteousness.

Is this not what Paul told Timothy? 2 Timothy 3:16-17

2 Timothy 3:16–17 (CSB)

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Notice the verbs:

teaching - didaskalia (builds up) inform, general instruction

rebuking - elegmon (tears down) correct, reprove, convict,

Correcting - epanorthosis (build up) correct, restore, make straight

training - paideia (both and) discipline, cultivate, train, educate/raise child

What’s the overall purpose? So the man/woman of God may be complete (aristos - suitable, capable, proficient) and equipped (exartizo - finished, complete, fully furnished) for every good work.

This was the same language used in last week’s passage Ephesians 4:11-12.

God has given the church pastors and teachers who equip the saints for the work of the ministry. How does God accomplish that equipping work through the Pastor/Teachers? Through the Word!

The Word is Living & Active

Another passage that sheds light on this dynamic is in the book of Hebrews. It’s one of my favorites. The author is talking about the importance of God’s Word in the life of the church.

He warns them of being like God’s people in the OT who when they heard his voice didn’t listen. Instead they hardened their hearts.

He encourages those Christians to hear and heed God’s Word so they might enter God’s rest. Finally he describes the Word of God as being

Hebrews 4:12–13 (CSB)

living and effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. 13 No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give an account.

Notice again the inextricable link between the Living Word of God (Him to whom we must give an account) and the written Word of God (judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart).

The Word Does the Work

I really believe with all my heart that when we allow God’s Work to speak for it’s self that the Spirit of God uses that Word to speak to your heart in ways that I simply never could.

When it comes to sanctification of God’s people into the image of Christ, The Word does the work. Not the preacher.

God’s word can go places in your heart I simply cannot go. He can see things I simply cannot see. If you feel like I’m reading your mail some Sundays it’s not me that reading it’s the WORD that reading YOU. It’s powerful!

That’s not to say the preacher doesn’t have a job or that the preacher doesn’t have to suffer. He does. I feel like my job in creating the message every week is to die to myself, die to my longing for approval and affirmation and hide myself behind the cross so people can see Jesus in the text I’m trying to preach.

The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to sanctify the people of God into the image of Christ.

Preaching the Word really is an exercise in Gospel dynamics. The preacher dies so that others can live. That life is brought about through the proper proclamation of the Word.

APPLICATION

I want to close our time by showing you how this conviction about the Bible relates to the way we go about ministry at Broadview Baptist Church.

We could probably go on forever about some of these applications but we will go over the basics.

The Main Responsibility: Preaching

The first practical application I’ve already hinted at. My main responsibility as your pastor is the preach and teach the Bible.

Weddings and funerals and staff meetings and member care are all part of my responsibility but my primary role is teaching the word.

The VAST majority of my time during the week is dedicated to getting myself into the presence of God and getting this book to come to life in my heart.

We were chatting the other day “how many hours does it take you to write a sermon.” I had the longest time (and Taylor said it’s because my sermons are twice as long. (ouch). But it really the bulk of my week.

I spend some time on Monday, most of the day of Tuesday and Wednesday getting ready for Sunday.

Why is that? Because I believe the Sunday morning sermon is God’s particular Word for this particular congregation for this particular week.

When the word is properly preached we see Jesus in the Word. When we see Jesus in the Word we can hear want he wants to tell us and carry out what he’s called us to do.

That is how the saints are equipped for the work of the ministry. It’s how God leads us into his will. It’s how every part functions according to it’s purpose.

The Main Method: Exposition

The second practical application stems from the first. The main method behind Broadview’s preaching ministry is “text-driven exposition.” (Aka expository preaching)

This is inside baseball in some ways but there are multiple approaches to teaching the Bible.

Topical preaching is where the preacher comes to the Bible with an idea he wants to share and then finds lots of different verses to support the idea he wants to communicate.

Not all topical preaching is bad! Some would say this sermon is a topical sermon. They wouldn’t be wrong. I came to this text with an idea i already wanted to speak on.

Some topical preaching is terrible! Preachers can come with unbiblical assumptions or points and then use different proof texts (without context) to add God’s authority to ideas that God clearly did not communicate!

Theological preaching is where the preacher finds a theological truth within a passage of Scripture and then quickly leaves that text to show how the Bible develops that theological theme in other parts of Scripture. (this sermon is an example)

Finally there is expositional preaching. Sometimes called “Text-Driven Preaching.” This is preaching that goes word by word and line by line through a particular text. The main point of text becomes the main point of sermon and the context is provided so the text is allowed to speak for itself.

Not all expository sermons have to be preached through book by book series. But the reason I’m committed to that kind of preaching is because it forces me to deal with texts/ideas I otherwise wouldn’t touch and allows us to discover how ALL SCRIPTURE is inspired by God and profitable.

The Main Text Book: Bible

The final application is relates to everything that happens outside the Sunday sermon. The main text book for every class, group or discipleship program is the Bible.

When we break out of here and we go into small groups the teacher of your small group is going to center your class around the Word of God.

Some classes uses quarterlies, some use discussion guides around a Biblical text, some even use video content like Right Now Media. But the main source book for all of those things is the Bible.

Why? Because the Bible is the only book that is completely true and without error and completely trustworthy in all that it says.

There are so many other good books out there. So many great video Bible studies. But none of them are infallible. None of them are themselves sufficient for everything we need in the Christian life. They are narrowly applicable and generally reliable.

The Bible, however is sufficient for EVERYTHING we need in the Christian life. The Bible is the ONLY book inspired by God and uniquely designed to bring us to Jesus.

That’s why Paul told the church in Colossae “Let the word of Christ dwell richly among you, in all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another through psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts.” (Col 3:16)

That’s what we want to do. The Bible is standard against which we filter our music on Sunday mornings, our discipleship content in our small groups and classes.

Women of the Word

By the way, that reminds me of a great opportunity you have if you’re a woman in our church to jump in on this next ladies Bible study. It’s a bible study on how to study the Bible!

You can feed people fish and they’ll be hungry the next day. Teach someone to fish and you’ve fed them for a lifetime.

If you’ve ever wanted to know how to dig out biblical truth for yourself and try to make the Bible come alive in your own personal quiet times then this is the study you want to attend. It’s starting THIS WEDNESDAY!

Conclusion

Our church has and will continue to prioritize the Word of God because in prioritize the Word we prioritize Christ.

Jesus Christ is the head of the Church. He has all the authority inside and outside of these walls. He exercises that authority through the congregation but he shapes that congregation through the proper preaching of His Word!

Through the Word God creates his people. Faith comes by hearing and hearing through the Word. By God’s word we become wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

Through the Word God constructs us into the image of Christ. The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to sanctify the people of God into His image.

The Word does the Work

Personal Application

I wonder whether your personal commitment to engage God in His word reflects the priority of God’s Word that we see in Scripture?

Maybe this morning you would be willing to commit yourself to daily engagement with God through His Word.

Maybe you’ll stop seeing it as a rule book and start seeing it as God’s primary method to bring life and power.

Maybe you need to join a small group so that the Word begins to take root in your life. Maybe you need to start memorizing Scripture.

Maybe this morning you need to surrender yourself completely to the LIVING WORD and give your life to him by repenting of your sin and putting your faith in Jesus as Lord.

However you need to respond you can do that now.