Believe - Scripture (2)

Introduction

Because of living Word, we can know God and grow in his grace. Jeff Gravens shares the story of a church looking for a pastor. After a few candidates had been vetted and interviewed, a candidate preached and absolutely wowed the church. It was proclaimed, “That is our pastor.” Every person was in agreement. The search committee joyfully met with the potential pastor and said, “We are in agreement that you are the man God has called to pastor our church.” On his first Sunday as pastor, he walked to the pulpit, opened up his Bible, and preached a powerful sermon. It was biblically sound. It was theologically accurate. It inspired them to apply the Word to their every day life. People in the pew nudged each other and said, “This is just who we needed.” On his second Sunday, he walks to the pulpit, opens up his Bible and again preaches a powerful sermon that is biblically sound, theologically accurate, and inspiring applicable to the every day life. But this time it doesn’t have quite the effect as the week before. In fact, one or two people even scratch their heads during it. You see, the preacher has done something quite unusual. He preached the exact same sermon as the week before. Though odd, the congregation doesn’t mind too much. Each person remarks on their way out about the depth of Scriptural insight and how they learned something new in the second hearing of the same sermon. So now we arrive at this pastor’s third Sunday. The pastor walks to the pulpit. He reads the same scripture passage as week before. Then he preaches the exact same sermon for a third consecutive week. While the congregation was confident that this man was the preacher God had called to their church … they grew a little concerned. Well, a lot concerned. A few church members approached elders saying, “If he has the audacity to preach that sermon one more time – you’ll need to have a talk with him!” The elders decide to give the preacher one more Sunday. So Sunday number 4 arrives. The pastor walks to the pulpit. He reads the exact same passage. He preaches the same sermon. Finally, after this service there were no compliments. No kind words about how insightful his sermon had been. Instead, after the service the elders met with the pastor. The pastor invited them into his office and asked, “What can I do for you?” They answered, “We are a bit concerned that you keep preaching the same sermon every Sunday. Our question is: Do you have another sermon?” Expecting this question, the preacher took off his glasses. He folded his arms and replied, “I do have another sermon. But this church hasn’t obeyed the first one yet.”

Similarly, have you ever read the Bible on a topic, then proceeded to go against it immediately afterwards? Perhaps you have read Romans 12:12 where Paul says, “Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer,” and then snapped at the person who cut you off while driving. Or perhaps you read 1 Timothy 6:9 where Paul says, “But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.” And not a few minutes later, you eat every last cookie in the house without anyone else knowing. Greedy. Or, we read in Proverbs 3:5-6 where it says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths.” And right after, we tell go God, “Great advice God, I’ll trust in you. But first, I’ll take care of this issue I’m faced with myself. I’ll trust you tomorrow, or in small things.” One more example, we read Philippians 4:6 where Paul says,“do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” We want to not be anxious about anything. After all, who enjoys being anxiety? And yet, we still struggle to sleep before something important. Just like that pastor preached the same sermon four times, here are four examples of how we read one thing in the scriptures, and yet, it feels to connect with how we live life.

Today we’re in the middle of a combined Sunday School and sermon series that looks at what we believe, appropriately titled, Believe. What we believe shapes who we are and how we live. Some examples of belief include believing in our alarm clock to wake us up on time or our vehicle to get us to where we need to go. But this series is about something much deeper with eternal results. We’re taking a step back from looking at what God teaches within one specific passage from scripture. Instead we are looking at the whole of scripture. What does the whole of scripture teach about God, salvation, patience, or worship. As we do, we see how the entirety of scripture is God revealing himself to his people and teaching us about what we believe, what we should do, and who we should become, all of this is in light of who God is. In studying the Bible, each book contributes to a larger, systematic understanding of God. When looking at what we believe it’s important to look at the whole of scripture, rather than basing an entire doctrine on one or two passages of scripture. Today, we are looking at scripture. What is scripture? Why should we listen to it? What impact does it have on life?

Scripture is God speaking

In Exodus 3, Moses is simply going about a typical day in his life. he’s shepherd, so he’s keeping an eye out for his flock. Suddenly, God appears from out of nowhere, speaking to Moses through a bush that is burning. Even stranger is that this burning bush is not getting consumed by the fire, it is simply burning and burning and burning. God says to Moses, “Come, I will send you to Pharaoh that you may bring my people, the children of Israel, out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?” He said, “But I will be with you, and this shall be the sign for you, that I have sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall serve God on this mountain.” Imagine having a one on one conversation with the God of the universe. The one who created everything. Fortunately, we don’t have to imagine this, because each one of us can be in conversation with God. We talk to God in prayer. On the other hand, how does God speak to us today? There’s more than one answer, but one of the primary ways God speaks is through the Bible.

Noah Lukeman shares the story of Chuck Ross. You see, it’s tough to get a book accepted by a major publisher. Therefore, Chuck, who is a freelance writer, decided to test the system. He retyped the first twenty-one pages of a novel titled Steps, which had won the National Book Award six years before. Chuck sent his book proposal to four publishers, substituting the name, Erik Demos, as a pen name. All four publishers immediately rejected it. Two years later, Ross retyped the entire novel and submitted it, again under the pen name Erik Demos to several more publishers, including the original publisher, Random House. It was rejected by all with unhelpful comments, including one who simply used a form letter rejection. All told, fourteen publishers and thirteen literary agents failed to recognize a book that had already been published and had won an important award. Sometimes our approach to the Bible is a similar. The Bible teaches a radical way of living. Radical grace, radical patience, radical generosity. In its place, we settle for something much less. We settle for words of wisdom, rather than holding it up as a word breathed out by God and given to us for life. Johann Wolfgang Won Goethe said, “It is a belief in the Bible which has served me as the guide of my moral and literary life. No criticism will be able to perplex the confidence which we have entertained of a writing whose contents have stirred up and given life to our vital energy by its own. The farther the ages advance in civilization the more will the Bible be used.” The first question for us today is, how do we view Scripture? Is it a book that stands authoritatively over us or do we place us over it? As in, is it God’s authoritative words for our life or is it simply wise literature? Simply good suggestions? Do we read and hear what it says, just like the church of that pastor who preached the same sermon four times in a row, only to fail to allow it to take hold in our life?

The Holy Spirit inspired the writing of Scripture and illumines the reading of scripture

Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.” If we had to pick one passage that concisely teaches what the Word of God is and for, this might be it. When the human authors of scripture put pen to the page, they didn’t simply write what they wanted, then God looked over their shoulder and gave them a thumbs up. The Word of God also didn’t fall from heaven to be discovered by someone and published, like the texts of other faiths claim to have done. We can trace the path of the original authors of the text down through the centuries as the Word of God was passed along. Through this process, we see how the Holy Spirit inspired the original authors and worked through the process of transmitting it through the centuries to the words that we have today. The Psalmist prays in,

Psalm 119:18 ESV

Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law.

The Holy Spirit is a part of both ends of the process of scripture. The Spirit inspired the authors of scripture, but as the Psalmist prays here, the Holy Spirit is also a part in helping us understand and apply scripture.

Brian Lowery shares the story of Scott Adams, who is the creator and writer of the Dilbert cartoons. Scott suffered from a vocal disorder, spasmodic dysphonia. With this rare disorder, a certain section of the brain simply shuts down, paralyzing the ability to speak with much command or volume. Think of it as a more permanent case of laryngitis. Oddly enough, the condition is situational. For example, he could speak well when using his public speaking voice, but his more conversational, everyday tone eluded him. Adams wrote on his personal website about how frustrating the condition was. He desperately wanted his normal voice back. One day he finally had a breakthrough. While helping his kid with a simple homework assignment, Scott found that he could speak perfectly when using a rhyme scheme. He could say, “Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick” with very little difficulty. As he noted on his website, it was “just different enough from normal speech that my brain handled it fine.” What is amazing is that Adams’s regular voice returned as well as he practiced the rhyming scheme. He compared his healing to starting up a car on a cold winter night. The words of the poem awakened a sleeping section of his brain, and his normal voice suddenly emerged. This is also how the Holy Spirit can work with the Word. A passage that we might find boring and difficult to take much from can suddenly come alive and speak to us as we pray over it and invite the Holy Spirit to illuminate its meaning. You see, the words of scripture are more than words on a page, they are inspired by God and the Holy Spirit illuminates our reading of it. Is that how we read and respond to scripture?

The central message of Scripture is clear to understand

Referring to Paul, Peter write in

2 Peter 3:16 ESV

as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.

To put this passage more simply, there are passage in the Bible that are tough to understand. But that doesn’t mean that the message of the Bible is hard to understand. Rather, it is simple. Here are a few examples, what is the Gospel? Well, it is quite simply given to us in 1 Corinthians 15:3-6

1 Corinthians 15:3–6 ESV

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

There’s all kinds of ways that digging in deeper to this passage will teach us about the author of passage, the audience, the surrounding culture, and the nuance of the language. However, we can also simply read the words of scripture and know the basics of the gospel. Here’s another example. Do we have to guess about whether or not we will one day be saved? No, because 1 John 5:13

1 John 5:13 ESV

I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, that you may know that you have eternal life.

The passage directly tells us that we don’t have to guess about our relationship with God or our final destiny. We can know that we have eternal life.

Someone who was in Bible college once grew frustrated that his assignment and papers had become so in depth and academic that the Bible was turned into an intellectual exercise. Looking back, the person said, “I had to graduate from Bible college in order to read the Bible.”

There’s a lot to be said about deeply learning the Bible. But that said, we simply read the Bible and understand its central message. Therefore, here’s a couple of things to think about. Because the Bible was written so long ago and there’s so much to learn about it, does that stand in your way of reading the Bible and simply learning what God has given us? Does the in-depth become a barrier for you to the simple? if it does, try to simply read through a book such as one of the Gospel and enjoy the simple words of Jesus.

Conclusion

Do you ever read scripture and then proceed to go against what you just read? I’m sure we all have done it at some point. Therefore, here are things important points to remember about the Bible. First, scripture isn’t simply words on a page. Scripture is the God speaking to us. Second, The Holy Spirit has inspired the writing of the Word, and today the Holy Spirit us read and apply the Word. Finally, it’s important to dive in deep to scripture, but don’t let the in depth became a barrier to learning and loving the central, clear, and simply message of scripture.

David Slagle tells the story of NBC adding VeggieTales, a popular and thoroughly Christian cartoon from the 2000s, to its Saturday morning lineup. Before showing any episodes however, the network first eliminated Bob the Tomato, Larry the Cucumber, and many of the references to God and Scripture. Initially NBC said the cuts were necessary to fit each episode into a tight, twenty-three-minute slot. But it was clear there was more to the story. After pressure from several Christian organizations, NBC released the following statement: “NBC is committed to the positive messages and universal values of VeggieTales. Our goal is to reach as broad an audience as possible with these positive messages, while being careful not to advocate any one religious point of view.” Phil Vischer, co-creator of VeggieTales, expressed deep disappointment with this. “It’s a mistake to pitch VeggieTales as just values,” he said, “because fundamentally it’s about God.” How often do we do the same thing with the Bible? The fruit of the Spirit become good values. Divine wisdom is turned into a good lifestyle, and the Bible becomes simply words on a page. But let us never allow ourselves so stumble and fall into this trap. The Word of god is more than morality, more than good values, or wisdom for life. It is the words of life with a message and hope for eternal life. Because of living Word of God, we can know God and grow in his ways.