Scripture and Sermon

Introduction for the Scripture and Sermon

For the composers of our liturgy, everything needed to be rooted and grounded in Scripture. They made a point to create a service of worship that is filled to the brim with the Word of God. Not only do we read large portions of Scripture every Sunday, but all of the liturgy comes directly from the Bible or indirectly reflecting it. The result is that the Word of God is constantly in our ears and upon our lips, with the hope and prayer that it would become rooted in our hearts.

As we walk through the movements of our liturgy step by step, we come to the reading of Scripture. The service begins with praise and acclamation: Blessed be God and blessed be His kingdom! It then moves to a prayer of confession and we ask that the Holy Spirit would worship in us and through us, because we can’t do it right on our own. And then we transition into what is known as the Ministry of the Word.

So this morning we’re talking about why we read and preach the Scriptures every week. And there is so much that we could talk about here, but to focus our time together, I want to use a phrase from a theologian named Kevin Vanhoozer to help give structure for this sermon. Vanhoozer says that the “Scriptures are the cradle where the incarnate Christ lies and the scepter by which the ascended Christ rules his church.” So today we’re going to examine how the Scriptures are the place where we go to meet and know Jesus. And secondly, we’ll see how Scripture is the tool by which Christ rules and reigns in his church. So, short answer to why we read and preach Scripture every week in our liturgy? Because in the Word of God we meet Jesus, and through the Word of God, Christ transforms our lives.

Now, we’re going to be all over the place in our Bibles today, but to begin with let’s look at Psalm 19.

“The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork. Day to day pours out speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words, whose voice is not heard. Their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world. In them he has set a tent for the sun, which comes out like a bridegroom leaving his chamber, and, like a strong man, runs its course with joy. Its rising is from the end of the heavens, and its circuit to the end of them, and there is nothing hidden from its heat.

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Who can discern his errors? Declare me innocent from hidden faults. Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” (Psalm 19:1–14, ESV)

This psalm is all about revelation. We hear beautiful and poetic imagery of how the heavens and the skies, day and night, shouting forth with a loud voice, that we might know the glory of God. All the earth is pouring out speech, that we might know that there is a God who reigns over Creation.

You have heard their voice. How many of us have seen a beautiful sunrise on the way to work that gripped our heart in an uncanny way - moving us to acknowledge that God is real, and He must be good. The beautiful places in our word - the mountains, the forests, the rivers and oceans, the stars in the sky - they move us towards the belief that there is a God who reigns over the earth, and his artistry is above anything man could dream up.

And yet, that’s not enough. This is the argument that the apostle Paul makes in Romans 1:19-20.

“For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse.” (Romans 1:19–20, ESV)

What Paul is saying is that, Yes, you can look around at the natural world, and through it you can know that there is a Creator God who reigns on high in glory and majesty, and yet the result of that accurate observation is that you have no excuse for your sins. It doesn’t leave you with a saving relationship with God. It leaves you with no excuse.

And so in Psalm 19, we hear the doctrine of general revelation, that you can learn things about God in what He has created, but it cannot save you. Psalm 19 is an argument from the lesser to the greater. What does the psalmist say is perfect? What is sure? What is right? What is true? What is enduring? What is pure and clean? What is better than all of creation? What is better than gold and sweeter than honey? It’s the word of the Lord. The Word of God is far better than any message that we might receive from the natural world.

The psalmist is not content to know about God. He wants to know God. He wants to know the Creator as not a God, but his God. At the end of the psalm he talks of “my God, my rock, and my redeemer.” And unless we have God’s own voice from his lips, we cannot know him in that way.

And we know that’s how relationships work. Think about your favorite artist. Whether that’s a musician or author or actor or artist. This is the person that you would go out of your way to see their work. When I was in high school, I had a favorite rock band that every time they came to Atlanta, I’d go to their show. I knew all their songs. I practiced them on my guitar. I listened to them in my car. I knew how the band got together. I knew the bands that inspired them. I studied these guys for years.

But here’s what we all know. If I had had the opportunity to sit down with these guys for an hour over coffee, I would learn more about them in that single hour than I could have ever learned in the years of studying their work from afar. You can know so much about a person without actually knowing them. But when you have the opportunity to sit down with them, and hear what they have to say - that’s when you learn to truly know them. And it’s the same with God.

This is what Paul teaches in 1 Corinthians 2:11.

“For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:11, ESV)

No one can know the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God! So how can we actually learn God’s thoughts? How can we actually come to know God? The same way that I actually come to know you. I have to listen to you speak. I have to listen to what you disclose about yourself - how you describe who you are. And God has done that in his Word. And that is why the psalmist is thrilled about God’s word, why he can’t get enough of it.

This is why we say that the Scriptures are the cradle where the incarnate Christ lies. Do you actually want to know this God personally? Do you actually want this God to be your rock and your redeemer? Well, the only way that you can actually know him is to listen to his voice and to hear what he reveals about himself. You can learn a lot about God from other sources, but if you want to have an enduring relationship with him, you need to go to His word.

And notice, how in Psalm 19, that this is all for our flourishing. What does the psalmist say the word of God does in his life? He says that it revives the soul, and makes wise the simple, and rejoices the heart, and enlightens the eyes. You see, for the psalmist, there isn’t a bitterness or frustration or begrudging spirit when it comes to meeting God in His word. No, it is a joy that leads to a flourishing life, as we come to learn the very heart of our God through His word. And this makes perfect sense, because in John 1, we are told that Jesus is life in himself. So of course when we walk in fellowship with Jesus, when we listen to his Word, we are walking and listening to life itself. So if you want to know what it is to flourish in life, then you need to walk in fellowship with Jesus. And the primary means by which we learn to have fellowship with Christ is through the Scriptures.

Are there other ways to deepen your relationship with the Lord? Absolutely! Just as there are many ways to deepen your relationship with your spouse or your kids or your neighbors. But if you want to know them know them. If you want to know their heart. If you want to have true and abiding fellowship with them, than you have to listen to them as they speak and share their heart with you. Well, Scripture is God sharing His heart with you. This is God’s message to you and to me of the lengths to which He has moved heaven and earth to make us whole again. This is God sharing his heart with you, so that you might know how much he loves you. If you want to flourish in life, you need to read Scripture.

The Scriptures are the cradle where the incarnate Christ lays, and in these words we are invited, beckoned even, to know our Creator and to be drawn up into a loving relationship with him forever.

But the Scriptures are not just the place where we meet Jesus, but they are also the scepter by which the ascended Christ rules his church. We’ve spent a lot of time talking about why we read Scripture, but what about this whole preaching thing? If the Word of the Lord is perfect and pure and enduring forever, as Psalm 19 puts it, why on earth do we have an imperfect and flawed person like me who fails day in and day out preaching?

Well, quickly turn with me to 2 Timothy 3:16.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.” (2 Timothy 3:16–4:5, ESV)

Paul starts out with the doctrine that we’ve already explored and that we hold to be true at Redeemer: Scripture is God-breathed, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and it therefore has total authority over our lives. To teach us, to correct us, to transform us. But he goes on. Having just said that Scripture is God-breathed, he charges Timothy to preach it. And what a charge it is:

“I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word.”

So clearly, we are called to have people preach the word to us. How do we grow in our faith and our love for Jesus? It isn’t only that we read the Word, but we also hear the word preached in the community of the church.

Listen to what Paul wrote in Ephesians 4.

“And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,” (Ephesians 4:11–15, ESV)

Do you see the parralel between these two passages? How do we grow and mature in faith? How do we avoid falling away or being pulled away from the gospel? God has given the church a gift, for he raises up men and women to preach and teach His Word.

And why do we need to hear the Word preached? Well, in 2 Timothy 4, we see a list of things that happen when the Word of God is not preached. People begin to wander away. They seek after new teachers who will speak exactly what they want to hear. They will not endure in faith, but will turn away from listening to the truth. And all of this is rooted in what he says in verse 3: it is to suit their own passions.

We’ve talked a lot about passion and desire and loves lately, because we think it’s vitally important to understand. Why does anyone wander away from the truth of God’s Word? Because of twisted passions in our hearts. We do not naturally love the right things. In fact, we tend to love and desire that which will ultimately destroy us: mind, body, and soul. And so we need the passions of our hearts transformed and redirected to that which gives abundant life - Jesus Christ! We need to love Him more than any other desire of our heart.

But how does that happen? Well there was a helpful image I heard a while back that might help us understand this better. Imagine I handed you a beaker and told you to get all the air out of the beaker. It needs to be completely empty of air. Now, there’s a couple ways to go about this. One way you could go is to use a vacuum and suck all the air out of the beaker. But for that to work, you’d need a perfect seal, so no outside air could get back in. Now, this method is like saying in order to get all the disordered loves and desires out of my heart, I need to get rid of all those desires. I need my eyes opened to how they do not lead me into life, but rather they take more than they give, and then once I see the truth and get rid of these desires, I’ll place a seal over my heart so I’ll never be tempted again.

It doesn’t take a rocket science to know that that method will never work. First off, good luck trying to rid your heart of corrupted desires; but even if you could magically suck out all your disordered loves from your heart, there is no human will strong enough to perfectly seal off one’s heart from temptations. No, this isn’t the way.

There is a better way, and it is far more simple. Pour water into the beaker. Pour a heavier substance into the beaker, and it will push the air out. Pour a heavier affection into your heart, and those vapid desires will be pushed out. And what is that heavier affection? It is the love of Christ.

The work of preaching is putting Christ in front of your eyes, so that you can see him as more wonderful, more beautiful, more worthwhile than anything else in all of Creation, so that you might love him above everything else. That is the work of preaching.

I am not here to give you life tips to make your life better - though preaching should apply to your life. I am not here to entertain you - though you shouldn’t make the Bible boring, because it’s not in the least. I am not here to give you cultural wisdom to help you understand the world around you - though the Bible certainly gives us that information. No, I am here to put Christ in front of your eyes, so that you might look upon him with love and adoration. Because that is the only way we will every grow and mature - if we see Christ. And that is the work and the gift of preaching.

So week in and week out, we read the Scriptures - because in them we meet and know our God. And week in and week out, we preach the Scriptures - because we need to have our Savior and Redeemer placed before our eyes, so that his mighty love may fill us to the brim, and overflow into all areas of our lives.

Truly the psalmist is right: The Word of the Lord revives our soul. It rejoices our heart. It enlightens our eyes. And it is more desirable than gold, and sweeter than honey. Let’s pray.