The Values that Shape Us

Introduction

Authority can be hard to accept even if we trust the person that it’s coming from. None of us like to be under authority—we all want to do what seems right to us—this is a result of sin in us and living in a sinful world.

Most authority that we see in this world is corrupted by sin.

But God is different. On Sunday in the sermon we talked about how Jesus is a master that you want to serve because He is unlike any other master—He’s actually good, completely, no sin exists in Him—He’s all-knowing—all wise—all powerful.

God’s authority is good—it’s for human flourishing, peace, and happiness.

How do we know what God is telling us? How do we receive His good, authoritative guidance over our lives?

We receive it in the written word.

Listen to what the Westminster Confession of Faith says…

God reveals himself in nature but that can’t save someone. So He revealed Himself more personally—and God in His wisdom to preserve and spread the truth, to comfort the church, and to protect the church from the sin of man and the hatred of Satan committed His revelation in writing.

The Bible that we have is the Word of God and the authority of God for our lives. That’s true, but I want you to know that it’s true.

I. We believe that God’s Word is the authority…

There are 3 things I want you to know about God’s Word tonight. That it is special, that it is trustworthy, and it is sufficient.

God’s Word is special revelation

Why do we even need a Bible?

What we can discern about God from creation is great.

What are some things that we can discern about God from observing creation?

That he’s big, powerful, intelligent…

Romans 1:20 “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.”

Creation tells us that there is a God and that we have no excuse as humans to not seek Him. No one can stand before God after death and honestly say, “I didn’t know there was anything besides me.”

Nature tells us there is a God, but not what kind of God He is.

The guys who wrote the Westminster Confession of Faith summarize scripture like this…

“Although the light of nature, and the works of creation and providence do so far manifest the goodness, wisdom, and power of God, as to leave men inexcusable; yet are they not sufficient to give that knowledge of God, and of his will, which is necessary unto salvation. Therefore it pleased the Lord…to commit the same wholly unto writing: which maketh the Holy Scripture to be most necessary…

God’s plan is not just for us to know that there is a God, but who He is and how we can be in relationship with Him and be saved from the judgment that our sin earns us.

The Bible is not just historical words of men but historical words of men guided by Holy God himself because He wanted to reveal Himself to us.

2 Peter 1:21 “For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Things that are common to us are often not highly regarded—rarity is special to humans—But know that even though America is filled with the written Word of God that this does not mean it isn’t special—America is littered with the supernatural Word of God.

Ok, so the Bible is God revealing Himself to us in a way that creation can’t—He supervised it’s writing—so that what we have is reliably God’s Words to us. Which brings us to our next truth about God’s Word…

God’s Word is Trustworthy

Is the Bible trustworthy? How do we know that it’s really God’s Word? What makes it stand out from other “holy books”. 3 Things:

Archaeology

The Bible is a collection of historical documents. Real people wrote real history of real places.

Here’s the question: Are the Bible’s claims accurate where they can be checked? Archaeology proves the answer to be yes.

Here’s a couple of examples:

In 2 Kings 3:1–6 “In the eighteenth year of Jehoshaphat king of Judah, Jehoram the son of Ahab became king over Israel in Samaria, and he reigned twelve years. He did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, though not like his father and mother, for he put away the pillar of Baal that his father had made. Nevertheless, he clung to the sin of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, which he made Israel to sin; he did not depart from it. Now Mesha king of Moab was a sheep breeder, and he had to deliver to the king of Israel 100,000 lambs and the wool of 100,000 rams. But when Ahab died, the king of Moab rebelled against the king of Israel. So King Jehoram marched out of Samaria at that time and mustered all Israel.”

What we have in the Bible is this historical occurence from the historians of Israel.

In 1868 a stone tablet was found in the Middle East—it was a “victory stone” erected to celebrate the military achievements of a king in Moab and it starts off, “I am Mesha, son of Chemosh, king of Moab…”

This find proves that Moab was real, Mesha and Chemosh were historical people, and that Moab was in military conflict with Israel…just like God’s Word says.

Historical skeptics of God’s Word used to point to the Hititte people’s in the Bible as a made up people—an imaginary enemy used as a literary device to talk about Israel’s God. They said this because there was no trace of a people in the geography the Bible described called Hittites.

George Frederick Wright was an evolutionary geologist who used the Bible’s mentioning of the Hittites as proof that the Bible is not reliable as no evidence of such a people existed.

That is until 1834 when a Hittite city began to be uncovered in Turkey—what resulted was the Hittite’s existent, culture, wars, and trade being proven by what was found in the uncovered city.

This led George Frederick Wright to write, “All the doubts entertained in former times concerning the accuracy of the numerous biblical statements concerning the Hittites is now seen to be due to our ignorance,” Wright wrote. “It was pure ignorance, not superior knowledge, which led so many to discredit these representations. When shall we learn the inconclusiveness of negative testimony?”

Here’s the truth about the Bible’s track record with Archaeology:

No facts presented in the OT & NT have ben shown false by Archaeology—the Bible’s claims have only been proven true.

Where the Bible can be proven true it is by archaeology. Archaeology proves the Bible to be worthy of our trust. And so does…

Textual Criticism

What is textual criticism? It’s the criticism of a text—didn’t that clear that up for you?

It’s the process of examining historical texts for their accuracy—it seeks to answer the question: Can we trust that this text represents the original text accurately—Is what we have here, what they had then? And related—can we trust the claims of this ancient text.

Archaeological discoveries plays a big role in this as we have discussed but so does the number of manuscripts we have of an ancient text and how much time passed between the original writing.

Quick note: Copies are important because we don’t have the original of any of these texts.

So let’s look at some ancient texts that shape our understanding of the ancient world and how their amount of evidence stacks up to the Bible’s.

Julius Caesar is an historical writing showing us the history of not only Rome, but the ancient world. It has given us a view into civilization in another age—we have 251 copies of this text—and the earliest copy we have is dated 950 years after the original.

A book you probably have on your shelf at home—The works of Herodotus—we have 109 copies of his work—with the earliest copy dated 1400 years after the original.

The works of Homer—1800 copies—way more than these other accepted ancient histories—we have so many copies of Homer and can compare and contrast them that we have confidence that what we have is 95% accurate to the original.

The more copies of a manuscript you have and the earlier those copies are the more confidence we can have in them.

So how does the Bible stack up?

We have over 5,300 manuscripts of biblical texts—that’s nearly 3x that of Homer—most copies are 2-300 years after the original, but we have some less than 100 years removed from the original—this beats every other ancient text by nearly 1000 years.

The amount of copies we have of the Biblical texts and how early they date to the originals give us over 99% accuracy that what they say is what the original said.

What does this mean?

If someone wants to call the Bible unreliable as an historical text and they want to be consistent then they also have to reject every other ancient text that we accept as accurate and true.

In every area—the standards we use to determine historical accuracy in ancient texts—the Bible out performs them.

The Bible is special, trustworthy, and …

God’s Word is Sufficient

What does all this mean about the Bible? It means that what it says about salvation is true. What does it say?

Do we need to do certain holy actions to be saved? Do we need to travel to certain holy places in pilgrimage? Do we need certain kinds of special people to guide us to salvation like gurus, priests, or wisemen?

Romans 10:9 “because, 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.”

Salvation was not simple for Christ to obtain, but it is simple for us to receive.

Any person, anywhere, simply need to now that they are a sinner in need of savior and confess that Jesus is that Lord and savior and believe that his death & resurrection saves sinners who come to Him.

If you are in this room and you have never done that you can do that tonight—tonight could be the start of a new life for you—a better life for you.

So if God’s Word is special, trustworthy, and sufficent to save us then…

II. …and guide for our lives.

It must be the guide for our lives.

Here’s the thing—We are all guided by something in our lives. All of us look to something outside of themselves for guidance on what to do—how to act—what’s important.

Even though the Bible is an ancient book full of ancient histories that doesn’t mean that it isn’t applicable or practical for our lives in 2025.

Even though the places and cultures are different the people are not—a man or woman in 1st century Palestine has the same heart as a man or woman in America in 2025—our struggles, our fears, what we need, are all the same because people are people.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 “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.”

In our value we have the underlined. Why do you think that is?

Because for the believer God’s Word is the final authority.

This doesn’t mean that we can’t look to anything else in our life for wisdom and guidance. God has given us people, institutions (like school) in our lives as blessings—but everything is filtered through the wisdom and truth of God’s Word because God is the ultimate authority in our lives and His Word is our guide.

Conclusion

The first value of 517 Youth is that, “We believe that the Word of God is the authority and guide for our lives.”

What about you personally? The Bible is trustworthy—if any book in history can be trusted then so can the Bible—but only the Bible is the special revelation of from God about Himself, us, and how we can be saved.

Are you giving God’s Word the authority and guidance over your life that it should have?

Let’s pray.