Anchored:Truth To Keep Us Grounded

Scripture

Introduction:

Thank you Kayla, whats up everyone? Hope everyone has had an amazing week and has stayed dry… who else is tired of the rain? lol me too but hey..

I’m not Madison. He actually got a sort of last-minute call to play drums today so I got the call to teach today so he was planning on teaching this morning, but a rock stars got to do what a rockstars gotta do.

well hey we’re actually gonna be kicking off a new series today but before I tell you about that let’s jump into a time of prayer…

Pray…

As I said, we’re gonna be starting a new series this week and this series is gonna go throughout the summer we may bounce in and out of it, but for the most part, this will be our focus and the title of the series is gonna be Anchored: Truth To Keep Us Grounded.

Again, it’s gonna be anchored truth to keep us grounded and really what this series is gonna be as you know or some of You may know we are a part of the SBC and the SBC is sort of like a it’s been an umbrella of southern Baptist churches because that is what we are Gardendale first Baptist we are southern Baptist and so basically the SBC is a committee they make these decisions about sort of the direction that we we are going to go in the Faith and really just more of just leadership and hard issue decisions.

And what this means is that you know hard issues in the Bible that some people interpret differently than others will the SPC’s gonna come together and they’re going to make these decisions that a lot of churches under the umbrella of the SC and we’re talking about thousands and thousands of churches are going to abide by what the ultimate decision is with these issues and so we fall under that umbrella of the SBC and really with the SBC does as they make these these statements called the Baptist Faith and message and it is basically the SBC statements and stance on what we believe about these certain areas.

so what we’re gonna be doing is throughout the summer we’re gonna be going through these statements and finding out really who we are and what we believe and why we believe them and so it’s gonna be really fun and we’re gonna get into some interesting topics and you know we might discuss some of what what other people believe in what other religions and like denominations might think but ultimately we’re gonna be focusing on what we believe and why we believe it and who we are as Baptist so with that being said today we’re gonna be talking about scripture. What is it? What we believe about it? Why is it important to us? Is it God’s word? Is it without error? You know how do we look at scripture all these things and that’s really what we’re gonna be talking about today.

But before we jump into this statement…. Has anyone here ever tried to build something without a set of instructions? maybe you bought a piece of furniture, maybe you were working on a vehicle and you were just like oh this looks pretty simple let me just try? yeah me i would never… im joking of course… let me tell you about this one time, very recently i tried to build bedroom furniture without instructions….

*Tells furniture story*

Although this is a funny story, isnt this how most of us go through our lives? Whether we want to admit it or not most of us are traveling through life without our instruction manuel. We are facing problems by ourselves when we dont have to. God never intended for us to go through life this way. He as given us His word so that we may know exactly who He is and so we may have exactly what we need at any given time..

And this is what we would believe.. The statement we will be looking at today is like i said the baptist faith and message statement on scripture and like i said million of Christians will say they abide by this statement in regards to scripture which says…

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”The Holy Bible was written by men divinely inspired and is God’s revelation of Himself to man. It is a perfect treasure of divine instruction. It has God for its author, salvation for its end, and truth, without any mixture of error, for its matter. Therefore, all Scripture is totally true and trustworthy. It reveals the principles by which God judges us, and therefore is, and will remain to the end of the world, the true center of Christian union, and the supreme standard by which all human conduct, creeds, and religious opinions should be tried. All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.”

So as i read, prayed, and thought about this statement, i came up with 3 “Gods word is…” Statements and number 1 is….

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1.) Gods Word is Our Foundation

so what is a foundation? Google defines a foundation as a “base or supporting principle upon which something rests or develops.” Thats interesting isnt it? This would mean that Gods word is the base of which we build everything on in regards to our faith and honestly not only our faith but our life as well. Without the bible we would have no revelation of Jesus to refer back so it truly is the foundation of which our faith is built.

The Statement made by the SBC says that the Bible is God’s revelation of himself to man and it also says that ALL SCRIPTURE is a testimony to Jesus Christ. These are interesting statements because they go along with the understanding that Scripture is used to reveal God to us. Without it, we would not have a true understanding of our faith. How would we know that we are saved by grace through faith without Gods word.

It is our foundation and this means that every decision and our character should be based around what God reveals to us through his Word but what really is God’s word? What is the Bible? pretty elementary questions right? well i brought a chart to help us visualize what the bible really is, hopefully this will help some of our visual learners.

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*Pulls up wes huff chart* Feel free to just speak about it.

Ok so i know there is a lot going on here and feel free to look all over this but as we can see our bible has 66 books, Does anyone know how many are in the Old Testament? 39, Which means that the New Testament has ???? 27. Exactly great job! If we continue looking at this chart we see that scripture has over 40 authors, Does anyone know how many differnet authors wrote the New Testament? 8. Which means we had a lot of different writers in the Old Testament.

This can cause a hiccup for some skeptics because there are so many different authors people might argue that ok well someone might have read the previous book and wrote about it and thats why there is no contradictions. We must realize that firstly, the probability of some random person writing scripture that doesnt contradict with the other numerous books of the scripture even if you knew them is very slim. Secondly, we are talking about a book that was composed over 1500+ years. The people writing especially from Old Testament to New had never even met eachother so eeither they are all just insanly good at memorizing everyhting in scripture or ding ding ding—The bible was inspired divinly through these men that wrote them.

Does this mean that anyone can write scripture? How do we know what someone wrote is scripture? In terms of the Old Testament, Jesus affirms the books we have in the Old Testament and so do the New Testament writers because they speak about them. We often see in Scripture Jesus saying “so you have heard it said..” or pointing back to stories of the Old Testament so because Jesus points back to the Old Testament we certainly can trust in them.

Also it is quite often people will skip over the Old Testament and not read it and while yes the truth of our salvation if found in the person,death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the statement we read earlier, end with “All Scripture is a testimony to Christ, who is Himself the focus of divine revelation.” What does this mean? Well this means that ALL SCRIPTURE point back to Jesus.

This is what makes the bible so incredible. You have 66 books, 40+Authors, written over 1500 years, telling one complete story that does not contradict with eachother, i mean it is absolutley fascinating.

If we look In Genesis 1 we see God say “Let us make man in Our Image” Plural, we see the trinity right there at the beginning. If we continue on In Isaiah 7:14 says, “Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.” I mean this is was written 740 Years before the birth of Jesus. you can find verse like this all through the Old Testament but even in the New you have Jesus speaking and says in John 8:58 “Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”” You have Jesus himself stating that He has been there through all of it.

Ok so what were the requirements for the New Testament? Does anyone remember when Madison taught on this earlier this year? He gave the steps of criteria and atleast one of them had to be met for every New Testament book. Does anyone remember what those 3 were?

1.)The person had to be an apostle

2.)The person had to know an apostle and spend time with them

3.)The person had to of spent time with Jesus

So we have 8+ authors in the New Testament, Lets see how they all fit the criteria. Matthew spent time with Jesus. Mark spent time with Paul, Luke also spent time with Paul. John spent time with Jesus. Paul had an experience with Jesus and spent a lot of time with Peter who spent a lot of time with Jesus. Ive heard before well why do we consider Pauls writing scripture. Well 1 because he meets this criteria and secondly, Peter tells us to regard Pauls writings as scripture in 2 Peter 3:15–16 “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, 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.” “The other scripture” Peter is putting Pauls letter on the same level of scripture which is why we would do the same. We can go on and on down the list of books and they will meet all of this criteria and obviously this is a lot of just information and facts but there is a reason you need the facts of what scripture truly is.

To understand the Gods word is our foundation we must first understand the Bible is trustworthy, it is divinly inspired by God and has been tried time and time again by so many people yet the Bible always holds up and prevails against all that comes against it. so now we know all how the bible is composed and how God used a lot of different people to compose what we know as the Bible but what do every single writer of the bible, Old and New, have in common?

*Pause*

They were all inspired by God to write exactly what God wanted to be said in his Word. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,”

God used the personality off all of these men to create different writings that all testify to God and that takes us to our second point which is…

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2.)Gods Word is God Speaking to Us

God used all of these authors in a special way to reveal himself and his Law and instruction to us. We see time and time again throughout scripture, God speaking. in the Old you see “Thus says the Lord” or in places like Jeremiah where God physically touches Jeremiahs mouth and in Jeremiah 1:9 and says, “Behold, I have put my words in your mouth.” So we see that these words that we read on these pages are not just words stated by men but are words spoken by God to us.

One of the scriptures given in defense to the baptist faith and message statement on Scripture is 2 Peter 1:19-21 and we are gonna kinda break this down for just a moment so if you want to turn their, again its 2 Peter chapter 1 verse 19-21.

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2 Peter 1:19–21 ESV

And we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone’s own interpretation. 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.

So here you have Peter who expereinced the transfiguragtion, saying that we have the truth more confirmed because of the prophetic writings which would be the Old Testament. This is a pretty crazy statement because he is elevating the prophetic writings over apostolic eye witness. He is literally saying “yo i experienced the glory of God shining in front of me and i saw this actually happen but these writings, they are more trustworthy than what i experienced. Thats crazy isnt it? Then he goes on to say that we would do well to pay attention to these writings. Keep in mind He is speaking about the Old Testament which goes with our conversation earlier about reading the Old Testament.

but i love the imagery Peter uses, not only pay attention to it but pay attention so intently and deeply as to a lamp shining in a dark place. Imagine.

🕯️ Illustration: The Lamp in the Dark Room

Imagine you’re in a room with no windows, no lights, no phone, nothing. Pitch black. You can’t see your hand in front of your face.

You start feeling around — for a wall, for a doorknob, for anything familiar.

You’re not just confused — you’re vulnerable. You don’t know where the dangers are. You don’t know where the exit is. You don’t know what you’re about to trip over.

Then suddenly… you see it.

A lamp. Small, but unmistakably bright. Sitting on a stand. Cutting through the darkness.

You don’t ignore it. You don’t walk away from it. You don’t say, “I’ll figure this out on my own.”

You’re drawn to it. You move toward it. And as you do, the room begins to take shape. You can see where to walk. You can see what to avoid. You can see the way out.

That’s what Scripture does. It doesn’t just inspire you — it illuminates your life. It shows you reality. It reveals dangers. It directs your steps.

This is why Peter says: “Pay attention to it.”

This is how the bible is for us. We pick it up, we read it, and it will surely illuminate and give us direction in our life and we will touch more on this shortly but lets get back to this passage. Peter continues saying we need to pay attentiont to it always, never turning from it and then you get to an extremely part of this verse that we must hold to if were going to read scripture. Peter says that “no Prophecy of Scripture comes form someone’s own interpretation.

Ok so now were thinking, if its not someone interpretation of it then whose it it? Peter tells us in the next verse, he says the “no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke form God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” This is a really cool statement. Peter is saying that any book that we have in Scripture, especially Old, may have been written by men but each of those men were under the influence of the Holy Spirit. This calls for us to pay extra attention to what we are reading. This isnt just anyones words, They are the creator of the universe words directly to each of us.

but Peter isnt the only one who believes that the Holy Spirit influences the writers of scripture, The writer of Hebrews says,

English Standard Version Chapter 1

Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son

So here is more confirmation that God used men to speak to others on his authority. We have already seen Paul speak about ALL SCRIPTURE being God breathed and then if we look again we see the writer of Hebrews tell us in Hebrews 4:12 that,

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Hebrews 4:12 ESV

For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

So we have established that all these writers of Scripture, who are trustworthy and influenced by the Holy Spirit as they write, saying that Gods word, is “living” and “active”, “sharpter than any two edged sword, “piercing”. The writers of Hebrews is saying that Gods Word is not only speaking to us but it has the power to change and transform us which leads us into our third and final point which is….

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3.) Gods Word Is Instructing Us

I feel like most people stop before they get to this point when reading scripture. We have peter telling us we should keep to the scriptures and hold them close and so often times what we do is we just read, we just read and dont take anything from it. So how do we go from just reading scripture to letting scripture influence and change us within? What does Studying Gods word really look like? why do we actually need Gods word to change us?

This is something i actually find myself being quite passionate about, the ability of Gods word to change us from the inside out. As most of you know, im in school for biblical counseling and what does that mean? That means when i council, which we all give and recieve counsel, i am going to use the bible to encourage, support, and instruct someone who may be dealing with hard problems. Let me give you an example.

“Heath Lambert, a biblical counselor, tells the story of a man who came to him for counseling who was absolutely enslaved to anger. He was just mad at everything. His marriage was falling apart, his kids were afraid of him, and he felt completely hopeless. He had tried everything — breathing techniques, journaling, counting to ten — nothing touched the real problem.

When the man finally sat down for biblical counseling, Heath didn’t start with psychology or coping strategies. He opened the Bible.

*pause*

He took him to passages like James 1:19–20, where God says, ‘Be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God.’

And something happened.

The man said, ‘I’ve heard advice before, but I’ve never had someone show me what God says about my anger.’

Week after week, they kept going back to Scripture — not just reading it, but applying it. And slowly, the man began to change. His reactions softened. His tone changed. His wife noticed. His kids noticed. He wasn’t just controlling anger — he was becoming a different man.

And Heath said this: ‘That wasn’t my counseling. That was the power of God’s Word doing what only God’s Word can do.’

That’s why I’m passionate about biblical counseling. Because when we open the Bible with someone, we’re not giving them our opinions — we’re giving them the very words of God. And God’s Word doesn’t just inform people. It transforms them.”

People are dealing with problems each and every day and for some reason, the Bible is usually not the first place we look but there is also a doctrine called the doctrine of the sufficiency of scripture. This is the idea that the bible is completley sufficent to deal with all of lifes problems and while yes i know that the bible is not going to address every specific situation, it is going to give you ways to approach and handle every situation if you will allow Gods word to work through you.

For example, A plumber, he may go to work and not know how to do something and the Bible certainly isnt going to tell him how to run pipes or install them into a home or whatever he is doing but the bible will tell him how to be a good worker, how to treat people when things go wrong, how to speak to people, and how to honor Christ through his work.

Gods Word is a book of principle that will instruct us if we just allow it to pierce our hearts just as Hebrews 4:12 says. But what does that look like on a practical level? What does it look like for you to read a chapter a day? What could it look like to start working on memorizing scripture? (Which is something we should all do as scripture tells us to keep Gods word written on our hearts)

well here is another interesting chart to show you really just how easy it is to work through the entirety of the New Testament.

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*Speak About Chart*

Theres also tons of reading plans, the bible recap, how many people are doing that? that has videos that go along with it sort of like a small devotional each day and for me i do the Mcheyne plan which is 4 chapters a day, 1 chapter in 4 different books. there is also the bible in chronological order and you can find this on the bible app on your phone and you can set reminders and all types of stuff.

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What we dont want to do is pull one of these,

*opens bible and points to verse*

*read verse*

this is not how we are going to hear from God, God will speak to you through consistent, structured time in the word where you can take in all that the Lord says through his Word. Theres also a difference from just reading and studying and not everytimes you read needs to be a time of study but there definalty needs to be time in your week where you are studying a passage, circling words, looking some things up, and really getting it deep within you.

Gods word is a fountain of information that will transform and instruct you to deal with lifes hardest problems if you just let it.

*If we have time tell Adoniram Judson story*

Adoniram Judson was one of the first missionaries to Burma. When he arrived, he realized something devastating — the Burmese people had no Bible. Not a verse. Not a chapter. Nothing.

Judson said it felt like standing in a land covered in spiritual darkness with no lamp to shine the way. And he believed something we’ve been talking about today: if God’s Word changes people, then people need God’s Word in their own language.

So he made a decision that shaped the rest of his life: ‘I will give them the Bible.’

It took him twelve years to translate the New Testament. Twelve years of sickness, imprisonment, burying his wife and children, and unbelievable suffering. But he kept going because he believed the Bible was God speaking, and if the Burmese people could hear God speak, they could be transformed.

And that’s exactly what happened. Once the Bible was finished, churches began to grow. Converts multiplied. Entire villages turned from idols to Christ. Judson later said, ‘The Bible is the great missionary — I am only its servant.’

Judson understood something we must understand: if you can get the Bible into someone’s hands, you can get the gospel into their heart.”

Is the teachings of God, found in the bible, your guiding light? is it part of your everyday life?

Let us pray…