BY THE BOOK - PART 2

BY THE BOOK - PART 2 Colossians 3:16 January 15, 2006 Given by: Pastor Rich Bersett [Index of Past Messages] Introduction A man in Kansas City was severely injured in an explosion. Evangelist Robert L. Sumner tells about him in his book The Wonders of the Word of God. The victim’s face was badly disfigured, and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands. He was just a new Christian, and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer read the Bible. Then he heard about a lady in England who read Braille with her lips. Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in Braille. Much to his dismay, however, he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been destroyed by the explosion. One day, as he brought one of the Braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them. Like a flash he thought, I can read the Bible using my tongue. To date, the man has read through the entire Bible four times with his tongue. Francis Schaeffer said of the Bible, "I don't love this book because it has a leather cover and golden edges. I don't love it as a 'holy book.' I love it because it is God's book. Through it, the Creator of the universe has told us who he is, how to come to him through Christ, who we are, and what all reality is. Without the Bible we wouldn't have anything. It may sound melodramatic, but sometimes in the morning I reach for my Bible and just pat it. I am so thankful for it. If the God who is there had created the earth and then remained silent, we wouldn't know who he is. But the Bible reveals the God who is there; that's why I love it." The call to disciplined study of the Word Our text this morning is a single verse from Paul’s Colossian epistle—Chapter three, verse sixteen. This verse summarizes a major theme consistently found in the rest of the Bible—how those who love God need to fill themselves with His Word. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly… Let’s stop here for the moment, because this simple command begs for study. First, we should understand that the term “Word of Christ” that Paul uses has the same meaning as the Word of God. This is true in two senses: one, the words that Christ spoke were captured and recorded under the Spirit’s direction in what we now have as our New Testament scriptures. Secondly, the entire Bible finds its fulfillment and culmination in the ministry of Jesus. The word about Christ is the same as the whole message of the Bible. The heart of the verse’s meaning is wrapped up in the verb, “dwell”. It is a surprising verb to be used with the Word of Christ because it is normally used of people living in a certain house or community. The word in its original language is ENOIKEO, literally, “in the house”. The picture is of the Word being comfortably at home in the believer’s life. When you have someone visiting from out of town and they are staying with you, you do your best to make them feel at home. I know that your hospitality is warm and sincere, and I’m sure your guests feel quite comfortable. But, if they’re family, they’re really “at home”. They know they can raid the fridge whenever they want. Houseguests wouldn’t do that (at least most wouldn’t!). But if you’re “in the family” you’re not bound by such courtesies. As a family member you have access to the whole place. This is dwelling “richly”. We should welcome the Word of God into our lives in that way—granting it access to every part of us. Now, this is a command, an imperative, from the apostle to us believers. We are told “LET the Word dwell…” It’s an odd grammatical construction for us in English. We’re not used to 3rd person imperatives. Ours are always 2nd person imperatives, like “pay your taxes”. But it would be weird to command the Word to take up residence in someone’s life. You don’t command inanimate objects—you command people. So Paul commanded the believers to “Let” the Word dwell in them richly. What that means is there is deliberate action for them to do. You don’t just “let” it happen as if it were automatic; you actively cause it. I love what the ladies say when they are planning to change hairstyles: “Oh, I’m just letting my hair grow” Funny expression! Like if I decided to NOT let it grow it would stop? Having the Word dwell in us richly is not a passive allowance. It calls for deliberate effort and strategy to get the Word into one’s life like that. This verse is a call to disciplined study of the Word, with the objective of having it richly dwell in one’s life. One more thing about this command—it is in the plural. In essence it reads, “You all, let the Word dwell richly in you (among you).” There is an EACH and ALL sense about this imperative. The truth of the Word is to “permeate” the entire church and to permeate each believer. The latter half of the verse makes it clear that the health of the whole body of the church is enhanced greatly when all the members are letting the Word dwell richly in them. It takes a lot of eaches to make an all. But the slow and steady, disciplined effort of studying the Bible is not a popular notion in a microwave, remote controlled culture. To have to really work at something almost seems unfair to many. To read or study is unheard of to many. But ongoing unfamiliarity with the Word of God is a detriment to the body. This third person imperative is a mandate to us all as a body, but it is also a command to each of us. Verse 16 gives us a picture of the church as a group of Christians teeming with life, and that life is all bound up in the Word of God. It takes a TEAM to TEEM. We all depend on each other being alive in the Word of God to help the rest of us. Acts 2:42 says of those in the newly formed church, “they devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles.” The gist of that term suggests they were addicted to the teaching of the Word. Hebrews 10:25 makes it clear that we are each and all called to be alive to the truth of God’s Word, sharing the truth with each other in a dynamic interchange, thus stirring one another up to love and good deeds. I’m here this morning to challenge each of you to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. And to get to that, it will take a disciplined approach to studying, reading and meditating on it. I want to tell you, each of you, that YOU CAN DO IT. Knowing the Bible well is not just for monks in monasteries and preachers in pulpits. Listen, it’s been said that if you spend one hour a day reading and studying any given subject, you can become an expert in that subject in just one year. Think of the implications for the greatest subject matter in the universe—the revealed Word of God! The most important thing about your understanding of the Bible is this—to get a holistic understanding of it. Read through the Bible. Some of you have done it; many of you have not. Your greatest protection against misunderstanding a part of the Bible is to have the overview down pat. Once you see the big picture the details come into focus so much better. Benefits of disciplined Bible study There are immense spiritual benefits that will accrue to you when you commit yourself to consistent, dedicated study of the Bible. One of those benefits is you will get real smart. You will be wise with divine truth. Psalm 119 promises to the student of God’s Word that you will become wiser than your enemies. Generally speaking, it is always good to be wiser than your enemy. Our enemy is none other than Satan himself, and old Slew is pretty clever. Every one of us has encountered his power to attack and tempt and deceive us. But we have a sure defense against his deceitful scheming: the Word of God. And if we know it we can use it to conquer the devil; but if we’re ignorant of its truth it is useless to us. Study the Word to become wiser than he. Psalm 119 also says that if you dedicate yourself to studying the Word, you will have more insight than your teachers, and more understanding than the elders. You will also become more discerning of good and evil. That’s what verse 104 says, I gain understanding from your precepts; therefore I hate every wrong path. As a Christian do you ever wonder if you’ll ever get past your tendency to fall into sin? I mean, you don’t think you really want to sin, but then you realize, Yes I do want to sin. Sometimes I think if I could just learn to hate evil enough, I could have a fighting chance against it. And that is true. The key to overcoming sin and bad habits and besetting carnality is to learn to hate evil more. And how do you learn that? Study God’s Word. If you will apply yourself to serious and committed study of His Word, God will make you wise with His divine truth in all these areas. More than that, though, familiarity with His Word will also perfect you in your Christian walk. When you understand the principles in the Word of God, you just grow. It’s that simple. For example, the more you are a student of God’s Word, the better pray-er you are. When you grow in your understanding of God’s Word you necessarily become more familiar with God will and His heart for the world. The highest object for the believer in prayer is to pray the perfect will of God. If you understand His will better, you will be a better warrior for Him in prayer. For example, when you learn from God’s Word some of the specific reasons why people do not believe in Christ—i.e., their eyes are blinded by the enemy, their knowledge of God is frustrated by strongholds of thought that keep them from the knowledge of God, and they are bound by the power and lies of the devil and prayer breaks those bonds. When you know these things you can be a more effective intercessor. Study God’s Word and be a better pray-er. Likewise, as a student of the Bible, you become a better worshiper. The more you know about God the greater your resource and your motivation for praising Him. I can remember a time when I was renewed in my devotion to personal study and meditation in the Word. My devotional reading led me into a detailed study of the faithfulness of God. I have to tell you that launched me into a season, months long, of deep worship of the Lord for His faithfulness. Understanding more of the scriptural truth about God’s character in this area opened up whole new vistas of capacity to praise Him. If you worship or your prayer life has become anemic, I urge you to rededicate yourself to spending meaningful time in your Bible. I guarantee you will be refreshed and revived. I want to add this caution, though. It isn’t instant and it isn’t passive. Not every chapter you study will excite you, not every verse will be awesomely inspiring, but the more seriously you work at His Word the more radically He will rock your spiritual life. And, of course, as you become more familiar with God’s truth in the Bible, you will grow in your ability to witness for Him. If you are attempting to share your faith with someone and he says, I don’t believe God would judge a personal because he is gay, and you’ve just spent time in Romans 1, you’re ready to share the truth in love. And it isn’t just dumb luck–Hey what a coincidence! I just happened to study that topic this morning! No, because you were equipped with His Word God led you to that individual. If that thesis is true, and you start spending more and more time in the study of His Word, how many others might God let you encounter as a witness for Him? The disciplined study of God’s Word will give you more to say in your witnessing. It’s just like the text we studied last week. The Word of God is useful to us, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:17) Make it your aim to let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, so you may experience His divine wisdom and a more perfect walk. Let me share one more benefit that accrues to the disciple who takes seriously this call to disciplined study of the Bible. As you let the Word of Christ fill your life, dwell richly in you, you will soon discover . . . that you LEAK! Someone rightly commented that the only reason God fills us with good stuff from Him is so we will it spill over onto others. Disciplined study of the Word will fill you with God’s wisdom and cause you to spring leaks. This is all part of His plan. The more you understand the more you get to share. Let His Word dwell richly in you and it won’t stay there—you will start fruitfully sharing it with others. And in God’s plan, the first beneficiaries of your leaking out His Word will likely be your family and friends. You will begin to speak with more godly wisdom and insight. And you will influence them toward more devotion to the Lord and more committed time in His Word. You’re leaking! And others are being dowsed with the truth of the Word when they get around you. This is the perfect will of God. You remember what He told parents He wanted them to do with His Word, don’t you? Deuteronomy 6:4-6 – Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments I give you today are to be upon your hearts. And specifically He says He wants parents to share the Word with their kids in meaningful ways and multiple occasions. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. And who knows who else you’ll influence to also study God’s Word?! The plain fact of the matter is, Christians who are letting the Word of Christ dwell in them richly, who are becoming more and more filled with the truth of the Bible, inevitably leak and splash it onto others. They become channels of God’s truth into others’ lives, irrigating whole families, neighborhoods and communities with truth in love. Sometimes the Word-drenched Christian “splashes” on others. He is so enamored with biblical truth and so filled with it that he accidentally spills it everywhere he goes. Something comes up in conversation with another person and he recalls a pertinent passage of scripture, a sort of inadvertent inspiration, it splashes out and gets on others (and hopefully in them). On other occasions, the believer will sense an opening for a little teaching or witnessing, and he shares out of the storehouse of the Word God has invested in him, and he pours out a measure of the Word of Christ. He paraphrases a few verses—he can’t remember where they’re found, maybe, but he knows they’re in there somewhere—and, presto, just like that the Word begins its work in someone new. I call this “intentional instruction.” And you know God is in it all. Especially when someone who respects God’s Word in you says to you What does the Bible have to say about that? These are wonderful opportunities to engage in the most fulfilling and satisfying good works in all the world—sharing God’s Word with others. It’s just plain fun to splash truth on believers and unbelievers alike. And such privileges are God’s gift to those who will dedicate themselves to the preparation of disciplined study of the Bible. Psalm 1 gives us a snapshot of this happy follower of God: Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of waters, which yields its fruit in season and show leaf does not wither. Whatever he does prospers. Not so the wicked! They are like chaff that the wind blows away. Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the assembly of the righteous. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish. Take a closer look at the architecture of this Psalm and see how it all hangs on verse two: …his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night. Forrest Smithson is not a household name today, but in the early 1900's he was a world-class hurdler and the American champion. He was a tall, thin and muscular man from Portland, OR. In 1908 the Olympics were held in London. He was asked to go and represent the US and bring home the gold for his country. He got all the way to London only to discover that the race for the 110m hurdles was on Sunday. Forrest was a strong Christian and he told his teammates, "I can't run on Sunday, it is not a day for sports, it is a day for God." But his teammates began to prevail saying, "Forrest, you can honor God, you could bring a lot of honor to God," and they talked him into running. He showed up on Sunday for the race and shocked everybody. He got out on the track, and in his left hand he held a giant black Bible. He informed everybody, "If I'm running on Sunday, I'm running with my Bible." The gun went off, and Forrest Smithson carried his Bible in the 110m hurdles, winning by five meters and setting a world record that stood for 12 years. Run your race with the Word of God in hand, and you will be a winner. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly.   [Back to Top]