God's Word is FINAL

Good morning Church! So glad to have you worshiping with us today!

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This morning we are wrapping up our four week series called THE BOOK.

SERIES TITLE SLIDE

We will look at the authority of God’s Word or as you see on the slide… God’s Word is FINAL.

If you are halfway paying attention to the world today, you will notice that the authority of God’s Word is highly in question.

And we could go down the path of looking at the ways in which the world around us is abandoning biblical principles at a high rate: from Hollywood to our government. But as a pastor, I do not believe my primary calling of God is to speak into those areas. God calls pastors to speak into the church! And believe it or not, even in the Christian church today, not everyone sees eye to eye on the authority of the Bible.

There are some that outright deny that God’s Word should be viewed that way. These churches will pick and choose the truths they like, ignore the others, and maybe even create truths of their own by stretching God’s Word to fit some sort of liberal social agenda.

But before you start pointing your conservative finger at such churches, leaders, and people, realize that there is another side to that coin that is just as dangerous! When churches begin to allow conservative politics into their theology, it’s just as sketchy y’all!

If we are to be true followers of Christ, we have to be driven by the Word of God as the chief authority in our lives, not a liberal social agenda and not a conservative political one either? Amen?

Let me read these verses, I’ll pray, and then we will come back and talk about this topic today.

2 Timothy 3:16–17 CSB

All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

PRAY

We actually studied through chapter 3 earlier in this series when we were talking about God’s Word being ENOUGH. But that’s how cool God’s Word is. There is still more to be discussed here! We will focus mainly on the first six words of verse 16. Let’s look first at what Paul means when he says “inspired by God.” This shows us...

1. The source of authority

If you remember from that week 2 message, Paul invents a word here. The phrase you probably see in your English translation of the Bible as “inspired by God” is actually a compound word. Paul was thinking, “Scripture is God’s Word. It’s like it’s his own voice. It’s as authoritative as if he had breathed it out word for word. What’s the word for that? Oh well, Let’s go with Theopneustos.”

That just sounds made up doesn’t it? No record of this word every being used before this. But Paul knew what he was doing. He was trying to convey something really important in a simple way. And he did here, because the word theopneustos literally means GODBREATHED.

Paul says that the written word of God is breathed out by him! Paul is clearly saying that...

The words are inspired

The words that we read, we can be confident that they are the words of God Himself!

But we actually see more than that as well.

Peter, who was one of Jesus’ closest disciples, would write after his death and resurrection...

2 Peter 1:20–21 CSB

Above all, you know this: No prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet’s own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man; instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

Notice what he says there! It’s not only the words that are inspired. It’s the authors themselves that were inspired. They were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

The authors were inspired

However, we don’t believe that the authors of the Bible were mindless drones who penned these words while in some trance and woke up 3 days later with a scroll full of Scripture. We actually see their personality in their writing. We see different literary techniques used between the books. It’s obvious that these authors were writing as human beings, yet still being inspired by God. That’s the beauty of how God works! He’s totally sovereign and in control, yet his followers somehow make decisions within their own capacity. And this works for the glory of God because he is that big!

Let’s go back to 2 Timothy 3. Paul says that there is an inspiration that is present in the Bible. But what parts?

Paul says...

2. The Reach of Authority

Paul says that ALL SCRIPTURE is God-breathed. But, he can’t mean ALL of it, right?

Have you read Genesis 10? Is that inspired? A genealogy?

What about the lists of laws, and sacrifices in Leviticus? That’s inspired? Seriously?

There may be things that we find strange in the Bible, things that make us go.... HUH? But we can feel confident that ALL Scripture is inspired by God! From beginning of the book to the end.

So, what does that mean for us?

Well, if the book was just the history of a people group, or even a well-thought out collection of epic literature, it would still lack ultimate authority. It can show the reader interesting characters by which he or she may learn about life. It can give pointers of how life might be more enjoyable or less stressful, but at the end of the day, it does not have authority!

Because God’s Word was spoken by God Himself in some form of inspiration through human authors, it must be held as such!

But there is something that happens to humans when we try to view God’s Word in this way. There is an enemy at work to confuse that.

We see in Genesis 2 and 3 the story of a couple named Adam and Eve. They are living in the perfect environment. They have not yet sinned so God is with them in a real physical way. And God’s Word to them is not yet written, but because he is with them, it is spoken. He gives them commands of things to do and things not to do. You would think if God himself spoke so directly to you, you wouldn’t have a lot of confusion over that. But look at what happens in the first verse of chapter 3...

Genesis 3:1 CSB

Now the serpent was the most cunning of all the wild animals that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You can’t eat from any tree in the garden’?”

Here we see...

3. The Enemy of Authority

Another character enters the story here. A sneaky snake who is trying to bring confusion and doubt into the mind and heart of Eve. “Did God really say...”

This is the same question at the heart of many today as they wrestle with the authority of God’s Word. Did God really say that? Did he really say that was a sin? Did he really mean I should live my life like that? Did he really mean for all this to be applied to us today?

When the doubt and confusion creep in, man will inevitably look for truth in other places or create it himself.

This is the issue today in some churches that are uncomfortable with certain characteristics of God. I don’t like to think that God demands justice. That doesn’t sound like a good God to me? I don’t like that part of the Bible that says “No one can come to God except through Jesus.” What about all the good people in other faiths. Surely there is grace for them.”

The confusion allows them to remove the truth and begin to replace it with their own truth.

In the Old Testament, God was about justice, but when Jesus came to earth, that ushered in a new era in which God is all about grace and love.

Or “People of other faiths are worshiping the same God. They just call him by a different name and are therefore following him!”

Do you see how we do this!?

Well, this is not a new problem in the church. Throughout Christian history, the idea of God’s word being the final authority has always been in jeopardy.

In the first few centuries of the church, leaders in the church began to recognize what we talked about last week: God’s Word is understandable. But remember, there are some passages that we need to take more care with because they can be misinterpreted. That was beginning to happen pretty early on.

We actually see in the book of Acts that the early Apostles viewed Christianity as a reformed version of Judaism in a lot of ways. However, God began to work among the Gentiles, those who were not Jews. They began to see that these Gentiles were receiving the Holy Spirit and having their hearts changed in the same way the Jews were!

So several key leaders from the earliest Jesus movement gathered around 50 AD in Jerusalem to discuss, “Who can really be saved by Jesus?” And they decided that the Gentiles didn’t have to become Jews first! They could simply follow Jesus apart from circumcision and the dietary habits that were customs for the Jews. This became a prototype for several councils that would follow. Some of them wrestling with really important theological issues that needed to be addressed! Some, especially those in later years, were not so fruitful.

Another really important council was held at Nicea in 325. It was called to mainly deal with a growing theological view called Arianism. This was the idea that the Son was created by the Father, and therefore, Jesus was just a man and not eternal, nor divine. The council found this view to be heretical though it would continue being an issue to some degree.

The next debate occurred at the Council of Constantinople in 381. This one dealt heavily with the role and nature of the Spirit of God. This council along with Nicea really provided the clarity the church at large needed to cement what the Bible says about God as TRINITY: Father, Son, and Spirit.

Several other councils were held in the century following. They dealt mostly with ideas around Jesus as human and divine at the same time though there were others. They addressed arianism, eutychianism, nestorianism, pelagianism, and a bunch of other -isms that sound real impressive to drop during conversations over coffee.

We do not believe the findings of these councils to be binding, however. These church leaders simply gathered to bring to light the truths that God had already laid out in his Word and prayerfully consider these false teachings.

With each of these heretical views, the issue at the heart was a lack of belief in God’s Word as the final authority. There was often something else playing into the decisions they were coming to in what they taught. Arguably because the church became so connected to the Roman Empire. The church leaders began to morph into more than spiritual leaders, they were rich and powerful, and had sway in the culture.

This idea led to the crusades in which a “holy war” was waged against muslim nations in an effort to secure holy sites. The army marched with crosses on their shields, claiming to be battling for the cause of Christ.

But it was not just political and military power these Christian leaders held. They also became very rich. The church began selling Bishop and priest positions to the highest bidder. This put only people with money in leadership in the church.

They also required a lot of the people in the church. Taxing them heavily to perform the spiritual rituals that they people had become accustomed to in the church. These horrible practices continued to grow in popularity through to the late 1400 and 1500s.

The corruptness of leadership began to affect the reputation and ministry of the church! Because what was really at stake was that God’s Word was being abandoned as the final authority!

The position of Pope became a big deal by this time. The Pope spoke with the same authority as the Word of God. And so long as church leaders agreed on a decision or practice, even if there was little biblical evidence for it, it was viewed as biblical truth. The church also began to give more authority to books outside those established as God’s Word in the Old and New Testaments. This led to several strange new theological ideas that actually went against what the rest of the Bible seemed to be saying, like the existence of a “purgatory.” These books called the Apocrypha would officially become Scripture to the Catholic church in 1546.

God’s word had been lost among all the other voices in the church. People began listening to man more than listening to God.

One particularly creepy practice of some church leaders was the selling of indulgences. The church was teaching that when people died, they went to a place called purgatory. There they would wait to see whether they would spend eternity in heaven or hell. It was a “waiting room.”

So, the people were encouraged to pray for those loved ones who had died that God would show grace to them! But you know the best way to get them out of purgatory? MONEY! You could buy indulgences from the church and the pope would pray your loved one out of purgatory and into heaven!

That’s a pretty effective money making scheme, huh? IN fact, the selling of these led to one of the nicest church buildings ever to be built, St. Peter’s basilica that still stands in Vatican City today. It was built on the backs of an absolutely heretical and despicable scheme of church leaders.

And remember, the root issue here is an abandoning of God’s Word as final authority!

This practice of selling indulgences did not sit well with all leaders though. One young, German, Augustinian monk in particular took great umbridge with with! His name was Martin Luther.

Luther had shown great promise as a young monk and was given a professor position. As he began studying the Scriptures on his own, he was blown away that what God seemed to be revealing through the Scriptures was contrary to what he had been taught by the church! He realized that way too much of the key doctrines of the church were born out of man’s ideas more so than the Bible. Luther began to teach passionately in this direction. He began using the Latin phrase, Sola Scriptura, meaning “Scripture alone.”

Luther became emboldened by the Holy Spirit to work to bring reform to the church. He wrote out 97 statements about the ____________ hoping that it would strike a cord with people and they would begin to call for changes, but it didn’t happen!

___________ later, he did it again, but this time only 95 statements directly in regards to the selling of indulgences and the theology behind the idea in the first place. This one was translated into German and using the printing press was mass produced and distributed widely. The investigation into Luther’s challenges lasted a while, and though the church condemned his beliefs, the damage had been done. People began to question a lot of things the church was teaching that were contrary to God’s Word.

Though Luther was not the first person to seek reform (Wycliffe, Hus, and others had come before him), he had definitely added a spark where they had poured some gasoline. What followed was leaders from other places who were encouraged by Luther’s boldness speaking up and leading their congregations away from some of the long practices of the church to a more biblical theology: Zwingli in Switzerland, then Calvin in Geneva, among others.

This led to new branches of Christianity outside of the Catholic church. These newly directed congregations were going back to God’s Word as ultimate authority and asking the question that had not been asked in a while, “What does God’s word actually say about the church?”

This was...

4. The Return of Authority

Over time, tradition and man’s opinion had become the authority in the church. But these new churches were starting all over in many ways and God began to bless and grow them greatly because they were following him closely!

The Protestant Reformation was a crucial moment in Christian history. It was a turning point that allowed believers a healthier place to grow in their faith. It brought congregations back to a more bibilcal model of their purpose and scope. This was huge!

One of my favorite things about the Reformation is that it led to the planting of this church! Lindsay Lane East is a product of the Protestant Reformation. If Luther and others don’t lead a return to the final authority of God’s Word, you and I are still chanting in Latin, unable to read a Bible in our own language. But because of them, we are here, calling on God each Sunday through his Word, worshiping him together in a common language.

But all that was fought for. And all that was gained, now sits on our shoulders. The pressure is off of Zwingli, Luther, and Calvin. They helped us return to the final authority of God’s Word, but it’s our job to stay here.

5. The Obedience to Authority

Church, I beg of you today, cling to the Word of God because of what it really is: THE WORD OF GOD! Because the creator of all things has given his followers this message, may we as a people at Lindsay Lane East dive in, read, study, chew on and digest, meditate, wrestle with, memorize and put into practice the truths that he left us!!!!

In our individual lives, we need to allow God to shape us through his Word. We need to listen to what God calls sin and ask him to remove the desires for such things from our heart.

But as a church, together, we need to maintain God’s Word as authority, too!

We cannot allow human tradition and man’s opinions to rise to the place of authority. That is the Bible’s place, right?

We don’t do that Heath!!!! Of course not! I wish we sang those songs that other church sings. I wish Heath preached more like (fill in the blank). Why are we doing that event that way? We have never done that before? Why are we not doing this event? All the other churches around are?

Church, these are all garbage comments that we all think and sometimes say. I’m guilty too! But, I ask you… May we not be driven by that? Let us not be driven by the expectations of man! May we not be driven by what everyone else is doing or what we have always done! May we simply be led to do what God has called us to do in the most effective possible using the gifts and personalities present in our church. That’s all we can do!

And may we not allow our theology to be shaped by the culture around us or even by the teachings of celebrity pastors on TV and podcasts. Church, we have the very word of God before us. Let’s read it together, learn what it says, and help one another grow in the grace and knowledge of the Jesus that this book screams about! Amen?

One of the major conflicts Luther had with the church at the time was also regarding their view of sin. Luther began to read and teach through Romans and came to the realization that we are totally wicked, terrible people! You may think you are a good ole boy or girl, but you are a sinner. And that means that you are not worthy to be in God’s presence. Just as Adam and Eve sinned and were removed from the Garden, so we too are removed. And cannot get back on our own.

But Luther also saw that God had made a way for us to be made right through Jesus’ death on the cross. The righteous life he lived could be applied to our lives if we would only repent of our sins and trust fully in the name of Jesus to save us.

Today, if you would like to do that, we want to help you! You can slide up here and talk to me during this last song, or you can talk with a decision counselor by the back door.

If you are already a Christian, search your heart today. Ask the hard questions about who you are giving authority in your life. Are you following God through his word or is your life and/or your theology more shaped by tradition and the opinions of man?

I don’t know where you are today, but we are going to sing one more song today as I time to respond. I will be down front and decision counselors will be by the back to discuss any decision God has laid on your heart.

Let’s pray together, then you can stand and respond however God leads.