The Sufficiency of Scripture

From the beginning, the will of God has been known. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and all that is in them. God saw that everything was good, it was very good. God creates with perfect precision, with uncompromising beauty, with unfathomable intelligence.

From the beginning, Satan and sin have been actively destroying God’s creation. In relation to man, Satan uses lies, half-truths, partial scripture, and every other trick in the book to get people to distrust the most trustworthy being in the universe. Satan is indeed the great deceiver, the father of lies.

Satan’s attacks have always been directed particularly against God’s Word. In the Garden of Eden, he asked Eve, “Did God really say?” He questioned what God said, and he questioned what God communicated, the meaning behind God’s words, “God knows you will not surely die, rather, you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

Adam and Eve were sold an outright lie. Satan was a mere creature. They were created in God’s image, they were already more than they realised. But convinced by that great serpent, they exchanged the truth for a lie.

Satan has been attacking God’s Word ever since. The church must always be prepared to remain committed to Scripture. The Reformers understood this, and included the importance of scripture to the five points of the Reformation: sola scriptura. Scripture alone, scripture alone is the way for us to understand and know the will of God.

The Will of God

God did not leave us in a vacuum. He gave us His Word. As we saw last week, the Word was passed down from generation to generation until the Holy Spirit inspired Moses to write the first five books of the Old Testament.

The will of God is contained in the Bible. There’s no mystery here. God created the world, and He created humanity in His image, as an expression of His love, His power, His ingenuity, His rule, His almighty power.

He created the universe in such a way that it, like the brushstrokes of a master painter, proclaims the glory and the majesty of God. Such is the wonder of the planet, that no one is without excuse—everyone knows that God exists, and that the universe is a result of God.

God’s will is that all would know Him in truth. That is why He worked in the lives of people throughout history. Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Joshua, the judges, Samuel, David, Solomon, Elijah, Isaiah, Ezekiel, the prophets. They recorded God’s Word. They all pointed to the One who would come.

All God’s revelation in the Old Testament points to the New Testament. Nothing was kept hidden. God chose to reveal it slowly, over time. He didn’t do this out of any nefarious reason, but because of the sinful state of humanity.

The sinful state of humanity blunts people’s understanding. What is plain and simple to see, so simple that a child can know it, is made dim, dark, and difficult. Rather than wise, men became fools, saying in their heart, there is no God (Ps 14:1, 53:1). Blinded by sin, stupefied by Satan, rendered spiritually dead, God had to intervene. And He did, foretelling what He would do, from the beginning.

God the Son would enter into the very creation, the creation by whom it was made, He would take on human flesh, conceived by the Holy Spirit, was born of a woman, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified and was buried. The third day He rose again from the dead, He ascended into heaven, and sits at the Father’s right hand.

God has been revealing His good news, His gospel, throughout history. Indeed, there are so many descriptions about the Messiah in the book of Isaiah, it is affectionately referred to as the fifth gospel!

The will of God is to reveal, to disclose, to show the truth, to guide hearts and minds of people into the truth. But people love darkness, sin, and death more than life, righteousness and light. God’s will is produce in us, what He requires of us in worship—that is, in living our lives in obedience before Him, as He created us to live.

Nevertheless, God’s will is to save people from their sin, and this is the good news, the gospel of God.

The Gospel of God

The Gospel of God is the promise of salvation from Satan and sin. The Holy Scriptures are perfect. They are totally inerrant. They provide everything we need to know, in how we relate to God, and how we relate to others.

In contrast to the world, with its ever changing theories and ideas, we stand firm on the gospel, given to us by God. Paul declared it. He preached it. And all who are saved, truly saved will hold fast to it.

There are many people who claim to believe in Christ, who claim to be Christians, but by their life, by their confession, they reveal they are not. They do not turn away from sin, but rather, seek to justify it. They twist and distort God’s Word to give permission to their wants and desires.

We take Paul’s warning seriously. We defend the Word of God. For, we know that we have not believed in vain. We know the truth: God created, man rebelled, God saves, only those who believe will be saved.

The way we come to belief is through the Word. So, it is no surprise then, that people will try to manipulate the Word of God. That’s what was happening in Corinth. People were manipulating the Word of God, to give them permission to do things even the Gentiles abhorred.

So be aware of false teachers. Don’t fall for every fad. Don’t be captivated by flashy preachers, fast-growing churches, and churches doing big things. You have a huge responsibility. God calls you to live for Him. Don’t worry about what other people think. God is bigger than you. God is a cause you can get behind. God is worthy of all: all your mind, all your heart, all your soul, all your strength. Stop sitting around and waiting for things to happen. Do something. Coming to church is doing something. Don’t stop.

The Gospel of God, transforms us from mindless, superficial, self-centred, self glorifying emptiness. The Gospel of God, sets us free from ourselves, and empowers us to obediently serve God. All this is accomplished through the Son of God.

The Son of God

Jesus is the Son of God, the second person of the Trinity. There are many different ideas about Jesus. But only this book contains the truth about Him. Mormons get Him wrong. Jehovah’s Witnesses get Him wrong. Muslims get Him wrong. Even many contemporary Christians get Jesus wrong.

People want Jesus as their friend. They want Him as their genie. They use Jesus as a wise teacher, a guru, they can turn to for self-help. They want Jesus to affirm them. They want Jesus to indulge them. And if we’re honest, we find this is true about ourselves from time to time.

But Paul delivered to the Corinthians that which he also received. “Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, and that He was buried, and that He rose again the third day according to the Scriptures, and that He was seen by Cephas, then by the twelve. After that He was seen by over five hundred brethren at once, of whom the greater part remain to the present, but some have fallen asleep. After that He was seen by James, then by all the apostles” (1 Corinthians 15:3b-7).

Jesus came for a very specific purpose. He came to set us free from sin and death, the condemnation we righteously deserve. But Jesus doesn’t come to us in any other way, but to set us free.

So, we see, and we will see as we continue working through the gospel of Mark, that Jesus had the perfect word for each person he met. Let’s consider a few examples:

In Luke 5:20, Jesus says to the paralysed man, whose friends had opened a hole in the roof and lowered him right in front of Jesus, “When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” A strange thing to say to someone who wants to be physically healed. But it was the truth the man needed to hear. Then, to prove that He is God, Jesus healed him from his paralysis.

In John 4:5-26, Jesus had a forthright and honest conversation with a woman who had had five husbands, and who was living with the sixth. He caught her out in her sin. And she received His rebuke. He then told her the truth concerning Himself, that He is the true temple of God. That all who truly follow God will worship God in spirit and truth.

Or consider one of the several woes to the Pharisees spoken by Jesus in Matthew 23:27-28 ““Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. Even so you also outwardly appear righteous to men, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” The Pharisees thought they were perfectly serving God. But hey were not. They were convinced in their own minds. Jesus words were harsh. They were convicting. He was breaking through their stubborn self-righteousness. Their hearts were like granite, and His words like a jackhammer. Some, like Nicodemus, surrendered to the Holy Spirit, believed in Jesus and were saved. Many did not.

In each case, Jesus gave the exact word that each person needed to hear. They were the words needed to bring true faith, true repentance, true life in the individual.

In contrast to Jesus, many use the Son of God for their own ends. they don’t really apprehend Him as the Son, or the Saviour, or the Lamb who was slain. They use Jesus like they’d use anything to make a buck, to feel good about themselves, to avoid responsibility. But you cannot use Jesus that way. Eventually everything will come crashing down.

Take Jesus at His Word. Trust in the Son of God. Bow before Him in reverence. And learn how to use His all sufficient Word in your life, as the Apostle of God did.

The Apostle of God

Our final point is the Apostle of God, the apostle Paul. Paul did not consider himself worthy to be called an apostle, for he persecuted the church of God. The book of Acts records Paul’s persecution. He was a witness when Stephen was executed for preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Paul hunted down anyone who was a Christian, and brought them to Jerusalem for trial and execution. He was so successful, that the leaders in Jerusalem gave him permission to go further afield even as far as Damascus.

It was while he was on his way to Damascus that Paul was the last one to see the risen Jesus. Blinded physically by the light of Christ, Paul began to truly see Jesus as the Messiah, the Son of God, the Saviour who takes away the sin of the world. By God’s grace, even Paul, who was born out of due time, became an apostle.

By God’s grace, he was what he was—an apostle of God. As an apostle, he did not take God’s grace for granted, but laboured more abundantly than they all—that is the other apostles—yet not Paul, but the grace of God which was in him. And what did he do, he preached the Word of God.

Brothers and sisters, this is the Word of God. In it, God has given us everything we need to know about salvation, forgiveness, repentance, belief, obedience. In it we know who God is. Who we are. We know how to love God, and how to love others.

It is good to study creation, it is wonderful to see things like the pictures from the James Webb telescope. It is interesting to debate and philosophize. It is fun to be creative, to try new things, to experience the wonder of God’s creation.

But let us never forget that everything we truly need to know in this life is contained in this book. This is the sufficiency of Scripture—it contains everything we need to know. Let us keep coming to it, weekly, twice weekly—in worship, also daily in our own devotions, our family devotions, in everything. It is the key to a joyful, satisfying life. Love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbour as yourself.

The pages of this book is full of examples of people who did the first commandment well, as well as people who didn’t do the first commandment at all. This book has all the resources and examples of how to live in relationship with others—those who did it well, and those who didn’t do it very well.

Let us as a congregation remain devoted to the sufficiency of Scripture. Not only in the life of this congregation, in all our dealings with one another. But even more in our personal lives, in our dealings with our families, our homes, our neighbours, our workplaces, wherever we are. Resist the attack against the Word of God, believe it, receive it, love it. Amen.