Welcome! Today we look at a tremendously
important topic: what it means to live by God’s Word, the Bible. Because this is
part of our series called Sound Doctrine, I want to start by talking about what
theologians call the necessity and sufficiency of Scripture, and then we will
talk about some practical principles and steps towards growing in the process
of living by God’s Word.
So let’s start with the necessity of
Scripture. In what sense is Scripture “necessary”? What does this mean? Well,
one sense is in knowledge of the gospel, the good news that Christ died to save
sinners, and that by believing in Him, in trusting Him, we can be forgiven and
reconciled to God and experience eternal life with Him. I think of what Paul writes
in Romans 10:
If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and
believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you
believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your
faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in
him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference
between Jew and Gentile—the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who
call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of
the Lord will be saved.” – Romans 10:9-13
How is Scripture necessary? It is
necessary in the sense that it tells us this good news. The very next part of
Romans 10 says this:
How, then, can they call on the one they have not
believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard?
And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? And
how can anyone preach unless they are sent? As it is written: “How beautiful
are the feet of those who bring good news!” – Romans 10:14-15
And then verse 17
says this:
Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message,
and the message is heard through the word about Christ. – Romans 10:17
So what is the
chain of thought here? That you must call upon the name of the Lord, that is,
Jesus Christ, to be saved, that you can only really do this if you believe He
is worthy of calling upon and that He will answer your call, that you cannot do
this if you haven’t heard of Him, that you couldn’t have heard of Him unless
you were told of Him, and thus, that it is necessary that someone tell you of
Him if you are to be saved.
Well, today, as we
have explained in the past few messages, we have the complete Bible freely
available to us, and in it, men, led by God, wrote about Jesus Christ and His
message, God’s message, so that we can hear the good news from others who
relate the message of the Bible or we can hear it by reading the Bible itself.
Scripture is necessary in the sense
that salvation is very specific – it doesn’t come about by being a good person,
or by any other kind of “natural” ideas that man might have about how to become
accepted or approved by God; instead, it has the radical, shocking news, that
God Himself died for us, paving the way towards reconciliation with Him. The necessity of Scripture really refers to
the necessity of the message of
Scripture, a message that nobody could just naturally guess at.
Now I will say it is possible that God
could directly provide the message of salvation to someone in a dream or
vision, and in fact at least the beginning of Paul’s conversion began with just
such an event, but I think it is safe to say that such direct measures are the
exception, not the rule, when it comes to how God normally communicates with
us. I have read some testimonials from people with a Muslim background who have
come to Christ in this way, but even here, it is usually only a kind of
supernatural “introduction”, not the complete gospel message, that is provided
in a dream. I will not try to guess at God’s motivations, but it is clear that
God desires to use people to reach people with the gospel. And God’s Word is
necessary in the sense that we all rely on it to know what is true, since none
of us today are eyewitnesses to the historical events given in Scripture.
I would say also that the Bible is
necessary in the sense that it is our food; just as we starve without eating
food and drinking drink, we starve ourselves spiritually if we do not fill our
minds and hearts with God’s truth. We can do this of course in multiple ways,
by reading books or watching videos or hearing messages (as you are doing right
now) about God that explain Scripture – I would call these indirect ways – or
by reading the Bible yourself – I would call this a direct way. I certainly do
not want to disparage indirect ways, but I truly believe there is nothing like
reading God’s Word and reflecting on it, praying in response to it, and
choosing actions in response to it, for yourself.
Now I often meet people who agree in
principle that spending time in God’s Word is certainly a worthwhile activity,
but they question my use of the phrase “necessary.” Some have said that they
have read the Bible, and now they only need “tune-ups.” In response I would remind
them of four passages of Scripture:
Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so
that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the
Lord is good. – I Peter 2:2-3
Do newborn babies need milk, or is it optional?
We have a pediatrician here, so we can get a professional opinion if you are
not sure. The point of the analogy is that we should crave milk like a newborn
baby. When a baby is hungry, they let you know in no uncertain terms. Every few
hours they cry for more, because they feel it in their gut that they need it;
their hunger sense is acute. When babies are sick, just like adults, they can
lose their hunger. But this is a sign of sickness, not strength. I would argue
it is the same for us – if we don’t hunger for God’s Word, it is a sign of a
problem, not a sign of maturity.
The tempter came to Him and said, “If you are the Son
of God, tell these stones to become bread.” Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on
bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” – Matt.
4:1-4
Living on God’s Word – this is what Jesus
says in response to Satan’s temptation to create food from rocks. Jesus is in
effect saying that God’s Word is even more
important than food!
For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than
any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints
and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. – Hebr. 4:12
Living and active!
God’s Word is not a book you just read once. This is a “course” you never
graduate from. You can read the same passage 100 times, and each time, God will
use it to speak to another area or issue in your life. It judges the thoughts
and attitudes of your heart.
All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for
teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be
thoroughly equipped for every good work. – 2 Tim. 3:16-17
Again, it is not like any other book. It
is God-breathed. That’s an interesting phrase. It is used when describing how
God made Adam; Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust
of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man
became a living being.” I also think of John 20:22
which says, when Jesus appeared after the crucifixion and resurrection to His
disciples, “And with that He breathed on
them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’” The Bible is God-breathed; that
makes it alive in a way that makes it unlike any other book. Just as breathing
turned Adam from a mound of dust into a living man, and breathing turned the
disciples into ones in whom the Spirit lived, the breath of God into the Bible
means it is not just words, not even wise words, but something else, something
miraculous, something filled in some way with the living God.
I would even say the Bible is necessary for
knowing anything with certainty at all. Because the Bible is God’s own words to
us, trusting Him means we can trust His words. Knowing what God desires of us,
knowing what God sees as good and what God sees as bad, where else can we go to
get clear answers to these questions? That’s not to say that God answers every
question we might have in His Word, far from it, but as the old saying goes,
“God’s Word says it; I believe it; that settles it.” If God’s Word does have a
clear answer to one of our questions, we are done. Apart from God’s Word, how
do we know anything with certainty?
In one of my classes I talk about how
difficult it is to prove anything true by example, whereas it is much easier to
prove something false. The hypothetical statement I give is “All dogs have four
legs.” I tell my class that to have certainty that this is true, it is not
enough to drive around the neighborhood and round up all the dogs you can find,
have them parade through this building, and check them all to see if in fact
they have four legs. It is not enough to round up all the dogs in the upstate,
or even all the dogs in South Carolina, in the United States, or even the whole
world! We would need to somehow go back to the days of Creation, and look at
every dog that ever lived. But even that would not be enough – we would also
have to somehow go forward in time and look at all the dogs that will yet live.
Only if every single one of them had four legs could we know with certainty
this relatively simple statement. On the other hand, to prove it false, all I
need to see is one poor dog with only 3 legs. I also mention to the class that
I made the big mistake of looking for an illustration for this particular PowerPoint
slide, so I went to Google and did an image search for 3-legged dog. Don’t do
this! I was scarred for life. I can still see some of those images if I close
my eyes and think back, and that was several years ago.
But in God’s Word we have certainty!
Certainty in not everything, but in many, many things. To know these things
with certainty, God’s Word is necessary.
Now God’s Word isn’t necessary for everything, however. Romans 1 and 2
speaks to this. From Romans 1:
The
wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and
wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known
about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his
eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from
what has been made, so that people are without excuse. For although they knew God,
they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking
became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. – Rom. 1:18-21
So God’s Word is not necessary for knowing
that God exists. And from Romans 2:
Indeed,
when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the
law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that the
requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also
bearing witness, and their thoughts sometimes accusing them and at other times
even defending them. – Rom. 2:14-15
And so God’s Word is not the only means of
knowing at least a little about right and wrong, about what God says is good
and about what God says is bad. This means that God has every right to judge
those who disobey Him because He has written enough into their hearts for them
to know they sin against Him.
But let us now move beyond necessity and
into sufficiency. Is the Bible enough? Do we need other books to know what God
wants of us? We have already spoken about the canon of Scripture in the first
message of this series, so I will not touch on that here. Let’s look at the 2
Timothy verse again.
All
Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and
training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good
work. – 2 Tim. 3:16-17
For every good work? That does seem to
imply sufficiency, doesn’t it? If there is a good work God wants us to do,
Scripture is sufficient to equip us for it.
Now some people misconstrue this idea of sufficiency
to argue something that is not meant here. If you want to learn calculus, you
aren’t going to learn how to do that in the Bible. If you want to learn how to
become an auto mechanic, you won’t find that in there either. But if you want
to know how to serve God, to have a restored relationship with Him, to know His
character, the Bible is sufficient for
these kinds of things.
By the way, you will meet many people who
call themselves Christian who do not really believe this. In liberal churches,
the Bible is not really treated as if it is sufficient. It is seen as one voice
among many, along with that of psychiatrists, secular leaders, even sometimes
the religious books of other religions. The Bible is seen as providing a window
into what early Christians experienced and believed, but in part because they
question the inerrancy of Scripture, they think that just going by what the
Bible says is simplistic and misguided.
Roman Catholic leaders also would disagree
with this idea of sufficiency; they would say that you also need to look to the
official teachings of the church throughout its history, the writings of the
various popes, etc. And then you have groups like the Mormons who do not
believe the Bible is sufficient, because equally valuable, they say, are the
writings of the Book of Mormon. Christian Scientists would also disagree, if
not outright, then in practice, as they view everything they read in Scripture
in light of the book Science and Health
with a Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Even modern Jews do much
the same thing with regards to the Old Testament in that, although they see the
first five books of the Bible (the Torah) as higher than anything else, in
practice they look first to the opinions and writings of various Rabbis through
the ages.
We can be guilty of this too; if we rely on
particular teachers of Scripture rather than Scripture itself, who knows what
biases and misunderstandings may result? Even when someone teaches in only one
area or topic, if followers take what the person says without going back to
Scripture, they too can be led astray. Some recent examples of this I have seen
– and I apologize in advance if I step on any toes – are the works of Bill
Gothard, of Gary Ezzo (Babywise), and the Quiverful and Patriarchy movements. I
don’t mean that there aren’t any good things in any of these teacher’s works or
movements, but I mean that in each I have personally or “Internetally” seen
examples of people who uncritically accept everything that is taught without
critically going back to Scripture. Often the fruit of such movements like
these is the “Scripture And” syndrome: people add beliefs, often legalistic in
nature, in which certain actions above and beyond Scripture are required to
receive God’s full blessing, or that to do otherwise is sin.
We should trust in the sufficiency of
Scripture alone! We can read other things, but be careful that they do not lead
us astray. The Bereans in Acts were commended for doing this very thing:
Now
the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for
they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures
every day to see if what Paul said was true. – Acts. 17:11
This is one reason that often when I teach
I have many, many verses. Frankly, I don’t trust myself. I trust Scripture! If
I did nothing but got up here and read Scripture, I would be assured that you
would have heard only truth, and that that truth, if you took it to heart,
would do great works in you. Everything I add I add with trepidation, because I
know my own fallibility. Any time I have been able to effectively expound on
Scripture, to help you understand and apply it, I give credit to God, because
He is the only one who somehow keeps me from stumbling and messing it all up.
If you could hear my prayers as I prepare messages, you would see that I really
don’t trust myself. I call on God for His help, for His leading, for His
guidance, for His mercy on me and on you who will listen to me. It is an
awesome responsibility to stand up here before you, and I know that I will one
day stand before God and give an account. That being said, I do believe that
God has often answered my prayers; He reminds me with verses that help explain
other verses, I believe He brings to mind past experiences that relate to the
passage at hand, and He helps me with analogies. I truly believe He helps me
because I teach for a living, and what happens as I prepare for messages here
is entirely unlike what I do for a living. Not that I don’t ever ask for His
help at work; it’s just a very different thing explaining something as simple
as stochastic differential equations compared to explaining God or His thoughts
and ways. I don’t say that to boast; stochastic differential equations are a
child’s toy compared to God.
You may have heard of the phrase sola scriptura (scripture alone). It was used by the early protestant
reformers to mean that the Bible alone is the supreme authority in spiritual
matters. It is one of the five solae of the protestant reformation; the others
are sola fide (by faith alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), solus Christus (through Christ alone),
and soli Deo gloria (glory to God
alone).
Let’s move beyond the necessity and
sufficiency of scripture and talk about the practical process of living by the
Bible. I am reminded that there are alternatives to living by God’s Word. One
is to live by the world, to let the teachings and even subliminal messages of
one’s culture dictate their beliefs and practices of their daily lives. We all must
fight against this; the “world” is such a pervasive part of our lives (we
immerse ourselves in it every day) that it is hard to see beyond our own
culture, to actually live as strangers
and sojourners in our world. (Peter uses this phrase in I Peter 2:11 where
he encourages us to abstain from sinful desires that wage war against your
soul.) Another alternative to living by the Bible is to live by our emotions;
again, I think this is something we all must fight against. How do you respond
to sudden change? How do you respond to difficult people? How do you respond
when forced to wait? These are examples where, in our natural state, our
emotions can dictate our responses. Generally speaking, our natural emotions
are to get upset, to get angry, and to get impatient. When you feel these
things welling up in you, it is difficult to overcome them unless you have been
regularly been getting in God’s Word, if you have been immersing yourself in a
Biblical perspective of what God would desire from you in such circumstances,
if you have learned truths about God, about the Holy Spirit that resides in
you, and about who you are in Christ (these are just examples) that, because
you are saturating yourself in the Word, come to mind when those emotions rise
up. At every moment you have a choice, but you also need to be prepared, and
preparation comes through spending daily time in God’s Word.
I love the example of Jesus in Matthew 4. We
read a portion of this earlier. Let me read it the entire passage now:
Then
Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting forty days
and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to
him and said, “If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.”
Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on
bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’” – Matt.
4:1-4
Then the devil took
him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of
God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written: “‘He will command his
angels concerning you, and they will lift you up in their hands, so that you
will not strike your foot against a stone.’” Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’” –
Matt. 4:5-7
Again, the devil took
him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and
their splendor. “All this I will give you,” he said, “if you will bow down and
worship me.” Jesus said to him, “Away from me, Satan!
For it is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’” – Matt.
4:8-10
Now before you dismiss this and say, “Well, yeah, but that was Jesus – of course He could do that! I’m
not Him!” understand that this really is a good model for us. It’s not just that
Jesus has the perfect verse memorized for each temptation – the power is not in
the verses themselves, but in the truths, the worldview, the realities behind
these verses. Jesus is actually very clever in how the verses seem to speak to
the very situations, for example, the mentioning of bread after Satan suggests
turning the stones into bread. But that’s not really the point – the point is
that Jesus is relying on God and His words even more than He is relying on
food. Although He is terribly hungry, He is prepared. He experientially knows God the Father and has learned to
rely on Him, so the temptation to follow Satan is not really a temptation at
all. The second temptation is much more subtle – in some ways it is an appeal
to pride; Satan acts like he doubts whether Jesus really is the Son of God;
it’s a kind of goading, saying, in effect, “Go ahead, Jesus, show off for me.”
But Jesus refuses; He would rather be ridiculed; He knows who He is in
relationship to God, and this, again, experiential
knowledge is so secure that He doesn’t feel any need to prove Himself to
anyone. And in the third temptation Satan offers Him everything – imagine what
good one could do with everything;
Jesus, probably knowing what was ahead for Him, a horrible death on the cross,
along with the scourging and all that came before it; if Satan gave Him
everything, couldn’t He then avoid all that? I don’t actually know. But I do
know that, again, Jesus was prepared. He wouldn’t accept anything from Satan,
because He knew that serving God only was the only thing that mattered,
mattering more than life itself. Jesus was truly living by God’s Word.
Now it’s not enough to just read God’s Word regularly; James warns us:
Do not merely listen
to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the
word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a
mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and
immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever
looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not
forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they
do. – James 1:22-25
And Jesus Himself says something similar, in Luke:
As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd
called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave You birth and nursed You.” He
replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” –
Luke 11:27-28
There are many things we can do that can
increase the chances that we really take God’s Word to heart and “do what it
says,” that we “obey it.” You probably know what these are – journaling,
memorizing verses, posting verses on your refrigerator or where you brush your
teeth – these are all great things to do.
But above all of these I would put two things: prayer, and not rushing.
We need to connect with God – it is the Holy Spirit after all who changes us;
we need prayer to get our hearts right, to hunger for Him to change us. And we
also need to not rush things. You actually can have a very effective quiet time
with God in a short amount of time, if you don’t feel rushed while you do it.
If you only have a little time, only read a few verses. But allow yourself time
to really reflect on them, to think about them, to think about whether anything
is going on in your life that applies to them. If, right after your quiet time,
you need to rush off to work or school, try keeping the radio off and just
allowing yourself to keep on reflecting on the passage as you go where you need
to go. I find it is often 15 minutes after my quiet time is “over” that God
points out some obvious areas that the verses of the day apply to me. It often
happens as I am thinking about my upcoming day, thinking about things that
happened the day before; the verses I have read somehow merge into these
thoughts and I have a sudden “Aha” moment when I realize how the verses apply
to my very situation.
One more thing I would highly encourage
you to do is to have “spiritual” conversations regularly with someone. Talk
about your quiet time. Talk about your life, your stresses, the issues you
face. Often that friend you talk to can be the one who puts two and two
together for you, or who share with you how the results of their quiet time apply to your situation, or you will be the one who shares how your quiet time applies to their situation. I cannot tell you how
thrilling it is when you see God using you in this way! I encourage you to try
this. If you haven’t really had spiritual conversations with others before,
understand that it will feel awkward at first. That’s OK; it’s entirely normal.
Now I don’t want to ruin this or jinx it, but if you do this regularly with
someone what you really have is a “small group.” Don’t worry; it’s not an
“official” small group, whatever in the world that means; you don’t have to
advertise it in the church bulletin or anything, but I would encourage you that
in God’s eyes you are doing something special. After all, as Jesus says,
“For
where two or three gather in My name, there I am with them.” – Matt. 18:20
But most of all, I would encourage you to
remember that the Bible is God’s incredible gift to us. Just as Jesus dying on
the cross for our sins was an incredible gift, and how the Holy Spirit living
in us is an incredible gift, the Bible is an incredible gift, a gift of love.
God loves us so much that He has given us His Word, living and active, to tell
us so much about Him, who He is, and how He loves us. If you have struggled to
have quiet times in His Word, remind yourself that the Bible is God’s
invitation to know Him and His love more deeply and thoroughly than you would
have thought possible. Don’t think of God as angry when you miss quiet times;
He isn’t angry. Think of the opportunities you have missed to know Him and His
love more, and resolve not to miss out on your next opportunity.
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone
hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and
they with Me. – Rev. 3:20
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