I AM the Word

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) God created the universe in six days. One common thing that happened in each day was that he said “Let there be…” He said, “Let there be light…” and “Let there be an expanse between the waters…” and “Let the water under the sky be gathered into one place…” Six times he spoke creation into existence. His words created. His words had power. His words brought life. God didn’t have to create people. He wasn’t obligated to, but he wanted to. He wanted people to be in relationship with him.

In Exodus 14, before the Israelites crossed the Red Sea, the angel of God was before them. The scripture says that, “Then the angel of God, who had been traveling in front of Israel’s army, withdrew and went behind them.” (Ex. 14:19) God himself came to protect the Israelites. He didn’t have to but he wanted to. He was intervening on behalf of his people. In speaking of the angel that went behind him, Paul said that the Israelites, “they drank from the spiritual rock that accompanied them, and that rock was Christ.” (1 Corinthians. 10:4)

In Joshua we see how God’s word represented his faithfulness. He had made a promise to Moses in Deuteronomy 11:24, “Every place where you set your foot will be yours…” In Joshua 1:3, God reminded Joshua of this promise, “I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses.” The rest of the book of Joshua is a demonstration of God’s faithfulness which came through the words of his promise. The words that he spoke to Moses weren’t just the sound of air vibrating his vocal cords. He was being faithful to his word and he wanted relationship with the Israelites.

God made numerous covenants with his people. He made a covenant with Noah not to destroy the earth with a flood again. He made a covenant with the Israelites on Mount Sinai through the law. He made a covenant with David to raise up offspring to him which we now know as Jesus. God said to King David, “He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:13) Each of those covenants involved his words of promise in which he would be faithful. Some of his covenants also pronounced judgment if the people did not obey. His words demonstrated that he was not a God who was distant, who didn’t want to get involved. He wanted them to see that through fellowship with him their lives and generations after them would have purpose.

When I started college I went to a christian group meeting once per week while I was there. Each week a student would give a devotional, something simple from the Bible that they would share with the group. One meeting a girl brought a bunch of devotional booklets, Our Daily Bread. She challenged everyone to read one devotional each day. I took her up on it. I never read the Bible before other than Sunday school or Sunday church. I was determined to get it done. I had no clue as to what God was going to do with that. I sensed that something was going on inside of me when I was reading his word, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on what it was. I wanted more, so I started reading the Bible cover-to-cover. I gave up a few times, but by the time I got to State I had developed a habit of reading it. I began realizing that God was really trying to say something to me. The Bible wasn’t just words on a page anymore. I finally was able to find God’s forgiveness through all that. God wasn’t distant like I thought. Well, in one sense he was distant because my sin had separated me from him. But he did want to be involved. Even though I was separated from him, his arm wasn’t so short that it couldn’t save me.

As we move forward in the Old Testament, the people of Israel had been exiled, many of which went to Babylon. The prophet Ezekiel was in Babylon. It was there that he prophesied God’s words to the people of Israel, “I looked for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand before me in the gap on behalf of the land so I would not have to destroy it, but I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30) God was searching. He wanted someone, anyone, to be involved in the restoration of his people. He wasn’t sitting back in his recliner hoping that someone would come to his door. He was actively seeking. About 120 years later we read about a man named Nehemiah. Undoubtedly, Nehemiah had heard about God’s desire through Ezekiel. We read in the book of Nehemiah that he heard about the condition of the wall around Jerusalem and the people were experiencing great trouble and shame. God’s desire, along with the situation of the people, gripped his heart. He knew he had to do something. He administrated the rebuilding of the wall. And with the help of Ezra, reinstituted God’s word to the people of Israel so that they would turn back to him.

Somewhere in my last year of college I went to a conference. I had been wrestling with the idea of going into full-time ministry with my church. At this conference someone spoke about Ezekiel 22:30. He was encouraging us to consider ourselves as someone who could stand in the gap for people…to be someone God could use to reach people for Christ. I kept thinking about that. I woke up in the night and couldn’t go back to sleep. So, I started reading the first few chapters of Nehemiah. When I finished the thought struck me that no where in this story does it say that God told Nehemiah to rebuild the wall. I was wondering if God was trying to speak to me about my decision to go into ministry as a job. I didn’t feel like I was anything special. Surely God would rather use someone else who was more gifted or a had a better personality. Nehemiah wasn’t a prophet or a priest. He wasn’t someone that would have been seen as a great deliverer. A few days later, I was at our Sunday church meeting back in Raleigh. One of the pastors, Berk, was teaching. I perked up because he was teaching from the book of Nehemiah. As he was teaching, he said something that I remember word-for-word 25 years later. He said, “Nowhere in this story does it say that God told Nehemiah to rebuild the wall.” At that moment, I knew God was speaking directly to me. I already knew that God desired for the nations to be reached with the gospel and to make disciples. I knew that I could have gotten a forestry job and still pursued God’s will. But, I had shared God’s word with a lot of people over the previous few years. I liked the thought of being in a job where I could focus on teaching and have more time to disciple students. If it didn’t work out after a couple years, then I could move on and do something else as a career.

You see, God had spoken. He already made his will to be known to all the people of Israel, not just to Nehemiah. It wasn’t a mystery as to what God wanted. He already communicated it with very clear words. It was Nehemiah who recognized that God wasn’t just speaking to all the other people. God was speaking to him. When you look back throughout the scriptures this is one of the great qualities of those who do great things for God. They recognized that God exists, that he has spoken, and that he is speaking today, to them in particular. God has spoken to us through his word. It’s not just rules in a book, it’s God demonstrating his existence and communicating with each of us directly. Just because 120 years had passed since God declared his will in Ezekiel, it didn’t mean that God’s will had changed any. Just because Jesus spoke over 2000 years ago doesn’t mean that his will has diminished any either.

The rest of the Old Testament is fill with examples of God speaking about intervening, God speaking about fellowship, God speaking about judgment, God speaking about hope. Then there was 400 years of silence. No new prophecies were made. But, he wasn’t done speaking. In Hebrews it says, “1 In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the universe.” (Hebrews 1:1-2)

In John 1:1-3, John states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was with God in the beginning. 3 Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” As you read the rest of the chapter you will see that Jesus is the “word”. In the Greek culture the word “logos” was used as a title given to the impersonal creative force. This intelligent force was involved in bringing order to the universe. It was the source of knowledge, wisdom and intelligence as well. This is how they could reason that there could be order in the universe without embracing a God that they were accountable to. So, when John used the word “logos” his readers would understand what he was talking about. Instead of “logos” being impersonal, John begins to share what God is truly like. Listen to how he describes God:

“He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.” - John 1:11

“Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God” - John 1:12

“The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us…” - John 1:14

Jesus had come to intervene, bringing salvation to all people. He came to “seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:11). He came to bring hope, but those who rejected him found themselves in judgment. He came speaking. His words had life. In John 1:12, notice that it doesn’t say that those who received his teachings became children of God. It’s those who received him that can become children of God.

As I was thinking about this message I was reminded that I don’t need to just spend time in the word. I need to spend time with the word. What do you believe? Do you believe that God exists? Do you believe that he has spoken? Do you believe that he is still speaking to you? This is part of the great hope of Christians. We believe that all these things are a “yes”. Before I came to Christ I had no clue that God was still speaking. I felt pretty certain there was a God and that he had spoken to people at some time in history. But I felt that he went silent, especially for me. It wasn’t until I started reading the Bible for myself that I started experiencing strange, new things happening. I began to be convicted for my sin. The death and resurrection of Jesus became more of a reality to me. Christian friends were sharing with me the same verses I had read earlier that day. I gained more and more glimpses of a personal God that was wanting to speak with me.

In a couple minutes we’ll have a time for sharing. I want to ask you two questions for you to think about:

What has been helpful for you in meeting with the word over the past month or so? In other words, have you changed a habit or heart attitude that has led God to speak to you? Have you continued having a certain habit or heart attitude that has kept you in communication with the word?

What is one simple thing you can pass on to someone over the next week or in order to encourage them to meet with the word as you have been doing?