The Person of the Word

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically from the audio and may contain small errors.

I'm putting it in a different way. Jesus, the Word of God, points to the Bible as the Word of God. And he says, Bible, the Word of God, testifies about the Word of God. Jesus is the Word. He points to the Bible as the Word and says, the Word testifies about the Word. I understand logically this is circular. I get it. But Christianity following Jesus is not an exercise in equations. It's not an exercise in logical tautologies. It is an exercise in faith. We follow a person, not a set of proofs. So Jesus uses his authority as the Son of God to say that the Bible has authority. To say actually that the Bible speaks about him. However, Jesus does make a clear distinction between himself and the Bible. He says to religious leaders in John 539, he says, you search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.

And it is they, the Scriptures, that bear witness about me. So Jesus is saying, be careful. There's a way to read the Bible and miss me. Right? There is a way to read the Bible and miss the word of God. Right? You can read the word of God, but still miss the word of God when you're reading the word of God. People can twist the words of the word to defend slavery, like that Pastor Nashville talked about, that, you know, defending segregation. But let me put it positively and let me really challenge you, that we should read the word of of God, the Bible, in light of the Word of God, Jesus. We should read the Bible in light of Jesus. We should read the Word of God in light of the Word of God. And this sounds great, almost poetic. I think if I had a little more time with it, it would have been poetic, but it sounds fine just like it is. But it doesn't sound practical yet. How do we put this into practice? What does this

look like when we're actually reading the Bible. So I want to give you three things to try as you are reading the Bible. And you might be asking yourself, what am I going to read? And I'm going to tell you, hey, there's this Bible reading plan. It's on Facebook and Instagram. It's so easy to find. I want to give you three things to try as you read the Bible this week. And I think in the process of me telling you a few of these things, we are going to learn a few more things. The first way that we're going to read the word of God in light of the word of God is that we are going to let Jesus get our attention as we read. Let Jesus get your attention as you read. Jesus desires to speak to you directly through his word. This is the word of God, not because The pages are somehow made of some holy piece of wood. It's not special ink. It's not special leather.

There's no binding. There's no magical process to making this book. There's nothing. However, it contains the words of the Word. It is the Word of God. Jesus has something to say to you when you read. This is how the Bible describes it in 1 Thessalonians 2:13. It says, and we also thank God constantly for this, that when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it, not as the word of men, but what it actually, but as it actually is the word of God, which is at work in you believers. In 1 Thessalonians 2:13, we see you heard the Word, you accepted the Word, and now the Word is at work in you. As you read, the Bible is reading you. As you are opening yourself up to reading the Word of God, you are sitting under it. It is teaching you. There is a way to read it that is unsubmissive. There is a way to read it that is skeptical. Even, you know, the verses that

we read, you know, like, well, how do we know this is circular reasoning? There's no way, you know. Okay. But our promise is that when we read in faith, when we know that and we expect that Jesus is going to speak to us through the Word, we will read it in an entirely different way. I was teaching gospel course today and Pat Crow, I'm not going to point around. Uh, Pecra, sorry, just to say her name, not point you out, it's totally different.

Totally. Um, part of her testimony was she had a neighbor that had the Bible on tape and that every morning before work, she would just listen to the Bible on tape. And she said that she noticed after a while, and she wasn't like, she wasn't following the Lord. Uh, you weren't even attending church then, were you Pat? Maybe. No, not even attended church. Just listening to the Bible on tape. And she said she could just feel a change. She just knew that something was happening. And it was a couple of years later that she became a Christian, but that was a marked experience for her whenever she just began reading the Bible, which sounds insane, right? It sounds insane that you should start reading a book and that the Lord God in heaven would somehow use that and bless that and begin to speak to you through that. But that's exactly how it works. There's a famous woman, her name is Rosaria Butterfield.

She was a lesbian atheist law professor, maybe. She was a professor in an Ivy League college, I believe Harvard. I need to get my details better. She was a, she didn't love the Lord. We'll just put it that way. Okay. For some reason or another, she got ahold of the Bible. She started reading the Bible and she said, I just couldn't put it down. I just kept reading. Now she was married to a woman, so she was reading the Bible. And her wife would look at her and go like, what are you doing? Why are you reading that? And she'd like, I don't know, I just can't stop. I just kept reading, kept reading, kept reading. And about six, eight months in,

she's reading the Bible and she's beginning to get convicted. And the Bible's in the kitchen and she'd just been reading it. She put it down and her wife comes in and this thing is changing you. You got to stop. You got to stop reading it. This is changing you. And Rosaria Butterfield, she said that she knew she couldn't stop. She knew she wouldn't stop. She had to keep reading. She still can't really explain it. Other than that, the Spirit of God was drawing her to himself through his word. What an amazing testimony. Not about ink and paper, but about the Word of God. The Word of God calling out many of your testimonies. I know about most of your stories and how you came to faith and how you've grown and what that's been like. And I know for a fact many of you can testify to the exact same thing. You would say, in some way, you would say, I never grew spiritually until I started reading the Bible consistently and then

something happened and I can't really explain it, but there it is. It's my story too, that when the Bible was open to me in a new way, it was like being born again. I mean, it was just crazy and I'd grown up in church, but I just understood it. I don't know, I can't really explain it. But the Lord wants to get your attention as you read. If you look at 1 Peter 1, 22 and 23, and then skip verse 24 to go to 25, it says, love one another earnestly from a pure heart, since you have been born again, listen to how, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable seed, through, you've been born again through the living and abiding word of God. And then 25, and this word, the word of God is the good news that was preached to you. The word of God is living and active. The word of God is planted inside of you. It's making you new from the inside out. My encouragement to you as you read the Bible reading plan, as you begin

that, is that you pray before Jesus, please speak to me through your word. I get, I look, I don't, I don't guarantee much. Okay. I try not to actually. But I will guarantee when you begin reading submissively the Word of God, you will change. You will change. Even something you've read before. It's not like it has to be new information. It'll change you. This is the first way that we read the Word in light of the Word is that we let Jesus get our attention as we read. Here's the second way that we read the Word in light of the Word is that we find Jesus in every part of the Bible. We find Jesus in every part of the Bible. Jesus says several times, in fact, we just looked at Luke 24 44, whenever he says, all the Bible is about me, including the Old Testament, the law, the prophets, all the stories. So Moses and the Exodus from Egypt, you know what that story is about? Jesus. It is Samson and Delilah. That's a weird story.

You know who it's about? Jesus. Daniel the lion's den. Still Jesus. I know it seems like it's about Daniel and a lion's den, but it's not. It's about Jesus. Even E. Hood, my favorite biblical character, the left-handed judge who killed the King on a toilet. That is about Jesus. It's in Judges. My favorite judge, E. Hood. When you read about David and Goliath, Let me be real clear. When you read about David and Goliath, the Holy Spirit is not showing you how to kill your Giants. That's not what that story is about. If you read David and Goliath and you think, oh I'm like David, no honey, I'm sorry. That's not that story's point. You aren't David, you aren't slaying your Giants. You know who David is? Jesus. God, yes. Who's that? Some little child, bless you I don't know which child said it, probably a record, but dang it, that was awesome. Yes, good, I'm gonna ask more questions and let record children answer.

I think that's gonna be a good way forward. I love that. In that story, King Saul and Israel is hiding in their camp, and Goliath is out there taunting and waiting for somebody to kill him, or waiting for somebody to fight him. And David comes and slays that giant. In that story, if you're going to kind of make that an allegory, David is Jesus, not you. Never you. You can't kill your giants. Jesus didn't come to tell you how great you were. Jesus came to kill giants for you when you were hiding scared in the camp. This is the gospel. This is how the whole Old Testament is about Jesus. It all points to Him, not you. I mean, you're cute and all, but no, it's not you, it's Jesus.

The point of the Word is the Word. It's the Word of God, not you. The second way that we read the Word of God and the light of the Word is that we find Jesus in every part of the Bible. This is the last one I want you to try. I want you in your prayer, I want you to ask Jesus to give you more of that blazing eternal life before you read. Jesus says we have not because we ask not, so let's ask. Shall we? Let's ask. Let's go to the throne of grace with confidence and say to the Lord God in heaven, heaven, please Lord Jesus, through your word, give me more of this life. Give me more of this blazing eternal life. James 1 21, it says that we should receive the word of God with meekness and we should receive the implanted word which is able to save your souls. Colossians 3 16, it says, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. If Jesus is the word of God and He has come to give us this

blazing eternal life and Jesus goes through the trouble of giving us words to read, then the least we can do, the very least, is to get on our faces when we open the Bible and say, Lord Jesus, please speak and give life. Impart life to me. Ask Jesus the word of God to give you life. He has it. He has life and this life is the light of men and this life beats back the darkness. We talk about spiritual growth or being on a spiritual journey and those things are really helpful to talk about. However, lest we think that it's just you know like some odyssey that we all get to be on. No, no. Your spiritual journey is a destination to look more like Jesus. It's to have more life in you. That is your journey. That is your destination. This summer I want you to understand that through the Bible, through the Word of God, Jesus Christ himself desires to reveal himself to you and give you

life. And I know all of you need more life. You're like me. You really can never get enough. It's always good. And you never seem to have enough. This summer, let the word of God dwell on you richly. This summer, jump on that summer reading plan. Not, listen, not so that we can get likes on Facebook. I don't care. I care about our church body being in the Word together. What a joy that would be, to all be reading the same. I'd like for you to pray before you read. I'd like for you to read in anticipation of Jesus bringing you life. And I would like for you to find Jesus in every part that you read. And I want you to watch as Jesus changes you from the inside out. I'm about to pray for us for a time of invitation and we're gonna have an extended response time as Josh Bahard comes and leads some songs for us. And as we do, I would encourage you to stand. I'm going to be

up here, down here, I guess, standing. And I just want to encourage you, what's that next step for you? What do you need to do? Have you ever received that life from Jesus? Have you ever had a moment where you've said, Jesus, I want to follow you? I want to give everything to you. I want that light. I want that life, that eternal life, that blazing life. If you've never done that, I want to encourage you to do that now, during our response time. You can just come forward, we can pray. We'll kind of take it from there. For some of you, you need to come forward because you want to be baptized. For some of you, you need to come forward because you want to potentially join our church. All of those things can happen up here during this response time. And if none of those things apply to you, I would encourage you, pray. Pray for the ones that do need encouragement.

Pray for the ones that are trying to make a decision for the Lord. And so let me pray for us and then we'll stand. Jesus.