SPEAKER_00: It's good to see you all again.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't know me, I'm Chad.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the missions pastor here at First Baptist, and it's such an honor to get to stand before you guys again.
SPEAKER_00: Second week in a row.
SPEAKER_00: We got one more, I think.
SPEAKER_00: But we'll see.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, you guys are nice.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: I've been a Seahawks fan for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: And uh you may not know I lived in Seattle for like 10 years, and uh and uh during that time they had their first run to the Super Bowl.
SPEAKER_00: They lost to the Steelers.
SPEAKER_00: I can't stand the Steelers, so I just um But this one came out of nowhere, so they're the Super Bowl champs.
SPEAKER_00: That's pretty exciting.
SPEAKER_00: And I get to wear my Seahawks jersey for once in a decade, so uh it's nice.
SPEAKER_00: Um I won't say anything about other teams that wear blue that haven't been in the Super Bowl in a while, but we'll uh how does New England get back there already?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Is anyone tired of seeing New England in the Super Bowl?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we have that in common.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Uh so last week we talked about kind of the foundation of how the church and how Christ interact, and how Christ is the foundation of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And tonight we're gonna talk about this idea of God's word and how how does God's word fit into this foundation as well.
SPEAKER_00: And uh, and it's an interesting thing because God's word is interpreted in a lot of different ways, and uh, and so we're gonna talk about it for a few minutes tonight, and I want to tell you that there's a progression here that that helps us understand what God's word is.
SPEAKER_00: And I'll tell you it all starts, kind of like we did last week.
SPEAKER_00: I showed you that little chart where it's like the you have Christ and you have his mission, and out of his mission emerges the church.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the God's word is similar, like you start with the person of God who speaks.
SPEAKER_00: And as he speaks, things come into existence, right?
SPEAKER_00: We know this from that early part of Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: And his word is ultimately expressed in how he himself is viewed by the world, right?
SPEAKER_00: So he he teaches us about himself.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we know God.
SPEAKER_00: But that word is most expressed and best expressed in the person of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so the word of God at its core and at its clearest is expressed in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But that word is testified to in the scriptures, right?
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures are what help us understand.
SPEAKER_00: In the Old Testament, the coming of the word, and in the New Testament, it defines the word.
SPEAKER_00: And the Spirit inspires our hearts so that we can understand how God's word is revealed in Christ, and then ultimately the church is shaped by the Spirit of God moving in his people to respond to the Word of God.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So all of these things start.
SPEAKER_00: It starts with knowing God and knowing his commands.
SPEAKER_00: And then you see his intentions made perfect in his son, and then we know his commands, his son's commands to his people, and his people's, his people act on that, and what we have is the church emerging who is devoted to the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so the first thing I want to say to you is that God's word is first and foremost a person, not a text.
SPEAKER_00: This is a really important thing.
SPEAKER_00: There are people who know the scriptures inside and out and yet don't know Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_00: I'll give you an example from scripture here in a few minutes, but we're gonna start in John chapter 1 and just look at a couple places where it just gives us this beautiful picture of how John the Apostle talks about how the word became flesh.
SPEAKER_00: And we'll start in verse 1.
SPEAKER_00: It says, In the beginning was the word.
SPEAKER_00: And the word was with God, and the word was God.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2 starts with He.
SPEAKER_00: And you have to ask yourself, who is this He?
SPEAKER_00: He was in the beginning with God.
SPEAKER_00: All things were made through Him, and without Him was not anything made that was made.
SPEAKER_00: In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.
SPEAKER_00: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
SPEAKER_00: If you skip down a few verses to verse 14, it says, And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_00: And we have seen his glory, the glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.
SPEAKER_00: So again, John is being really clear that this word that was with God in the beginning is also a person.
SPEAKER_00: So you go just a few more verses, verse 16, it says, For from his fullness we have all received grace upon grace.
SPEAKER_00: For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have a name to the He.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18 finishes.
SPEAKER_00: God, the only Son, who's at the Father's side, he has made him known.
SPEAKER_00: So this verse says that we know God the Father because God the Father revealed himself through his son.
SPEAKER_00: So the Son was seen, but the Father had never been seen.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember the Old Testament law that if someone saw God, what would happen to them?
SPEAKER_00: They would die.
SPEAKER_00: Remember, Moses said, I just want to catch a glimpse of you.
SPEAKER_00: And God said, Okay, hide yourself in this little cleft, and when I pass by, you can look at my back as I go by.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That was the closest thing we get to someone seeing God.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, here in this story, John tells us that by knowing Christ, we can know God directly.
SPEAKER_00: The clearest biblical testimony is that Jesus himself is the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: Eternal, active.
SPEAKER_00: Some verses say alive and revealed in the flesh.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is personal, relational, and incarnational.
SPEAKER_00: So then, what is the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: How do we fit the Bible into this?
SPEAKER_00: How do we understand the scriptures, especially the ones that we have in front of us?
SPEAKER_00: How do we see how it impacts the word of God?
SPEAKER_00: And I would say it's very simple like this.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the Bible that bears witness to the ultimate revelation of God's word, which is his son.
SPEAKER_00: So you probably read this verse before.
SPEAKER_00: This is 2 Timothy 3, starting in verse 14.
SPEAKER_00: It says, But as for you, continue what you've learned and have firmly belief, knowing from whom you learned it.
SPEAKER_00: And how from childhood you've been equated with the sacred writings.
SPEAKER_00: He's talking to Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying that you've been familiar with these sacred writings, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And he says, Um, these sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 16 continues, this is in the same section.
SPEAKER_00: All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and for training in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_00: And so again, in this moment, Paul is writing to Timothy, and he's saying, All scripture is God breathed.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I want to ask you, what scripture is Paul talking about?
SPEAKER_00: Is he talking about the letter that he's writing to Timothy?
SPEAKER_00: Probably not.
SPEAKER_00: Probably Paul did not expect his writings to become what we would later call scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And it really wasn't until the third century that that became clear.
SPEAKER_00: I think that the churches were sharing Paul's writings early, early, early.
SPEAKER_00: But I don't know that they saw them as scripture that early.
SPEAKER_00: There is a reference, Peter makes a reference to Paul's writings, which are hard to understand, which some people it says take out of context like they do with other scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And it makes you think maybe Peter saw Paul's writings as having something, some, but that's as close as we get to any kind of the description of the writings of the New Testament as scripture.
SPEAKER_00: But do you see what he says here?
SPEAKER_00: That all the scriptures, even the sacred writings from Timothy's youth, were able to make him wise to salvation through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So when Paul is talking about the scriptures, at that time, the holy scriptures that he's mentioning is probably the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying even the Old Testament is speaking towards and helping identify and revealing the person of Jesus so that by faith you can know him.
SPEAKER_00: So we have this thing.
SPEAKER_00: If you've been around Christianity for very long, you know that we say the Bible is inspired, it's true, it's authoritative, and it functions as a standard by which we understand and measure the living word in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: The word Bible literally means the standard.
SPEAKER_00: In Bible college, they call it the measuring stick.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's the thing by which we compare revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know what revelation is?
SPEAKER_00: When Christ reveals himself to you and it something happens in your heart and your mind, we call it revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Special revelation is when you receive something for God that you think is just for you.
SPEAKER_00: But the way that you know if it's from God is you go back to the scriptures and say, is this the way that God reveals himself to people?
SPEAKER_00: If you think God told you to do something and you can't find it here, then you better seek wise counsel, because it's probably a very difficult thing to be sure of.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know you just didn't have bad food last night?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you just had a bad dream and you think maybe God's like all of this is so this this Bible stands as the standard by which we measure the revelation of the Word of God to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So here's a question: if we were to have a church that was completely devoted to Jesus but didn't have his word, would we be incomplete?
SPEAKER_00: We would be, because it'd be really hard to know if the things that we think God is saying to us measures up against what God's been saying throughout history.
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing, if you had the scriptures but no interaction with Jesus, you'd also be incomplete.
SPEAKER_00: You would have a misunderstanding of the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We need them both.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what are the implications for our church?
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures stand as God's written word, it describes and defines Jesus, the living word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We as a body of believers, we study the scriptures so that we can discern God's work and will for our own lives.
SPEAKER_00: The danger is that knowing the written word of God is not the same as knowing Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus critiqued the Pharisees for knowing the scriptures, but not knowing him in John chapter 5, verse 37 through 40.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: It says, The Father sent me, has himself borne witness about me.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus is talking about God and the way he's speaking.
SPEAKER_00: He said, His voice you have never heard, his form you have never seen.
SPEAKER_00: And you do not, sorry, and you do not have his word abiding in you.
SPEAKER_00: Think about that.
SPEAKER_00: For you do not believe the one whom he has sent.
SPEAKER_00: You search the scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: It is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.
SPEAKER_00: So even Jesus talks about these people who can be so devoted to the words of the scriptures and not know the person behind it.
SPEAKER_00: What a tragedy that would be.
SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God speaks through the scriptures to point us to Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's how I'll summarize this.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is not just a book.
SPEAKER_00: God's word ultimately is in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And this book helps us to know him, to see him for who he is, to know the things that are important to him, to see the things that he cared about, the things that he did, so that we can know the things that he expects us to do.
SPEAKER_00: The Bibles are God-given, spirit-inspired, spirit-inspired standard for knowing, obeying, and proclaiming God's word.
SPEAKER_00: To know God's word is to know Jesus, and to submit to the scriptures is to be formed by the truth of Jesus' life, his death, his resurrection, and his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: So, guys, we need the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We need the scriptures in our hands so that our hearts can be formed around the true word, the active, living word that lives in us.
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't know that word, then we're gonna be struggling to know the truth.
SPEAKER_00: So as you study God's word, as you study the scriptures, as you study all that we know about how God has interacted with mankind from the very beginning until the end of the apostles, what we see is a standard that gives us hope.
SPEAKER_00: That he does care, he loves us, he calls us his friend, and he wants us to engage in the same work that he's been about.
SPEAKER_00: So be encouraged.
SPEAKER_00: This word is active, it's it's alive, it's living in us, and uh and it's supplemented by the written word that we have in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is our responsibility as followers of Jesus, as a community of faith, as a church, to know his written word so that we can know his active, alive, internal word with all that we are.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Well, let's pray and we'll finish up.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, we thank you so much for your word.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you that you became flesh and dwelt among us.
SPEAKER_00: That when we seek you, you promise to draw near, God, to fill our hearts and lives, God, to comfort us in the times when we're weak, to strengthen us in the times where we're struggle.
SPEAKER_00: And that, God, you are the God that's near to his people.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that we would be a church that would be devoted to you, Jesus, that to you for all that you are, and that we would know all that we can about who you are.
SPEAKER_00: Help us to be a people that can discern your will for this church, for this community, and for our world.
SPEAKER_00: We love you, Jesus, and we pray.