What is God's Purpose for His Word? ("Prepare" Day 1)

What is God's word? What is His purpose in giving it to us? In this episode, Matt and Rachael discuss the supernatural nature of God's word and the transformation it can hold for your life. When we approach the Word with a humble heart that desires to be changed, He is faithful to form us in His image.

Click Here for Week 1 Homework Sheet

BEFORE this episode: Complete DAY ONE Homework (2 Peter 1:20-21 and 2 Timothy 3:16-17)

AFTER this episode: Complete DAY TWO Homework (Psalm 119:15-16; Psalm 119:97-99; Psalm 40:8; and Psalm 119:11)

Transcript

Framing A Life Of Impact

SPEAKER_01 0:07

Do you ever feel like your life just isn't as productive or effective as it should be? As followers of Jesus, we want our short time on earth to have eternal impact, but often we feel like we're falling short. The good news is that Scripture gives us a promise, a life that's never ineffective or unproductive in knowing Jesus Christ.

The 2 Peter Path Of Growth

SPEAKER_01 0:28

In 2 Peter 1, we're told to build on our faith, adding goodness, knowledge, self-control, perseverance, godliness, mutual affection, and love. As these qualities grow, they keep us fruitful and effective for God's kingdom. I'm Matt Morrow, and my wife Rachel and I have spent nearly 20 years teaching God's word and walking with people in every stage of faith. Our passion is to see lives permanently and radically transformed by Scripture applied. Adding to your faith is here to help you understand biblical truth, practice it daily, and grow to look more like Jesus. We're glad you're here. Let's walk this journey together.

Meet Matt And Rachel

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Hi, friends, um, I'm Rachel and this is Matt, and we just want to thank you for joining us today for week one, session one of Adding to Your Faith, where we are going to talk about studying the Bible and specifically how to study the Bible. So if you have not started with studying your Bible and haven't started with the lesson, go back and do that first and spend time in the Word before you listen to this. This is an adding to that, not a standalone. So, but today we're going to talk

Why Study Before Listening

SPEAKER_00 1:48

about just the power of the Word of God. And I know just for myself, I think that that really came home to me at one point when I was reading A.W. Tozier's book, The Pursuit of God. And in that book, he says something along the lines that God's word is spirit. And so God's word in the Bible only has power because it already corresponds with the words that God is already speaking over the universe. And that was transformative to me to just understanding what the Bible is. And so kind of as we start this today, Matt, I wanted to kind of jump in and and kind of get your thoughts on something that kind of stood up to you in your life when you really started to understand the the power of the Word of God.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

Well, I thanks, Rachel. I think one of the things that as I was a kid, and I was, you know, I'm very, very

What Makes Scripture Supernatural

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fortunate, very blessed to have been raised in a Christian home. And so I came to faith in the Lord early. But for for many years, I saw the Bible as valuable, as a tremendous resource for wisdom and and obviously worthy of consulting, right? But I didn't, I didn't really see it as supernatural in nature until I was I was really late in college, was really when it started to kind of hit me a little bit more. And then even more after you and I were married, like years into our marriage, where I had a chance to really learn under some good Bible teachers, start to really understand the unique nature of God's word, and and then it leads you to a very natural question, or led me to a very natural question, which was what is it? You know, what is God's word? And and maybe more importantly, what is his purpose in giving it to us? So, I mean, if there if God is who he is and his word is what we believe it is, then what's his reason for giving it to us? What's his purpose in that? And so you mentioned earlier that if you haven't already done the homework, please pause this or stop this. Go go into God's word and read 2 Peter 1.21, which we'll read in a minute, and read 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17, because that's the text that we're gonna be focused on today. And over the course of the next six days, today being day one, over the course of the next six days, we're really gonna do bit by bit this these building blocks of how and why God's word is so critical and so important, absolutely unique, and what his purpose is in giving it to us, which is a really important foundation before we start applying techniques and practices for how to mine God's word for what it has for us in a very personal and uh and pragmatic way. So 2 Peter

God’s Purpose For His Word

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1.21 and 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17 are where we're starting. I'm just gonna read those and then we can start unpacking that a little bit in about two or three areas. And again, if you haven't done this yet, pause it here, go back, read those texts, do some of this homework yourself. There's instruction on how to do that, what we have here, and then we'll we'll be doing it alongside you today. So let's start. 2 Peter 1:21 reads, For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. And then 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17 is all scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. These are the foundations that we that we want to use as a jumping off point to understand what is God's word and what is his purpose in giving it to us. And Rachel, the first thing that

Reading The Anchor Texts

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really jumps out to me is just the supernatural nature of God's word. What do what do we mean when we say that God's word is supernatural in nature?

SPEAKER_00 5:47

Well, I think it means exactly what Second Peter says it means is that it didn't have its origin in man. It has its origin in men who wrote carried along by the Holy Spirit that that these words are the words that that correspond with with what God is is speaking, and you know, that God wants us to know him, and so he has shared

Inspiration And Authority Explained

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with us pieces of of who he is through his word so that we can know him.

SPEAKER_01 6:20

And and so peep so we God used people who are flawed, he used human beings who are who are flawed, sinful, broken, fallen humans to through his supernatural empowerment to write down what he authors throughout all of human history, as you said from Tozier, that corresponds with his eternal active word, and and do that so that the writers are not are not the author, but they are instruments of the author. And that's so important because you know it's 66 books of the Bible written over thousands of years by by so many dozens and dozens and dozens of different people who wrote the words, and yet there is this overarching, complete story, cohesive, internally consistent in every possible way. These are authors that didn't know the the work of each other when they were doing it in many cases. They certainly didn't know what would come later. Often they were writing in different parts of the world or in different parts, and they and yet God was working through them in this way,

One Story Across Many Authors

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which means that these men spoke from God, it was breathed out by God, and that there was a purpose in it. What is that purpose that is that that is uh of this supernatural nature? What is what's the work that God wants to do with his word? What does the Bible tell us?

SPEAKER_00 7:39

He he wants us to know who he is and so that that we know what it looks like to be like him.

SPEAKER_01 7:47

And that requires us to change. I mean, so I one of the big you asked earlier, one of the, you know, what was the aha moment for me when I realized that God's word was supernatural, that it was special, it was different than other old works. And one of the truths that dawned on me at some point was none of these other old works, like like the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer, or great old works of Shakespeare, or even the writings of Josephus, who's a historian during a contemporary of Jesus, right? Any of these that are that are valuable if you're history nut like me

From Advice To Authority

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and like you, or you know, but but they're different, fundamentally different, because those are not designed to change, transform, and sanctify me the way God's word is. God's word has a purpose, and that purpose is for every human being created in the image of God ever to be changed, formed into his likeness, and ultimately sanctified. That's pretty powerful. It's written for you. Yeah, all through all these thousands of years, he wrote this for you and for me, for each person who's who encounters it.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Right. I mean, like John 1, right? The the word became flesh, right? I mean, that's what it is. The the eternal Godhead became flesh so that we could see the Father. And and the Bible is is God's living and active word. And that's why that's why it says it is spirit.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

And if that's true, and we believe it is, and there's good reason to believe it is, even if you don't have blind faith, there's there's been plenty of evidence to that, to that effect, and we of course don't have time to go into all of it today, but I will just say there's good reason to believe that it is what we what we're describing here. And if that's the case, then this word is not just a source to consult. It's not just it's not just good advice, it's not just a source to consult, rather, it's an authority to submit to. Like we're we're called to submit and surrender under the authority of this word. That makes it fundamentally different than any other any other resource, any other book, any other anything.

Posture: Expect To Be Changed

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So if that's this, if that's what we mean when we say the supernatural nature of God's work, that it's that it's m spoken through men, but from God, breathed out by God, and for specific purpose of changing us, of forming us to his likeness, and of sanctifying us, uh, making us holy over time. If it's if it has that purpose, that supernatural nature, then then I think one of the things that is that if we that if we believe that's the only natural response to it is to start by asking God to work his purpose for his word out in me, right? And that's something I know that you've talked a lot about, and it's part of the homework this week, is to just ask the Lord to work his purposes for his word out in me. So how do you do that? How do you ask, how do you approach God and ask him to work out his purposes for his word in your life?

SPEAKER_00 10:59

I think part of that is what you've already mentioned. It's it's recognizing the authority of God's word.

Asking God To Work In Us

SPEAKER_00 11:07

You know, if if God's word is living and active as it says that it is, then you can approach it expecting it to change you, expecting it to speak to you. And so one I think is is just submitting to to its authority. You know, we used to always ask our kids, you know, kind of obedience is what happens when what you think and what we think bump up against each other. And the true, like the same is true in God's word. When what you think or feel or think is right bumps up against something in scripture, who do you listen to? Do you listen to your own thoughts, your own heart, your own kind of reasoning on that? Do you start trying to say, well, the Bible can't mean that because that doesn't make sense to me? Or do you really come under its authority? And so I think the first part is really settling the authority

Teach, Rebuke, Correct, Train

SPEAKER_00 12:01

of the word in in your heart and mind and and asking the Lord to help you with that if that's something that you're you're struggling with. And then secondly, to know that, you know, I know you're headed to to 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17, but his word says that that it's perfect, right? That it's God breathed and able to to teach and to rebuke and to correct and train and to prepare us for every good work. And so then kind of saying, okay, then if it is perfect for all of my needs, am I coming to the word and coming, coming to to scripture to to see, right, to get my needs satisfied, or or to try to understand my my situation or or what's happening here and what the Lord would have me do. And so um, I think it's kind of a two-step process. It's one submitting to the authority of the word, and then secondly, saying that this word has something for me in

Sanctification In Plain Words

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my daily life and and asking the Lord to just reveal that to you because he wants to do that. He's provided this so that we can be sanctified.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

I love how you describe that as approaching God's word in anticipation of change. That that I'm that I'm gonna open his word, expecting him to change me with it. That's that's a really important posture for approaching God's word. We're gonna talk over the course of the next few weeks about different techniques and methods for really developing a deeper personal intimacy with the word of God. But all of that is built on certain foundations. We have to first approach God's word, believing and knowing that it that there is a God, that He is that He is perfect in His character and nature, and that His Word is an expression of that perfection, of His perfect character and perfect nature, and that it is powerful, and that we are broken, that I am broken by my sin, by my by my

Equipped For Every Good Work

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human frailty in every possible way. And so I should approach His Word, expecting it to change me. Not just consulting it, not just looking for advice, or not just looking for wisdom that I sort of weigh against other wisdom of the world or other things like that, but like approaching it to say, I am going to surrender myself to the authority of this scripture and expect to be changed by it. I don't know what that looks like until I get into it, until his spirit moves through it, but I know that that's its purpose. I know that purpose exists for this, for this perfect word, and so that's how I'm gonna approach it. And that means that that means that that I go in asking God to change me from through his word, right? I mean, if if I'm gonna open his word, I need to ask him supernaturally to prepare my heart to be changed by what I'm about to encounter. I don't even know what I'm gonna encounter yet. I'm just opening the word. But I'm I'm approaching him and asking him to change me from my way to his way by encountering his holy supernatural word, and then expecting that to happen, expecting that to take place. And that means that that he will

Preview: Is God’s Word Relevant

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form me, that that I'm asking him to change me from my flesh likeness to his holy likeness. And it means that there's gonna be sanctification that takes place. And that's a big, that's a big church word, big Bible word. And we're gonna talk more in the days ahead about sanctification, what that looks like. But just in a nutshell, Rachel, what do we mean when we say sanct sanctify me? I want to be sanctified by spending time in his word. What's that mean?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

It's the process of being made to look more like Christ.

SPEAKER_01 15:51

Okay. So it's it's essentially working out that sinfulness, that that wickedness in my flesh, and replacing it with his character and his nature and his and that's a we're gonna again, we're gonna talk more about that in the days ahead. But that's a I mean, that's no small thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

No, I mean, right? It's like John the Baptist said, right, he must become more and I must become less. And that is in a nutshell, sanctification.

SPEAKER_01 16:17

So you mentioned earlier, and you were talking about about 2 Timothy 3, 16 to 17, that as we enter his word, we should also ask him. Again, we these are not things that we do. We ask him to do these things in us as we approach his word. We should also ask him to show me how he wants to use this scripture that I haven't even read yet, that I'm about to encounter. How, Lord, do you want to use this scripture to teach me, to rebuke me, to correct me, to train me in righteousness? Because his word says that all scripture is actually useful for these things. Not only is it God breathed, but that scripture says that it is profitable for teaching or useful. Different translations say different things with that, but essentially it's it's a very practical instrument that God uses to sanctify us. So when you enter God's word, what do you ask Him to do with it?

SPEAKER_00 17:13

I mean, just those things, right? I mean, like the psalmist says, open my eyes so I can see wonderful things in your word, and and uh just humbly approach the word and and ask the Lord to show me right. Open my eyes so that I can see these wonderful things, so that I can see where I need to be corrected or rebuked or shaped. Show me, you know, teach me about you and your character and your nature and your will and your plans. Train me in righteousness, right? Show me what it looks like to walk in your ways and and to love the way that you love and to care about the things that you care about. The Bible says that the word is supernatural, right? It will it will do that. But we we have to come with an open hand and an open heart and ask the Lord to do that in us. It's not it's not our work or a product of our study or or our own thinking, our own thoughts. You know, it's it's a work of the Lord in us, and it's a work he wants to do for all of us. And so we can come boldly and we can come expectantly.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

So every human heart longs for significance, longs for meaning, longs for impact. We all want to make a difference. We all want to matter with our lives. And and the Bible gives us great promises about this. I mean, and I'm thinking of Ephesians 2, 10, where it says that we are God's workmanship, that we're created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them. Okay, so and again, this is a promise where God is telling us that He has prepared before we were even born, He prepared good works for us to walk in, that we're created in Christ Jesus for this purpose, for these good works. And what we just read in 2 Timothy says that this is that this is the process that approaching God's word, coming under its authority, submitting to its authority, recognizing its supernatural nature and its practical usefulness for shaping us, forming us, sanctifying us, that that is for the purpose of equipping us for every good work. It says so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And in Ephesians, we learn that these are good works that were prepared ahead of time for us, that there's a purpose for your life and for my life, that there are good works waiting for us that have been prepared for us. But that if we want to embrace that, if we want our life to have significance, we have to do this. We have to, we have to develop a deep, intimate, personal engagement and intimacy with the Word of God so that we can. Can be changed and shaped, made complete and equipped for every good work. That's the key to us to a life of significance. It's key to the to a life that matters. And everybody in the world is groping around in the dark for this. Well, I'm excited about what this means for us as we look ahead to the next uh several weeks. We're we'll have daily discussions like this around the homework that that you are doing on a daily basis. We'll try to make sure there are links to these documents if you want to download them and follow along with us. If you're not a part of the class that we're already teaching, but but want you to be able to do that tomorrow, will be day two of week one. And that's that's really going to lead us to a very practical question, which is is God's word relevant? Now, what you know, that's that's a that's a common question. I mean, it's a it this is a work that was written down thousands of years ago. Is it even relevant for today and for the here and now? Is it is there is there anything to actually do with it in in this modern world or in this modern time by modern people? And and I think we already know the answer to that one, don't we, Rachel? I think we do. So we'll look forward to being with you again tomorrow. If you if you haven't done the homework yet, just remember day two of week one has uh four different scripture passages. Uh they are Psalm 119, 15, and 16. So Psalm 119, verses 15 and 16, Psalm 119, verses 97 and 98, Psalm 40, verse 8, and Psalm 119, 11. And that's where we're going to dive into is God's word relevant and practical for our daily lives? Hope you'll join us again for that. I'm looking forward to doing it. Rachel, thanks for uh for making this a good session again today.