SPEAKER_01: This podcast is brought to you by Grand Parkway Baptist Church, helping people to know, enjoy, and glorify God.
SPEAKER_01: For more information about Grand Parkway, visit Grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_01: Bow your heads, church.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Father, we thank you that we were made for more and that the uh cross was just the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: It was just the dark.
SPEAKER_01: You've made us today to live in the power of your resurrection.
SPEAKER_01: And so we're resurrection people.
SPEAKER_01: We've gathered on the Lord's Day because that's the day that you raised your son from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And it's that life that we stand in now.
SPEAKER_01: Father, I just pray that you would uh remind us, because our whole salvation depends on our true understanding of your holy word, that you would help our hearts to be freed up from the world.
SPEAKER_01: Help us to hear and understand your word today with all diligence and faith so that we can discern what your will is, so we can cherish it, so we can live by it with all eagerness to your praise and your honor through our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And it's in his name we pray.
SPEAKER_01: All God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning, church.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Clyde.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the worship pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I'm privileged to lead our worship ministry here today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm privileged to preach God's word to you.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have your Bibles, let me invite you to take those out and open them up to Acts 17.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll begin with this question: why did you bring your Bible to church today?
SPEAKER_01: I think first glance the answer's obvious, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're the people of God, so we've come to God's word to see what God's word says.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do each week.
SPEAKER_01: We're here for the purpose of hearing God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And at second glance, you could say that the answer is maybe not quite as honorable as that.
SPEAKER_01: It's just a habit.
SPEAKER_01: You grabbed your keys, you grabbed your coffee, your wallet, grab your Bible, out the door you went.
SPEAKER_01: But that doesn't really get to the question either.
SPEAKER_01: Why did you bring your Bible to church today?
SPEAKER_01: Well, today we'll see the answer in Acts 17, starting at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have your Bible, look there with me.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't, the words will be on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea, and when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: They received the word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
SPEAKER_01: Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing, as well as men.
SPEAKER_01: But when the Jews from Thessalonica learned that the word of God was proclaimed by Paul at Berea also, they came there too, agitating and stirring up the crowds.
SPEAKER_01: Then the brothers immediately sent Paul off on his way to the sea.
SPEAKER_01: But Silas and Timothy remained there.
SPEAKER_01: Those who conducted Paul brought him as far as Athens, and after receiving a command for Silas and Timothy to come to him, as soon as possible, they departed.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of God for the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: So we've been going through the book of Acts, and one of the questions that this book answers is: Who are we?
SPEAKER_01: Who is the church?
SPEAKER_01: What was important to the early church?
SPEAKER_01: As we go through Acts to see how God builds the church, we need to be able to see what was important to the early church.
SPEAKER_01: We're able to see that by looking at Paul's mission.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when Paul comes to Berea, he doesn't take a break.
SPEAKER_01: He picks up right where he left off and heads to the synagogue preaching the word.
SPEAKER_01: The Jews in Berea responded differently than the Jews in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 11.
SPEAKER_01: Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: They received the Word with all eagerness, examining the scriptures daily to see if these things were so.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing we see from the text today is this: be eager for the word.
SPEAKER_01: When you're eager, you have an appetite.
SPEAKER_01: You have hunger.
SPEAKER_01: There's something missing in you that you're excited to receive.
SPEAKER_01: That's to be our posture towards the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the last time you woke up in the morning and someone was in the kitchen cooking bacon, pancakes, eggs.
SPEAKER_01: I hear some amens.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: That's eagerness.
SPEAKER_01: That gets you out of the bed and into the kitchen.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it was like for the Bereans.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the Bereans were Jews, studying God's word, waiting on his promised Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: Paul came preaching that word that they were eager to receive.
SPEAKER_01: What is the word?
SPEAKER_01: It's what got Paul in so much trouble in Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: It's what he was preaching.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the word consisted of two things.
SPEAKER_01: First, that the Old Testament taught that the Messiah must suffer and rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_01: And second, that Jesus was the Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: This was the word Paul preached.
SPEAKER_01: The word of God is one of the central themes in the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: Now, it's easy to miss that, but it's essential to see that.
SPEAKER_01: God's word is living, it's active.
SPEAKER_01: The church grew because of the word.
SPEAKER_01: The church was healthy because of the word.
SPEAKER_01: It's why Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, 3 through 4, I delivered to you as a first importance what I also receive.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first importance.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, this word is the good news of Jesus' death and resurrection, and that he was the promised Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: Another word for this is what we use here a lot: the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: It's our first core value for a church.
SPEAKER_01: If you've been coming for a while, you've probably noticed we make a big deal about the gospel in the preaching, in the songs, in the life of our church.
SPEAKER_01: That's because the gospel is the power of God for everyone who believes.
SPEAKER_01: When the Jews in Berea read the Old Testament, it creates eagerness in them for the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what the word was.
SPEAKER_01: Another thing it says in verse 12 is that they were noble.
SPEAKER_01: Now, originally, nobility had to do with your birth, right?
SPEAKER_01: Nobility was something you were born into.
SPEAKER_01: In this case, nobility has less to do with their birth and more to do with their behavior.
SPEAKER_01: In Berea, their religious life and their practices were used by God in such a way that they were called noble.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let's be clear here.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't save them because they were noble.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't save them because they read their Bibles really well.
SPEAKER_01: But they were shaped by their reading of the scriptures and less by their culture.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's how we see them giving Paul a fair hearing here.
SPEAKER_01: Now, they're eager to receive the word because they're more noble than who?
SPEAKER_01: The Jews of Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: Compare those two groups of people for a second.
SPEAKER_01: In Thessalonica, they're jealous of the word, which means they become threatened by the word.
SPEAKER_01: See, the gospel threatened their sense of power, their control over the Jewish synagogue.
SPEAKER_01: The gospel will always threaten the status quo.
SPEAKER_01: It always threatens the status quo.
SPEAKER_01: See, the gospel it'll give you a sense of power that other things cannot.
SPEAKER_01: See, when we're jealous and we're threatened by the word of God, uh what the things that give us a sense of power and control, they can easily be turned against us.
SPEAKER_01: In Berea, they're noble towards the word, which means they're eager for the word.
SPEAKER_01: In Thessalonica, we see jealousy and being threatened.
SPEAKER_01: In Berea, we see nobility and eagerness and receptiveness.
SPEAKER_01: So here's a question: what threatens you?
SPEAKER_01: What creates jealousy in you?
SPEAKER_01: Remember the last time you were jealous?
SPEAKER_01: What creates eagerness in you?
SPEAKER_01: See, jealousy is eager to tap into.
SPEAKER_01: But what about eagerness?
SPEAKER_01: Does eagerness for the word become easy?
SPEAKER_01: Or do you find yourself having to work hard in order to become eager?
SPEAKER_01: Oftentimes I think we find ourselves curious, but not necessarily eager.
SPEAKER_01: Do your experiences with the gospel create eagerness for more experiences with the gospel?
SPEAKER_01: We never outgrow our need for the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Are you eager?
SPEAKER_01: No one can create eagerness for you, but we can ask our Father to make us eager.
SPEAKER_01: We can pray for the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to behold glorious things from his law.
SPEAKER_01: What would happen for us, Grand Parkway, if we became known as a church that was just eager for the word?
SPEAKER_01: What if the world looked at us and said, wow, those people are so hungry to hear God speak?
SPEAKER_01: Be eager for the word.
SPEAKER_01: If they were eager for the word, we should be eager for the word.
SPEAKER_01: Eagerness for the word is like the gauges on your dashboard.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: If we're not hungry for the word, that tells us that something is off in our spirit.
SPEAKER_01: How long have you been a Christian?
SPEAKER_01: Has your eagerness for the gospel increased or has it diminished?
SPEAKER_01: Are you still eager for the word?
SPEAKER_01: If the answer is no, ask God to create that desire in you to be eager for the word.
SPEAKER_01: Now, eagerness did not just lead them to getting satisfied and Paul going on his merry way, but it says this: they examined the word.
SPEAKER_01: That's the second thing we see today.
SPEAKER_01: They examined the word.
SPEAKER_01: Two definitions are helpful here.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: There's many names for these books that we hold in our hands.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible, scriptures, the word of God, the Old, the New Testaments, the canon of Scripture, the B-I-B-L-E, that's the book for me.
SPEAKER_01: Y'all awake?
SPEAKER_01: I know y'all are like, come on, man, it's Memorial Day.
SPEAKER_01: Let's go.
SPEAKER_01: So when Luke says the Bereans examine the scriptures, what is he talking about at this point in history?
SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: New Testament still being written.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul's talking about the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the things we saw last week, right?
SPEAKER_01: Connect people to the story of God.
SPEAKER_01: God's story doesn't begin with Christmas and then end with Easter.
SPEAKER_01: It's the overarching story of redemption in the Old and New Testaments.
SPEAKER_01: Now, an important question we should ask ourselves is what scriptures did they examine?
SPEAKER_01: Now the text doesn't tell us in verse 11, but when we look at how the New Testament quotes the Old Testament, we can see how the early church went about this.
SPEAKER_01: Just consider these Old Testament passages.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 3.15.
SPEAKER_01: We'll put these on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have to look these up.
SPEAKER_01: God said to the serpent, I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring.
SPEAKER_01: He shall bruise your head and you shall bruise his heel.
SPEAKER_01: See, when Jesus paid for our sin with his death on the cross, that was just the bruise on the heel.
SPEAKER_01: The fatal blow came to Satan and to evil because Jesus' death satisfied God's wrath for sin.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis 12, 3, God says to Abram, I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you, I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.
SPEAKER_01: See, God's promise to Abram extends forward to his family, which are the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: But it also goes to everyone else, all the earth.
SPEAKER_01: That's the Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Samuel 7, God speaks to King David, When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.
SPEAKER_01: See, David was of the house of Judah.
SPEAKER_01: House of Judah is the house of kings.
SPEAKER_01: The Hebrew word Messiah is where we get our Greek word, the Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This Christ was from this line of kings, this house of kings, this line of David that would restore the royal throne and defeat all their foreign enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is of the line of David, and he defeated our ultimate enemy, sin and death.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 53, the prophet says, But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.
SPEAKER_01: Upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we sing Jesus paid it all.
SPEAKER_01: All to him I owe.
SPEAKER_01: Sin had left a crimson stain, he washed it white as snow.
SPEAKER_01: That idea didn't start in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: It's been here the whole time that God would send a substitute for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus himself, he quotes the Old Testament, the book of Jonah, in Matthew 12, it's saying, For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Just as Jonah would die and be resurrected, Jesus would die and be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: Now, each of these scriptures are just the tip of the iceberg of the scriptures that the early church examined to see for themselves that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God.
SPEAKER_01: What they were doing is a principle known as Scripture interprets scripture.
SPEAKER_01: They appealed to the highest authority that they had.
SPEAKER_01: And there's four things we need to see from this.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing is that scripture is sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture is sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: That means it was enough for them.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't need to appeal to worldly tradition.
SPEAKER_01: Paul didn't have to convince them by the force of his personality.
SPEAKER_01: God has made his words enough.
SPEAKER_01: None of us walked in here this morning with blank pages in the back of our Bible, just in case God said something new and we needed to write it down, right?
SPEAKER_01: God has made his word enough.
SPEAKER_01: All the words of God he intended us to have are contained right here.
SPEAKER_01: We're saved because of these words.
SPEAKER_01: We can trust God because of these words.
SPEAKER_01: We know how to obey God because of these words.
SPEAKER_01: They're sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: Second, scripture is necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Salvation is impossible without the special words of God contained in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: There's some things we know about God generally.
SPEAKER_01: We know that He created the world.
SPEAKER_01: We know that we know about His character and His morality, but we do not know how we can be saved unless we hear the special word of God.
SPEAKER_01: We need the scriptures, both the Old and the New Testaments.
SPEAKER_01: They are the truth, the whole truth, nothing but the truth.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we mean we say necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Third, scripture's clear.
SPEAKER_01: God's communicated his word in such a way that the person who reads it can understand the message.
SPEAKER_01: Where one scripture is unclear, confusing, the other scripture is clarifying, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because God has made the Bible necessary.
SPEAKER_01: He's made it clear.
SPEAKER_01: One verse of scripture always makes me smile when I read it.
SPEAKER_01: It's at the end of Peter's second letter.
SPEAKER_01: And Peter himself says about Paul, he says, I know some of y'all have read Paul's letters and they are hard to understand.
SPEAKER_01: Which cracks me up because that's one apostle saying about another apostle.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, this guy's kind of hard to understand.
SPEAKER_01: His point being, though, that just because it's hard to understand doesn't mean it's not clear.
SPEAKER_01: We have the whole Bible to interpret scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Fourth, scripture is authoritative.
SPEAKER_01: To obey the Bible is to obey God.
SPEAKER_01: To disobey the Bible is to disobey God.
SPEAKER_01: This is the highest authority to which the church can appeal.
SPEAKER_01: U.S.
SPEAKER_01: Constitution makes provisions for different levels of federal courts.
SPEAKER_01: You have circuit courts, you have appellate courts, you have the Supreme Court.
SPEAKER_01: There's no higher court than the Supreme Court for you to take your case.
SPEAKER_01: Once it's decided there, it's decided.
SPEAKER_01: See, similarly for us, that's the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: There is no higher authority than the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the things that actually distinguishes Protestants from Roman Catholics and what Dee mentioned earlier, the Orthodox Church.
SPEAKER_01: It's called sola scriptura.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture alone is the authority that the church ultimately appeals to.
SPEAKER_01: I was reminded of that this week because there was an interview of Pope Francis on 60 Minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Nora O'Donnell is interviewing the Pope, and she asked him this question: uh, what gave him hope?
SPEAKER_01: This was his response.
SPEAKER_01: Everything.
SPEAKER_01: You see tragedies, but you also see many beautiful things.
SPEAKER_01: Heroic mothers, heroic men, men who have hopes and dreams, women who look to the future.
SPEAKER_01: That gives me a lot of hope.
SPEAKER_01: People want to live, people forage ahead.
SPEAKER_01: So far, so good.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said this, and people are fundamentally good.
SPEAKER_01: We were fundamentally good.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, there are some rogues and sinners.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us, right?
SPEAKER_01: There are some rogues and sinners, but the heart itself is good.
SPEAKER_01: Now I saw that and I thought, what would a Berean do at this moment?
SPEAKER_01: Well, they go to Jeremiah 17, which says that the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick.
SPEAKER_01: Who can understand it?
SPEAKER_01: What if they read Psalm 14 in Romans 3?
SPEAKER_01: As it is written, none is righteous, no not one, no one understands, no one seeks for God.
SPEAKER_01: All have turned aside.
SPEAKER_01: Together, they have become worthless.
SPEAKER_01: No one does good, not even one.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means when it says they examined the scriptures to see if these things were so.
SPEAKER_01: And it's created a problem for many Catholics because their church teaches papal infallibility, which means Pope's interpretation of scripture is infallible.
SPEAKER_01: What happens when he gets it wrong?
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the reasons our ultimate authority is scripture alone.
SPEAKER_01: When we examine the Bible, we do it with complete confidence because it's sufficient, it's necessary, it's clear, and it's authoritative.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, if you want a helpful way to remember that, you can rearrange the first letter of each word and just spell scan.
SPEAKER_01: That's a very helpful tool.
SPEAKER_01: Just remember why we trust God's word as our ultimate authority.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, scan is another word for examine.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you go to our church website, you'll find this belief statement.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first thing listed about what we believe about the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that the Bible is the word of God, fully inspired and without error in the original manuscripts, written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and that it has the supreme authority in all matters of faith and conduct.
SPEAKER_01: This idea didn't start with us.
SPEAKER_01: God's plan from the beginning has always been that He speaks in such a way that we know it's sufficient, clear, authoritative, and necessary.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me back up here and say, are we examining the scriptures so that we can become intellectuals and bookworms?
SPEAKER_01: So that we can uh Doc Holiday can say about us, oh, he's an educated man.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know I hate him.
SPEAKER_01: Uh no.
SPEAKER_01: We want our people to be so steeped in the Bible that when you go to your job, when you go to your home, your vacation, you go on mission trips, you're able to rightly divide the word of truth, truth from error.
SPEAKER_01: Again, look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: Many of them therefore believed, with not a few Greek women of high standing as well as men.
SPEAKER_01: God's word was for every person: the Greek, the Jew, the rich, the poor, the man, the woman, the adult, the child, the powerful, and the weak.
SPEAKER_01: See, we examine the word so God can send us out, full of spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you have to move from this large environment to a smaller environment.
SPEAKER_01: Uh that's why we offer Bible studies.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we offer core classes, something we want everybody in the church to go through.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we organize D groups.
SPEAKER_01: We're so confident in the power of God's word that we expect our people to move out of this room so that they can do life-on-life discipleship with each other by studying God's word.
SPEAKER_01: When that happens, the church is built.
SPEAKER_01: God gets glorified, and we become salt and light to a dark and dying world.
SPEAKER_01: An example from my own life.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, each morning I take my daughters to school.
SPEAKER_01: Not anymore, though, because school's out for the summer.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but I take my girls to school, and one of the things we've been doing lately is just reviewing the Ten Commandments.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so we'll just I'll say, hey, what's the first commandment?
SPEAKER_01: And they'll reply back.
SPEAKER_01: Uh the other night at dinner, my oldest, she asked me a question.
SPEAKER_01: She says, Daddy, um, are the Ten Commandments just for kids or for adults too?
SPEAKER_01: Rutro.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, why would she ask a question like that?
SPEAKER_01: Because she's been examining the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: And we and we had a helpful discussion about the difference between you know honoring your father and mother, but also obeying God rather than men.
SPEAKER_01: Um, when we do that, we learn how to examine the scriptures and we become a people of the word.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the third thing I want us to see today.
SPEAKER_01: Um, be a people of the word.
SPEAKER_01: Think back to that first question.
SPEAKER_01: Why did you bring your Bible to church today?
SPEAKER_01: Because we're people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: God's people have always been a people of the book.
SPEAKER_01: And the Brians were just continuing that tradition from Israel, right?
SPEAKER_01: Uh they examined the word of God and then they believed in God.
SPEAKER_01: God's word goes out, but it doesn't return void.
SPEAKER_01: Faith comes from hearing, and hearing by the word of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's an important point that's easy to miss here.
SPEAKER_01: The church did not produce the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible produced the church.
SPEAKER_01: Let me say that again.
SPEAKER_01: The church did not produce the Bible, the Bible produced the church.
SPEAKER_01: This is a massive debate about the history of the church because it's one of the distinctives of the Protestant Reformation and the Roman Catholic Church.
SPEAKER_01: Roman Catholic teaching is that the church produced the canon of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Protestant teaching is that the canon of scripture produced the church.
SPEAKER_01: See, if the church produces the canon of scripture, it holds authority over the scripture to interpret it.
SPEAKER_01: One of the ways the Catholic Church does this is what I said earlier, through the idea of papal infallibility.
SPEAKER_01: The problem is what happens when they get it wrong, right?
SPEAKER_01: Um we believe with the reformers that God speaks through his word.
SPEAKER_01: His word went out, people hear the word and they respond by faith and become the church.
SPEAKER_01: Now, church, do you understand the power of what you hold in your hands?
SPEAKER_01: Martin Luther said that a simple layman armed with the scripture is mightier than the greatest pope without it.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're people of the word, our history is full of times where tradition, philosophy have caused the church to stray from the word, and they had to come back to the clear teaching of the word.
SPEAKER_01: One of those is, like we said, the Reformation.
SPEAKER_01: Another one happened a couple about a century afterward, and it was uh uh Puritanism, the Puritans.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say Puritanism, uh you probably think of what H.
SPEAKER_01: L.
SPEAKER_01: Mainkon said, which uh puritanism is the idea that someone somewhere somehow is happy.
SPEAKER_01: And we have to stop that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not what Puritanism is.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Uh nothing could be further from the truth.
SPEAKER_01: The Puritans were known for their devotional love of the scriptures, and that's part of the reason they were called Puritans.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted to purify the Church of England so it was not tainted by teachings, contrary to scripture.
SPEAKER_01: They believed text had more power than tradition.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: When you look at our own country, there are so many denominations that have fought, split, and dissolved over the authority of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Just a few weeks ago, look at what happened in the United Methodist Church.
SPEAKER_01: They voted to allow clergy to practice homosexuality.
SPEAKER_01: Uh they they voted to allow them to preside at same sex marriage ceremonies.
SPEAKER_01: How did they get there?
SPEAKER_01: We don't have the time this morning to get into all these details, uh, but really it started uh about a few centuries ago with the age of reason and the rise of literary criticism.
SPEAKER_01: See, these were scientific philosophies like naturalism, materialism, and they said miracles aren't scientifically possible.
SPEAKER_01: So the Bible's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: So parting the Red Sea, Daniel the Lion's Den, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, the fiery furnace, Jonah, the big fish, the virgin birth, Jesus walking on water, calming the storm, the resurrection, every one of these was viewed as scientifically impossible.
SPEAKER_01: So the Bible couldn't be true.
SPEAKER_01: If God's word is no longer the authority on how man thinks about God, man becomes the authority of how man thinks about God.
SPEAKER_01: And see, like a virus, this spread through Europe, through their universities, through their philosophies, through their culture, and ultimately through their churches.
SPEAKER_01: It came here to us too.
SPEAKER_01: So much so that it became known as liberal mainline Protestantism.
SPEAKER_01: I think another way of saying that is just churches that don't trust the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible becomes something you stick in your pew, you can pick it up, you can pick which parts are right and wrong, which parts are divine, which parts are human.
SPEAKER_01: But it's no longer a perfect standard or authority, and you put it back.
SPEAKER_01: So break out the rainbow flag, right?
SPEAKER_01: When I was in uh the Northeast last summer visiting my brother, I saw so many churches displaying rainbow flags during the month of June.
SPEAKER_01: Don't go there during the month of June.
SPEAKER_01: I don't recommend it.
SPEAKER_01: See, this is one of the reasons, by the way, this is a side note.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of the reasons we support nets as one of our mission partners, because they want to plant healthy, vibrant churches in places like that that need the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: Now, again, let me back up here say I'm not dunking on people that have gotten it wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I'm saying this to myself and to us because I want to be sobered and reminded that the example from Scripture is to be like a Berean.
SPEAKER_01: Stay eager for the Word, examine the Word, trust the Word as people of the God, be defined according to the Word.
SPEAKER_01: Be a people of the Word.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, being a people of the Word doesn't mean we disregard 2,000 years of church history.
SPEAKER_01: It does mean we understand the authority of the Word.
SPEAKER_01: See, I didn't grow up in church reading the creeds in church.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in Southern Baptist churches in Georgia, Indiana, where we would sing hymns, read scripture, the gospel is preached, but we were not very aware of the historical nature of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't until my later years that I saw the value and the importance of reading the creeds.
SPEAKER_01: Here at our church, we often confess the words from the Apostles' Creed and the Nicene Creed and parts of the Heidelberg Catechism in our worship service.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we do this if these things aren't scripture?
SPEAKER_01: It's a great question.
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's ultimate authority, the Bible, but then there's lesser authorities, like the Creeds.
SPEAKER_01: Why do we have the creeds?
SPEAKER_01: Because it's possible for people to read the Bible and get it wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes they get it so wrong, they persist in their wrongness, that they become heretics and they entice others to join them.
SPEAKER_01: Heresies are always coming and going.
SPEAKER_01: But then they come back again.
SPEAKER_01: Back in 2022, 73% of American evangelicals agreed with this statement that Jesus was the first and greatest being created by God.
SPEAKER_01: That's a heresy of Arianism.
SPEAKER_01: People may not realize it, but that statement's heresy.
SPEAKER_01: That is why we have the creeds, because they're a summary of biblical teaching to focus on particular truths about God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, sometimes you hear people say, We have no creed but the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: What if I said that in and of itself as a creed?
SPEAKER_01: You see, the creeds don't replace the Bible, nor do they have authority over the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: We say them because they hold forth truths from the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: So the next time we say a creed together, let's say it with full conviction, with loud voices raised up, and let's rejoice in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: That's one of the ways we stand with all the saints who have gone before as a people of the word.
SPEAKER_01: Now, when I say this, this third point, be a people of the word, we have to remember that our faith is not just individual, it's corporate.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean with that, it's not just me.
SPEAKER_01: It's you and me.
SPEAKER_01: It's us.
SPEAKER_01: Think about the way the Bible was written.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: The Old Testament is written to a people, not to an individual.
SPEAKER_01: Think of Paul's letters, right?
SPEAKER_01: Most of the letters in the New Testament are written to churches.
SPEAKER_01: They're not, most of them aren't written to individuals.
SPEAKER_01: Think of Romans, uh, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, uh, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1st and 2 Thessalonians, all of these are written out loud to churches.
SPEAKER_01: Earlier, I encourage you, go beyond this room and get in life on life discipleship environments, smaller groups, because when we in order to be a person of the word, we need to be with people of the word.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly and finally, y'all still with me?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly and finally, find Christ in the word.
SPEAKER_01: Look back at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: It tells us that many of them therefore believed.
SPEAKER_01: Believed what?
SPEAKER_01: They believed in the gospel of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word Paul preached.
SPEAKER_01: They are able to read the word in such a way that they put two and two together and found Christ.
SPEAKER_01: One of the tasks of the Christian is to be able to find Christ in the Word.
SPEAKER_01: This was the teaching of the apostles, it was the teaching of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5, You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life, and yet it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me, that you may have life.
SPEAKER_01: After his resurrection, he appears to the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and it says in Luke 24, O foolish ones and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken, was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?
SPEAKER_01: And beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.
SPEAKER_01: Church, if you love the Bible, but you don't love Jesus, you don't love the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: It's possible to read the Bible in such a way that we love theology more, we love history more, we love having the truth more, but we don't love Jesus more.
SPEAKER_01: If we examine the Bible to learn about morality, the good life, the correct ethics for life, who we should vote for, who we should vote against, but we don't need Jesus to die on a cross for our sins.
SPEAKER_01: We've not examined the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: What you have there is a Christless Christianity, a scripture without a savior.
SPEAKER_01: See, when the Bereans read the scriptures, they find Christ in the Old Testament and they believed the gospel.
SPEAKER_01: We see the consequence of this belief in verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Word gets back to Berea, back to Thessalonica.
SPEAKER_01: They leave Thessalonica and they come to Berea to do the same thing they did before: stir up the crowds to a riot because of their jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: Why?
SPEAKER_01: Because the message of Jesus is offensive.
SPEAKER_01: It causes jealousy, it threatens their way of life.
SPEAKER_01: When you examine the scriptures and find Jesus, does it force you to change the way you think about things?
SPEAKER_01: Has Jesus changed the way you read the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: Can you find Jesus when God sent Israel into Egypt?
SPEAKER_01: Can you find Jesus in the Psalms?
SPEAKER_01: Can you find him in the Ten Commandments?
SPEAKER_01: Can you find Jesus in the prophets?
SPEAKER_01: See, the Breans were able to examine the scriptures in such a way that they saw these things were so.
SPEAKER_01: That was a mark of their belief.
SPEAKER_01: Two thousand years later, it continues for us.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just look to the scriptures to tell us how to live, how to work, how to die.
SPEAKER_01: We look in the scriptures to find a crucified and risen Savior who invites us into his life.
SPEAKER_01: The Bereans examine the scriptures daily, and we're able to find Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Think about how Jesus taught us to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our what?
SPEAKER_01: Daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: Think of how Paul taught us to pray.
SPEAKER_01: Pray without ceasing.
SPEAKER_01: There's not a day you have ever wasted in your life by just simply opening the word of God and saying, Show me Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Give me Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Show me Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Help me behold wonderful things from your law.
SPEAKER_01: Give me this day my daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: Make me hungry for this bread.
SPEAKER_01: Make me eager for these words.
SPEAKER_01: Give me the spiritual gift of wisdom so that I can understand your word.
SPEAKER_01: Find Christ in your word, and then the church is stronger and healthier because of it.
SPEAKER_01: So be eager for the word.
SPEAKER_01: Examine his word.
SPEAKER_01: Be a people of the word and find Christ in his word.
SPEAKER_01: The Puritan Samuel Rutherford said this.
SPEAKER_01: If God had told me some time ago that he was about to make me as happy as I could be in this world, and then it told me that he should begin by crippling me in my arm and limb and removing from me all the usual sources of enjoyment, I should have thought it a very strange mode of accomplishing his purpose.
SPEAKER_01: And yet, how is this wisdom manifest even in this?
SPEAKER_01: For if you should see a man shut up in a closed room, idolizing a set of lamps and rejoicing in their light, and you wish to make him truly happy, you would begin by blowing out all of his lamps, and then throw open the shutters to let in the light of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes my concern is that when we bring our Bibles to church, we just open them up like little lamps, rejoicing in their light.
SPEAKER_01: We look for the usual sources of enjoyment.
SPEAKER_01: We come looking for ways to get happier, fix our marriage, our kids, win arguments.
SPEAKER_01: We come looking for a little pick-me-up and then get back to whatever we were doing.
SPEAKER_01: But when we open God's word, we read it, we examine it, and we find Jesus, the shutters and the doors get thrown open, and the light of heaven gets in.
SPEAKER_01: Because in it we find Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: In him we find life.
SPEAKER_01: That life was the light of men.
SPEAKER_01: This is why you brought your Bible to church today.
SPEAKER_01: Because it tells you the truth about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: What is that truth?
SPEAKER_01: That God made you to know, enjoy, and glorify him through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray together.
SPEAKER_01: Each week, after we spend some time thinking about the things we've heard, we'll also just have some questions here on the screen for you to consider and ask the Holy Spirit, what should I do with these things?
SPEAKER_01: So let's take a moment to do that together.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, speak to us because we're listening.
SPEAKER_01: We want to know you, enjoy you, and glorify you forever.
SPEAKER_01: So help us to trust in your word to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Our confession is that there's many temptations to distrust your word.
SPEAKER_01: Some of us have been dealing with sickness.
SPEAKER_01: We've been longing for healing for years, and yet the answer has been not yet.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, bring us back to the truth where we started so that we can cast all our cares on you.
SPEAKER_01: For you and you alone will sustain us.
SPEAKER_01: Speak to us, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Your servants are listening.
SPEAKER_01: Ancient of Days, you've given us an ancient word.
SPEAKER_01: It has not changed one iota from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: And it won't change.
SPEAKER_01: It's gone out, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: We pray that it would bear fruit tenfold, twentyfold, a hundredfold.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for a sufficient, authoritative word we can have confidence in.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, with all the saints who have gone before us, we join with them and we say that you have spoken.
SPEAKER_01: Your word is good, your word is true.
SPEAKER_01: Come to the water, taste and see that the Lord is good.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, thank you for sending your son.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sending your spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's in Jesus' name we pray all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Church, thank you so much for being with us today.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have some things going on in the life of our church we want to share with you.
SPEAKER_01: Before I do that, just want to draw your attention to the screen.
SPEAKER_01: Don't look at that screen.
SPEAKER_01: It's missing something.
SPEAKER_01: Look at that screen.
SPEAKER_01: So uh technology, she's a fickle mistress.
SPEAKER_01: Um the uh there's a number there on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: If this is your first time with us, we're glad you're here.
SPEAKER_01: So text that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we'll we'll reach out to you.
SPEAKER_01: We want we just want to know you uh and get you involved in the life of our church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh today also, if the day is the day that you uh worship through giving, uh we have boxes uh by the doors uh as well.
SPEAKER_01: Uh let's take a look at our announcements this week.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a look at what's happening at Grant Parkway Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_00: Join us for Man's Breakfast next Tuesday, June 4th.
SPEAKER_00: It's the perfect way to kickstart your day with great food and even better company.
SPEAKER_00: Come hungry and ready for some meaningful conversations and fellowship.
SPEAKER_00: Doors open at 5 45 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: You are invited to the information meeting Domystify Community Groups on Thursday, June 6th.
SPEAKER_00: Take the mystery out of what it's like to attend a community group and how does one find a group that's a good fit.
SPEAKER_00: You'll understand what is expected of group hosts and what are the tasks of a community group leader.
SPEAKER_00: We meet for one hour, 6 30 through 7 30 p.m.
SPEAKER_00: Child care is available for fourth grade and under if you pre-register.
SPEAKER_00: Attending Dimyssified Community Groups does not commit you to anything.
SPEAKER_00: We are excited to offer a Bible study for kids on Tuesdays during the month of July.
SPEAKER_00: There will be a short large group teaching time followed by small groups led by qualified 7th through 12th grade students that are trained and overseen by adults as we explore the foundational truths of the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: There will be at-home devotional assignments, scripture memory, and an emphasis on developing daily time with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This Bible study is for kids who are eager to grow in their relationship with Christ or asking questions and want to know more about who God is.
SPEAKER_00: For more information or to register for these events, please visit our website at grandparkway.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you have any questions or want someone to pray for you, find one of our pastors at the front of the stage at the conclusion of our service.
SPEAKER_01: One more thing I want to draw your attention to before we're dismissed.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we have prayer cards for our Romania team.
SPEAKER_01: They're leaving this week.
SPEAKER_01: Uh also continue to pray for our trip that just left to Sri Lanka.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, and then we've got another trip coming up as well.
SPEAKER_01: So great opportunity, great season.
SPEAKER_01: Just be praying for what God's been doing in our church.
SPEAKER_01: Don't forget to grab one of these today.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, would you stand to your feet, church?
SPEAKER_01: Hold your hands out like this.
SPEAKER_01: We have been given the word of God for the people of God.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks be to God.
SPEAKER_01: Go now and enjoy brisket and ribs and slaw and a lot of other things that soldiers died for, for the freedoms that we enjoy.
SPEAKER_01: Most of all, enjoy the freedom that Christ died for by enjoying Him and cherishing Him and glorifying Him forever.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Bless you.
SPEAKER_01: You're dismissed.