March 12, 2006

“Our God Is Truth”

The Bible: Out of This World or Out of Style

Various Scriptures

Prayer and Scripture Reading: Warren

 

·       One of the questions in the Bible that has always struck me is when Pontius Pilate asked Jesus, “What is truth?”  It ranks right up there with Morpheus’ question of Neo in The Matrix, “What is real?”  Now I juxtapose these two questions against each other because, in truth, we find the answer to both questions in God’s word, the Bible.  There have been many attempts to discredit the Bible over the centuries, the latest being that it was written much later than was previously proven and that it should not have excluded the Gnostic gospels found in the Egyptian desert in the 1950s.  By the way, both claims are false, but then again man will do anything he can to keep from having to admit that God is in control and not man.  Another line from Neo, this time answering the oracle’s question about why Neo didn’t believe in fate – “I don’t want to believe that I’m not in control of my life.”

·       Folks, whether or not we want to believe that the Bible is true has a lot more to do with our desire to be in control of our lives than it does with anything else.  And whether we believe the Bible to be divinely inspired, out of this world, or simply a nice book that’s gone out of style over the centuries is shown by one thing alone: whether or not we obey what’s written in it.  Now I’m not here to be an apologist – one who defends the faith against all comers.  God’s purpose for us this morning is that we become more convinced and convicted of our need to read and obey the Bible so that He can use it to transform our lives.

·       John 14:6 is part of an interesting conversation between Jesus and Thomas about Who Jesus is - Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me.”  Jesus is truth personified.  Jesus is truth with skin on.  He’s not just some hypothetical creation of mankind.  He is the living embodiment of the truth that is written in the Bible.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:17, “Don’t misunderstand why I have come.  I did not come to abolish the law of Moses or the writings of the prophets.  No, I came to fulfill them.”  All of the truth of the Bible finds its meaning in Christ.  And maybe that’s why so many people think that the Bible is just some nice book with some good sayings and interesting stories – because they look for the meaning of the Bible apart from Christ. 

·       Hebrews 4:12 says, For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.  Maybe that’s another reason we don’t like to spend much time reading the Bible.  When we read the Bible, we become more and more aware of our need for God and also of our own inability to find fulfillment in life without Him.  Whether or not we profess Jesus as Lord and Savior of our lives, we all have this idea in our heads that we can make life work without His daily involvement.  Yes, we want to worship Him and we want to make it into heaven, but we tend to view God as this kindly grandfather type who will just look the other way when we do things our own way.  Our world is dying to see people who embody the truth of the Bible in the way they live their lives each and every day.  God longs for us to be that people.  We can’t be that people until and unless we begin to believe the Bible enough that we obey everything Christ demands.  Granted, learning how to do that will take our entire lifetime, but we’ve got to spend enough daily time in the Bible that God can use it to speak to our hearts and transform us.  He can teach us the tough lessons about how to become more like Him and how to obey Him only through His written word, the Bible. 

·       2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; 17 so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.  The Bible isn’t just a nice collection of writings a bunch of guys came up with.  God’s Spirit spoke through these writers so that we could know God through Christ and become like Him.  The Holy Spirit speaking through what is written in the Bible allows the Holy Spirit living within us to begin to mold us into His image, to make our character like His.  That’s the goal of our faith – becoming like Jesus and helping others to do the same.  When our hearts come under the daily scrutiny of God’s word, we begin to see ourselves from God’s perspective, both the good and the bad.  That awareness helps motivate us to allow the Spirit to work to strengthen the good and transform the bad.  Granted, we can reject His help and choose to stay the way we are for a while, but we’ll never be effective and fulfilled spiritually until we give into His desire to clean out and transform that area of our lives.  He’ll still be able to use us some for a while, but eventually our rejection in that one area will spread to our whole hearts, and we’ll walk away from Him.  Ephesians 2:10 says For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand so that we would walk in them.  God’s word helps equip us for the good works He created us to do by enabling the Holy Spirit to transform those areas of our hearts and lives that don’t resemble Him at all.  The Bible is God’s inspired tool for working transformation in our hearts and lives.

·       2 Peter 1:20-21 confirms to us that God works through the Bible.  But know this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture is a matter of one’s own interpretation, 21 for no prophecy was ever made by an act of human will, but men moved by the Holy Spirit spoke from God.  That doesn’t sound like anything out of style to me!  The God who spoke through the men who wrote down the holy words of the Bible is more than able to speak to my heart and life and use me for His purposes.  I don’t have to try to operate on my own power.  God through His Spirit and His word gives me His power to do His will.  God uses the Bible to convict and convince me of my need for His power, and then tells me how powerfully He can actually use me.  Remember, Jesus is truth personified.  Jesus operated by the power of the Holy Spirit, and God used Him powerfully.  Peter, one guy I can really relate to, operated using the foot-in-mouth method and was always getting himself into trouble – until the Spirit got hold of him and transformed him into a powerful force for God.  Paul was a self-righteous zealot who had no tolerance for anyone or anything but Jews and the law – until the Spirit got hold of him and used his knowledge of Scripture to transform him into a powerful church-planter and defender of the faith.  God used human scribes to write the Bible so that we can know the transforming power of His Spirit and His love, and so transform our world, one life at a time.

·       I believe that our world is in its greatest crisis of truth ever.  Even though we have access to more information than ever before, we still don’t know and live the truth.  Our culture has evolved to the point that the belief in relative truth, that truth depends on your experience and beliefs, is running rampant.  A lot of healthy dialogue about personal beliefs and spirituality is taking place, and people in general are more spiritually curious than they’ve ever been before.  With so many options to choose from, the only way they are going to know that real truth is only found in the person of Christ and in His word is if we live God’s truth.  We’ve got to become truth with skin on by obeying the truth of the Bible and allowing God to use it to transform us into Christlikeness.  Our world is dying to see us live as truth embodied, God with skin on. 

·       When I had been a Christian for about three years, I began to read the Bible pretty much every day.  I was struggling so much that I needed a ray of light in my heart and life and the Bible seemed like the logical place to find it.  The problem was that I had no idea how to apply what I was reading to my life.  I’d never been taught that, and while I was hearing some nice inspirational preaching, it never involved knowing how to apply the truth of Scripture to my daily life.  That made me one very miserable person.  On the one hand, I read in the Bible how I was supposed to be.  On the other hand, in many respects my life wasn’t any better than those around me who didn’t know Christ except that I went to church on Sundays.  I struggled with that for many years and probably did more damage to the kingdom than good for it.  When I was finally taught how to apply the truth of God’s word to my heart and life, I began to grow.  And I learned some very valuable lessons, the most important being that the area of my heart and life where I am most miserable is the area that I am not allowing God to transform through His word and His Spirit.  So if you’re miserable in any part of your heart or life, it’s because you’re not allowing God to transform that area through His word and His Spirit.  And as I know from some hard-won experience, you’ll never get over being miserable and you’ll never be truth with skin on until you allow Him to work in that area.  You’ll never know that God’s word isn’t out of style, but that its transforming power is out of this world!

·       Where are you at this morning regarding God’s word?  Is it just something nice to read and try to live by, or do you want to be transformed by the truth of the Bible by the power of the Holy Spirit?  If you want your life to be different, if you want to be truth with skin on, now’s the time to make that commitment to God and allow His Spirit to begin to work in your heart and life.  If you want God to begin to use His word to transform your heart and life more than you’ve ever experienced before, come forward to the altars and tell Him that now.  I’ll pray with you if you like, but don’t let Satan defeat you by keeping you in your seat.  Swallow your pride and beat Satan by coming forward to begin to experience the life that God has for you.