February 13, 2005
Service Theme – “Our God Is Truth”
Various Scriptures
Principles of Renewal: The Biblical Principle
B.
Context – Most of us
feel pretty comfortable with the idea that the Bible is true and accurate. We hear stats like the one I just read and
say, “Yeah, I agree, that’s right.” We
know in our heads that the Bible is the revealed word of God. But we have to get to the point where we
realize why the word of God was written.
As Philosopher Soren Kierkegaard wrote, (NEW SLIDE) When
you read God's Word, you must constantly be saying to yourself, "It is
talking to me, and about me" (as cited on
PreachingToday.com). It’s all about
God’s truth and how it applies to my life.
C.
This morning we’re
continuing our series on principles of renewal based on Pastor Michael
Slaughter’s book Spiritual Entrepreneurs. (NEW SLIDE) The Biblical Principle states that
Scriptural truth is the primary source for what we believe and do. Most of us have become so accustomed to using
the Bible only for information that we forget to allow it to transform what we
do. Let’s take a look at the life of
Josiah for a minute. Josiah’s
grandfather, Mannaseh, was a nasty, evil man.
The Bible tells us that Mannaseh killed so many innocent and godly
people that the streets of Jerusalem flowed with their blood. He even sacrificed his oldest son to Molech,
the detestable god of the Ammonites.
His son, Amon, was no better.
Amon was so evil that his servants assassinated him. So Josiah became king of Judah when he was
eight years old, fifty-seven years after the last godly king, Hezekiah. And even Hezekiah stumbled in the last years
of his life, contributing to Mannaseh’s evil character. So let’s pick it up in 2 Kings
22:11-13. Some of Josiah’s officials
had just discovered the books of Moses in the Temple while it was being
repaired, and read them to Josiah.
II.
Getting Back to the Book
A.
2 Kings 22:11-13 (from
the New Living) – (NEW SLIDE) When the king heard what was
written in the Book of the Law, he tore his clothes in despair. 13 Then he gave these orders to Hilkiah the
priest, Acbor son of Micaiah, Shaphan the court secretary, and Asaiah the
king’s personal adviser: (NEW SLIDE) 13 “Go to the Temple
and speak to the Lord for me and for the people and for all Judah. Ask him about the words written in this
scroll that has been found. (NEW
SLIDE) The Lord’s anger is burning against us because our ancestors
have not obeyed the words of this scroll.
We have not been doing what this scroll says we must do.”
B.
Josiah recognized the
connection between reading the word and doing something about it. Because he humbled himself before God, God
delayed the judgment He had decreed against Judah. So Josiah partied.
Wrong! 2 Chronicles 34:29-32
tells us how he responded. Then the
king summoned all the leaders of Judah and Jerusalem. 30 And the king went up to the Temple of the Lord with all the
people of Judah and Jerusalem and the priests and the Levites – all the people
from the greatest to the least. There
the king read to them the entire Book of the Covenant that had been found in
the Lord’s Temple. 31 The king took his
place of authority beside the pillar and renewed the covenant in the Lord’s
presence. He pledged to obey the Lord
by keeping all his commands, regulations, and laws with all his heart and
soul. He promised to obey all the terms
of the covenant that were written in the scroll. 32 And he required everyone in Jerusalem and the people of
Benjamin to make a similar pledge. As
the people of Jerusalem did this, they renewed their covenant with God, the God
of their ancestors.
C.
You can read for
yourself what happened after that. But
the point is that Josiah brought the people together to hear the words of a
book that had been gathering dust for several decades. As Slaughter writes, (NEW SLIDE) “The
result was radical revitalization! The
people turned from dead institutionalism to the living God.” That is a truth we’ve got to get a grip on!
III.
The Standard for Faith
A.
(NEW SLIDE) The truth is that renewal grows out of
rediscovering biblical truth. Applying
this truth is the key. Look back at
the lives of Martin Luther and John Wesley.
During a time when the Church preached salvation by works Luther pointed
people back to the word of God and salvation by grace through faith. Luther wrote, I'd like all my books to be
destroyed so that only the sacred writings in the Bible would be diligently
read (as cited on PreachingToday.com).
That’s how passionately he loved God’s word. He translated the Bible into German and put it into the hands of
the people. The result? The Protestant Reformation, which reshaped
the future of the Church forever. And
during a time when the Church of England focused on a highly ritualized liturgy
of worship for salvation, Wesley pointed people back to the word of God and the
need to be transformed by the Holy Spirit and to live out that transformation
in daily life. The result? The founding of the Holiness movement, which
is our faith heritage, and the salvation and transformation of literally
millions of lives ever since! While
those are simplifications of some difficult times in history, they still make
the point. God’s word transforms!
B.
(NEW SLIDE) Wesley wrote that there are four filters we use to
determine truth: Scripture, reason, experience, and tradition. While all four have valid applications in
finding truth, he held Scripture far above the other three for determining
Christian truth. He viewed Scripture
as the final testing ground of authenticity for Christian truth. That’s powerful! Our world sees experience as the most important factor for
determining truth. That’s called
post-modernism. The Enlightenment
movement, which was developing in France during Wesley’s time, saw reason as
most important for determining truth.
The Catholic and Anglican churches viewed tradition above all as the way
to decide truth. But Wesley pointed us
in the right direction, and we’ve got to get back to that truth!
A.
We tend to base much of
what we believe on personal opinions.
Especially our own personal opinions!
But we forget what people in our world are longing for. (NEW SLIDE) People are longing to
hear a word from God. They may not
know it, and they may not know Him, but what they are longing for is a word
from God. They may politely listen to
our personal opinions about God and the Bible, but what they want is God
Himself.
B.
(NEW SLIDE) Slaughter writes, “In an age of uncertainty and
materialistic self-centeredness, our people yearn for a message from God.” Think about John the Baptist. He was authoritative. He was unapologetic. He called it like God sees it. And God used him powerfully. I know.
We’re not prophet-types and we don’t go around dressed in weird clothing
shouting at people to repent. But we
can still authoritatively and unapologetically share the word of God with those
who need it so desperately. We can tell
those around us what God’s word says without being obnoxious or arrogant or
overbearing. People are longing for a
word from God, and that’s exactly what the Bible gives them.
V. Faith Comes from Hearing
A.
One of the challenges we
face in giving people the word of God is that most of us have become biblically
illiterate. Too much of the time we try
to rely on our memory of what we learned in Sunday School or church instead of
turning to the source. Most Christians
in our country and I daresay in our church don’t spend any kind of daily
quality time in the Bible. And when we
do, we look at it through the rose-colored glasses of our own opinions. Because of those filters we don’t allow the
Bible to impact us the way God wants it to.
How do I know this? As Slaughter
says, “Confrontation with the word of God awakens faith.” And if we allow our faith to be awakened, then
we have to do something about it. So we
read with our filters full strength, or we don’t read at all. God’s word awakens faith, which is why so
many of us avoid reading and studying it on a daily basis without our filters
in place.
B.
I’m not trying to be
negative or judgmental here. I’m being
realistic. I see many lives in our
church being changed by the power of God’s word. And I see many lives that are not changed. I spent too many years of my life there, and
I know how miserable it is trying to live that way. I want every person in this room to experience the power and the
joy of being changed by God’s word. Why
is the Bible so powerful? As Slaughter
puts it, “The Bible is God’s word with the small “w” that points us to the
living Word of God with the capital “W”.
The focus is not the Bible; the focus is Christ! The Bible is not an end in itself, but a
means to an end, which is life in Christ.”
Slaughter is dead right. (NEW
SLIDE) The purpose of the Bible is not to transmit information – the
purpose of the Bible is transformation in Christ. That’s why we read the Bible – to have our lives transformed by
the living Word of God.
C.
Information isn’t
life-giving. Transformation through the
power of Christ is! God did not give us
the Bible for information. He gave us
the Bible so that we can see the One who is the author of life. He gave us the Bible so that the One we see
in the Bible can radically transform us.
John Wesley wrote in his journal, I am a Bible-bigot. I follow it in
all things, both great and small (as cited on PreachingToday.com). Wesley was transformed by the power of God’s
word, and that’s what God wants for us.
He wants us to see Christ in the Bible and allow Him to transform us.
D.
Luke 24:44-45 gives an
account of Jesus appearing to the disciples after He rose again. (NEW SLIDE) Then he said, “When
I was with you before, I told you that everything written about me by Moses and
the prophets must all come true.” 45
Then he opened their minds to understand these many Scriptures. The disciples grew up in a Jewish culture
that very thoroughly indoctrinated them in the history, tradition and
information of the Scriptures. They
kept stumbling over this upbringing until Jesus finally was able to get them
past the information and to the place of understanding and transformation. (NEW SLIDE) The lesson here is
very clear. Scripture is a tool God
uses for transformation.
VI. Doers of the Word
A.
James 1:22 says, And
remember, it is a message to obey, not just to listen to. The people in the prophet Isaiah’s time
didn’t get that truth, even though the Scriptures they had clearly proclaimed
it. They kept up the sacrifices they
were supposed to. They gave the lip
service they were supposed to. But they
didn’t follow God with all their heart.
As Slaughter writes, “…they stopped short of transformation. They wondered why God didn’t hear their
prayers.” Why not? Listen to Isaiah 58:6-8a – No, the kind
of fasting I want calls you to free those who are wrongly imprisoned and to
stop oppressing those who work for you.
Treat them fairly and give them what they earn. 7 I want you to share your food with the
hungry and to welcome poor wanderers into your homes. Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from
relatives who need your help. 8 If you
do these things, your salvation will come like the dawn. Yes, your healing will come quickly. What does this mean?
B.
(NEW SLIDE) True renewal will always show itself in our
relationships with people. People who
are moved by God’s Spirit will get involved with the oppressed, hungry, and
homeless poor. God will hold those
who have read and heard God’s word accountable for living out the whole justice
of God. Slaughter shares this about
what happened during the fall of 1979 at his church, Ginghamsburg Church, a few
miles from Dayton, Ohio. “It was clear
that renewal and involvement with hurting people had a direct correlation. We started the “Adopt a Christmas Family”
program, which involved the commitment to spend on a family in need the same
amount we would spend on our own family…
(At the Christmas Eve service) As we sang our Christmas carols, we knew
that we had truly acted Christian! Do
you know what God had the nerve to say to us?: ‘You hypocrites! How dare you think that you are loving with
the love of my Son, when you love with sacrificial love only one day out of
365? If you are truly my disciples, you
will be involved with these people 365 days a year!’… (NEW SLIDE) Renewal broke out at our church when the
people began to actively do what we had been reading in God’s written
word. Jesus was taking us past the information
to the place of transformation.”
C.
Folks, that’s what we
need here at Sodaville. Many of us have
been coming to church for years. We’ve
got all kinds of Bible knowledge safely filtered and stored up. Most of us can give all the right answers at
Sunday School, or at least not look foolish.
We’ve got the right look down and the right behaviors at church down
cold. But God wants to transform us by
the power of His word. He wants to use
His written word to build the life of His living Word within us. When we allow that to happen, rugged
individualism and self-centeredness will be replaced with a sense of true
community. If we want renewal to take
place in our church, we’ve got to rediscover the vital, unique truth that God
has given us in the Bible and allow it to transform us. As Saint John of the Cross stated, (NEW
SLIDE) “If we are guided by divine Scripture we shall not be able to
err, for he who speaks in it is the Holy Ghost.”
D.
Illustration – Author
Robert Webber wrote, Some time ago I was biking in Michigan and met another
biker who, like myself, was a professor of theology. In the course of our
conversation by the side of the road he said something I will never forget:
"Bob, all I really want in life is for the Word of God to take up
residence inside of me and form me into Christ-likeness." I think this
statement hit me hard because my seminary training in the Bible was never that
personal. (NEW SLIDE) We were always asking "What does it
say?" and seldom if ever made the step into a deep personal application of
"How can that truth take up residence in me?" (as cited on
PreachingToday.com)
E.
Folks, is that our
desire, our passion this morning? Do we
want God’s word to transform our hearts and lives? Do we want to allow it to radically change what we do?
IV.
Conclusion
A.
Please bow your heads
and close your eyes out of respect for each other’s privacy. What has God been speaking to your heart
this morning? Let’s take a few moments
and listen to what He wants to say to us.
B.
What has God been
whispering to your heart? Are you
willing to surrender your heart and life this morning to being radically
transformed by the word of God? Are you
willing to surrender to Him and let Him change you into the man or woman of God
He wants you to be? Are you willing to
surrender so that He can use you to minister to the needy in our world? If you’re willing to surrender to God and
allow Him to radically transform you by the power of His word, please raise
your hand as a sign of that surrender and I’ll pray for you.