Growing In His Word
Main Idea: The Bible is the authority for our beliefs and practices as a church.
RECOGNIZE WHAT GOD’S WORD IS (2 Pet. 1:16-21)
The Bible is the eyewitness testimony to God’s real actions in human history.
The Bible is the revelation of reality and history as God sees it.
The Bible is the perfect communication from God through His prophets to humanity.
EMBRACE WHAT GOD’S WORD DOES (2 Tim. 3:15-17)
It enables us to be saved.
It changes every aspect of us through the Holy Spirit’s indwelling work.
It equips us to evangelize, disciple, and love others.
ALTER OUR BELIEFS AND ACTIONS BASED ON GOD’S WORD (James 1:22-25)
God’s Word isn’t an intellectual document, but our spiritual marching orders.
God’s Word is intended to conform our actions and beliefs, not confirm them.
God’s Word must be consistently referenced and our beliefs & behaviors adjusted.
Sermon Transcript (Auto-Transcribed by YouTube)
Well, we are continuing today. Today is the third message in our series Tabernacle DNA. And this series is going through the building blocks, the essential necessities that we have to have as a church.
So we started off the series looking at the book of 3 John and what the DNA of a healthy church looks like.
Last week, we looked at what knowing Christ, what that does for us, the fact that we have to have it, that Jesus is the central figure for our church. If we don't have Jesus, we don't have a reason for existence at Tabernacle.
And today, we're going to be looking at growing in God's Word. Growing in God's Word. Is there anything less specific than saying that we ought to follow and obey God's Word?
Well, you can turn on any news station today, and you can find everyone from our current president and senators and mayoral candidates and everyone in between all spouting off verses of why Christians should endorse a particular political candidate's
beliefs or actions. They say, hey, look at this verse. Look, Jesus said this. So therefore adopt everything that I'm saying.
Go to any church in the country of any stripe, and you will find at least lip service being given to the Bible.
But hopefully, as you've been at Tabernacle for the past couple months or the past 12 years or the past 50 years, you will know that there is something different in the way that our church holds and believes the Bible.
It's not something that our congregation 74 years ago came up with on their own, and it's not something that's unique to Southern Baptist or just to Western culture.
Our church holds the classic Orthodox Christian belief that this book is not merely the words of religious men or good tips and tricks to live by or a self-help book that far surpasses all others.
This book is the very words of the Creator of the universe. As such, we believe that we are bound to believe and observe what is written inside. This book is not a choose your own adventure.
I don't know if any of you read those growing up. It's not an Aesop's fables. This is the perfect communication from an infinite God to a finite humanity that demands our study, allegiance, and complete trust.
It was made by God's moving in the hearts, mouths, and pens of more than 40 individuals over the course of 1,500 years across three continents to form one cohesive story about the God who created us, our rebellion against him, and his loving pursuit
to bring us back through the person and work of Jesus. As it relates to our study Tabernacle DNA, I want to make it clear this morning that the Bible is the authority for our beliefs and practices as a church. HB. Charles Jr.
a pastor at Shiloh Metropolitan Baptist in Jacksonville, Florida, said this week, the word of God is to be the final authority in local church ministry, not pastoral vision, congregational tradition, statistical goals, ministry programs, or attendee
preferences. I am the lead pastor of Tabernacle, the main preacher, the one employed for the particular purpose of helping to oversee spiritually feed and guide this church. But I am not the authority for our beliefs and practices. The Bible is.
The covenant members of Tabernacle are wonderful, incredible people with hearts dedicated to seeing God's work accomplished in and through this place and people. But they do not have the final authority over our beliefs and practices. The Bible does.
The day that we abandon obedience to the Word of God is the day that we lose our reason for existence. Last week, we talked about the fact that knowing Jesus is the central purpose and goal of Tabernacle.
And the Bible is the parameter by which we know what to say or think or believe about Jesus. And for the future of Tabernacle, we must be absolutely committed to growing in God's Word.
So if we're supposed to grow in God's Word, if we're to interact with this incredible story, then what does it entail? Today, we're going to see three specific actions that we need to take in response to God's Word.
And the first of those actions is that we need to recognize what God's Word is.
I mentioned last week that we were doing something a little different for this series, and we weren't just going to be in one passage of Scripture, but we were going to be in three passages of Scripture last week, and this week, and the next week.
So I want you to turn over to 2 Peter chapter 1. It's there on your handout. We're going to start in verse number 16.
Sorry, guys. As we look at recognizing what God's Word is, we're going to see first that the Bible is the eyewitness testimony to God's real actions in human history.
The Apostle Peter wrote this, For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. Instead, we were eyewitnesses of His Majesty.
For He received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to Him from the majestic glory saying, This is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.
We ourselves heard this voice when it came from Heaven while we were with Him on the Holy Mountain.
The Bible is not like the Koran's or the Book of Mormon's mythical origins where a deity or spiritual being dictated or handed the finished work to a random person.
The Bible was predominantly written by those that were actively experiencing or had experienced in their life the events and circumstances that they talked about.
Whether Moses, who lived through the events of Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, or the Gospel writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, the Bible is mostly not written about secret truths in the spiritual realm, but of real observable
historical events. Now, the Bible's main focus is the actions of the Creator God within history, so that's not to say that what is written isn't outside of our normal everyday occurrences, but the Bible tethers itself to the seen, not to the
imaginary or the unknowable. This has played over the past couple of hundred years, a huge role in the adoption of belief in Scripture. Men such as archaeologist Sir William Ramsey, journalist Lee Strobel, detective J.
Warner Wallace, and others have come to faith in Christ, not simply as a result of blind faith and belief, but because what the Bible said about geographic locations, historical individuals, and even ancient methods of warfare were all factual and
observed to be real. When we say that we believe the Bible, we're not admitting belief in fairy tales, we are affirming with two millennia of Christians that what centuries of authors and compilers and editors did under the sovereign unseen hand of
the Holy Spirit was not speculation or guesswork, but legitimate historical truth. So what is God's word? It is the eyewitness testimony to God's real actions in human history.
But secondly, the Bible is the revelation of reality and history as God sees it.
Continuing in Peter's words in verse number 19, we also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed, and you will do well to pay attention to it as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart.
So, here Peter's been talking about the Mount of Transfiguration, where Peter and James and John, they went up onto the top of the mountain with Jesus, and God the Father appeared.
And he was also there with Moses and with Elijah, and Peter, ever the go-getter, said, guys, this is great.
Why don't we set up some tents, some tabernacles, one for Peter, one for Jesus, or sorry, not one for Peter, although he would have been the kind of guy to say that.
He says, let's set up one for Moses, let's set up one for Elijah, let's set up one for Jesus. This is so great that we're all here. And God immediately goes, this is my beloved son, whom I am well pleased.
Hear him. And it says Moses and Elijah were gone. So Peter is saying, hey, like, we were eyewitnesses.
We saw exactly what was happening, and here he's saying, and this proved to us that the prophetic words that were written in the Old Testament, that this was all true, like, we've seen them.
I am telling you as an eyewitness that these things actually happened. He says, this has been confirmed. And he says, this is how God has seen the world.
This is not fables, this isn't something that men said, okay, how can we amass power? This was reality, history, as seen in the mind of God. The Bible gives God's view of the facets of our existence and history that are most important to him.
It is his light that he shines through so much unknown darkness to show you what you need to know in regards to your relationship to him.
There are many areas that the Bible does not directly speak to, much as we as Christians have often attempt to stretch it to fit our beliefs. But the Bible doesn't speak about ancient Chinese dynasties, woolly mammoths, or the periodic table.
Frankly, it's got something much more important to speak to us about, our state before a holy God and how he interacted with specific people at specific times, resulting in ultimately Jesus Christ coming to earth to atone for our sin and reconcile us
to God. Because of that central focus, what we read about in the Bible is all vitally important. It doesn't talk about everything, so what it does talk to us about is super, super important.
The big theological terms for this are that the Bible is inerrant, that it contains no errors or flaws. It is infallible. As God's Word, it is perfect and absolutely trustworthy.
There's not a portion of this that I can go to and say, okay, this one often ill conception is, okay, here's some red words in this portion of the Bible, so these are the important words, but over here there's some letters in black, and these aren't
important. No, no, no. All of the Bible is important and to be heeded. All of it is the Word of God.
And the Bible is also verbally inspired. That is that every word, every unit of thought that God placed in the Bible is there on purpose because the Holy Spirit wanted us to have it.
It's why every week as we go through, and just we just finished the series in Philippians, and we're going to be going through starting the end of May, a series through Genesis 1 through 11. It's why we care about looking at specific words.
It's why we don't just talk about the stories at large, but why we care whether, you know, Paul said, I can do all things. And what the word do means, it's why we care about these, is because God inspired them.
He viewed them as something that we are to care about. It's his communication to us. The impact of this belief that all of God's word is valuable is that a church will then pursue expository preaching as its regular bread and butter.
So over these five weeks with Tabernacle DNA, or six weeks, whatever it is, over these six weeks, we're doing something a little different because I want to give the framework for everything that we're doing going forward.
But for the most part, just looking at a topic is not what I'm going to spend most of my time doing.
An illustration of this, I mentioned Philippians 4.13, an exposition, an exegesis, like looking at the words that the Bible says and the context that it said, and looking at it, exposition says, okay, Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through
Christ who strengthens me. Exposition says, I can be calm and satisfied in struggles or good times because God is with me. In the context of Philippians 4, as we looked at together, that's what it says, that's what it means.
A isegesis or just using the Bible as the prop for whatever topic I want to talk about, isegesis says, I can be an NBA star because God is with me.
It's not what the Bible says, but we care about the very words of God and the context in which they were written.
Or if you were to look at perhaps 1 Corinthians 7, exposition says, here's how the gospel affects the love lives of Christian married couples, unmarried Christians, divorced Christians, and engaged Christians, versus maybe topical preaching would
say, oh, I see marriage in 1 Corinthians 7, so here's my message, five ways to keep your marriage hot for Jesus. One of them is concerned about what does the Bible say in the context in which it says it.
The other says, what can I say about the Bible?
Not only do we see that the Bible is the eyewitness testimony to God's reactions in human history, and the Bible is the revelation of reality and history as God sees it, so let's treat it in that way as God's words, the Bible is the perfect
communication from God through His prophets to humanity. And we can see this in verses 20 and 21 in 2 Peter.
It says this, Above all, you know this, no prophecy of scripture comes from the prophet's own interpretation, because no prophecy, no real prophecy ever came by the will of man.
Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. If the Bible was man's best guess at what God wants, or a once fully accurate, now lost to the ages document, then we'd have no reason to believe it or to practice it.
However, that's not what the Bible is.
Though the words of scripture were written, compiled, and edited by people, the process had the Holy Spirit's divine working behind every part, so that what we hold today is not simply the work of ancient Israelites, but it is the word of God
himself. The Bible claims this particular authority and tells us how to think about it. 1 Peter 1 says.
1 Thessalonians 2, the Apostle Paul would write, This is why we constantly thank God, because when you received the Word of God that you heard from us, you welcomed it, not as a human message, but as it truly is the Word of God, which also works
effectively in you who believe. In Psalm 19, David would write, The instruction of Yahweh is perfect, renewing one's life. The testimony of Yahweh is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of Yahweh are right, making the heart glad.
The command of Yahweh is radiant, making the eyes light up. The fear of Yahweh is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of Yahweh are reliable and altogether righteous.
They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold and sweeter than honey dripping from a honeycomb. In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them, there is an abundant reward.
How incredible is it that the almighty, all-powerful God made himself known to you? You don't have to guess who he is, or what he's like, or if he's happy with you.
He made it absolutely clear what's wrong with the world, how he's working through his people to begin making it new, and how you can be reconciled to him, and have the relationship and life that he created you for.
So we need to recognize what God's Word is. It is God's Word. This isn't man's word.
This isn't just some good thoughts from someone at some point. This is God's communication to us. But not only do we need to recognize what God's Word is, but we need to embrace what God's Word does.
If you will, turn over with me to 2 Timothy, Chapter 3, and verses 15 through 17. That's the next portion. First, God's Word enables us to be saved.
And we can see this in verse number 15 in 2 Timothy 3. He says, You know that from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
Romans 10, 17 would say that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. Want to see those that you love except Christ? It takes the message of the Word of God.
You can be the nicest person in the world, but niceness is not the same as the gospel, which is Jesus' substitutionary death for our sin, his burial, and his resurrection.
You can feed a hundred million people, and it will not bring one soul to salvation without the message of the Bible. As Jesus said in John 6, it is the spirit who gives life, the flesh, flesh and bone, profits nothing.
The words that I speak to you are spirit, and they are life. So our church is emphatic on preaching the gospel.
That life-giving scripture alone, which communicates salvation in Christ alone, by grace alone, through faith alone, to the glory of God alone. God's word enables us to be saved.
But next, we can see in verse number 16 that God's word changes every aspect of us through the Holy Spirit's indwelling work.
Scripture says that all scripture is inspired, breathed out by God, and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.
There is no portion of scripture that is not beneficial to us, though some portions do require some extra digging, as those of you that have read through 1 Chronicles, Leviticus, or some of the minor prophets have no doubt encountered.
Likewise, there is no portion of our lives that are to be left unchanged through becoming obedient to the Bible. In the verse, Paul lists four ways in which all scripture is profitable to us. He says teaching, which is what is right.
There's rebuking, which is what is wrong. There's correcting, which is how to get it right. And then training in righteousness, it's how to keep it right.
But how in the world are we supposed to change every aspect of us? The answer is that it's God, the Holy Spirit working in us, changing and conforming us on the inside to be like Jesus. Can I encourage you this morning, embrace that change.
Don't fight against it. When you feel Him telling you to pick up your Bible, or to apologize to your spouse, or to help that person, do it.
As you obey Him little by little, you'll look back over the days and weeks, months, years, and decades, and discover that you're not the same person that you were anymore.
You'll still be the same you with your personality and gifts and quirks, but you'll be a little more of the you that God created you to be. We need to embrace that God's Word enables us to be saved.
It changes every aspect of us through the Holy Spirit's indwelling work. But then in verse number 17, we can see that God's Word equips us to evangelize, disciple, and love others.
Verse number 17 says, So that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. And here the word man is a substitute for humanity. It's man and woman.
I saw a couple of you go, huh, all right, this one's yours. No, no, no, no, it's for everybody. So that the man or woman of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
The main reason for God giving you the Bible is not so that you could feel really holy and righteous for all the bad things that you're no longer doing.
The main reason that God has given you the Bible is so that you can talk about it and share it with other people. When God first gave a written record to his people in the Exodus, he gave them this instruction.
You will love Yahweh your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These words that I'm commanding you today will be on your heart.
You will teach them diligently to your children and speak about them when you sit in your house and when you walk in the road and when you lie down and when you get up.
In just two verses after 2 Timothy 3, 17, Paul told young Timothy, preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, convince, rebuke, exhort with all long-suffering and teaching. I want to ask you today, who can you talk about the Bible with?
A friend from church? A spouse? A co-worker?
Remember, it's the saving, life-changing, equipping, living Word of God. God didn't give you the Bible and no one else the Bible. He gave it to you and all of humanity.
So share it. Share it with others. It's why we participate in our small groups and Bible studies that we have basically every single week at the church.
It's not because we have a bunch of people that are very bored and don't have anything else that they could be doing with their time. It's because this is meant to change us, and it's meant to change us in community.
So not only must we recognize what God's Word is and embrace what God's Word does, but the final action is that we need to alter our beliefs and our actions based on God's Word.
I would invite you to turn over to James chapter 1 and verses 22 through 25 as we look at this truth. We can see first in verse 22 that God's Word is not an intellectual document merely, but our spiritual marching orders.
James 1, 22 says this, but be doers of the Word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
If we study God's Word all day, every day, memorize it, put its words to song, categorize its teachings, but never do anything it says or believe what it tells us, then it does absolutely nothing meaningful for us.
We cannot merely claim allegiance to God's Word, but ignore it when it tells us about forgiveness or generosity or evangelism or kindness or holiness.
You can have the Bible memorized front to back, and it will never do what it's intended to do if you don't obey it. When it comes to the level of our local church, if there's something that God's Word clearly teaches, then we have to obey it.
If it says that we can't follow our current culture in affirming same-sex relationships or transgender ideology, then we have to obey even if it means losing out on popular favor.
If it says that we need to do something, even if we've never done it before, then we have to obey it.
In the last two messages of our Tabernacle DNA series, there's going to be some beliefs and practices mentioned that Tabernacle has never personally adopted before, or at least not for a very long time.
But I'd encourage us as a church to follow God's Word wherever it goes, because Jesus, not our traditions, is the only one worthy of being followed. So God's Word isn't an intellectual document, just something to memorize or know.
It's our spiritual marching orders. And secondly, God's Word is intended to conform our actions and beliefs, not confirm them. We can see this in verses number 23 and 24.
He says, Because if anyone is a hearer of the Word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. I've heard this illustration before.
Many of you, I can see you guys are looking good this morning. Your hair's done. And some of you guys with beards, beards are trimmed.
And you didn't in the morning, just wake up from bed, look in the mirror and go, yeah, I look perfect, and then walk away. Maybe some of you did. I know we've got some people with perhaps less hair in the room, and you're able to do that.
I would look at Myron, but he's just out of eyesight. So when we look into a mirror, we see, oh, okay, I've got this pimple here. This, you know, cowlick thing is, you know, reaching for the stars.
And, you know, oh, I got lettuce in my teeth, and here's this and that. We change who we are based on what we see in the mirror.
And here what James tells us is, do that with the word of God, that as you look into it and interact with it, don't go for the purpose of saying, wow, I am one handsome, I am one righteous devil. Let's not do that.
When we look at God's word, it's not intended to confirm our beliefs and our actions. It's intended to conform them to what God has for us.
As Bible-believing Christians, we tend to think that the current beliefs that we have are all exactly what the Bible teaches.
But I challenge us this morning to consider that just as our actions are not perfect yet, I think all of us would realize that, yeah, I do have actions that I do that are against the Bible.
I'd encourage us to consider that our beliefs are not perfect yet either.
And just like we have to constantly go to God's word to say, in what areas am I not following the Lord, it can be deeply healthy to go to God's word and say, in what areas am I believing something incorrect about what the Bible teaches.
This isn't to say that you don't hold to any beliefs, but consistently hold them up to God's word for refinement and adjustment.
Charles Spurgeon, a pastor in London in the 1800s, he said this, don't be ashamed to learn and to cast aside your old doctrines and views so you can take up what you more clearly see to be in the word of God.
Then I want us to see lastly from James 125 that God's word must be consistently referenced and our beliefs and behaviors adjusted.
Verse 25 says, but the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it and is not a forgetful here, but a doer who works, this person will be blessed in what he does.
The wonderful promise from James 1 is that as we dive into this crazy world of consistent immersion and change in God's word, that we will find God's blessing.
For every time that you've given up an unbiblical, unhealthy relationship, God has blessed you. For every time you've caught yourself before getting angry and blowing up at the kids or a co-worker, God has blessed you.
For every time you thought one way about the Bible or church or that some action was permitted or prohibited, and you changed your mind based on what God said in His Word, God has brought blessing into your life.
For myself and for my wife, this was something that we have experienced in full over the past four years, that we had grown up in a particular kind of subset denomination, and that denomination was known for absolute certainty about every subject.
There was a right answer to every question about the Bible. And frankly, as someone raised in it, I knew every answer to every question, and I could defend every iota of it.
But as I went back to Scripture and immersed myself, as I learned more about different theological areas, I went, okay, so-and-so said this, but the Bible says this. And I know that this church practices this, but this is what God says.
So as a result, my wife and I, for several years, had to go, all right, what do we believe about Scripture? How do we hold to these truths?
Do we go with our tradition, what our parents believe about all of these different areas, or what our college professor said about all these things? Or do we follow what we see in the Bible?
And frankly, as a result of that study, God moved in our hearts that said, hey, I am fully convinced that the way in which the Southern Baptist Convention holds to Scripture and their view of Scripture and the beliefs that they hold, I'm on board
with that. And I'm on board with that more than the denomination that I've spent 26 years in.
I believe that how they hold to Scripture, the things that they hold with an open hand that go, all right, the Bible doesn't make this super clear, and so we're not going to take one dogmatic stance on this thing. I'm going to hold to it.
I'm going to believe this. And we found as we did that, that God stirred in our hearts, hey, I think it's time for you guys to move, and it's how He led us here to Tabernacle.
And I'm so grateful that some people that I know, when confronted with the Bible says this, went, okay, well, I can't really explain why the Bible says this. I just know my teacher said this.
So I'm going to go with my teacher, and I'll just trust that they've read the Bible for me in this area. And I want to always be a person that goes back to the Bible, that God says it, I believe it, and that settles it.
And that should be the heart of God's people, that God's Word creates God's people. In the very beginning, in Genesis 1, He spoke and His people were made. He was the one that spoke to Noah, and Noah and his family were saved.
He was the one that spoke to Abraham, and that nation was made. He is the one that spoke to Jacob, turned to Israel, and the nation of Israel was made.
He is the one that spoke to Moses out of the burning bush, and the people were brought out in the Exodus. He is the one that gave us the living Word of God, Jesus Himself. And through Jesus' actions, He then created His church and His people.
We are bound to believe what the Bible says and only what the Bible says. Plenty of people can have great thoughts, great considerations that we can look at. But the Bible is the authority for what our church believes and practices.
I'd like to encourage you today. Will you this week interact with God's Word in such a way that doesn't say, God, I'm coming to you today, and I want you to reaffirm and confirm everything I already think and do. Excuse away all of my actions.
Justify all of my beliefs and all of my thoughts. Let's go to it and see the mirror. Now, we walk up and we go, okay, God, I've got this theological hair going wild.
I've got, you know, some of you guys with longer beards. I've got this one patch that doctrinally, I'm all out in the left field. God, help me to conform to Scripture.
Every week as we dive into the Word of God, my encouragement and my challenge to you will be, if there's anything you hear that you go, oh, that's never how I thought about it before.
If there's anything that you hear that you go, oh, well, I think that goes against God's Word in this area. I am not the authority. This is the authority.
Go back to the Word of God. I'd invite you, please talk to me. We can talk through it and you'll sharpen me.
It might be that God uses you and how he has worked in your life to help sharpen me, that I'm not perfect in all of my beliefs and words and actions.
And that's how we're supposed to interact with one another, that we don't go after other people because we just, oh man, that dress isn't as pretty as this thing that you could do, or you could wear your hair this way, or we're not meant to interact
with each other just on petty differences. We're meant to encourage and exhort one another with the Word of God. When someone's struggling, we comfort them with the words of God. We, when someone is heading off into disaster, we say, hey, come back.
God's Word says this about forgiveness. God's Word says this about this path that you're on. This is the most important tool in your life, as Paul would put it in Ephesians 6.
This is the sword of the Spirit. This is how God works. It shows us who we are on the inside, far beyond all of the façade.
Today, will you commit, God, whatever you say in your word, I'm believing, and I'm doing.
