INTRODUCTION
• MACHINE GUN PREACHER CLIP PC VIDEO
• SLIDE #1
• Another use for the Word of God.
• A story from Religion News Service reports that if someone could gather up all the Bibles either being used or gathering dust in American homes, the stack would be 29 million feet tall -- a tower that would rise more than 5,400 miles. For comparative purposes, the International Space Station's orbit is only 278 miles at its highest point. (http://www.baptiststoday.org/cartledge-blog/2010/10/22/how-many-bibles-do-you-own.html)
• According to Barna Research in a study done on behalf of the American Bible Society, On average, 85 percent of U.S. households own a Bible; the average number of Bibles per household is 4.3. (Read more: Religion News: 85 percent of U.S. households own a Bible - Foxborough, MA - Wicked Local Foxborough http://www.wickedlocal.com/foxborough/archive/x1783275328/Religion-News-85-percent-of-U-S-households-own-a-Bible#ixzz2EK8LFHx5)
• The annual sales figures for the Bible are so high, averaging between $425m and $650m, repeatedly – year after year – that it dwarfs the sales of all other books. The best any other book can hope for is second place and a very distant second place at that. (http://nowthinkaboutit.com/2012/06/why-the-bible-is-the-true-best-seller/)
• In our country access to a bible is so easy and many folks have so many of them in their home that it is easy to take God’s Word for granted.
• One of the troubling aspects of all the statistics on Bible sales and ownership in the United States is why are we seemingly drifting so far from God as a nation?
• One of the reasons the nation is drifting is because individuals are drifting.
• This tells us something about what we are not doing with all those bibles in our homes.
• God’s Word is another one of those abundant blessings that many times gets lost in the speed of life. God’s Word is another thankful blessing that we possess!
• God’s Word can do things that no other book can do. The Holy Spirit works through the Word. Next week we will examine that blessing!
• Today we are going to examine so reasons why we are truly blessed to possess God’s Word.
• Turn in your Bibles to 1 Peter 1:22-25, we will start in verse 22!
• SLIDE #2
• 1 Peter 1:22 (ESV) Having purified your souls by your obedience to the truth for a sincere brotherly love, love one another earnestly from a pure heart,
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
We are blessed to have God’s Word because…
I. Obedience to God’s Word purifies our souls.
• God has called us to do a lot of things; one of the most difficult is to love one another earnestly from a pure heart.
• If the heart is not pure, the love will be non-existent or the love will not be pure.
• The word EARNESTLY means to STRETCH OUT WITH ALL INTENSITY, WITH FULL EFFORT.
• We are called to love one another BECAUSE we are brothers and sisters in God’s family; we are not to love others AS brothers.
• Before we can carry out this important command from God, our hearts need to be purified.
• Before we can really live for Jesus something wonderful needs to happen.
• Here is why!
• We are made up of three parts, the body, spirit, and soul.
• SLIDE #4
• 1 Thessalonians 5:23 (ESV) Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
• When we sin our spirit ceases to function, we are like a car without a driver, then Satan can come in and stir up our unchecked passions.
• The body and soul are intact.
• SLIDE #5
• John 3:6 (ESV) That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.
• Jesus explains the need for being born again to Nicodemus. We will spend more time on this in the next observation.
• Once the spirit is rendered useless or dead, we then become what the Bible calls being of the FLESH or WORLDLY.
• SLIDE #6
• Romans 13:14 (ESV) But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
• Now when a person dies PHYSICALLY, we cannot bring them back, their time on earth is over, even if we can revive them for a time, they will in time die.
• WE can be thankful for the Word of God because when we are obedient to the truth (OR WORD OF GOD), the gospel, our hearts are purified!
• This purification process allows our regenerated spirit, guided by the Holy Spirit to then exhibit and practice the same type of love God has for us.
• Instead of being self-centered, we focus on God and others. Our love then becomes void of ulterior motives. In other words we will be able to love others with a purity we never knew before.
• The key to this working is our OBEDIENCE to GOD’S Word. Obedience to false teachings, false religions we not lead to a pure heart.
• SLIDE #7
• 2 Timothy 3:16–17 (ESV) All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
• The Word of God when followed can change us as the Holy Spirit works through the Word!
• We cannot SORT of be obedient and expect to have a pure heart.
• We must be committed to being obedient to the Word! When we struggle, God’s grace is there to help us ultimately reach victory!
• The Word of God helps us to be pleasing to God!
• This leads to our next reason we are blessed to have God’s Word. Look at verse 23
• SLIDE #8
• 1 Peter 1:23 (ESV) since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
• SLIDE #9
We are blessed to have God’s Word because…
II. The living Word of God allows us to be born again.
• When we spoke of the pure heart, the only way that can be accomplished is by being BORN AGAIN!
• Being born again must take place before the pure heart happens.
• WE are told that being born again happens through the Word of God!
• The phrase “born again” speaks in the context of being conceived.
• In John 3 Jesus speaks of the need to be born again so that one can enter the Kingdom of God!
• How many of us would like to be able to start fresh, with a clean slate? How would you like to have past mistakes, sins, and transgressions forgiven and forgotten?
• In the latest Batman movie Anne Hathaway’s character was seeking a software program with would wipe her out of every database in the world with a keystroke.
• Her character wanted to clean slate so she could start a new life.
• I assume there is no such program out there right now, but there is a place where you can start afresh, it is when one is born again in Christ!
• SLIDE #10
• 1 Peter 1:3 (ESV) Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
• When we are alive in Christ, we are born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead!
• When we are born again, we can walk in the newness of life that 2 Corinthians 5:17 speaks of!
• SLIDE #11
• Romans 6:4 (ESV) We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.
• Being born again is tied to being obedient to the truth of God’s Word! It is the ONLY way according to scripture.
• While we are talking about being born again or conceived by the Word, I want us to look at something that is even more fascinating pertaining to our being born again!
• SLIDE #12
We are blessed to have God’s Word because…
III. The Word of God is eternal.
• What is really exciting about this point it this: When we are born physically into this world, we are born with a seed that is perishable.
• The male seed lives but a short time outside the male body. We are conceived when this perishable seed meets up with the perishable egg.
• We too live but a short time; the Bible says our life is but a vapor. It is here today and gone tomorrow.
• That is the nature of life, since nature is not eternal; we are not eternal since the seed we are conceived from is not eternal.
• Now verse 23 reminds us, 1 Peter 1:23 (ESV) since you have been born again, not of perishable seed but of imperishable, through the living and abiding word of God;
• The seed we are conceived of in being born again is IMPERISHABLE, that seed is the living and abiding word of God!
• Since we are conceived spiritually through the eternal seed of the Word of God, we will be eternal spiritually with the Lord!
• The Word of God NEVER dies; it will never lose its potency to bring about faith. God’s Word will always have the ability to cause people to be able to be born again!
• God’s Word will be able to be available in all times, in all places. It will NEVER be superseded in value or be overtaken by human philosophy!
• SLIDE #13
• Acts 4:12 (ESV) And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”
• To polish off the thought Peter quotes from the Greek Translation of the Old Testament from Isaiah 40:6-8 in verses 24-25.
• SLIDE #14
• 1 Peter 1:24–25 (ESV) for “All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass. The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever.” And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
• The Word of God remains forever! All of human creation (grass etc..) will pass away.
• Peter shares the fact that in nature the beautiful flowering part of the plant dies first, it withers first.
• The actual flower is the most short-lived part of the plant. In comparison, in the flesh, man has a flower type existence, it is beautiful for a short time, and then the glory is short-lived.
• The wealth, the health, the power, the possessions, the talent, the looks all wither in time.
• This is one of the reasons we want to be born again through being obedient to the everlasting Word of God!
• We can have an eternal existence with God!
• Peter closes by reminding the readers that in comparison to NATURE that will fade, you were conceived spiritually through the everlasting Word of God.
• He says, And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
CONCLUSION
• When we take stock of the things we are thankful in life, let us not forget to praise the Lord for the ability to be born again by the everlasting Word of God!
• Through obedience to the Word, we can have a clean slate; we can have a new life in Christ!
• I believe that if those homes who have a bible in them would take that bible and read it, practice what is contained within it that even this world would be a better place to be!
• Are you ready to be born again, you have heard the Word today, are you ready to obey it?
• Here is how to get started…
