The Bible: Your Friend
Pastor Eric J. Hanson
March 1, 2015
Pontius Pilate sarcastically asked Jesus “What is Truth?” His attitude about that whole matter was typical of people who are not walking with God. What he meant was, “There is no genuine truth for guiding people’s decisions and their lives.” Jesus had just said “Everyone on the side of truth, listens to me.” What Pilate did not realize is this: Jesus Christ is the way, the truth, and the life. (John 14:6) Because Jesus lived without sinning at all, and he fulfilled the Law of God; therefore He is the truth. Indeed, because He always did the perfect will of the Father, therefore He is the truth. Truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ, and in the complete Godhead of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is also found in God’s written word, the Bible. Jesus prayed in John 17:17 “Sanctify them by your Truth. Your word is truth.”
The concept and practice of being transformed by truth, is a central and major part of truly knowing God. One of the most influential and courageous pastors of our time, the late Dr. D. James Kennedy called his daily radio program “Truths That Transform”. As we walk with the Lord and become ever closer to Him, we can be “transformed by truth”, God’s truth. As we learn God’s word more and more, and seek to obey Him, we can be transformed by truth. Let’s look more closely at this concept now.
Transform
The word transform is very interesting. It is closely related to several other words. Bay Area Rapid Transit takes people quickly around to different parts of San Francisco, moving from one part to another. Trans-pass on the Maine Turnpike lets you move through the tollbooth without stopping, traveling from one side of the booth to the other. Transition is the process of change. Moving from one job or career path to a different one is a major transition. Transformation however, is nothing less than the process of changing from being one thing or one form to being another. Transformation is deeper and more powerful than transit, trans-pass, or even transition.
People, who have genuinely experienced “new birth” through embracing Jesus Christ as Lord and savior, know that His truth has the power to transform. People, who have learned to feed on the written Word of God, and to obey it, know that His word has power to transform. At present, Jesus is in Heaven, until he returns to Earth in His Second Coming. The Bible however, is here with us now. How should we relate to it? There are three important ways. Here they are.
1. Accept the authority of the Bible.
Page 186 of “The Purpose Driven Life” says the following: “The Bible is far more than a doctrinal guidebook. God’s Word generates life, creates faith, produces change, frightens the Devil, causes miracles, heals hurts, builds character, transforms circumstances, imparts joy, overcomes adversity, defeats temptation, releases hope, infuses power, cleanses our minds, brings things into being, and guarantees our future forever.” Wow! What a summation of the transforming power released by God’s word! Many times people make decisions based on wrong authority. There are four flawed authorities people often turn to. They include:
a. culture (Everyone’s doing it.),
b. tradition (We’ve always done it.),
c. reason (It seemed logical.), and
d. emotion (It felt right.).
All of these things fall short as touchstones for life. Let’s read 2nd Timothy 3:16 together and see the true authority. God’s word is final authority. When making decisions, believers need to first decide, “I will find out what God says about this, and I will do that.” God’s word carries God’s authority.
2. Assimilate the Bible’s truth.
How can you do this? There are five ways. Let’s explore them.
a. Receive the word while listening to preaching or teaching. Listen with an open heart of good spiritual soil for the seed of the word to penetrate deeply into and take root. Even if it’s just us speaking, the same old local preachers you’ve heard hundreds of times, God will give you treasures through us if you look past us to God in his word. James 1:21 tells us the following: (read it) You see, it isn’t because of the preacher that you should be excited at 11 AM every Sunday. It’s because of the Word of God, which can transform you!
b. Read the Word. Of course, you must take the time to do this. If you wish to grow strong in the word, you must partake of it daily. Don’t spend three hours on television and three minutes on the word of God and then expect to grow stronger in your spirit. Why not cut out half an hour of that daily TV, or Facebook and texting, or telephone time, and give that time to the word of God instead. That’s a good spiritual meal. Approach the written word of God the same way you would a fine and timely meal; open and hungry. A Bible reading plan can help you with this.
c. Research the Word. This studious approach to God’s transforming word, involves writing down your questions and observations. This also involves asking questions as you read. This research of the word leads to a tremendous learning curve. There are many very helpful books out about how to study God’s word and get a lot out of it. One of my favorite Bible verses; which I wrote the song “Unashamed Worker” about is 2 Timothy 2:15. Let’s read it together now. (read verse) Yes Study!
d. Remember the Word. The longest chapter in the Bible is about God’s word and our relationship with it. One of the things it touches on is memorizing scripture. Let’s turn now to Psalm 119 and read verse 11 together. By the way, you can hide God’s word in your heart. The Devil wants you to think that you can’t, but you can memorize the word. It may take a lot of work to just memorize one verse at first, but just do it! Psalm 119:11 is a great place to start too. Then go on to other verses and passages.
e. Reflect on the Word. This is the Biblical discipline of meditation. In 1970, when I was third cook at the Poland Spring Resort for the summer, the TM crowd was there for 60 days. There were some 2000 of them, including Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. I was not yet following the Lord, and I dabbled in Transcendental Meditation a little that summer. They gave me a secret word to “meditate” on. My 2 syllable nonsense word was to be repeated endlessly until all thoughts were still and I could supposedly transcend this lower plane and achieve oneness with the universe in a state called “Cosmic Consciousness”. TM is nothing more than a sophisticated version of worshiping and serving the creation rather than the creator. Many Christian believers, largely because of TM and other Eastern false religions, are afraid of meditating. Never Fear! Biblical meditation is a far cry from the nonsense I once engaged in. When God calls us to meditation, it means that we are to reflect on his word and let it sink deep into our soul and spirit. We soak in the word of God and become saturated in it.
3. Obey God’s Word
Receiving, reading, researching, remembering, and reflecting on the word are all useless unless we do them, and then obey God’s word. Another of my all time favorite Bible verses is James 1:22. Let’s read it now. (read verse) Did you catch that? “Do what it says!” How many here know that learning something from the Bible is not the same thing as doing it! When I first began to follow the Lord, I was told that there is head knowledge, which doesn’t produce life. This is mere knowing. Then there is heart knowledge, which is intimately tied up in obeying the word; in being a James 1:22 believer. Jesus said “Everyone who hears these words of mine, and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on rock.” The shifting sand of other choices carries no eternal weight of value, but obeying God does.
This isn’t always easy. Jamie Buckingham once wrote a book entitled “The Truth Will Set You Free, but First it Will Make You Miserable”. The book came out of his own struggles to obey God consistently. Since your natural self will resist following the Lord fully, partnering up in accountability with someone and being in a home fellowship are both important disciplines for each of us. There are other reasons these are important too, such as what you can contribute to the group, which is missing from it when you are missing, but right now we are considering the power of agreement and encouragement in our battle against sin.
Rick Warren makes a wonderful suggestion to bring success in being transformed by God’s word. Here it is. Write out an action step when God puts his finger on a personal application of his word in your life. Make it a practical action step and include a deadline. It should have to do with your relationship to God, your relationship to other people, or you personal character.
D.L. Moody once said “The Bible wasn’t given to increase our knowledge, but to change our lives”. As the cowardly lion once said “Ain’t it the truth. Ain’t it the truth!”
What has God already shown you to change in your life that you haven’t done yet? As Dr. Edwin Lewis Cole used to remind men, “Change isn’t change until it’s changed.”
Bear the following things in mind, in order for the Bible to truly be your friend.
1. This collection of books is our written authority for life. (II Timothy 3:16-17)
2. We must use it rightly in order to gain accurate insights. For instance, using quotes from the guys in the book of Job as though you are quoting God, is just wrong. It can lead you astray. Do you want theology from the book of Job? Quote God himself in the final chapters. Then you are getting truth. There are other good examples of this very important Bible interpretation principle. Handle God’s work with care.
3. The Bible is daily bread for your spirit. Eat it and gain strength for our race to do God’s will and defeat sin. (Psalms 119:11,89 and 105) I often take advantage of daily guides to reading the whole Bible in one year. I hope that many of you are doing the same.
4. God’s moral code is eternally settled. You must deeply know this in order to withstand our culture’s assault on godly living. Some people today are even attempting to use the Bible to excuse particular sexual sins. However, from Genesis to Revelation, God’s sexual design for people is clear. (II Timothy 3:1-5, Romans 1:24-27, Leviticus 20:13) Our culture will try to seduce you into sex sin and many other popular sins today. God’s word on the inside of you gives you tools to successfully resist the sinful pull of this World.
5. The Bible tells us how to be soldiers in God’s army. We learn how to wear God’s spiritual armor. We learn how to be deeply woven into God’s family. We learn how to deal with our flesh, and walk in the Lord’s own strength. We learn of Judgment to come. We learn of eternal rewards and punishment. We learn from the triumphs and tragedies of men and women who came before us. We learn the history of God’s covenants with people. Only the Bible can so equip us.
6. The Bible is under attack as never before in Western culture today. We must learn why it is reasonable to believe that it is trustworthy. There are great tools available to believers today, to assure you that you can trust the Bible’s authenticity and authority. Three of the Gospel writers recorded Jesus’ words when He said “Heaven and Earth shall pass away, by my words shall not pass away. The Roman Emperor before Constantine once boasted that He had eradicated the Bible once and for all. A few years after this man’s death, Constantine proclaimed liberty for all Christians in the Empire, and 50 complete copies of the Bible were quickly brought out of hiding. Tyrants can not eradicate this book, because it is God’s Book.
EXTRA BONUS FEATURE!
FEEDING ON THE WORD
LADIES FELLOWSHIP DEVOTIONAL – MAY 13, 2000
When we are starving, anything we think of to eat sounds really good. We may really be in need of a good, healthy meal to replenish all those nutrients and vitamins that are necessary for our body to function properly, but because we are starving, we will eat anything that is put in front of us.
We’ve all been there: It’s the last class before lunch or the last fifteen minutes before your lunch break (or even the last few minutes of a long sermon), and you didn’t have breakfast. You feel like there is a gaping hole in the middle of your abdomen, and those around you are beginning to notice the rumbling sounds being emitted by your stomach. You can’t concentrate on anything else. All you can think of is that half-eaten bag of chips sitting out on the dashboard of your car, and more than anything else, you want to get to it. But is that bag of fat and calories really what you need to feed your body? Of course it’s not. You need to be disciplined and make yourself eat those healthy foods that will replenish everything your body needs without harming it by storing extra fat in your veins and elsewhere in your body.
We all understand this logic, but why don’t we understand nutritional value when it comes to feeding our spirit? We become spiritually starved, and we need something to fill that empty part of our lives, but this time it is our spirit, not our empty stomach. What we really need is to discipline ourselves and feast on the healthy and good spiritual food of God’s word, but because we’re so hungry, anything that comes along sounds great, just like that bag of chips. Instead of bothering to go dust off the Bible and think about what we’re reading, we’d rather just pick up that magazine in the grocery store line, or even less of a mental challenge, pick up a movie on the way home. That way, we don’t have to do the work of reading and comprehending. But when we waste our time on these mindless and often ungodly activities, we are suffering from spiritual malnutrition. Just like chips and candy bars, these entertainment items may be a lot of fun at the time that we are using them, but if we pursue them too often or exclusively, we end up going hungry spiritually.
God’s word is the meat and vegetables of our spiritual diet. Without this sustenance, how can we ever expect to live a meaningful and healthy spiritual life? We cannot have relationship with God unless we strive to know him, and what better way than by reading the group of letters that he has written to us: the Bible. He has made it clear through the authors in this book that if we will meditate on his word and hide it in our hearts, it will keep us from straying, and we will be spiritually fulfilled because we will be working on that relationship with Him. God’s word is his gift to us in our walk with him. We are foolish if we do not take advantage of it and spend every day looking deeper and finding the true meaning of what God is saying to us.
Blessings to each one of you today!
In Jesus our Lord, Pastor Eric
