A. Opening illustration: Have you noticed that every time you go into the convenient store lately there are twice as many people in there as usual. Lottery fever, billions of dollars. You have something more valuable. Investment commercials about the
B. Background to passage: The revelation of God in various ways. The highest and best being through Christ, but we only know Christ through the word and the Spirit. The fear that I have is that the sufficiency of scripture is being assaulted in so many different ways, the church has fallen victim not only to a low view of scripture theologically but lost the true belief and understanding of the power of the Word of God. We undercut the sufficiency of scripture by trusting in money (believing that it will bring us joy), trusting in doctors/medicine (that they will fix our bodies and emotions), trusting in the government (to bring lasting change to meet our needs), trusting entertainment and feel-good preaching (to bring happiness and return guests), trusting our family/spouse (to provide all the support that we need), trusting in our job (to provide sustenance), trusting in self-help books and seminars (to make you a better person), trusting in evangelistic presentation or polished rhetoric (to convert sinners).
C. Main thought: Aspects of the power of the word of God
1) Turns our souls toward God (v. 7a)
a. Doctrinal point: bible is perfection, without fault or error. We must embrace this! His “instruction” points our heart toward the direction of God. This includes the connotation of returning or turning around, but also includes the meaning of steering or correction upon the soul when it starts to go awry.
b. Isa 30:18-21
c. Illustration: It’s kinda like Siri giving me directions home on Saturday. It tried to reroute (because I am stubborn and didn’t go the way I wanted it to originally), but it stayed the same, and I relented and went back to the right course home.
d. Do you want to live a Godward life? Live by the word. You will hear me say it over and over today, immerse yourself in the bible. Memorize his promises. Pray its prayers not to stray to the right or to the left. And when we do, stay in it, and it will bring you back home. If we neglect the word our lives will lose direction and blow with the changing winds away from or in circles of the stormy night.
2) Brings Us the Wisdom of God (v. 7b)
a. The testimony as it relates to covenant. It is reliable, faithful, and permanent. It makes one wise and skill in judgment of spiritual matters. It is instruction for not wasting your life. Develops those who formerly had little resistance against sin and unbelief and lack of spiritual discernment into those who operate their lives with skill and godly acumen.
b. The spiritual person judges all things but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. -1 Cor 2:15-16, Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, -Col 3:16
c. Illustration: the last score before the halftime and the lining up, calling timeout, consultation with coach, lining up, calling an audible based on what’s there, using the coach’s skill written in the playbook
d. Do we desire to make wise decisions? Of course! We have been given the mind of Christ. We are commanded to let the word of Christ dwell within us richly. We have been given a entire book within the bible that just deals with wisdom. Do you want to get down to the end of your life and be disappointed when you as the question if you’ve wasted your life? Have you had victory over sin.
3) Deep-Seated Joy (v. 8a)
a. Rules for personal conduct. The word is straight in conjunction with justice or morality. The heart is heart (internal feature) n. — the locus of a person’s thoughts (mind), volition, emotions, and knowledge of right from wrong (conscience) understood as the heart. And it says that it will make us at our very core glad.
b. Argumentation
c. Illustration: We must put the evidence before us that reading, pondering, memorizing, and studying the Bible will yield more joy in this life and the next than all the things that lure us from it. -Piper, read the stories of the martyrs, one common them is they wrote the scriptures on any little piece of scrap paper and hid them, so that in darkness or secrecy they might read and find the deep-seated joy to carry on
d. When the world comes at you with the full force of its crushing blows, don’t expect to exhibit joy and have joy if you have been sparse in your abiding in the word. If we live in the word, nothing can take away our joy. Lots of heartbreak, pain, and suffering may come, but if the word is flowing through your blood and in your mind, even though tears may flow and endure for the night, joy comes in the morning.
A. Closing illustration: John Waddell, an amateur prospector and a 62-year-old landowner of an old gold mine, was descending into the mine last Wed, when he lost control and fell about 50 feet breaking both legs. After fighting off three rattlesnakes, he realized that he had his cell phone, but no service. He also had no provisions for any extended time in a mine shaft. He had agreed with a friend to come look for him if he didn’t hear from him, which he did two days later…what a friend. After a three hour rescue (including IV fluids on the spot for dehydration), a flight to the hospital, surgery on both broken legs, John would tell you today that there is something more valuable than gold, life.
B. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? -Mark 8:36
4) Removes Darkness, Brings Clarity (v. 8b)
a. An authoritative commission from someone. Pure means to be clean, bright, or radiant; having no faults. The word of God will never lead one into error when properly interpreted. Enlighten means to illuminate or ignite or to give spiritual insight to. The eyes are understood to be the way you see the world. Your worldview, which encompasses how you view truth, purpose in life, morals, religion, and philosophy (thinking about ideas).
b. Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. – Psalm 119:105
c. Illustration: the man encountered the other day that on first meeting began to weep as he testified of his broken life and rescue through the LDS church and book of Mormon.
d. There are many places we turn to gain spiritual insight and orient ourselves to how we think about the world around us. Our culture teaches us that all religions are basically the same. Truth is relative. To each his own. There is no purpose in life, or it is to be happy, or a good person (which may include many areas). If you are helped by the book of Mormon, that is your truth. However, this is not truth. Truth correlates to reality and is absolute. Law of Non-Contradiction – two opposing truths can be true at the same time in the same way. Only the bible brings genuine spiritual truth and enlightenment. When it is interpreted by itself, our spiritual path is lit up like the Friday night lights and schools all across GA. Are you letting the bible shape your worldview?
5) Establishes a Firm Foundation (v. 9a)
a. Typically, when we think about the fear of the Lord, we think about the attitude of an individual. Reverent fear and awe are still in the backdrop here, but as with Hebrew writing in general, and this passage specifically, they used repetition and terms that were parallel. So, here the fear of the Lord is a parallelism for the word again. It notes its moral purity but focuses on its perpetuity. It is established forever. This can be derived from the never-changing constancy of the person of God.
b. Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. – Matt 7:24-25
c. Illustration: Luther finally accomplished a recognizable point in the reformation on Oct 31, by the nailing of the 95 Theses on the church door at Wittenburg. One of the main driving points was the scripture is the only source for doctrine over and against the authoritative teachings of the church. Thus, one of the five solas of the reformation was “sola scriptura” – the scriptures alone.
d. Building our lives on the rock of scripture is the definition of the practice of the sufficiency of scripture. This means we evaluate all truth by it. The promise in the verse is that it will never change. There are no trends or fads found in the word. There are fads in evangelicalism or in Christianity, but not in the bible. All those other ones need to be tested by the truth that never changes. The implication of the promise is that if you build your life on it, your life will not be washed away. It will be a beacon in the storms for others. Are you in the word? Studying it? Praying it? Meditating on it?
6) Issues Protective Admonition (v. 11a)
a. The word of God warns us about sinful and destructive behavior. It is like the words of a father who is looking out for the best interests of his son. It includes firm, clear warnings, and also tender, wise warnings about things that we do, think, say, and feel. It’s good to not think of God’s word as simply a book of laws that have to be kept to keep you in his good graces, as though he was a dictatorial, harsh God up there with a belt just awaiting the rule-breakers to breach the slightest of commands.
b. Argumentation
c. Illustration: He knows where the mines are buried. He knows where the snakes are lying. He knows where the subtle schemes of Satan are to steal, kill, and destroy in your life.
d. God loves you. His commands are in place so that you know how far short you have fallen, but his desire is that you walk closely with him in protection. He wants to rescue you from destruction. He wants what’s best for you. 2) He is not a cosmic killjoy keeping you from good things, but the giver of the greatest gift ever, offering Christ for you, revealing him through the word. Greatest protection is from eternal separation from God in hell.
7) Offers Great Rewards (v. 11b)
a. Not simply to know, but to observe. Upon obedience blessing will be poured out. The word here indicates more than enough, plentiful, remarkably out of the ordinary. These are not brownie points that we get with God, keeping God’s instruction will bring 10,000 blessings and rewards here on earth and in the life to come. The emphasis here is on reward at the end of labor, so the reward in heaven sweeter in relation to our joyful obedience. Note: joyful.
b. …teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you. -Matt 28:20
c. Illustration: what are the highest awards in life…Emmy’s? Grammy’s? The Golden Globes? The ACM’s? The Purple Heart? The Presidential Medal of Honor? The Nobel Peace Prize? Olympic Gold? All these are fleeting, only to be passed down, and eventually lost, sold, or burned up in the new earth. The reward of keeping the robe, crown, and commendation of the Master, “Well done, my good and faithful servant” is far more value
d. Reward is a legitimate motivation for the Christian life. Reward at the end of our labors is Christ himself. He will satisfy every need we have, have had, or ever will have. We will be issued crowns, live in a place of unimaginable beauty without pain, death, or suffering. Therefore, we can joyfully cast our lives away for the sake of the kingdom and the greater reward that anything here. We don’t live for here, but for there. These things on this giant orbiting ball of earth on infinitesimal in comparison to the value of Christ’s church, his kingdom, or his presence. This is all husks and ashes. For the reward people joyfully excepted the plundering of their property. For the reward Moses chose to suffer with Israel rather than receive the benefits of royalty. For the reward Christ went to the cross, despising the shame. And we, for the reward, should go forth outside the gate and suffer with and for Christ. This you can do with unspeakable joy because of the treasure that Christ is. 4) Do you really believe that? If not, repent and believe.
