What am I standing up here for and why? Why should pastors spend so much time studying and delivering sermons and what’s the point of Sunday School and Bible Studies and Fellowship Groups? Those are the questions we’ll deal with today as we look specifically at the role of the Bible in the Church and Bible Study.
There are 5 specific things that I’d like to suggest that Scripture accomplishes as we break bread together. The first is that it…
Convinces
Romans 10 14How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them? 15And how can they preach unless they are sent? As it is written, "How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news!"[g]
16But not all the Israelites accepted the good news. For Isaiah says, "Lord, who has believed our message?"[h] 17Consequently, faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.
One of the primary roles of the Scripture in the life of the church is to bring new souls to faith in Christ. The Scripture says that it pleases God to use the foolishness of preaching to bring people to faith in Jesus. It’s not a human effort it’s a god thing, done through a human instrument, but the content of that preaching can’t be human reason, it must be the truth of the Word of God.
Somehow, the Holy spirit supernaturally energizes that product of divine/human cooperation and uses it to pierce men’s hearts and convince them of the truth. That God became a man and died to pay the price of men’s sins and trusting in that truth, souls are saved and receive the gift of forgiveness and eternal life.
Convicts
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
In some sense this convicting work goes hand in hand with the convincing work but I believe that even after we have trusted in Christ, God uses Scripture, particularly Scripture preached under the anointing of the Holy Spirit to convince men and women of their sin.
John Wesley used to ask two questions of the young men whom he sent out to preach. The first was, "Has any one been converted?" And the second was “Did Anyone Get Mad?”
If the answer was, "No," to both, he told them he did not think the Lord had called them to preach the Gospel, and he sent them back to their business. When the Holy Ghost convicts of sin, people are either converted or--they don’t like it and get mad.
That’s not to say that the goal of preaching or the point of Scripture is to make people mad, it’s just that the Word faithfully preached leads to conviction, and conviction leads to repentance or it leads to getting mad at the preacher. One radio preacher became very concerned when he stopped receiving critical letters, because he figured if everyone was happy with his preaching, the Lord was not.
We should expect to be challenged by God’s word, for that is one of the functions of the Scripture in the Lord’s church, convicting us of sin.
Cultivates
1 Peter 2:2-3 Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, 3now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.
The British Weekly published this provocative letter: It seems ministers feel their sermons are very important and spend a great deal of time preparing them. I have been attending church quite regularly for 30 years and I have probably heard 3,000 of them. To my consternation, I discovered I cannot remember a single sermon. I wonder if a minister’s time might be more profitable spent on something else?
For weeks a storm of editorial responses ensued. . . finally ended by this letter: I have been married for 30 years. During that time I have eaten 32,850 meals--mostly my wife’s cooking. Suddenly I have discovered I cannot remember the menu of a single meal. And yet . . . I have the distinct impression that without them, I would have starved to death long ago.
Peter says we should crave pure spiritual milk, so that we might grow up. One of the most important ways we receive that nourishment we need is through the faithful preaching teaching and study of God’s Word.
We don’t come to worship or Sunday School or Small group simply because we enjoy it or feel like it, but because we desperately need the nourishment they provide for our spiritual growth. Without that nourishment we languish in our spiritual condition.
one of the most heartbreaking conditions newborns can develop is known simply as “failure to thrive” sometimes for known and other times for unkown reasons, these babies simply fail to take in nourishment and put on weight and grow up, eventually simply passing away because they’ve failed to grow. As cute as babies are as babies, it’s a tragedy when they don’t grow up. Unfortunately many spiritual babies fail to thrive too—and they’re not all new Christians, many stay spiritual babies for years and years and fail to thrive because they fail to learn to be consistently nourished from God’s word.
Corrects
1 Tim. 4:2-3 Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. 3For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.
Another important role of the Scripture in the Church is to combat false teaching. It’s the responsibility of the individual believer to ensure they’re in a sound biblically based church, and it’s the responsibility of the pastors to ensure that churches remain that way.
Without the standard of the word, we’d have no authoritative source for sound doctrine and no way to refute false teaching. But we do have the Scripture and the best way for you as individuals to be alert to false doctrine is to be immersed in sound teaching.
They say the best way to recognize a counterfeit bill is to know the look and feel of a genuine bill. The same is true of false teaching. When you are well grounded in the Scripture from being well taught by pastors and teachers and learning to study the word on your own, when some TV preacher says something of the wall your spiritual antennae will start to quiver. This is one reason it’s critical to be faithful in being present to receive the Word. Without it you’ll be easily carried about by every wind of false doctrine, but the pure word corrects.
Coaches
2 Tim 3:16 All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, 17so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
The Scripture is useful for training in Righteousness so that we may be fully equipped to live the life and do the work God wants us to do. But how many know that you need to understand how to use the equipment? Some of you use equipment in your work I wouldn’t have the first clue about how to use. In a way I think the Scripture is like that. It’s easy for me to tell folks “study your Bible” but unless folks are taught HOW to study, they’ll still feel ill equipped.
So how do we learn? Well I hope that one way is as you listen to sermons and each week see that the teaching is coming directly from the Scripture and then carefully applied to our daily lives. That’s one reason that generally I preach through a given book of the Bible, because I think that’s the way you should be reading and studying most of the time.
But perhaps an even better way is in a small group setting where, together we open up God’s word and search for the truth to apply to our lives. Those who are more mature in the faith and know how to study model for those who are still just learning how to use God’s word. That’s one reason why it’s so important that those of you who are mature in the faith should participate in small groups, I know some think “I don’t need what they have to offer” well let me take you back to day one of the 40 DOP “It’s not about you.” You have a responsibility to be on this journey together with those who do need it.
I see Bible studies and small groups like a laboratory of faith.
Convinces
Convicts
Cultivates
Corrects
Coaches
