June 9, 2024 | Warriors of the Word

Transcript

This morning we're going to do something a little bit different than we normally do in first Peter, we will be talking about a phrase from First Peter, but we won't be camping there for the entire time, because often if we think about applying Scripture to our lives, I think our first thought often is, well, what does that mean for me?

Here's a text of Scripture. And if you have a text of Scripture, maybe you often come to it and say, I need to apply the word. Well, what does it mean to apply the word? I think we always think of individual applications. What do I do? How do I live? This morning I want us to draw out a little bit bigger and say, not only what do I do, but to have a corporate application of the word.

God didn't just give you the Bible so that you can let it impact your life, and you can go live your life somewhere else, but so that we as a body, a local body, and so that his church around the world can respond to it and do what we should do corporately. Or another way to to look at one slice of this is to ask this question, why do we do the things that we do when we gather on Sunday?

Why do we do it when we start our service with some announcements? Why do we do those when we read Scripture during that time? Why do we do it? When I start a song, why did I read Psalm 27? Or why did we read a section from first Peter in the middle of singing? Or when we gather for Sunday school like we did this morning, or when we have family prayer time?

All of these things really should be corporate applications of Scripture as a body, what should we do as a result of what God has told us? And so as we go through our series in First Peter and even beyond that a little bit, we'll have some of these opportunities to take a Sunday and step back from first Peter, you can turn to first Peter.

That's where we'll start first Peter chapter one. But we're going to take a step back from just going through first Peter and ask, how do we apply the truth that's here into our lives as a body. And particularly I want to draw your attention to verse 13 and the first phrase there, therefore, preparing your minds for action. What does it mean for us to prepare our minds for action?

We can talk about many practical things from the way you get rest on Saturday night. You know that prepares you for Sunday morning. We could talk about things like what we do on stage, or style or Tiki Hut vibe. We could talk about the way we decorate lobbies and the way we do all these things. They're all important, and they're part of preparing us to do what we should do.

But this morning, here's where I want to draw your attention.

When he says, preparing your minds for action, he starts with your head. Prepare your mind. And then he continues being sober minded. Set your hope fully. If I could represent our emotions with our heart, he says, preparing your minds for action. Have your heart be in the right place. Verse 14 as obedient children, so your actions are full of obedience.

So we could say your hands. He comes back to your heart. As obedient children, you are to not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance. So I want to take the phrase preparing your minds for action. Say why do, why not? Why does my mind need to be prepared? What kind of action does it need to be prepared for?

There's a kind of ignorance or deception or lie that my mind needs to be prepared to combat. So I want to draw our attention. Specifically, we prepare our minds for action. By the way we interact with God's Word. Because this is truth. That's how we combat lies, is with truth. So we prepare our minds for action by God's Word.

And I'm going to give you one sentence that will summarize about half of the sermon this morning. We must submit to study delight in echo and display God's Word.

I'll read it again. We must submit to study delight in echo and display God's Word.

And that's exactly where Peter goes. By the way, at the end of this chapter, if you look down, he talks about the salvation that we've been given. You get down to verse 22. He says, love one another. Why verse 23, since you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and abiding Word of God.

And then he reminds us that word will last forever, and says, what word is it? This word is the good news that was preached to you.

So when Peter says, preparing your minds for action, he talks about the salvation we have, and then he starts telling you about God's Word. And this morning, that's where we want to camp. That sentence will summarize the second section of the sermon. The first section, though, we need to say if we're going to respond to God's Word, let's think about what God's Word is.

It's interesting. I had some things I was going to say that I'm not going to say, because I sat in a new members class this morning for the last few minutes, and we shared our testimonies of salvation in brief form, very short. You know what I heard over and over? I saw God's Word and it did something.

From that point on, God's Word made sense. And it hadn't.

Over and over, the testimony was God's word is powerful. You might know the story of a lady named Rosaria Butterfield. She was a college professor, lesbian political activist who hated Christianity. She was writing various things against Christianity. And somebody asked her, have you ever read the Bible? To which she said, no, kind of in a huff. And then she realized, I hate it when people critique things they haven't read.

So she said, I'm going to read it. And she started reading the Bible, and she had question after question, by the way, at that point, she read the Bible probably more in that year than most of us, if not all of us have. She just read it over and over and over, and she didn't just start with the easy stuff, she said.

It's a book I'm starting. At the beginning, she read Genesis to Revelation. I forget how many times, multiple times within a period of months, and God changed her.

There was a man that I knew down in Florida. He grew up in Mormonism. He decided he'd come to the local Baptist church in Florida and try to convince them of Mormonism. I don't know why he decided he'd do that, but if you're familiar with Mormonism, he was on his Mormon mission. He goes in and he kind of debates with the pastor back and forth.

The pastor tells him at the end, try to forget all the arguments and just start in Matthew and read the New Testament like a child and say, what does this say?

And God, by the power of His Spirit, worked through his word and changed that man's life. God's word is powerful. You might not always see it, but God's Word is powerful. I'm going to give you a few statements about God's Word as we think, what is it we are responding to? First, God's word is an extension of himself.

We kind of know this. If somebody writes you a note and hands it to you and you go, we know you're being disrespectful to the person who wrote it, it won't do you any good to say that was just the note they wrote. That wasn't them. We know it's an extension of us. It's interesting. Scripture uses it this way.

Maybe passages you don't think of. Second Samuel 12. The prophet comes to David and says, why have you despised the word of the Lord to do what is evil in his sight? This is after David had struck down Uriah the Hittite and taken Uriah his wife. And then he says, now therefore the sword will never depart from your house, because you have despised me.

Those are God's words. The same text within two verses says, you have despised the word of the Lord. You've despised me. David didn't have any room to say, no, God, I didn't despise you. I just despised what you said. God's word is an extension of himself. Psalm 29 says, the voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh.

Both are true. He shakes it by his voice. That means a couple of things. You can't obey God and disobey his word. He's not separate from his Word. And even where a modern world may tell you, well, you can love God and pick and choose which pieces you want to follow of his word. That's just old stuff that had to do with ancient times, and you don't have to follow that.

You can't obey God and disobey his word.

You can't love God and hate His word.

Or think most of us would go, no, I don't hate the Bible. Here's maybe the more challenging one you can't be excited about God and be bored with his word.

Because His Word is an extension of himself.

There's more we can say there, but for sake of time, we're going to move to the second statement. God acts through His Word. Kids who were at VBS, I heard a lot of you quoted at the beginning, what did God do? Genesis one one says, what kids? In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. How did he create when God wanted light?

What did he do? He spoke, let there be light and it was there. God's word acts. Psalm 33 says it the same way by the word of the Lord, the heavens were made. And if it's not just creation, Hebrews one says, Jesus sustains everything now by the word of his power over and over, Scripture talks of God acting through His Word.

Or maybe I could give you some examples. Lazarus, come forth. Jesus didn't go in and pick up the body. He just spoke. God's word is powerful. God acts through his Word. Or maybe when the storms all around. What does Jesus do? Peace. Be still and the wind stop. No fancy technological science fiction thing going on. No buttons to push, no machine that stops it.

Just the voice of God. And God acts through his word. But we could add to that sentence God acts through His Word, by His Spirit. John six Jesus is speaking and he says, it is the spirit who gives life. The flesh is of no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life.

Notice he doesn't take spirit and put spirit against word. What he does is say the spirit is on one side. The flesh is of no help at all, but alongside God's Spirit working. How does he do that? Through the words that Jesus has spoken to you. Those are spirit and they are life. So God acts through His word, by His Spirit.

There's another story from Ezekiel that maybe some of you remember. It's really a dramatic story vision. God in Ezekiel 36 says, I'm going to put a new heart in my people. I'm going to transform them. I want to give them a new spirit. And then he takes his ego out of this vision, and he's got out in the desert a whole bunch of not to be gross, a whole bunch of human bones lying around.

And he tells physical Ezekiel, speak to them. Can you imagine? Like, what am I supposed to say? Their bones. And so his equal obeys. He preaches, and the bones come together and bodies are formed. But there's no life. Then what happens? Translated. The wind comes. The same word for wind is the word for spirit. And over and over, if you read through it, if you read through it in a real wooden literal translation, the spirit comes.

The spirit does this, the spirit does this, the spirit does this, the spirit does this. And there's life. That's how God works. It's a picture. It's a fascinating picture. You can go read Ezekiel 36 and 37 and see the rest of it. But it's a fascinating picture of the fact that Ezekiel spoke God's words and something happened, but there's no life there until the spirit comes.

God still works by the power of his word, by spirit. In some ways, the way God acts through His Word is like the electricity, the power that runs within his body. If you take God's Spirit out, you can say all the right words and nothing will happen. But if you take the word out, you're disconnected from the power as well.

God acts by His Word through His Spirit. I invite you to turn over to one in Isaiah 55.

I'm going to add one more word to that sentence God acts through His Word. By spirit. I say God decisively acts through His word, by His Spirit. Now all of this is saying, when we say we need to respond in certain ways to God's Word, what are we responding to? Isaiah 55, beginning in verse ten says, for as the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower, and bread to the eater.

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. It shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. One of those pictures Lalo was talking about, like the rain and snow comes down and makes plants grow. God's word comes down, and it doesn't just bounce back to him and not do anything.

It accomplishes his purpose. God decisively acts through His Word, by His Spirit when he said, peace be still. It wasn't a flip a coin to see if it happens. When he said, let there be light, it wasn't uncertain when he said, Lazarus, come forth. It was Lazarus coming out. It accomplished his purpose and his purpose, just like rain and snow coming down.

His purpose is life giving and transformational. That's a big theme we'll get to in a minute. God's word not only gives you information, but it gives life.

So things about God's Word. It's an extension of himself. You can't separate God from His word. God acts through his word. God acts through His word by the spirit, and God accomplishes his purpose with His word. Last thing statement about the word God speaks through his people.

I intentionally worded it that way. Him not saying God speaks through pastors. He does. That's because pastors are children of God. God speaks through his people. Jesus, when he sends out the 72 he says, is the one who hears you. All 72 people, the one who hears you, hears me. The one who rejects you rejects me. And the one who rejects me rejects him who sent me.

Jesus says, you are going out delivering my message. I am speaking through you. Or Paul in first Thessalonians says, when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as what it really is, the Word of God which is at work in you believers. Don't you want to be one of those mouths that God speaks his truth through?

To take the truth of God's Word and communicate it. Amanda was up here crying earlier because God's Word went out to children and there were, however, many volunteers, she said 70 ish volunteers who were a part in some way of God's truth going through your lips with his power to children and to adults who were here to.

So prepare your minds for that kind of action. When Peter says, prepare your minds, the big sentence is we are to submit to study, delight in echo and display God's Word, that powerful word that God uses and accomplishes his purpose. With that, he speaks through his people. That is what we are responding to.

So God's word, I'm going to go through each of those briefly and just give you a couple thoughts on each of those statements. We are to submit to God's Word. We don't come to this book and decide what we like and what we don't like. Or more accurately, you can decide what you like and what you don't like, but it doesn't make any difference which you like and which you don't like.

Because this is God's Word. We come and we submit to it every time God's Word is spoken. Here's a here's a picture of what happens apart from the grace of Christ and where we all are tempted to go every day. We live in our own little corner of a backyard with a cardboard throne that I like to go sit on and pretend like I'm a ruler of something, a plastic crown.

And I go, I get to rule my own life.

And you may spend a few years. You may spend decades living in that world, sitting on a throne where you think you run your own life. But it's cardboard and it's plastic. It's fake. And then a messenger from the true king comes to your little kingdom. And the details of the message will differ. But the root is the same.

The real king loves you. He came. He did what was necessary for you to be forgiven and to be part of his family, which is way better than your little fake kingdom. And so the message is surrender.

The message is not this King likes to let you be king of your life, and we'll let you run half of your life. But he'd like you to, you know, give him a little bit of tribute here and there. The message is surrender. Submit to the message from the King and say, you reign. That's the truth. My rule is a lie.

It's ignorance, as first Peter calls it. The messenger can't soften the words of the king. He can't just invite you to keep thinking, which our world does this? Many Christians do this to keep thinking you can run your own life. Our world likes to say you get to decide whatever your identity is. You can rule over your sexuality, or your money, or your identity, or your time, or your entertainment, or anything else.

Our world will tell you. You get to rule over all that. It's a fake plastic crown on a cardboard throne.

And the real king has sent his word through his messengers to say, surrender. Get off your plastic throne and come into my throne room. Which is so much better that to be a servant in my throne room is way better than trying to rule from your little plastic kingdom. We are to submit to God's Word. That means God's Word divides.

It splits people into who submits and listens to God's Word and who doesn't.

As a body, we might be tempted to say, how can we make sure we can unite people together? And God's Word divides. Now it does unite. Two unites the people who submit to it, but it divides. So we might be tempted to unite around something else. Could be the way we'd have style in here. Our music in here could be felt needs.

And we say, well, I think everybody knows they need this. So we're going to try to meet that. It could be politics. It could be service and acts of service, even through something like VBS. I love the way Amanda's heart for VBS. I love that we unite around that. But Amanda would tell you she wants us to unite around God and His Word.

And do VBS not unite around VBS.

We come to the word and it is our authority, so we submit to it. We unite around that. We study it. Second Timothy two is a familiar passage. It says study to show yourself approved unto God, a workman who rightly teaches the word of truth.

If you're going to let God's Word flow through you powerfully to change people around you and to change your heart, it's going to take some study. It takes some work to say, what does this actually teach?

There are all kinds of things we could talk about here, but there's one particularly that I hear a lot. I think it's because we have the internet now, for better or for worse, and we have access to so many different teachings that we have what you could call the good people disagree syndrome. And you have a text and you read it and you start trying to figure out what does it say.

And you might think, you figure it out. And then you go talk to a bunch of people and you say, oh, I see this on the internet, and this person thinks this, and this person thinks this. And before long, what we can do is we can decide. Good people disagree. So I just don't know what it means at all.

Just because good people disagree about something the Bible says does not mean that it means nothing. Say, well, that sounds hard. How am I supposed to figure that out? Study, trust the spirit and study with humility that says I could be wrong, where to submit to where to study God's Word. But when I say study, I know that what can happen is we become a researcher.

I've got my issue that I want to study, and I just I find all the things in here and I can quote back to you all the verses, and my heart's not moved at all.

So we do need to study just as hard as that person might. But beyond that, we need to delight in the Word of God. Lao quoted Psalm one, verse two of that says, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. He loves it. That man who is like a tree planted by the rivers of water. He's not someone who just I can tell you all the Bible facts.

You may have met people I know I have who can tell you more Bible facts, and I could and don't love God at all. We're to delight in God's Word as a body. When we gather and we sing truths that come from God's Word, that's part of what we're doing. We're taking a chance corporately to delight in the Word of God.

We submit to it. We study it. We delight in it. We echo it. That's what I was just talking about. When you sing God's Word on lyrics, up on a screen goes into your mind and like an echo, it bounces off of you and you sing the truth in God's Word. But it's not just in in singing. It'd be in prayer.

I've heard stories of Charles Stuckey praying years ago, and I've heard every time somebody talks about Charles Stuckey praying, I hear them say he just prayed the Bible. Exactly. God's word came to him. He submitted to it. He studied it. He delighted into it, and it bounced right off of him, back out in prayer. We echo God's Word.

When we're here, when we're singing, when we're praying, we're not trying to create the right atmosphere so that someone feels good religious feelings and wants to hear God's Word. That's the wrong order. What we're doing is saying we want the word to dwell in us richly, so we pick songs that reflect the truth of God's Word as much as we can, so that when you sing, that is God's Word, bouncing into you and bouncing out in worship.

The goal here at Barry and Bible Church is never to help you feel, worship, and then show you God. The goal is for you to see God's truth so that you respond in worship.

We echo this. That means in the life of the body, the ministry of the word can't stop. When I finish, I think about all the things we said about God's Word. If it's an extension of himself, if that's the way he acts powerfully, if he speaks through people, then it's really a shame. If we come and plug in for 30 minutes or 45 minutes or even an hour and a half, and God's Word saturates there.

And then we say, for the rest of the life of the body, we'll just unplug. Now, throughout the week, as we interact, as we have care groups, as we fellowship out here, you may not quote Bible verses at each other, though you might. But I surely hope that the truth of God's Word just flows out of our mouths.

That when a friend comes and says, I've got this situation going on with my cousin or dad or child, or my wife or my work, would you pray with me? Would you help me? I don't know what to do. I hope that God's Word so saturates us, that it just bounces back out in an echo of counsel, even if we're not quoting specific verses, that the truth of God's Word flows through the body, through each one of us.

We are to submit to study, delight in echo, and display God's Word. Psalm 119 says, Your word is, and you could finish it. A light to my feet. Well, it's interesting that picture is also used when Jesus says, let your light so shine before men, that they that they see your good works and glorify your father which is in heaven.

Now stop and think, why is God glorified when you do good works?

He's glorified when you do good works, not just because you did something good. If you go out and do some good deed and somebody sees you and they say good thank you, they move on and they think you just had were a good person at heart and you just did something good. Is God glorified? Not yet in your heart he is, but not to the people who are looking, which is what the verse says.

So sometimes we forget a step. Why do my good works glorify God? It's because God by His Word has acted and transformed me, and my good works are a response to what God has done. Then you sit here and say they did something good because God spoke through His word and changed them. Praise to God. We display God's Word when we do good works, when we do VBS, when we do missions trips, when we do any kind of service interaction with other people.

We're not just doing good things to do good things. People who aren't believers in Jesus can do that. As Christians, we are displaying the powerful work of God that has come to us, his word that has changed us. And we're saying, look at what a life transformed by God's Word does. God's word needs to fulfill all that we do.

And so this morning I want to conclude with three really quick application points. First, what is necessary for Berean Bible Church to honor God as we should?

It's not anything sitting up there.

It's not this building we can meet in a field.

It's not flashy programs, though. Those could be good. We need God's power to work by His Spirit through His Word. That's what's necessary. There are many other good things. That's what's necessary. What's necessary for you in your individual life? To live a life that's glorifying to God. You need God's power to work by His Spirit through His Word.

Parents, what's necessary for your kids? You can say, well, I want to teach them to be good, independent people with a good work ethic and a great, good things. What's necessary? They need to know the power of God working by his word, by a spirit. So make sure when you're parenting, you're giving them that. And if you think like I have thought many times, I've thought I read this section with my kids and I'm not sure how to help them really see what it says.

I'm not sure how to connect with them. Okay, work on that study. Ask God to help you, but trust the power of God's Word.

That's why we start services with God's Word because we're saying God has already spoken. We're just delivering the message come and worship him. That's why we do scripture readings in between songs. Here's God's word we trust the power of God's Word to work. That's why we spend time preaching. Because God's Word works. Because that is what is necessary.

We must have the power. Or maybe for a modern image, the electricity of God's power, working through His Word, by His Spirit to accomplish his purpose. Because God has told us his purpose is to build His church to rescue captured and tortured souls. That's his purpose that he accomplishes through His Word. So we must have that power working to give life to the to the dead.

When you come read the word. Another application question what do you hope to find? If you come to God's Word, hoping to find information to satisfy intellectual curiosity, you'll find it sometimes. And you won't find it sometimes. But remember, what God's Word is is an extension of his person. Come to God's Word to meet with God. We come to God's Word so that we would see his glory as revealed in this text.

That doesn't stop us from studying. In fact, it should make us study harder. What did he really say and how is his glory revealed in this text? You were made to hunger and thirst after God more than anything else, and he's graciously given you himself. Read of him. Drink it in before you. Before you start reading your Bible, pray and say, God, I want to know more than facts.

I want to commune with you through your word. I want to see your glory through your word. God wants to do that, and he works powerfully through His Word.

And the last application question I want to ask you.

Why do you study or think on the word? And I don't mean what do you want to find? I'll give you two options. And these blend together. Do you study so that you can know God and you can learn and you can live a better life before him? That's a good thing. And God's Word works to do that.

I want to hold a second thought in front of your mind. Study the word because God puts you next to people who need it.

Scripture is called the sword of the spirit. So let me ask you this way. Why do warriors fight?

It's not because they're bloodthirsty, at least not the warriors we admire. It's not out of pure revenge. Despite 99% of Hollywood stories, warriors fight because they want to defend the honor of their country. Or if we put it in a medieval time, they want to defend the honor of their king, and they want to protect others within the realm.

When you use the sword of the spirit, when you come to God's Word, don't just use the sword to fight your individual battle. God wants you to study, to submit to God's word, to study in it, to delight in it so that you can echo it. Because your brothers and sisters in this room are fighting battles, and they need that sword to help them win.

And God speaks through his people. That might mean that. Some of you did this in January. We have a parenting conference and you're not parents, and you come and maybe some of you thought, well, I interact with kids and that's good. Come learn about parenting because I'm a parent and I need you to speak God's truth to me.

If we learn about marriage and you say, I'm not married, I don't need that. Well, the body needs that. We don't just study. I don't study God's Word just for me. And you don't study God's Word just for you. We're an army battling sin in our individual lives. And in each others, we display the honor of our king.

But we protect our brothers and sisters by the way, we come to the word.

I would encourage you if you read a text of Scripture and you think, I think I know what this one means, I think I've got it. Dive in harder to that text because somebody around you needs it. They may be fighting sin and you swinging the sword of the spirit. Maybe the very blow that kills their enemy.

The word has to flow in and out of everything we do. And we don't just fight an individual battle. So I want to invite you to close your eyes. We'll just respond in prayer for just a minute.

Maybe there was something when I read that sentence as we talked. You're supposed to submit to God's word to study it, to delight in it, to echo it through singing and prayer and discipleship, to display what it has done in your life. Maybe one of those God's Spirit, through his Word would say that one. Focus on that.

I just invite you to pray. Ask God to do what he's done in your life, and to work powerfully through His Word.

Father, we thank you that you work powerfully in this world, that you work through your word. And I pray that we would be people of the word, that we would learn to battle against sin, to battle against lies in our individual lives. That we would learn to use what you have given us in your word to battle sin and lies in the lives of those around us.

War is deadly. War is dangerous. But you have called us to take up your sword, the sword of your spirit.

To study it well. To love it. And you have given us an incredible privilege. To be part of the way that you work in this world. Fill our minds. Fill our hearts with the truth of your word. Transform us in ways that we could not even understand ourselves.

In Jesus name. Amen. I conclude with the way Peter concludes in first Peter, May the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you to him. Be the dominion forever and ever. Amen. Thank you for being with us this morning.