I preached this sermon in October, 2005 in a church in Marshall, TX
OLD TESTAMENT READING
Joshua 8: 30-35
30 Now Joshua built an altar to the LORD God of Israel in Mount Ebal, 31 as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded the children of Israel, as it is written in the Book of the Law of Moses: “an altar of whole stones over which no man has wielded an iron tool.”[a] And they offered on it burnt offerings to the LORD, and sacrificed peace offerings. 32 And there, in the presence of the children of Israel, he wrote on the stones a copy of the law of Moses, which he had written. 33 Then all Israel, with their elders and officers and judges, stood on either side of the ark before the priests, the Levites, who bore the ark of the covenant of the LORD, the stranger as well as he who was born among them. Half of them were in front of Mount Gerizim and half of them in front of Mount Ebal, as Moses the servant of the LORD had commanded before, that they should bless the people of Israel. 34 And afterward he read all the words of the law, the blessings and the cursings, according to all that is written in the Book of the Law. 35 There was not a word of all that Moses had commanded which Joshua did not read before all the assembly of Israel, with the women, the little ones, and the strangers who were living among them.
NEW TESTAMENT READING
Hebrews 4:12-16
12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. 13 And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.
John 6:37-40
Matthew 13
18 “Therefore hear the parable of the sower: 19 When anyone hears the word of the kingdom, and does not understand it, then the wicked one comes and snatches away what was sown in his heart. This is he who received seed by the wayside. 20 But he who received the seed on stony places, this is he who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy; 21 yet he has no root in himself, but endures only for a while. For when tribulation or persecution arises because of the word, immediately he stumbles. 22 Now he who received seed among the thorns is he who hears the word, and the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful. 23 But he who received seed on the good ground is he who hears the word and understands it, who indeed bears fruit and produces: some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty.”
The Sermon
As our topic listed in your order of service implies, we are going to attempt to find out something about the Word of God this morning. What is the Word of God? Where can we find the Word of God? How do we know when it is the Word of God, or something else? Maybe we can get to all these questions in our allotted time.
In our Old Testament reading this morning there is a picture of a new nation, gathering for a big joint worship service, to dedicate a monument, a place of remembrance of the things God was doing for them at the time. They had not been long from the wilderness wanderings, eating manna every day. Now, they were growing as a nation and Joshua, notice how similar the name Joshua and Jesus, was there leader, appointed by Moses before he died. There is some similarity between Joshua and Jesus, both are deliverers. Joshua had led them successfully through two big battles already and now was a time to regroup and remember the statutes. Now was time to hear read the Word of the Lord. Note that the words that were read to the people were the words of Moses, and if you look back in the book of Genesis you will find that God, Himself had dictated these words to Moses. So, what Joshua was reading to the people was truly the Word of God.
We had two scriptures in our New Testament readings, one in Hebrews four and one in Matthew 13, the interpretation of the parable or story or illustration of the sower sowing seed on different kinds of soil. In the sower story, there is a whole sermon, but we will just look at it briefly today. As Jesus explains the story to his disciples, he lets us in on some information about His Kingdom, which is not of this world, but is spiritual and is spiritually discerned. A sower, a preacher, an individual witnessing to another individual, sows, teaches, reads, to his or her audience. The thing taught or sown Jesus calls the Word. This word as it gets internalized in an individual’s mind, becomes something of a reality, a belief, something to be embraced and lived out in a life, begins to be the catalyst for, for lack of a better term, spiritual warfare. So, in this case, the Word of God must be more than a passage of scripture, it must somehow have some power, power to change one’s life.
As we look at the battle field, we see that there are several things that appear to be in opposition to the individual being able to understand and act on the received message. There is a spiritual actor that comes into the play, called by name, Satan, or the Evil One. Cares of the world, persecution, tribulation and deceitfulness of trusting in money and riches are all part of the Devil’s kit of tricks to get the new convert derailed before they get started. Thus, once one gets a hold of this Word, this gospel, this good news, this idea of salivation and trusting God, it may well become difficult to continue, unless one has on the proper armor. Remember in Ephesians six, about the helmet of salvation, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the sword of the Spirit and the shoes of the preparation of the Gospel? There is a lot more here, but lets press on to the Hebrews passage.
If you get curious, you might chew on about a chapter and a half before the quote to try to see what that “rest” the writer is talking about has to do with the Word of God, but I will leave that for another day. The Word of God is living. It is not a dead letter! When you get this point, you will find yourself reading along and all of a sudden, a line or a few words, or a whole concept just jumps right off the page in into your mind and you stop and say wow!, I didn’t know that. I choose to believe that when this happens, the Holy Spirit is doing His best work, teaching, pointing out, helping me to understand.
The word of God is powerful. The Greek word is similar to our word “energy”, it is dynamic not static, it is able to move things, like the heart, like habits, behaviors, it can be a change agent. The word of God causes things to move, to change for the better.
The Word is the sword of the spirit, remember? Not only is it a sword, but it is a two edged sword, can cut both ways and is sharper than the most sophisticated surgical knife in existence today, because it can cut right through our thoughts!
The word of God works like an x-ray machine, with His Word, God can see all! We can have no secrets with Him. We might be able to hide from each other, but not from God.
Thus, it looks like the Word of God is more than a printed page. It is the information represented by the printed words, it is the concepts behind and described by the words. The words are merely the vehicle that God’s precepts and ideas and principles ride in.
So, what exactly is the Word of God?
We hold up this imitation leather-bound book, a compilation of two distinct sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament, 66 books in all. We are not really sure who wrote some of the books, or exactly when. But, we believe, because of the book’s antiquity and the fact that it has survived the test of time and because of archeological discoveries and the discovery of ancient parchments and text fragments, that what we have here is a faithful record of writings, some over 4,000 years old that tell of a God who created this universe and this earth and every thing on it, including us humans, writings that tell the story of a people and of a Savior and of a mighty church, the called-out body of God’s Christ, His Anointed One, a church without spot or blemish a church of the redeemed!
So, many of the words in this book are, in fact, words spoken in time past by God and are thus the Words of God. We have read some of these words this morning. So, the Bible contains the words of God, the story of God and the stories of God’s people. When we read from this book, we usually ask for God to bless, or to make effective the reading of His Word. So, we refer to this Bible as the Word of God, and it is. We believe that God somehow caused the writers to write the things He wants us to know by what we call inspiration—Divine Inspiration.
We believe this because the Bible tells us that “ . . . .all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work” (2 Tim 3: 16-17). So, looking at all the evidence, I am convinced in my heart of hearts that the words contained in this book are very words of God. So, when I want to know something about God, when I want to know how to act, how to live, how to have that kind of peace of mind that is beyond human understanding—I go to the Word.
All this being said, I submit to you this morning that the Word of the Lord cannot be contained between these imitation leather-bound pages of 9-point type. For our God is alive, He is dynamic, He is present right here in this room right now. God is real. God dearly wants to be a Father to us today. God wants to be close to you this morning. The Father has sent His Son to redeem you and me. He sent His Son to light the way.
And in these leather-bound pages we find words that give meaning to life, words that reveal what the Apostle Paul calls a mystery, the mystery that was hidden for ages and is now revealed. The glorious good news what we call the gospel, is that God loves us and has made a way for us to be holy and redeemed and made righteous, not from within our own selves and our own efforts, but from the fact that Jesus, God’s Christ, His Anointed One went to a Roman cross and poured out His precious blood, his actual, real red blood.
John was there and he recorded it, describing how the soldier thrust the spear into Jesus’ side and out flowed both blood and water, right out on the ground. The Bible says that “without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sin.” The life is in the blood. Paul, says in Hebrews nine that Jesus actually took His shed blood, as our High Priest up to the real Holy of Holies in Heaven and there offered it, sprinkled it as a sacrifice, once and for all, for all of mankind, all those who lived before and those who lived then and all those who lived ever after, right down to our own age, in 2006.
And the Bible says--the Word of God says--that if we believe that Jesus was truly a human being, who really died on that cross and really got up after three days in that tomb and really talked to His disciples and really went up to Heaven with his sacrificial blood—if we can get our prideful human intellect around that concept—understanding that we are without God, outside the fold, walking in absolute darkness mired in sin and disobedience, with no hope whatsoever--until we fall on our face and acknowledge that we are, like Isaiah of old, Unclean and in desperate need of a savior, and then looking up to Jesus, say yes Lord, I believe!.....come be the Lord of my life.
What, exactly, is the Word of God? Maybe it is impossible to exactly define the term, because the word of God is an individual thing. God speaks to each of us in our own language, according to our own experiences and mindset. He knows us that well. But there are some common threads that come down to all of us. We can be a cohesive group, we can be members of the Family of God, the Church of God, the Church of the Christ, the Anointed One which is described also as the Bride of Christ. We can all have the same spiritual Father and all drink living water from that same spiritual rock, that rock is Christ.
The Apostle John says that in the beginning the Word was, and that Word became flesh and that Word was Jesus. Jesus, the name that is above every name, the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. The Son of God. There is no other name whereby we can have salvation. Like Paul said in the first chapter of first Corinthians, I preach Christ, and him crucified. That is the gospel, that’s the power of God unto salvation, that’s the Word of God.
Did you happen to notice as we read our text this morning, the very next verses in that Hebrews passage? Verse 14 says “…Seeing then that we have a great High Priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. 15 For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin. 16 Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
The Greek word translated confession, and it may be translated profession in your Bible, has to do with what we believe and what we say we believe, subsequently influencing how we act, or behave. So, Paul is admonishing us to hold on to our belief, to watch our behavior, to be careful what we say, to live our lives in such a way, so that we can come right on up to our Father when we need help, mercy and grace, when we are tempted, when we find ourselves weak, KNOW that Jesus is there, know that he wants us to succeed, know that he loves us, and gave his very life for us, know that Jesus understands what its like to live on this earth, know that he has himself experienced temptations and persecutions and all sorts of opposition. He knows how hard it can be.
You know, I had been in the church for years. I have even preached and led music in the church from my youth, but I did not get this message until later in life.
There are a lot of things that we don’t understand when we start out. We grow, and sometimes just get knocked right off our horse, like Paul did, on the road to Damascus. At that point, it’s time to do something about it.
I do not know what goes on in your head, only God knows that. But if you need to get some things straight in your life, now would be a good time to do it, today is the day of salvation. I am declaring the alter open, and we are going to sing a hymn to give the invitation to come and lay your burdens on Him. He said his yoke is easy and his burden is light, and he has promised to never leave you or forsake you, no matter what.
Let’s pray.
Father, send now your Holy Spirit upon this place, upon these hearts, speak to us now, let us know that You are God, that Your love for us is great, that you want to take us in your loving arms and shield us and keep us and protect us and give us strength, and health and see us as righteous, because of Jesus and his work on the cross.
These things I ask in the powerful and the precious name of Jesus, Amen.
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