FEASTING ON THE WORD
INTRODUCTION: So far we've looked at the account between Jesus and the woman at the well where he offered her living water. Then we looked at Jesus' encounter with the Jews who were following him because he had multiplied the loaves and the fishes. Jesus revealed that he was the bread of life. Today, we'll look at the importance of feasting on God's word.
1) Pure, spiritual milk.
1st Pet. 1:23-2:3, "For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God. For, “All men are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.”
And this is the word that was preached to you. Therefore, rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, and slander of every kind. Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good."
We have been born again. Therefore, as a literal newborn baby craves milk, so we too need to crave pure spiritual milk. And, just as a baby grows through taking in nourishment so we too will grow spiritually as we take in nourishment.
We have spent enough time taking in poisonous "nourishment"-resulting in things like malice, deceit, hypocrisy, envy and slander. Now it's time to start taking in fresh, pure milk so we can experience the benefits of that nourishment-love, kindness, compassion, honesty, integrity, morality and the like.
"Through the living and enduring word of God". This is an interesting description of the word of God-'living and enduring'. Obviously the pages and ink aren't alive. And eventually this book will wear out and deteriorate. So what makes it living and enduring?
Heb. 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."
The word of God goes deep; it dissects and it deals with the human pattern of thinking and reasoning. It deals with our human emotions and our negative attitudes. The word of God judges our behaviors and challenges our ideals. It also speaks to our most intimate needs and longings and it shows us what's important.
The word of God is living and active because in dealing with all these things it always stays relevant. The word of God may be thousands of years old but it is always current because the issues and needs of mankind never change. We have always dealt with temptation; we have always had issues like anger. And we have always had the innate desire to love and be loved. And since this will always be the reality the word of God will always be the vital tool we need to deal with it all.
"Word of the Lord stands forever". We humans are strong and durable but in the whole scheme of things we are as fragile as the grass of the field. Today we have beauty and adornment but tomorrow we wither and fall. But the word of God is forever strong; the word of God is forever beautiful. It's strength never fails and its beauty never fades with time.
We can look back to our younger years when we were more vibrant and polished. We had a youthful glow and energy to spare. Now...well, let's just say time is kind to no one. But the word of God is timeless. From the time it was read on scrolls to now it hasn't lost its effect; its impact is felt just as strongly today as it was when it was first passed down. It's just as relevant to mankind today as it was when Hebrews 4:12 was written.
People can try to eliminate the bible but it will never happen. You can trash it, criticize it, ban it and burn it but you will never get rid of it. A little bit of irony for you. "In the midst of the Enlightenment, when deism was spreading rapidly, the famous atheist Voltaire proclaimed that within 25 years the bible would be forgotten and Christianity would be a thing of the past. Forty years after his death in 1778, the Bible and other Christian literature were being printed in what had once been Voltaire's very home."
This is the word of God and it isn't going anywhere. We will do well to listen to it, study it, apply it and live by it. It's in our best interest to be changed by it and if we love and cherish it we'll have what we need, along with the Holy Spirit, to get through anything and everything in our walk of faith. This is how we will "grow up in our salvation".
By reading and studying the word we become more knowledgeable in it. And the more we know the word and the more we put it into practice the more we'll grow. As newborns we take in the basic and elementary things of the bible. We feed on things like learning about prayer and the body of believers and the church and fellowship.
We might move on to understanding about the gifts of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit. As time goes on we start trying to understand some of the deeper things like the old covenant verses the new covenant and we learn about things like sanctification, justification, glorification and edification.
One of the other things that makes the word of God living and active is the fact that we can read the same passage of scripture multiple times and get something different from it each time. This has to do with our maturity level and also where we're at in our lives.
In the beginning, we can only take in so much-we're not going to understand everything about a passage nor are we meant to. As time goes on and we become more mature in the faith, we' re able to grasp the deeper elements of the same passage we read maybe a year before.
I've read the bible all the way through multiple times and I'm still learning. A passage I may have read numerous times will reveal something new to me. I find that exciting and humbling. So if you've been around the bible for a number of years and are reading a familiar passage don't approach it with a passive attitude like, "I've read this plenty of times; there's nothing more to get out of this".
The problem is you won't see anything fresh because you're not looking for it. Approach that familiar passage by asking the Lord to show you something new. Come to that familiar passage with a desire to see it through a fresh lens. Trust me, when you see something you never saw before you will shake your head and saw, 'wow, look at that'.
"Now that you have tasted that the Lord is good". We needed to have our own experience to tell us that the Lord is good. We may believe someone else's testimony, but we still need to try it for ourselves. Just like food. You may love a certain food but in order for me to love it I must first taste it and see if I feel the same way. Once I do, and I draw the same positive conclusion, I will want more of it.
When we share the gospel I can explain how tantalizing and scrumptious it is; I can use alluring adjectives to describe the joy that Christ and his word brings the hungry and thirsty soul. And you may believe me, but until you are willing to taste for yourself my words are merely my experiences. But when you choose to experience it for yourself and become convinced then you can share in my enthusiasm.
Whenever we read the word of God we can enjoy it to a degree but it's not until we experience the truth of God's word in our lives are we able to really appreciate its flavor. I can read an article about how delicious pizza is, but it's not until I have the experience of eating pizza am I able to testify to the validity of what I read about it.
When we are able to taste and see that the Lord is good we are able to testify that what is written is proven. We need to believe the bible, whether we've experienced it or not, but to have the personal testimony of seeing God's word come alive in our experiences lends to that truth being cemented in our hearts. When we drink in the pure milk of God's word we will find it refreshing and satisfying; so we need to crave it like a baby craves milk.
2) Hardcore Carnivore.
The goal is to grow so that we can move from being a milk drinker to being a meat-eater (my apologies to all the vegans out there). Paul had some concerns for the Corinthian church regarding this.
1st Cor. 3:1-4, "Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual but as worldly—mere infants in Christ. I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly? Are you not acting like mere men? For when one says, “I follow Paul,” and another, “I follow Apollos,” are you not mere men?"
These people in Corinth were immature, arguing and debating about things that were unimportant. When we get caught up in foolish arguments and debates we show ourselves to not be ready for the meat of God's word. When we're not focused on putting into practice the elementary truths we shouldn't try to move on to deeper things. When there's too much of the world in us we will not be able to move from milk to meat.
And one of the issues with not growing and moving onto maturity is we put ourselves in a vulnerable and dangerous position. This was also one of Paul's concerns for the Corinthian church.
2nd Cor. 11:3-4, "But I am afraid that just as Eve was deceived by the serpent’s cunning, your minds may somehow be led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes to you and preaches a Jesus other than the Jesus we preached, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it easily enough."
There were false teachers in their midst and Paul's concern was that the Corinthians were listening to them. Paul's concern was that these false teachers would be able to lead these young Christians astray with their fine sounding arguments.
The same threat is alive today. There are false teachers out there preaching a different Jesus and a different gospel than the one in our bible. And they are good at what they do. They have their twisted teaching all prepared. So when they knock on your door and you let them in and listen to them, they might be very compelling. And next thing you know, you start accepting their teachings. And now you are in the danger zone-being led astray from your sincere and pure devotion to Christ.
Sometimes we don't move from milk to meat because we're not taking it seriously. We could be advancing but we just aren't putting in the effort.
Heb. 5:11-14, "We have much to say about this, but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil."
The Hebrews were not advancing as they should have been. They weren't slow to learn because they were having difficulty learning but because they were choosing not to. He said, "by this time you ought to be teachers". This means they had the ability to grow and actually be at a place where they could be teaching others but instead were still at the place where they needed to be taught the elementary truths.
They were getting lazy in the faith as he warned in 6:12, "We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised." If we don't have the desire to learn and grow then we will not gain all of what we can from God's word. We should have the desire to always be learning because we have the best teacher and he knows everything that will help us to live a better life.
He has all the answers so as we learn and grow we learn how to handle life situations and get through difficulties and how to have healthier relationships. We learn how to defeat out enemy and when we get to the place to dig a little deeper we will see new lessons from the same scriptures.
That's what's so great about God's word. I learn one thing from a certain passage when I'm new in the faith and when I grow and mature I find something new in the passage I've read many times before. There's a quote that goes, "The bible's waters are deep enough where a scholar can't reach the bottom yet shallow enough that a baby won't drown."
The bible appeals to new Christians as well as seasoned veterans of the faith. That's the beauty of God's word. In fact, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe said, "The bible grows more beautiful as we grow in our understanding of it." As we engage in the scriptures and as we continue to have an appetite for God's word we will understand more of it. And the more we understand the more we're able to see how beautiful the bible is. That's one of the benefits of growing.
And the end of our Heb. 5 passage gives us another benefit of growing and maturing. "But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil." When we put the word to constant use it gives us the ability to discern between good and evil. The more we learn and grow the more equipped we will be to recognize what is good and what isn't.
When we first come to Christ and we're drinking milk, we can distinguish the obvious comparisons between what is good and what is evil but then you have the not so obvious things. You have the subtle nuances that make it harder to tell if it is good or evil. Sometimes the difference is about distinguishing between what's good and what's better.
Sometimes it's a priority issue where you have two good things but one needs to take precedence over the other. Like what was going on between Mary and Martha. Martha was doing good-she was cooking and cleaning and making preparations. But Mary chose to sit at the Lord's feet and listen to him. Martha got upset over that but Jesus said Mary made the better choice. As we grow and mature we will be able to better distinguish these things and make choices that will aid and benefit us spiritually.
Another reason it's important to grow in our knowledge of the scriptures is so we don't misuse scripture or be led astray by those who do.
2nd Pet. 3:15-18, "Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him. He writes the same way in all his letters, speaking in them of these matters. His letters contain some things that are hard to understand, which ignorant and unstable people distort, as they do the other Scriptures, to their own destruction.
Therefore, dear friends, since you already know this, be on your guard so that you may not be carried away by the error of lawless men and fall from your secure position. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen."
Peter expressed that some of Paul's writings were hard to understand. And it's easy for people who are unaware, unstable and ungrounded in their beliefs to twist and distort the scriptures to suit their desires. If we want to we can make scripture say what we want it to say to satisfy our ideals.
But sometimes it's not done on purpose. We are reading scripture and we think it says one thing but perhaps we didn't read the verse in its context. Where if we had we would see it carries a different meaning than if we were to take the verse by itself.
For instance, one of the more famous examples is Matt. 7:1 where Jesus said, "Do not judge or you too will be judged." People like to take that verse by itself and draw a conclusion that no one is allowed to judge. However, if you read that verse in its context, you will see that Jesus is warning us that we need to judge correctly, for the manner which you use will be used against you so judge humble and lovingly and wisely.
Part of growing in our knowledge of Christ and his word is making sure we take all of his word in and not just bits and pieces. Growing in our knowledge of Christ involves taking what he said in one gospel and comparing it with what he said similarly in another so we can gain a fuller understanding.
We looked at that last week in Sunday school with Jesus' words in Luke where he said if we don't hate our mother and father, son or daughter, even our own life we cannot be his disciple. Taken literally and by itself we might conclude that Jesus is insane to say such things. But when you investigate it further you realize he's saying that we must love him far greater than we love even those closest to us and that includes ourselves.
But it takes the mature mind to be able to take all that in and process it correctly. But that's how growth happens. And we must be committed to furthering that growth and not become lax in our study and meditation of God's word. Because although Peter said Paul wrote some things that are hard to understand, they can be understood.
Paul himself wrote in 2nd Cor. 1:13, "For we do not write you anything you cannot read or understand." So, we can understand the word. Not all at once but as time goes on and we are putting what we do understand to practice in our lives, we will grow and understand more and more.
In that we become mature in the faith; we become stronger in the faith. We will be less apt to be taking captive by hollow and deceptive philosophies. We will be wiser, more discerning and we'll be in a position to teach others. There's a quote that goes, "a bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't." Are you hungry for the word of God? Then let's eat!
