Back to SCHOOL– One Source, The Authority of Scripture
2 Timothy 3:16-17
INTRODUCTION:
Ravi Zacharias, a Christian intellectual who travels around the world lecturing in secular settings on spiritual themes, tells of an experience he had in Columbus, Ohio. He writes, “A few weeks ago, I did a lectureship at Ohio State University. As I was being driven to the lecture, we passed the new Wexner Art Center. The driver said, ‘This is a new art building for the university. It is a fascinating building designed in the post-modernist view of reality.’ The building has no pattern. Staircases go nowhere. Pillars support nothing. The architect designed the building to reflect life. It went nowhere and was mindless and senseless. I turned to the man describing it and asked, ‘Did they do the same thing with the foundation?’ He laughed. You can’t do that with a foundation. You can get away with the infrastructure. You can get away with random thoughts that sound good in defense of a world view that ultimately doesn’t make sense. Once you start tampering with the foundations, you begin to see the serious effects.” [What About the Foundation?, Citation: Ravi Zacharias, "If the Foundations Be Destroyed," Preaching Today, Tape #142.]
Do you know people who, like the Wexner Art Center, have staircases going nowhere and pillars supporting nothing? Do you also know some people though who have not only played with the infrastructure of life, but who have also started to mess with the foundation of their? People can try to base their lives upon many different foundations, but only one is reliable. God is the creator and designer of life and He has given us His Word as the foundation for our lives. Building one’s life upon any other foundation will only lead to ruin.
This morning we again are going “Back to SCHOOL” to look at our ONE SOURCE-THE AUTHORITY OF SCRIPTURE. Many of us grew up in Sunday School singing, “The B-I-B-L-E.” Does anyone remember that song? Is the Bible “the book for [you]?” Will you “stand alone on the Word of God?”
Look what God tells us about the foundation He has given us - the Bible.
• 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (MsgB)
[16] Every part of Scripture is God-breathed and useful one way or another—showing us truth, exposing our rebellion, correcting our mistakes, training us to live God’s way. [17] Through the Word we are put together and shaped up for the tasks God has for us.
A couple of quick thoughts: [1] The Bible is “God breathed and useful.” Within these pages God shows us TRUTH, truth about God, the world and ourselves! [2] Through the Bible we are “put together and shaped up.” The Bible, God’s Word, is the foundation for our lives and the foundation determines the shape!
Our church has adopted the Statement of Fundamental Truths as set forth by the Assemblies of God. The first truth to which we hold is “The Scriptures Inspired.” It says, “The Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible, authoritative rule of faith and conduct.”
Within this short statement of faith are three building blocks that shape the foundation, not just of our church, but shape the foundation of our very lives. If you try to build your life without one or more of these building blocks firmly in place, then your life is going to crumble and fall. These foundational building blocks are:
1. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind.
2. The Bible is without error.
3. The Bible is God’s authoritative guide for our faith and our lives.
1. The Bible is God’s revelation of Himself to mankind.
ILLUSTRATION: A mother sat at church next to her first grade daughter one Sunday morning and noticed her little one looking at the open Bible in her lap. After a few moments of looking intently at the Bible, she whispered to her mom, "Did God really write that?" The mother quietly whispered back, "Yes, He did." Looking down at her mother’s Bible again, the little girl then said in amazement, "Wow! He really has neat handwriting!"
God has neat handwriting because He wants you to know Him! Someone has called the Bible, “God’s love letter to man.”
• 1 Thessalonians 2:13 (NIV)
And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, BUT AS IT ACTUALLY IS, THE WORD OF GOD. . .
Everything we know about God, God has made known to us. God has introduced Himself to us through His Word the Bible. The Bible not only shows us who God is, but it does so PERFECTLY through His Son Jesus.
• Hebrews 1:1-3 (NIV)
[1] In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, [2] but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son . . . [3] The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being.
The Bible not only introduces us to God, but through the Scriptures we are also introduce to God’s Son Jesus! If you want to know who God is, GET TO KNOW JESUS!
Perhaps you’re wondering, how can we know that God is really the way the Bible describes Him; after all the Bible was written over 2,000 years ago? What if God has change over time?
• James 1:17 (NIV)
Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, WHO DOES NOT CHANGE LIKE SHIFTING SHADOWS.
God wants us to know Him, and has made Himself know through His Word. Because God wants us to know Him God has also protected His Word from being destroyed.
Martin Luther made this statement: “Mighty potentates have raged against this book, and sought to destroy and uproot it – Alexander the Great and princes of Egypt and Babylon, the monarchs of Persia, of Greece and of Rome, the Emperors Julius and Augustus – But have prevailed nothing. They are gone while the book remains, and it will remain forever and ever, perfect and entire as it was declared at first.”
2. The Bible is inerrant and infallible (never wrong).
• 2 Peter 1:20-21 (NIV)
[20] Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation. [21] For prophecy never had its origin in the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
ILLUSTRATION: A ship’s mate once challenged a chaplain with the question, “How is it that you are always talking to my men about Jesus Christ? Did you ever see Him?”
“No, I never did,” was the reply.
“Then how can you tell a man to trust in someone you have never seen? I can’t see any sense in that.”
“Well,” replied the chaplain, “when you head for a place of refuge in a storm, what sense is there in telling your men to let go the anchor when they cannot see the ground? On what principle do you trust your ship and your life to ground you have never seen and never can see?”
“Oh,” said the mate, “we go by our chart.”
“Exactly,” replied the chaplain, holding up his Bible, “and I, too, go by a chart, and it is an infallible one, while yours is not. It tells me of the only sure ground of my salvation, the atoning work of Christ upon the cross. My faith, like your anchor, takes hold of this unseen but real ground, and so rides out the storm of life in peace and safety.”
3. The Bible is God’s authoritative guide for our faith and way of living.
Here’s a pop quiz: Which of the following statements do not originate in the Bible?
o Cleanliness is next to godliness.
o God helps those who help themselves.
o Confession is good for the soul.
o We are as prone to sin as sparks fly upward.
o Money is the root of all evil.
o Honesty is the best policy.
Though we agree with all of these statements, and each is true or at least partially true, none of them is in the Bible. We have learned to treat man’s opinions with as much respect as the Bible.
• 1 Thessalonians 2:13 (NIV)
And we also thank God continually because, when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God, WHICH IS AT WORK IN YOU WHO BELIEVE.
DL Moody said: “The scriptures were not given for our information but our transformation.” Someone else has said, “God’s word is like salt in the back of your car in the winter. It’s a lot more useful when you take it out and apply it.”
• 2 Timothy 3:16-17 (NIV)
[16] All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, [17] so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Four ways God’s Word is at work in us:
1. TEACHING
God’s word is profitable for doctrine; the Bible instructs us in what we know about God and how to live. The Bible teaches us what God’s will is; we can know God desire and heart.
Scripture is our standard for testing everything that claims to be true; if it does not measure up to the test of the Bible then we can know it is false.
• 2 Timothy 4:3-4 (NIV)
For 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. [4] They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths.
2. REBUKING
God’s Word is to be received, believed and OBEYED as the final authority in our lives. When God’s Word is deliberately disobeyed His Word will be used as a rebuke; it is the reproof of by the power of he Holy Spirit that turns individuals from sin.
Revelation 3:19 (NIV)
Those whom I love I rebuke and discipline. So be earnest, and repent.
• Proverbs 3:11-12 (NIV)
[11] My son, do not despise the Lord’s discipline and do not resent his rebuke, [12] because the Lord disciplines those he loves, as a father the son he delights in.
• John 14:21 (MsgB)
"The person who knows my commandments and keeps them, that’s who loves me. And the person who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and make myself plain to him."
3. CORRECTION
God will use His Word to guide and direct our lives when we get off course. God wants to restore our thinking, to transform our minds so we might live by the mind of Christ. The Bible will correct our false notions and mistaken understanding.
• 1 Corinthians 2:12 (NIV)
We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us.
4. TRAINING IN RIGHTEOUSNESS
God’s Word will not only set us on the right path, but it will keep us on the right path. We do not have to be led astray, we can follow Christ and be perfected in His image.
• Psalm 119:11 (NIV)
I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.
ILLUSTRATION: Mark Twain, not exactly a die-hard Christian, wrote these words: “Most people are bothered by those passages of Scripture they do not understand, but the passages that bother me most are those I do understand.”
We get more out of the Bible when we let it get into us.
