- Hi everybody. We're gonna jump right into our Bible study today. And today I don't have a PowerPoint for us. We're gonna be walking through a big, like many chunks of scripture. So please get your Bibles handy. And by way of kind of wrapping things and connecting the dots of what we've been studying.

We've been studying about having a high view of God, right? And another way you can phrase that is, we've been studying about the holiness, the character traits, you know, the aspect of who God is. And another way you can phrase that is, we've been just studying an accurate view of God.

We've been seeing, we've been trying to see him as he is. And how that's effective or how that affects our personal lives and our corporate lives as well, okay? So the idea is to see God in a high way is essentially to see him in an accurate way. And I wanna use this term accuracy to emphasize what we're gonna be talking about today.

Because in order to have an accurate view of God, we absolutely have to have an accurate view of the word of God, right? We have to have an accurate understanding of the scriptures. And so today's main question is going to be, how do you view scripture, right? Now, there is just a basic question of how we ought to view, we should view scriptures highly.

Just as we view God highly, we need to view the scriptures highly. But I hope that today would be an evaluation very deeply about your own personal heart and your faith of how you view the word of the Lord. The interesting thing about the word of God is that in a tangible humanistic sense, what we have before us is a book, right?

Like many others. Other religions have scriptures. In a secular way, in a secular fashion, humanistically speaking, we have a collection of writing that's been handed down, just like many other books are handed down. And so the unbelieving world sees the scriptures like this is scripture. Yes, it's sacred. Yes, people revere it, but it's just writing.

We might call it perhaps a collection of quotes. We might call it perhaps a collection of moral teaching, whatever it may be, but for us, we see the scriptures in an entirely different light, right? Through faith, we see the reality that what we have is not simply the collection of old sayings.

What we have is not simply a collection of tradition. When we say, and we actually, we refer to the text that we have, we call it the word of God. And by faith, what we're saying is this is the voice of the God we've been trying to see more accurately.

Does that make sense? And so as we think about that, we have to ask this question. How do we view and treat the sacred scriptures, the word of God, the voice of the Lord? And for your blank there, as an introductory way of saying, how you treat the word of God is indicative of how you treat God himself.

Okay, let me repeat that. How you treat the word of God is indicative of how you treat God himself. Should you neglect? Should you cherish? Should you love? Should you be in tune with? Whatever the relational term there is between you and his word is going to be indicative of your relationship directly with God himself.

And so today, again, we're gonna be diving deep into how we are to then relate to the scriptures. Let's take a moment to pray as we jump into this study. Our God, we pray now, Lord, that we would all be granted attentiveness and God, a heart that's desiring to learn.

Father God, I pray that by your spirit, you would continue just to do your work of conviction. God, that through faith, we might be able to have such a deep-rooted devotion to go to your truth, to desire, to regularly take of what you have to teach us. And God, would you be with those of us who perhaps are tired tonight after a long days of work that you grant to us continued strength and attention and alertness.

Father, we lift this time to you. It's in Christ's name, amen. Okay, the route that we're gonna take tonight is again, centering on this idea of how we should view, how we should treat and relate to the word of God. And the way we're gonna take is take major stories from the Old Testament and different parts of scripture to talk about that issue.

First, turn your Bibles over to Jeremiah chapter 23, verse 28 through 32. Okay, Jeremiah chapter 23, verse 28 through 32. As you turn there, I'm gonna set the stage a bit here. And the time is the reign of Josiah, okay, Josiah. Josiah came at a very interesting time because the previous kings before him, they were engaged in a power struggle, okay.

And what happens in that power struggle is there were assassinations of the kings before him. So, Josiah actually began to rule at age eight. Can you imagine that? Eight years old and he was beginning to rule. Josiah had a lengthy reign, over 30 years, okay. So he actually sat on the throne of the nation of Judah for a long time.

During that time, the primary prophet that was to come and speak was Jeremiah, okay. Before King Josiah and after King Josiah, the landscape was dismal because there was so much neglect of the word of God and there was so much idolatry and so much, as you would say, of just simply going astray from worship of God.

And to that kind of context, Jeremiah's coming in and speaking the word of God, okay. So, let me read from verse 28 down to verse 32 and it says this. Let the prophet who has a dream tell the dream, but let him who has my word speak my word faithfully.

What has straw in common with wheat, declares the Lord, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who steal my words from one another. Behold, I am against the prophets, declares the Lord, who use their tongues and declare, declares the Lord.

Behold, I am against those who prophesy lying dreams, declares the Lord, and who tells them and lead my people astray by their lies and their recklessness. When I did not send them or charge them, so they do not profit this people at all, declares the Lord. So, here's a specific segment in which Jeremiah is rebuking, right, the tone is clearly very rebuking, but he's rebuking the people because they're speaking of stuff that God never told them to say.

There is a twisting, there is false teaching, and to this generation, Jeremiah is telling them that they need to turn around from this kind of falsehood and that God is absolutely displeased with what they're doing. So, specifically speaking, when he's rebuking them, there is a verse he kind of highlights as to what they are doing, and it is verse 29 when he says, "Is not my word like fire and like a hammer?" The entire generation fails to understand the nature of God's word.

They fail to understand the intensity of God's word. They fail to understand the power of God's word. And so, that's gonna be our first point for us. It's a simple point, that the word of the Lord is powerful. The blank there, the word of the Lord is powerful. Now, what I'm gonna do for you really quickly here is I could go on and on about different case examples of how God's word is so powerful, okay?

And kind of like in a boxing match, somebody who throws lots of little jabs, we're gonna look at a bunch of verses that point to how powerful the word of God is, okay? So, first, the first blank you have there, the word of the Lord is eternal, okay, eternal.

Scripture says, both in the New and Old Testament, in Matthew 24, it says, "Heaven and earth will pass away, "but my words will never pass away." Okay, number two, the word of God is powerful to create. I don't have to even reference the passages there, but with powerful words, God spoke into existence things that never were.

In Latin, it's the idea of ex nihilos, it's that out of nothing, God was able to speak things into existence. Next, God's word is powerful to transform, transform. In 1 Peter 1, verse 23, it says, "For you have been born, not of perishable seed, "but of imperishable, through the living "and enduring word of God." Okay, you've been born again.

Number four, God's word is powerful to judge. He is the one who declares and calls things as it is, and his word declares things either righteous or unrighteous. Next, God's word is powerful to produce its intended purpose. Scripture teaches us that God's word never goes out and then returns void, but rather, it says here that it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.

Number six, the word of God is powerful to equip. It has power to equip. That it is capable of correcting us, it is capable of training us, and it's capable of presenting us complete so that we'd be equipped for every good work. So, we just went through kind of what you call a laundry list, right?

Bum, bum, bum, bum, bum, bum. And I hope, you know, I didn't make you guys feel too flustered trying to fill in all the little blanks. But the idea is, we could just keep going on and on and on and on. A classic passage that I had you guys read for one of your devotions is a passage in Psalm chapter 19.

Let's turn there. Psalm chapter 19, verse seven through 14. And I believe as we just go down this list of the various attributes and power that the word of God contains, that it would be safe for us to conclude God's word is perfect in power. Take a look at this passage.

It says, "The law of the Lord is perfect, "reviving the soul. "The testimony of the Lord is sure, "making wise the simple. "The precepts of the Lord are right, "rejoicing the heart. "The commandments of the Lord is pure. "It enlightens the eyes. "The fear of the Lord is clean, "enduring forever.

"The rules of the Lord are true "and righteous altogether. "More to be desired are they than gold, "even much fine gold, "sweeter also than honey "and drippings of the honeycomb. "Moreover, by them is your servant warned. "In keeping them, there is great reward." Right? So as we think about this for a moment, let's just take some time to just kind of grapple with that laundry list we just went through.

We can sit there and doctrinally go through so many different passages, so many different proofs of the fact that God's word is absolutely powerful. But the question to us, for us to ponder and then evaluate our heart, is do you believe it? Do you believe God's word to be powerful?

And for all of us, I know we're gonna answer that yes or no question with, yes I do. Right? I believe God's word to be God's word. I believe God's word to be inspired. We went through that in BCC. I signed off on it on my membership covenant and we talk about it all the time.

I believe it. But now here's a follow up question to that. To what degree? Right? I think one of the great things for us in going through a review of some of these foundational doctrines, is it challenges my concept in terms of degrees. I believe God's holy, but I am reminded when I review the depth of his holiness, the extent of his righteousness, the purity, that concept is huge.

Right? Likewise today as we review this doctrine of God's word being sure, perfect and powerful, my question to you is, in your grasp of the truth, to what degree do you believe God's word to be powerful? And another way I can ask that question, is do you believe God's word to be powerful to the degree that it grasps your attention?

That it demands your focus? A little illustration to highlight that is this. Back when I was playing basketball in high school, I played basketball in high school, believe it or not. I'm not very good, but I played. But I was so bad that as a sophomore I was on the freshman team.

They had pity on me and said, you can play on the freshman team, right? Anyway, I had a lot of fun. I wasn't very good, but I had a lot of fun because I was a scrappy player. I tried hard. So back when I was a sophomore, I thought I was huge 'cause I had an early growth spurt.

Everybody else was still kinda shorter and some kids are taller, but I had an early growth spurt and I thought I was huge, so I would typically get a lot of rebounds. When during one of the practices, I went up for a rebound, another guy kinda grabbed it and then he did the thing where he threw his shoulder.

I got so upset. I completely lost it. Like I didn't see anything in my world except just him. I grabbed the ball and I kinda bumped him with my hip and I almost picked him up off the ground. And then we started rolling on the floor and we were going all scrappy and then I could hear everybody's like, stop, stop, stop, stop.

And then, you know, like the guy who I was wrestling, he's like, stop, stop, knock it off. And I was like, you stop. And we were just going at it and then I hear the coach like right in my ear. I didn't realize he ran up on the court and was yelling in my ear.

(grunting) I was like. (laughing) You know what I mean? The reason why I give you that analogy is because there are competing voices. There are my teammates yelling, stop, stop, stop. There's the guy in front of me who, obviously I'm not gonna listen to him. He's like, get off, get off, get off.

But then as soon as I hear my coach's voice, what do I do? Right? That's how we are when we're kids and we're messing around and then, you know, our papa comes in, we're like, dude, he did it. You know, like, the voice of somebody who is an authoritative figure demands attention.

But the thing about it is we have to ask ourselves, to what degree does God's word demand my attention? Because that degree is going to be indicative of how much I believe that voice is powerful. Right? Does it demand that kind of attention from you in this world where there are so many competing voices in our lives?

Are there competing voices in our lives? Yes. There's your voice. There's the voice of the people who you give a lot of credit to. There's the voice of the world. There's the voice of Satan. There's the voice of the culture and the generation of their expectation. They're telling you what they wanna see in you.

But my question is, to what degree does God's voice have power in your life? Above and beyond those other voices. Right? Now, as we think about that, my main point there is God's word is powerful. And it demands that kind of attention in our lives. But the second point is gonna be that God also demands such attention to his word.

Can we please all go over to Deuteronomy chapter 28, verse one through six? Okay? And as you turn there, I wanna give you a little bit of context here too. I wanna say this to you guys that the book of Deuteronomy is so crucial. I mean, all of the scripture is so crucial.

But the book of Deuteronomy stands out as one of these extra important books of the Bible that gives you a focus of what God expects from the nation. Why? Because remember, this whole story is they do the disobedience thing and not trusting God to go into the promised land.

So then God makes them wander for 40 years. They go through a whole lot of losing a lot of their loved ones, losing almost an entire generation of people. And then they go through a lot of ups and downs, lot of downs really. And then they come to the point where they're on the plains of Moab looking into the land of Canaan, expecting like, oh my gosh, we're gonna finally get to go.

Right? The book of Deuteronomy is a repeat of, like it's basically a review. Where Moses is saying, everybody, we've got this second chance and we need to focus, right? And all of the book of Deuteronomy is Moses reviewing with the people, this is how God has treated you, this is what God taught you, this is the law you better obey.

And chapter 28 is a pivotal one in that type of teaching. Let's take a look at verse one through six. Moses says, "Now it shall be, "if you diligently obey the Lord your God, "being careful to do all his commandments "which I command you today, "the Lord your God will set you high "above all the nations of the earth.

"All these blessings will come upon you "and overtake you if you obey the Lord your God." And then he goes down on a laundry list of blessings. What's his main point here? If you obey, right? But then the scary part comes in verse 15 of that same chapter, chapter 28, verse 15.

He says, "But it shall come about "if you do not obey the Lord your God, "to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes "which I charge you today, "that all these curses will come upon you and overtake you. "Curse shall you be in the city "and curse shall you be in the country.

"Curse shall your basket and your kneading bowl. "Curse shall be the offspring of your body "and the produce of your ground, "the increase of your herd and the young of your flock." And then he just goes on. And the curses are incredibly sobering, right? What is his emphasis here?

His emphasis is there is a huge, huge ramification of this one single point that you heed and be careful to do all that I say. And your success is going to be entirely dependent upon how you obey. And should you not obey, the consequences are real, right? And what's more, not only was God making sure that before the nation went into the land of Canaan that he made sure he sat them down and reminded them of this, he made sure that before the nation actually started to conquer other nations and follow a new leader, he said the exact same thing.

For the sake of time, I'll read this for us. It's Joshua chapter one, verse eight. This is what he says. "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, "but you shall meditate on it day and night "so that you may be careful to do according "to all that it is written.

"For then you will make your way prosperous "and then you shall have good success." So the whole idea here is point two. God commands us to hear and obey his voice carefully. Right? The whole idea is listen carefully so that you might know what he says and then you might do what he says carefully.

That's what he said throughout the book of Deuteronomy. That's what he said throughout the rest of the books of the Bible. And then the nation that he raised up, the nation of Israel, they were set on this. You know that from an early age, the Jewish people would teach their children to read, read, read, memorize, memorize, memorize.

Have you guys heard of the frontlets? I was gonna show you a funny photo. But basically it's a box that you put right here. Okay? And then they have little basically placards in there with certain references so that they could take it out. Essentially it's a box reminding them that the word of God is here.

And they had these bands, these leather bands that they had the word of God written on and they'd wrap their arm, it would look like a warrior but what it was really was the word of the Lord. And do you remember in Deuteronomy chapter six what he says? He says, "Hear, O Israel," and then he says, "You shall obey my commandments." He said, "You teach them to your children "and you shall write them on your doorposts." So if you grew up in one of those homes where they had this wooden plaque and it had Bible verses on it, that's how the nation of Israel grew up.

They had Bible verses all over their house. To that degree, the word of God was supposed to saturate the lives of his people. Right? My point here in talking about this is I want us to kind of, not kind of, but I want us to get an image of not simply what's normal, what are we capable of putting our time into, I want you to think on the level of what did God expect of his people when it comes to his word?

Right? That's my emphasis here as I think about this passage is what did God expect of his people in relationship to his word? He wanted it to be absolutely saturating their lives into their minds, that it would be physically right here, so that they would rehearse it, that they would meditate on it on a what?

Day and night. That it would be where? On the tips of their tongue, that it would be where? Hidden in your heart, that it would be where? Even on your hands, it would be where? Even on your house. That's the degree to which he wanted his people to be saturated with his truth.

Now, we ask this question, is it the same expectation for us in the New Testament? Absolutely. Take a look at this passage. I'm gonna read it to you guys, you don't have to turn there. First Timothy chapter four, verse 13. Apostle Paul tells to Timothy, "Command and teach these things.

"Let no one despise you for your youth, "but set the believers an example in speech, "in conduct, in love, in faith, in purity until I come. "Devote yourself to the public reading of scripture, "to exhortation, to teaching." What did Apostle Paul commission young Timothy to do? Primarily was the propagation of the truth and saying, set an example of the truth, model the truth, teach the truth, correct in the truth, disciple in the truth, give the truth to the people of God.

What's more, second Timothy chapter four, verse one through five, this one you should turn to, it's a little bit longer. Second Timothy chapter four, verses one through five. He says, again, in the context of so many generations, pretty much every generation, there is such a huge tide in opposition to the word of God.

Right? And then he says this, "I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, "who is to judge the living and the dead "and by his appearing and his kingdom. "Preach the word, be ready in season and out of season, "reprove, rebuke and exhort with complete patience "and teaching.

"For the time is coming when people "will not endure sound teaching, "but having itching ears, "they will accumulate for themselves teachers "to suit their own passions "and will turn away from listening to the truth "and wander off into myths. "But as for you, always be sober-minded, "endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, "fulfill your ministry." I really hope that we would all, every single one of us, take upon that challenge.

I know Apostle Paul is speaking specifically to Timothy, but that challenge is to all of us, why? Because we all live in that generation. We all live in that context where we're surrounded by people who don't care to hear truth. As a matter of fact, the truth offends them.

And we need to have a conviction that we need to endure in the truth and that we need to continue to abide in the truth of God. But I'm gonna tell, I'm gonna say this, that as a point of conviction for me and a conviction for us, I think that oftentimes the sinful tendency, the sinful tendency is to neglect and reject the word of God.

Okay, I think I have a blank there for you. That the sinful tendency of generations of Christians, generations of the people of God, has been to neglect and then to reject the word of God. The whole idea was that God expected and commanded us to carefully remember, to constantly rehearse and review the word so that we can carefully do the word of God.

But the fact of the matter is, whether it is subtle or whether it is overt, there is constantly a neglect of the word. I wanna remind us of a time in history. I began this study in the book of Jeremiah. The correlating passages is in the book, 2 Kings chapter 22 and beyond, where early on King Josiah finds himself in a time when the word of God was absolutely neglected.

Do you guys remember the story of Josiah? Josiah, as a young ruler, there was all these, what, high places of worship. There was all this pagan idolatry going on. And then essentially Josiah commands one of his assistants, like, hey, you know, we have an archive. We have this dusty book that my forefathers once talked about.

Josiah's sitting here thinking like, man, my previous generations are so shameful. They're fighting for power and they're killing each other. But I remember King David and his reverence for the Lord. Let's read his book. So what happens? King Josiah calls for this book to be found and read. And once it is read, King Josiah rips his clothes and he says, oh my goodness, the wrath of God is on us.

Because what? We have absolutely neglected his truth. That's what he says. For generations, we completely neglected his truth. For us, I don't know if we regularly have a habit of consulting his truth first. Do we have a habit of first, whatever life circumstances we run across, whatever hurdles, whatever difficulties, whatever joys that we come across, do we have a habit of consulting God's word?

Because if we don't, you know what's gonna happen? There's gonna be a subtle neglect. There's gonna be a subtle neglect. You know? If you didn't know, there's this hotline. There's 911 for emergencies and then there's 811. Do you know what 811 is for? Is any time you wanna check a building code, you call 811.

You wanna remodel your house, call 811. It's a free hotline so you can just check code. Did you know that? Now you know. (laughs) Okay? And I think that's interesting that the government has all this code and then says check it first. Before you do any project, what do you do?

You check the code. Why? Because if you don't check the code, inspection will come, code enforcement will come and be like, do it over. Just do it over. And right now we're in the building project over there. There's all this architectural stuff going on. Sometimes the drawings aren't right and there's temptation like, you think we can just, you know, just keep it going?

No, why? Because when the inspection happens, you can't go against it. Code enforcement will happen. You have to do it over. Our attitude sometimes is not like that. A lot of times we're motivated by what's effective, what we think is possible, what we think is good and successful. And there's this inner motivation to want to simply plow ahead without checking with the word of God.

Not only that, but I'm gonna talk about this because I've mentioned this in previous sermons and if you talk with me long enough, in the realm of biblical counseling, or just counseling, and in the realm of discipleship, right? There is this subtle neglect of the truth of God thinking that our problems are beyond the scriptures and the help of God.

There is. There's almost this like, kind of subtle thought that like, oh, I know there's Bible counseling and stuff like that, but what are other helps I can turn to? What else is there, right? And as I talk to people, a lot of times people have this confidence, perhaps in secular psychology, they have this confidence, perhaps in other means, and then when to come to scripture, it's kind of like, yes, yes, I know we have the Bible, and then they look another way.

But the fact of the matter is, if your initial confidence, and if your initial trust goes to everything outside of the scriptures, and then only when you're desperate, or you never actually turn to the word of God, then what do you actually do? You stiff-arm God. Because remember what I said at the very beginning, how you treat the word of God is indicative of how you treat God himself.

We believe, according to the scriptures itself, and according to the word of God, and according to the Spirit, that God's word is not simply necessary, it's not simply foundational, and then you grow up to something different, that the word of God is both necessary and sufficient. It is powerful.

It is absolutely powerful. But oftentimes, we have this sinful tendency to neglect and then to reject. This happens in all these kind of different realms, and that's gonna be one of your discussion questions. In what other realms, and how do we sometimes diminish our confidence in scripture and turn to other things?

Pastor Peter mentioned last week, when it comes to church building, when it comes to church ministry, and how to do ministry, how to evangelize, gonna be honest, we have to first ask the question, not so much like, how do we get the most people in here? We have to first ask the question, what does God want us to do in evangelism?

That's a basic, simple question, and that question alone is sufficient to go about how do we do it then, right? So whether it comes down to the idea of discipleship, whether it comes down to the idea of ministry, we want to turn people to the word of God and have a confidence, like a sure footing.

I know other people might be thinking this is silly. I know other people might be thinking this is one of these blind faith kind of exercises. No, I believe this is a trust issue between us and God, to have confidence in his word. So as I think about that, we're moving to the next point here.

We believe that the word of God is not simply foundational. It is both necessary and sufficient, okay? The word of God is both necessary and sufficient. To teach us this truth, please turn your Bibles over to, let's do this, okay, for the sake of time. I'm gonna tell you a story, and then we're gonna turn to Deuteronomy chapter eight.

So you can start turning over to Deuteronomy chapter eight. And as you do that, I'm gonna tell you a story, okay? The book of Exodus, chapter 16. It's pretty hilarious to me, okay? Reason being is because, chapter 15, Moses gives an amazing praise. It's one of the beautiful songs from scripture where Moses is praising God, like, you delivered us.

You're so mighty. You're so mighty to save, and your love endures forever, and you delivered us from the bondage of Egypt. Amen, right? And in chapter 16, the nation are like, what did you bring us out here? They're grumbling, and they're griping and complaining, like, how come we don't have food?

What's really interesting about that is, chapter 16, verse one, it says, I'm just gonna read it for us. Listen to this, okay? It says, the whole congregation of the sons of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. The sons of Israel said to them, oh, would that we have died by the Lord's hand in the land of Egypt.

When we sat by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full, did they really? No, they were slaves. What is he talking about? For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill us and this whole assembly with hunger. Man, so crazy. It's so crazy, you know, how short-sighted, how, you know, how lacking in faith a nation is.

And then the Lord says this. Then the Lord said to Moses, behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day. And then check this out, it says, that I may test them whether or not they will walk in my instruction.

That I may test them whether they will walk in my instruction. The story goes, only the amount of bread that fell, there was a lot that, like rain, so it was like dew all over the ground. And then God said, instruct the people, you're only allowed to collect only enough for that one day.

And then on Saturday, or that sixth day of the week, you collect for two days, because on the Sabbath day you're not gonna work, okay? So the whole idea is they're only allowed to collect. What do the people do? They get big old jars and like, oh my gosh, it's free!

You know? And they start dumping all their stuff into their jars and then it becomes all moldy and fungus-y and then it becomes all nasty. And then God's like, what did I tell you? I told you, right? To only take what was enough for that one day. Which is really interesting.

Why would he do that? Wouldn't it have been more efficient for God to just be like, here it is, buffet line, grab all that you need? Wouldn't it have been more efficient, on the other hand, for God to make that bread last a whole 40 years? He could've. He made bread fall down.

He could've made that bread magically be preserved for the whole of their life. He could've made that bread, as soon as you eat it, just goes bloop, and it comes back into a whole loaf. I mean, our imagination is the limit to that. What could God have done? It's just not gone through all that drama.

What was he doing? Well, if you look at chapter eight of Deuteronomy, this is what he says. Deuteronomy chapter eight, verse one through six. The whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers.

And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart. So that's one. God was testing us. Are you going to obey? Are you going to heed my instruction?

And then look at this. Whether you keep his commandment or not, and he humbled you to let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

Your clothing you did not wear out on you. Your foot did not swell these 40 years. Know that in your heart, that as a man disciplines his son, the Lord God disciplines you. So you shall keep the commandments of the Lord your God by walking in his ways and by fearing him.

For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks and water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and the hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines, fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper.

And you shall eat and full, and you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. The reason why I read all of that is because one thing is very clear. Earlier we read, you have to obey and listen to the word of God because that's what God demands and because that is what's going to be to your blessing, otherwise you're going to be cursed.

But what's more, the word of God is actually what is sufficient and good for us. Do you see that? The word of God is actually what we need for our sustenance, provision, and well-being. It goes beyond simple demand, it goes to God's love for us, giving us his truth that we may eat of his truth and that that truth will continue to fill our lives.

So us obeying and listening to the word of God is far beyond what we can imagine. And God and Jesus repeats that phrase, that man shall not live on bread alone, but upon every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. So when we think about this, we've been talking a lot about how we do discipleship at church, right?

We do not want you to become dependent simply on like Pastor Peter's pulpit. For if that was the case, what would happen? What would happen? You can't show up, if he can't show up, you would be so dependent on something that is not sure ground. So our discipleship is modeled primarily on your own hunger for the truth.

Discipleship is most effective when you are desiring of truth, when you want it so bad that you can learn truth from your own devotions, from the pulpit, from the observations and insights of your peers and small group. When your heart is eager for the truth of God, discipleship is going to happen.

And that's really how we want to do discipleship is that you will be attached to the truth of the Lord and that you abiding in the truth of God is what's going to grow you, sustain you, and keep you going, right? And so as we think about that, this next couple points I want to just go through this again, poof, poof, poof, poof, rapid machine fire kind of points, that the word of God is absolutely necessary and sufficient.

Okay, that the word of God is absolutely necessary and sufficient for life in godliness. Okay, first, for salvation, the word of God is absolutely necessary, okay? And I'm gonna, I know I have like, one, two, three, four, five, like eight points, but I just want to pause for a moment here, okay?

The word of God is absolutely necessary for salvation. And in this day and age, there are so many people who do not have an assurance of salvation. Where can we turn them? The truth of God. Why does, you know, if you turn to, don't turn to the Bible, if you look into the book of 1 John, Apostle John is gonna say, I write these things to you so that you may know that you are a child of God.

And when I preach the gospel so that someone will be saved, I can't just tell them, hey, come follow me to church. Why, 'cause that's not gonna save them. What do they need to have? The truth, the life-giving truth of the gospel. And that's what scripture says. In James chapter one, it says, therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your soul.

That's what James says. What's more, if you're thinking about how do I grow in faith, so the word is faith, then we need to turn to the word of God. In Romans chapter 10, it talks about this whole idea, it's like, how will they know unless they hear, unless they have a teacher?

And it talks, and it simply defines, faith comes by the hearing of the word of God. For sanctification, for your daily growth, understand that Jesus Christ himself said this, sanctify them in the truth, your word is truth. When the scriptures talks about Jesus' ministry to us, that beautiful passage in Ephesians where it talks about Christ's love as a husband, nurturing and feeding the bride, do you know what he says?

He says he washes her of water with the word. That the word of God is the agent, the means by which he is washing of all that is impure. Next, for service, if you are to serve, if you want to be trained, you know what scripture says? In 2 Timothy chapter three, verse 16 through 17, it says that the man of God may be equipped, the word of God is sufficient.

What's more, hope, hope. I believe we have a weird, paradoxical, and almost counterintuitive thing happening in our generation. We have a very privileged generation. People have all kinds of liberties, options. They have excess cash. You guys are like, I don't have excess cash. We, generally speaking, in comparison to the rest of the world, have such a wealth at our expenditure that we can just use, right?

What's crazy to me, though, is we have such a hopeless generation. I was just talking to a student on Friday at college. I mean, these students are between the age of 18 and 22. They're at the very start of their, so to speak, professional careers. They're at the very beginning of getting academic training, and a lot of them don't have hope.

You'd be surprised how many people want to quit. Where do we go for that? What are you gonna say? Don't worry, in five years you'll graduate. I mean, I mean, four, you know? And then you'll have a better life. But you know very well that once you start working, your life is actually harder.

And then every successive stage of your life, there's more responsibility placed on you, and then life becomes more, not just burden, but it just becomes harder. And if you don't have the right resources, it's hard for you to cope with the kind of stress, responsibility, and weight that is heavy upon your shoulders.

Where are you going to turn for hope? If you just say, oh, don't worry, there are better days. I mean, for secular people to say that, I'm like, man, for secular people to accuse us of like a blind leap of faith, that is such a shot in the dark.

Someday in the future, it might get better. That is darkness. Straight up, that is just darkness. If you have hope simply in time, if you especially have hope in money, if you have hope in you, in your self-improvement, and you simply going through the notches of life, that is darkness.

But the word of God is a light. It is a lamp unto our feet. It holds precious treasure and jewel, and it never lets us down. The word of God is our hope. What's more, you guys remember the passage in Psalm? It says, "Blessed is the man who walks "not in the counsel of wicked, "nor stands in the way of sinners, "nor sits in the seat of scoffers, "but his delight is in the law of the Lord, "and on his law he met his taste day and night.

"He is like a tree planted by streams of water "that yield its fruit in its season, "and its leaves does not wither. "In all that he does, he prospers." This generation is seeking for that, they want that. I wanna be fruitful, I wanna feel, I wanna feel be capable, I wanna feel like I can be used, I wanna feel like I wanna have purpose, I wanna feel like I can provide, I wanna feel all this stuff of blessing.

What does scripture say? The man who is in the word day and night is the one who's like a tree, standing firm, fruitful, lively, right? We want blessings, we have to abide in the word of God. Next, wisdom, and renewing of the mind. Should we desire discretion? Should we desire better discretion and wisdom?

We need to turn to scripture. So all this again, boom, boom, boom, boom, Machine Gun went to say this, that the word of God is absolutely necessary for every aspect of your life. I tried to pick things that basically encompass every single facet of your life, whether it comes to acts of wisdom and decision making, whether it comes to your emotions of feeling fruitful, whether it comes to your own sanctification and daily practical becoming holier, whether it comes to you having assurance of salvation and the beginning stages of your Christian life, all of it, all of it, the word of God is sufficient for you.

The word of God is absolutely sufficient for you. And I pray, I pray that we would have a deep, deep conviction. I believe the word of God is powerful, but I believe the word of God is so powerful that to every question of my life, I will go to it for my answers, that every hurdle and difficulty, I will go to the scripture in prayer, seeking the counsel of God.

I believe it's powerful, yes, but to the degree that every hardship and suffering or every blessing and joy that I seek, I will turn to the word of God. By way of conclusion, please turn your Bible over to John chapter eight, verse 31 through 47. John chapter eight, verse 31 through 47.

It's a bit of a longer passage, but I wanna conclude with this because it's such a huge theme and I hope that for the rest of our lives, we will continue just to focus on this idea. He says this, "So Jesus said to the Jews "who had believed him, "if you abide in my word, "you are truly my disciples "and you will know the truth "and the truth will set you free." Wow.

That verse alone deserves some meditation. And then I'm gonna read the rest of the story. He says, "They answered him, "we are offsprings of Abraham "and I've never been enslaved to anyone. "How is it that you say you will become free? "And Jesus answered them, "truly, truly I say to you, "everyone who practices sin is a slave to sin.

"The slave does not remain in the house forever, "the son remains. "So if the son sets you free, you will be free indeed. "I know that you are offsprings of Abraham, "yet you seek to kill me "because my word finds no place in you. "I speak of what I have seen from my father "and you do what you have heard from your father.

"And they answered him, "what, Abraham is our father. "Jesus said to them, "if you were Abraham's children, "you would be doing the works Abraham did. "But now you seek to kill me, "a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. "This is not what Abraham did.

"You are doing the works your father did. "And they said to him, "we were not born of sexual immorality. "We have one father, even God. "And Jesus said to them, "if God were your father, you would love me, "for I came from God and I am here. "I came not of my own accord, but he sent me.

"Why do you not understand what I say? "It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. "You are of your father, the devil, "and you will do, your will is to do your father's desire. "He was a murderer from the beginning "and does not stand in the truth "because there is no truth in him.

"When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, "for he is a liar and the father of lies. "But because I tell the truth, you do not believe me. "Which one of you convicts me of sin? "If I tell the truth, why do you not believe me?" And then he says this, "Whoever is of God hears the words of God.

"The reason why you do not hear them "is that you are not of God." That passage is incredibly sobering, right? Incredibly sobering. Because essentially, for your blank there, it says the word defines who you are as a Christian. A definitive characteristic of somebody who is truly regenerate and truly a disciple of Christ, truly a child of God, is going to be the word of God implanted into their lives.

Is going to be existence of the truth and their reception of that truth into their lives. And so should we be in a habit of subtle or of overt neglect of the truth, and then when we are confronted with the truth, we have a pattern of rejecting it, where we stand above it and we say, "Ah, I don't care." Even if the scripture says, "Thus says the Lord." Whatever.

This passage is absolutely clear. If the word of God has no part in you, then God has no part in you. I pray that we would be a people, so defined that we would be a people of his truth. Why? Because only then can we have an accurate view of God, and only when we have an accurate view of God will we arise to what God has called us to, which is true worship in spirit and in truth.

Amen? Let's take a moment to pray. Lord God, we want to thank you so much. Lord, I thank you so much because we know what a privilege we have. We realize, God, we've been endowed with so much. We remember in history, Lord, that there were generations, hundreds of years where there was a famine of your word.

And even if people wanted to listen, even if people wanted to read, they'd have to go searching. Father God, thank you so much that rather than leaving us in the dark, you give us the precious light of your word. We thank you so much that rather than leaving us to our own devices, leaving us to our own naivety, leaving us to our own sins, you give us your truth to draw us, to sanctify us and redeem us.

God, I pray that every single one of us would have such a deep devotion and commitment to carefully observe, to remember, and retain what is in your word, that, God, we might be careful to do it. We thank you so much for the spirit of God who allows us and continues to empower us to remember your truth.

We thank you for the presence of your son that continues to guide us. I pray that in obedience we would follow. We thank you, Lord, it's in Christ's name, amen. (foghorn blowing)