Series: Growing Together in God's Grace
December 9,
2012
Dear friends in Christ.
On June 27, 1991, Bits & Pieces,
which I believe is, or was, a magazine, printed a brief story about a man named
Irving S. Olds. According to that story,
“When Irving S. Olds was chairman of the U.S. Steel Corporation, he arrived for
a stockholders' meeting and was confronted by a woman who asked, ‘Exactly who
are you and what do you do?’ Without batting an eye, Olds replied, ‘I am your
chairman. Of course, you know the duties of a chairman—that's someone who is
roughly the equivalent of parsley on a platter of fish.’” By using self-deprecating humor, Olds was
able to disarm what could have been a rather tense situation. Rather than assert his importance as
chairman, he downplayed the importance of his position to the point of being
someone, or something that was not needed, but was simply there for
decoration. Well, in many ways, this is
what people have done and continue to do with the Bible. There are many people in our world today,
even Christians in Christian churches and families, who treat the Bible as if
it really isn’t all that necessary other than to be a bit of decoration on the
coffee tables of our homes. So, as we
take time to study the Word of God this morning, we want to take a closer look
at the Bible, and as we do so we want to answer the question, “Why is the Bible
so important to us?”
Why is the Bible so important to
us? Well, to answer that question we
want to take a look at what the Apostle Paul writes, 2 Timothy 3: “But as for
you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because
you know those from whom you learned it, 15 and how from infancy you have known
the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through
faith in Christ Jesus. 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." (2 Timothy
3:14–17, NIV84)
In such a simple way, in three
short verses, Paul assures us, as well as a young Pastor named Timothy, that
the Bible is important because it is God’s Word. The Bible is important because it is the only
source through which we become wise for salvation. The Bible is important because all of it; all
of the Bible is God’s Word and all of God’s Word has been breathed out by God,
or inspired by God, for our learning, correcting, and training in
righteousness. Thus, we know that God
inspired, or breathed into his prophets and his apostles so that they might
write down his words for us. Though
there were roughly 40 men who wrote over a period of 1400 years, we know that
God is the real author of the Bible, because he is the one who gave these men
the words to write, just as Peter declares in his second letter, “We did not
follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of
our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. 17 For he
received honor and glory from God the Father when the voice came to him from
the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well
pleased.” 18 We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were
with him on the sacred mountain. 19 And we have the word of the prophets made
more certain, and you will do well to pay attention to it, as to a light
shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your
hearts. 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." (2 Peter 1:16–21, NIV84)
The Bible is so important to us,
because we know that no prophecy of Scripture has ever come about by the
prophets own interpretation! Rather, God
moved the men he had chosen to write down the very things that he wanted them
to record. But the amazing thing about
this process is that these men were not robots.
They were not human Dictaphones.
Rather, the Lord used each man’s individual talent, writing style, and
expressions as they recorded the Scriptures for our learning. So, as you read the book of Matthew, you will
find that Matthew’s writing style is different than that of Mark’s or Luke’s or
John’s; and you will find that each one of the gospel writer’s style is
completely different than the style of the Apostle Paul whom the Lord
privileged with writing most of the New Testament. Yet, because we know that all the writers of
God’s Word were carried along by the Holy Spirit, we can be confident that the
Bible is God’s Word. The Bible is the
message of God’s grace, through which we become wise for eternal life in Christ
Jesus our Savior. It is God’s Word,
which he has given to us for our learning.
It is his word, about which we pray that we would read, mark, learn and
inwardly digest it. It is his Word,
which teaches us the things he wants us to believe and do. It is his Word and because it is the word of
our holy and righteous God we know that it is completely true. We know that it contains no errors. We know that not one of God’s promises has
ever failed. We know that even though
there may seem to be contradictions, those seeming contradictions are simply
opportunities for us to study God’s Word all the harder so that we can discover
what he is teaching us in those sections that are a little more difficult to
understand. Thus, the Bible is important
to us because as we read and study the Word of God we learn God’s good and
gracious will for our lives. We learn
the message of God’s Law—the very law that we have written on our hearts; and
we learn the gospel message of salvation that is ours through faith in Jesus
Christ our Savior.
Could there be any book more
precious in all the world—a book that teaches us the message of God’s Law—what
he wants us to do and what he doesn’t want us to do! Could there be any book more precious in all
the world than the Bible which also teaches us the message of our God’s
salvation through the message of the gospel?
Though it is never easy to hear the message of God’s Law, we know that
God’s Law is good and righteous. We know
that God gave us his Law for a purpose, and that purpose was to prepare our
hearts for the Gospel by clearly and unquestioningly showing us our sins. Take for example what the Lord teaches us
through the Apostle Paul in Romans 3, “What shall we conclude then? Are we any
better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles
alike are all under sin. 10 As it is written: “There is no one righteous, not
even one; 11 there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. 12 All have
turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does
good, not even one.” 13 “Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice
deceit.” “The poison of vipers is on their lips.” 14 “Their mouths are full of
cursing and bitterness.” 15 “Their feet are swift to shed blood; 16 ruin and
misery mark their ways, 17 and the way of peace they do not know.” 18 “There is
no fear of God before their eyes.” 19 Now we know that whatever the law says,
it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and
the whole world held accountable to God. 20 Therefore no one will be declared
righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become
conscious of sin." (Romans 3:9–20, NIV84)
These are not easy words to
hear! For these words of God’s Law leave
absolutely no wiggle room. They leave no
loopholes. They leave no question that
no matter how good we think we are, we cannot become righteous in God’s sight
by striving to keep his law, because the purpose of the Law is to show us our
sins. The purpose of the Law is to make
us realize that by ourselves all our righteous acts are nothing more than
filthy rags. The purpose of the Law is
to make us realize that no matter how hard we’ve tried to jump over the chasm
of our sins and reach our God on the other side, we have always fallen short of
his glory and as another Scripture says, “The soul who sins is the one who will
die.” (Ezekiel 18:4, 20) and as another scripture says, “The wages of sin is
death.” (Romans 6:23)
These are indeed difficult words
to hear. They are so difficult to hear,
in fact, that I have had members of this congregation, members who learned
these truths in confirmation class, accusing me of being hateful, and fomenting
hate crimes against them because they didn’t want to hear God’s Law. They, like all of us, did not want to see
their sins reflected in the mirror of God’s Law. They did not want to be reminded of their
guilt, and they bucked and they flailed and they did everything they could to
escape the reality of what God’s Law says to each and every one of us. “There is no one righteous! Not even one!” Not even Pastor! “All have sinned and fallen short (completely
missed) the glory of God.”
This is the purpose of God’s Law,
and believe it or not, as difficult as it is to hear God’s Law proclaimed to
us, we recognize just how important it is, and we even praise our God for
recording his Law for us in the pages of the Bible. We praise God for including his Law in the
Bible because it is God’s Law, and God’s Law alone that prepares our hearts for
the message of salvation revealed to us in the Gospel! For immediately after Paul lays out the air-tight
case of God’s Law, he switches gears and begins soothing our troubled hearts
with the Good News; the Gospel message of salvation through Jesus Christ our
Savior. “But now a righteousness from
God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets
testify. 22 This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to
all who believe. There is no difference, 23 for all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God, 24 and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption
that came by Christ Jesus. 25 God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement,
through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in
his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— 26 he did
it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one
who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. 27 Where, then, is boasting? It is
excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of
faith. 28 For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing
the law." (Romans 3:21–28, NIV84)
What greater message could there
be than the message of God’s love for us!
What greater message could there be than God’s Love for us, which he
reveals to us in the Gospel message of salvation, which is now ours through
faith in Jesus Christ our Savior! For it
was Jesus, himself, who assured us that our God loved us so much that he sent
his one, and only son, Jesus, into this world, so that every single person who
believes in him shall not perish, but shall have eternal life! (John
3:16). This is why the Bible is so
important to us! It is so important to
us because it teaches us God’s plan for salvation. It assures us that “When the set time had
fully come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 to redeem
those under the law, that we might receive adoption to sonship. 6 Because you
are his sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who
calls out, “Abba, Father.” 7 So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and
since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.” (Galatians 4:4–7, NIV)
This is why the Bible is so
important to us! It is so important to
us because the Bible is the Word of our God.
It is the Word that God himself breathed into the prophets and apostles
who recorded it for us today and the generations who follow. The Bible is so important to us because it is
the true, unchanging, errorless word of our God, which he recorded for us so
that we could know exactly what his good and gracious will is. Though it is never easy to hear his Law and
all that we have done wrong, it is God’s Law that prepares us for God’s
Gospel. It is God’s Law that prepares
our hearts to receive the Gospel message that salvation is ours through faith
in Christ Jesus our Savior. Though there
are still many people in our world today who feel the importance of the Bible
is not much more than a simple ornament on their coffee tables, we know its importance. We know that the Bible is God’s Word, written
down for us, that we may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God and
that by believing we might have life in his name.
Amen.
Pastor David M. Shilling
GraceEvangelical Lutheran Church--Le Sueur, MN
