The Sufficiency of Scripture

Good morning. It is good to be with you this morning. It is always good to come to Christ Community Church, for it is here that I learn to love. The word of the Lord, which is what we're going to examine today. So go ahead and take your copy of God's Word and open to 2 Timothy chapter 3. I know that this was preached on last week. I was here. Don't worry. But I'm going to take what was done last week and continue trying to move the ball down the field. 2 Timothy chapter 3, we'll look at verses 15, 16, and 17.

Hear the word of God. Actually, let's just start in verse 14. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed. Knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete. equipped for every good work.

Let us pray, and our prayer will be from Psalm one nineteen, verse thirty eight. Father, as we come this morning to your word, we pray that you would establish your word to your servants as that which produces reverence for you. And we ask this in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. During the time of the Reformation, which took place in the early 1500s, there were people who came before it and were. We're pushing it before then, but several debates arose about the nature of salvation, specifically the nature of justification by faith alone.

But the argument quickly devolved into: well, based upon what authority are we making our arguments, based upon what are we reasoning. From. And it quickly became arguments about the nature and authority, the necessity, and the sufficiency and the clarity of the word of God. And from texts like this that we have before us, that Tom Mason preached on last week, the Reformers argued that the Word of God was sufficient. Suff. That is, that in the Word of God it contains all things necessary for faith and practice.

That is, the Word of God contains all things necessary that you ought to believe. And it contains all the instructions for that which you are to do. And they got that from a text just like this one. 1 Timothy 3, verses 14 through 17. So what we going to do this morning is we going to look at this text.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time. Specifically in this text, because Tom Mason did a good job explaining it last week. So I'll review it, highlight a few important things. And then we're going to look at the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture.

As it is derived from this text, and then we're going to look at some uses or practices that we can develop in our own lives.

bas upon this doctrine. And what my hope is for you this morning is that you would walk away with great Confidence in God and how He has revealed Himself in His Word. I hope you would be able to say what the psalmist says. Oh, how I love your law It is my meditation all the day. Your commandments make me wiser Than my enemies. That is, your commandments make me wiser than those who oppose me with different schemes. For it is ever with me. I have more understanding than all my teachers. That is, those who have a greater education than I do and are further down the line, I have a greater understanding.

Not because of anything that is unique to the psalmist, but why? For your testimonies are my meditation. I understand more than the aged, that is, those who have great experience in life. I know more than them. Why? Not because of anything that is within me. But because I keep your precept. I hold back my feet from every evil way in order to keep your word. I do not turn aside from your rules, for you have taught me how sweet. Are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth? Through your precepts I get understand.

Therefore, I hate every false way. And so I want you to come with that hope because as you come with that hope, you come to examine the Word of God. And as you examine the Word of God, who do you find front and center? In the Word of God, you find Jesus Christ, who Paul says, in him are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. So, I want you to walk away with a great confidence in God as He has revealed Himself in Christ Jesus and as He has revealed Himself in His Word. 1 Timothy chapter 2, verses 14 and 15.

Now we'll move there. So here we have Paul talking to Timothy. Timothy is a man of God. He is an elder, a pastor in a church, and he is a man who, from a very young age, came to understand salvation. through his acquaintance with the sacred writings. That would have been for Timothy the Old Testament. And so through Timothy's love for the Old Testament, through his adoration of the Old Testament that came to him from his mother and his grandmother, he exercised faith. Wrought in him by God. And so Paul then moves on to talk about the sacred writings, which he were able to make him wise to salvation.

That's what these writings do. They make you wise to salvation. And then Paul elaborates, and we'll look at his elaboration.

Paul says, All scripture is inspired by God or breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and For training in righteousness. So, Paul is talking about the Word of God. He's not talking about you. You are not self-sufficient. You need this word. You are in desperate need to hear what God has said. You need these scriptures. You need a word from God. Without a word from God, you are damned. Man has always been in need of a word from God. That's just by virtue of who we are as creatures.

Think about it. Adam, from the very beginning, before he fell, was not without a word from God. Man has always needed a word from God, and man needs this word of God that has been written and recorded for us. So, all scripture, the object is scripture. What is it? It is. Breathed out by God. That is, God is the author of these words. This book properly belongs to God as they are His words. He is the author. The humans are the instruments through which the Word of God comes to us, but God is properly the author of this book.

And Scripture is profitable, it is useful. For what? Paul gives us four things. The first two deal with what we are to believe and what we are not to believe.

The next two deal with how we are not to live and how we are to believe. To live. So look at this. For teaching. That is, the Word of God is profitable to give you all that you need to believe regarding God and how you ought to live in this life. It's profitable for doctrine. It's also profitable for reproof. That is, the scriptures are profitable to tell you what you should not belie. Second, or the second half, he deals with our morals.

Scripture is profitable or useful for correction. Scripture is profitable to say to you, Hey, the way you're living right now, stop living that way. That is not in accord with God's word. Scripture is useful, it is profitable for that. It's also profitable to tell you how you ought to live. This is why Paul says it is profitable for training in righteousness. So, with the Word of God, all things regarding what we are to believe and how we are to live, Scripture is profitable to tell us exactly what we're supposed to believe.

It's also profitable to tell us exactly what we ought not to believe. It's profitable to tell us how we ought not to live. And it's profitable to tell us how we ought to live. Why? Or to what end? That the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Now, according to 1 Timothy 2, verses 3, 16, and 17, who is the man of God that Paul is addressing here? The man of God that Paul is addressing here is Timothy. Timothy's a pastor. He's a pastor of a people. And if it's profitable for the pastor of the people, it's profitable for the people who So the Word of God is profitable to do all of these things so that we would be equipped for every single good.

Work. There is not a good work that you are not equipped to do, not because of anything in yourself, but because of the word. Of God. And that should give us great hope, and that should give us great confidence. It gives me great freedom. When someone comes to me and tells me that there's something I have to do, And I look through the pages of Scripture and I don't see it, I have the freedom to say, no, thank you. No need. On what authority? On your authority? Oh, I'm sorry. I follow the authority of God.

And so if you're going to come to me and make demands on my life that don't match with what God has told me to believe, what God has told me not to believe, what God has told me not to do, and what God has commanded me to do, you don't have any means to bind me. And there's a certain freedom in that. But then there's also a very great weight in that because, again, remember, the reason you're free is because that person's not God, but you're bound to do, to believe what God has commanded you. To believe, you're bound to reject what God has commanded you to reject.

You're bound to stop living the way that Scripture has commanded you not to live, and you're bound to start living the way that Scripture commands you to live on the authority of the Creator of heaven and earth. So that's a little bit of an exegesis of that text. What we want to do now is pull the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture from this text and note that it. Is sufficient to complete us that we may be complete equipped for every good work in the same way that if you come to a fire and it's cold, that fire is sufficient.

To warm you, it is designed for that end. Scripture is sufficient to equip us for every good work. And so, here's a good definition of sufficiency that we'll use for this morning. It says this. The whole counsel of God concerning all things necess for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life. Is either express set down in Scripture or necessarily contained in it. Unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of men. I'm going to read that one more time.

The whole counsel of God, concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's salvation, faith, and life, is either expressly set down or necessarily contained. In holy scripture, unto which nothing at any time is to be added, whether by new revelation of the Spirit or traditions of man. Men. Let's look at this doctrine a little closer.

And as we do, I want to make a few clarifications about what the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture is not about. Okay? So we about the sufficiency of Scripture. We do not mean to say that Scripture contains a perfect account of every single thing that God has ever done and every single thing that Jesus Christ ever said, and every single thing that an every single sermon an apostle of Jesus Christ ever preached. It's not what it says. Read the Gospel of John. John tells you this. Right? Many other things were done.

Many other things were said. If John were to record them, the whole earth couldn't contain all the works of Jesus Christ just in his time on earth. But these things. That is, the things that John wrote, the things that Paul wrote, the things that Moses wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Scripture, these things were written. So that you would believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you would have life in his name. All those things necessary for life in the name of Jesus Christ have been written down for us.

And so, as we look at this and we say, well, all things necessary for life in Jesus Christ have been written down for us.

We want to note a few things about this. We want to say, okay, well, we get from the sufficiency of Scripture that Scripture is the source of eternal life. Think about the words of Peter in John chapter 6. Where else shall we go, Lord? You have the words of eternal life. That is, the words in here are sufficient to give you eternal life with God. Scripture is not only the source of where we get eternal life. But Scripture is where we find the will of God for our lives. I love Micah 6, verse 8. He has shown you, O man, what is good and what the Lord requires of you.

And we can just stop there. I understand that the rest of it is important, but for the purposes of this morning, I just want to say: God has shown you what is good. If there's something good for you to do, God, He's shown it to you. It's here. It's in His Word. You say, well, what does God require of me? We're not left. To look within ourselves. Thank God you're not left to look to me. We're not left to look to our officials. We're not left to look to some type of group or some type of intellectual conglomerate of people.

We say, hey, God has shown you what is good. And he has shown you what is required of you. Praise the Lord for that. He has laid down, you want to know what's supposed to be good? Go to the Word of God. It's there, it will tell you. You want to know what demands the Creator has on your life? Turn to Scripture, and he tells you, for he is good and kind. Scripture is also the source of eternal life. It's where we find the will of God. It's also the arbiter of every theological dispute. Isaiah chapter 8, verse 20 says, To the law and to the testimony, go to the writings that have come to us from God.

Those who do not do so. Isaiah says, They have no dawn, which could be taken in two different ways, or maybe they can be taken together. They have no light. They're walking around in darkness. The word, on the other hand, the law and the testimony, is what? It's a light into our path. They have no dawn, that is, they have no hope of a tomorrow. To refuse to go to the law and to the testimony that God has given us is to say, you know what? I will live in darkness and have no Tomorrow. But to come to these words is to have great understanding about what we are to believe.

So, Scripture is a source of eternal life. It's where we find the will of God. It's the arbiter. It settles all theological disputes. And for this reason, we're never allowed to add or subtract from God's words. Deuteronom 4, verse 2, Proverbs 30, verse 6, in the book of Revelation, prohibit man from adding to what God has. Said. Obviously, he doesn't prohibit God from adding to what God has said because in Deuteronomy chapter 4, verse 2, he said not to add to his words, and then God proceeded to do what?

Give more revelation, right? He has the right to do that because it's his words, it's his speech. We'll talk about how that's ended. But God can add to his words, but we are not allowed to add or subtract. from the Word of God. Not only that, we're not allowed to go beyond what God has written and make commands upon people's life by taking the Word of God and stretching it in unnatural ways to try to make claims on people's lives. Scripture prohibits adding or subtracting. Scripture prohibits us going beyond what God has written.

And Scripture prohibits any parallel rules of life and godliness. Scripture prohibits any parallel rules of life and godliness. Colossians chapter 2 speaks about this. It talks about self-made religion. Do not eat, do not taste, do not touch. They have an appearance of wisdom, but they do not have a form of godliness. Jesus often criticized the religious rulers of his day. Why? Because they took what God had said and they added right next to that the commandments of men. Men. And Jesus shamed, ridiculed, and corrected them for making the traditions of men as if they were the commandments of God Him.

Further, Scripture prohibits alternative interpretations of itself. Scripture prohibits alternative interpretations of itself. Think about all the times in Scripture where we're warned about false teachers. How often are these false teachers coming to us with a completely different religion? How often are these false teachers coming to us with a completely different book? Or do we often find them very close to what Scripture says?

Which is why Paul talks about another Christ, because it's similar to the Christ presented in Scripture. Which is why Paul talks about another gospel, because it's similar to the gospel contained in Scripture. But if anybody comes to you with another Christ, if anybody comes to you with another gospel, and it's not in accord with the sound words that have already been laid down in Scripture, they are a Accursed of God. Paul in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 3, says this to Timothy. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understand nothing.

Nothing. That is, it's not just about the words, but it's about putting the words together in the right way. It has to match a pattern of sound words. That's a little bit of a description of what the doctrine of sufficient Is. And we know that this conforms with what we would think about Scripture and God because we know who God is. Right? Who is God? We know that God is omniscient. God knows all things, which means that God knows all the things that you need for life and godliness. All of God's knowledge is from him, through him, and to him.

He has no need of any teaching. God is not in a class ever. God is never learning by observing. All of God's knowledge is from Him, through Him, and to Him. Him and he knows exactly what you need. But more than that, God is also, He doesn't just know exactly what you need. I mean, we all have those friends, right, who know things that we should do, but then maybe they just don't care about us. Right, and so it's like, well, I tried calling you, but you didn't return my call, and you haven't gotten back to me, so I didn know how to handle the situation.

God is not like that friend, God knows all things, all of his knowledge is from him, and God is good. He's good. So he's going to take that knowledge and he's going to give it to his creatures in the form of his word. Say, this is what you should do, and I'm going to give this to you because you're my creatures, and this is how I care for my Creatures. But not only is God all-knowing, and not only is God perfectly good, God is also infinitely w. Daniel speaks about how to God belongs wisdom. God doesn't have wisdom in the same way that you and I have wisdom.

We have our wisdom insofar as we are wise like God. God is not wise like something else. God just is wise. It belongs to Him. So not only does God have all the knowledge, He has all the goodness. He's perfectly good. And He also knows how to give His creation a word that fits them perfectly. Perfectly, so that we would know exactly what we are to do, exactly what we're not to do, exactly what we're not supposed to believe, and exactly what we are supposed to do. To believe. And so our doctrine of scripture is really rooted in our doctrine of God.

When we say something about scripture, we're saying something about its author. So we're saying something about who God is and what he is like and the type of God that could write a book like this. And so it's important when we think about Scripture. We think about how we ought to live, we think about God very carefully. And I think maybe a place where we can kind of get that. Lost a little bit is: I think we can kind of tend to forget, and maybe this is just me, that the Word of God is li and active.

This is what the Word of God says to you. When you read this, this is what God is saying right now to you. That's how Jesus understood the scriptures. When he would speak to the Pharise, when he would speak to the Sadducees, he would tell them to listen to what the Word of God says to you.

The author of Hebrews would talk about what the Spirit says. So when you open up and you read this, this is what God is saying to you right now.

It is the living voice of God in the text of Script, which means this: God, when this book was finalized and enclosed in the first century A.

It wasn't like it was done then. God knew in 2020 that we would deal with the coronavirus. That came from him. He knew that. And guess what? All you need for life and godliness right here in this book. I have been so amazed at how many Christians I've talked to and have found profound disagreements with when they want to say, hey, love of neighbor. And they filled that with absolutely nothing that's biblical. During this time, love of neighbor demands X, Y, and Z. Well, if I can't find X, Y, and Z in Scripture, maybe your definition of love of neighbor is just wrong.

We have to consider that. You don't get to take love of neighbor and fill that in with whatever you want to do. And guess what? Not that I'm arrogant. I don't need Anthony Fauci to tell me how to fill that in either. Because the Word of God makes me wiser than the aged. It makes me wiser than my teachers. Now, I do need people to tell me about things that are outside the Word of God, but I don't need someone to tell me how to live my ethics during this time. And we so often forget that love of neighbor.

Yeah, Jesus talked about that in the Gospel of Matthew. You know where Jesus got that from? Jesus got that from Leviticus. You know what's in Leviticus? Ways that we deal with infectious diseases. Maybe we should look there and say, you know what? God knew this was going to happen. God decreed that this would happen. And God didn't leave his people with a book and say, you what, by the time you get to 2020, man, I hope people who have no idea who I am, who don't know the treasures of knowledge and wisdom and understanding found in Jesus Christ, I hope they can fill in for you what it means to love your neighbor by the time you get to 2020 get to 2020 because I got nothing for you no all-knowing all all-wise sufficient for everything we're supposed to believe not believe not to do and to do.

Now we can maybe disagree on some of the implications of that, but I think we should all agree on the principles of that. This should't lead us to have an un biblic. Let's turn to a text, Matthew chapter 22. Okay. And I think this will be helpful as we've talked about things being necessarily contained in Holy Scripture this morning. Right? And because I think scripture is sufficient, I think we should look to see how we ought to reason. According to God's word. And I think we have some pretty good examples for us of bad biblical reasoning.

We have the Sadducees, we have the Pharisees. And we have the best interpreter of all of Scripture, Jesus Christ Himself. Gospel of Matthew chapter 22, verse 23: The same day, Sadducees came to him who say that there is no resurrection. And they asked him a question, saying, Teacher, Moses said, if a man dies having no children, his brother must marry the widow and raise up his offspring for his brother. So here's the issue. This is from Scripture. They're quoting Scripture. They're going to now leap from Scripture.

Not to use reasoning, I'm not going to say that. I'm going say they're going to leap from Scripture to use unsanctified reasoning. That is, reasoning not informed by Scripture. Now, they're going to create a dilemma based upon their understanding of what Scripture says.

Now, there were seven brothers among us. The first married and died, and having no offspring, left his wife to his brother.

So too the second and third down to the seventh. After them all, the woman died. Now you would think they would ask a completely different question. Than the one they're going to ask right here. You, why are all these husbands dying? What is she cooking? That's not the question that they ask. In the resurrection, therefore, of those seven, whose wife will she be? For they all had her. So we're going to take a quote from Scripture, which is sufficient. We're going to leave Scripture for a minute to create this dilemma that we find outside of Scripture.

And we're going to try to force that dilemma back into Scripture. What is it you have to say, Jesus Christ? Jesus answered them, You are wrong. Why are they wrong? Because they neither know the scriptures nor the power of God. They didn't read it properly. They got a verse, they pulled it in, but they used unsanctified reasoning to get there. So what does Jesus tell them? You're wrong. You don't know the scriptures or the power of God. For in the resurrection, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like the angels in heaven.

And as for the resurrection of the dead, have you not read what was said to you by God? Now stop right there. I want you to stop right there and think. If you were Jesus and you had to prove the resurrection from the dead from the Old Testament, what verse would you use to do so? And then ask yourself if it's the same verse Jesus uses. If it is, then you're interpreting Scripture like Jesus, and that's a good thing. Verse 32, I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

And when the crowd heard it, they were astonished at his teaching. Jesus is. He doesn't condemn their reason. He reasons deeper. He reasons better. He reasons harder and longer into the script. To look at the word am and to get from the word am, not I was the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, but I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

And Jacob affirms that they are living and they will continue to live in the resurrection. That's not just not reasoning. This is sound, biblical, sanctified reasoning, and this is where Jesus turns. And sometimes I think we need to take an example from Jesus and maybe dig a little deeper. Read a little longer. Meditate a little more and say, you what, there is something here. Are we reasoning as Jesus? Because if Jesus gets that from this text, and you and I, maybe it's just me, I would not have gotten that from this text.

This should inform the way we read Scripture and use our reasoning in a sanctified manner. Now we're going to flip to the other side. But when the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together. And so now they're going to come together, they're going to ask Jesus a question. I'm going to skip that and move down because now Jesus is the one who asked them a question. Verse 41. Now, while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them a question, saying, What do you think about Christ's Son?

Who is he? Whose son is he? They said to him, The son of David. He said to them, How is it then that David in the Spirit calls him Lord, saying, The Lord said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet? If then David calls him Lord, how is he his son? And no one was able to answer him a word, nor from that day on did anyone dare to ask him any more questions. Now you have the Sadducees who start with a problem in Scripture that they perceive. They create a A problem with unsanctified reasoning, try to ram that into scripture, and Jesus tells them, You're wrong, you don't understand the scriptures of the power of God.

The Pharisees are trying to stay so close to the text. That they refuse to see the implications that are found in it. And so Jesus tries to draw them out of that. Well, then, how is he both David's son and David's Lord? And they're unwilling to go that extra step. So we see here, when we talk about Scripture being sufficient, we have to be careful how we use it. It is sufficient to shape our reasoning, unlike the Sadducees. It is sufficient to shape us in those things which we ought to believe and take those steps that we need to take as we interpret Scripture, unlike the P.

So that's the doctrine of the sufficiency of Scripture. I want to move to a few uses of this doctrine, a few practices that we can develop. And I want us to turn to the book of Proverbs. Turn to Proverbs chapter 1. And the first application I want to give you this morning is: you need to fear the Lord.

You need to fear the Lord. If you are here today and you do not know Jesus, Christ as your Lord and Savior, you do not have the fear of God. If you do not have the fear of God, listen to what the book of Proverbs says about you. You. Verse 22, how long, O simple ones, will you love being simple? How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing, and fools hate knowledge? Sk down to 29. Because they hated knowledge and did not choose the fear of the Lord. This is the state that we are in. We are those who, apart from God's saving grace, we're those who hate knowledge and do not choose the fear of the Lord.

And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And that wisdom is revealed to us where? In the sufficient Word of God. Our natural tendency as fallen creatures. is to hate and despise and loathe the knowledge that God offers to us in Scripture. What's the result of that? Look at verse thirty.

They didn't choose the fear of the Lord right, and would have none of my counsel, and despised all of my reproof. Therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own dev. Vices. That is, if you choose to despise the knowledge of God, you're going to replace that with the knowledge of something else. And you know what God will do? God will give you to that, and it will kill you. You. God will allow you to make a false God. God will allow you to worship that false God.

And then you will live in subjection to that false God until it takes everything. From you, even your life, and rides you straight to the pit of hell. Do not hate the knowledge that God has offered us in His Word. Your path will be darkness and death. Verse 32, For the simple are killed by their turning away, and the complac of fools destroys them. But whoever listens to me will dwell secure, and will be at ease without dread or disaster. Why won't you have to worry about dread and disaster? Because when you follow the word of the Lord, God saves you from God.

No one else can save you from God. The wrath of God comes upon those who hate the knowledge of God. But when you submit to the knowledge of God, God. God, on the authority of the Creator of heavens and earth, the one who made all things, the end from the beginning, promises you that you will dwell securely because you will dwell securely. In him. So fear the Lord by coming to Christ Jesus, the one in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom. Wisdom and knowledge. Second, this is very simple: just hear the word of the Lord.

Hear the word of the Lord. Do so with h. James chapter 1, verse 21 talks about how we are to receive the Word of God. With humility. Why? Because you do not have the knowledge necessary inside of you. You can't turn to yourself. You turn to yourself, you're damned. You got nothing. You only can turn to the word of God. And so we are not to stand over God's word as judge. We are to stand under God's word on our knees as a submissive servant, saying, Speak. Lord, your servant is listening. You are not all-knowing.

You are not all good. You are not all wise. And if God gave you life on a million years, you would not be able to figure out the things cont in this book that are necessary for faith. in practice. So we must develop a disposition of humility as we come to the Word of God and recognize our deep need for it. For this book. Every time you open up the Word of God, you must admit to yourself: I need what is in here. I don't know how to have eternal life apart from this book. I don't know what God expects out of me.

Except from this book, and I don know how to settle theological controversies apart from what is in this book. I need it desperately. We must receive it with humility. And as we receive it with humility, we need to have a spirit of teachableness. You should come here today expecting to hear from the Word of God and expecting to be taught of God. When you open up your Bible, you should expect God to teach you something. And you should expect God to teach you things that you didn't know. So often we come to scripture and we, ah, it really can't mean that because And we give a reason.

Well, maybe it just does, and maybe you've been so influenced by your parents, by your friends, by your culture, by your education, that you've somehow just missed it. And that's the attitude that we have to have. Assume that you are more shaped by things not in God's word than you are by things within God's word. And what that does is that should then cause us to have a sense of self-distrust. Like what Proverbs says in Proverbs chapter 3: Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not, do not lean on your own understand.

You know, that statement, there's no such thing as a stupid question, it's not entirely true. I hate to break it to you. It's not entirely true. There are very inappropriate questions that we can ask of the Word of God. Sometimes we can demand that the Word of God give us things that aren't really. There. And the problem then is not with the Word of God. The problem is with the questions that we're asking of it. So sometimes we come to the Word of God and we think, I have this question that needs to be answered, and maybe we should be asking, should I even be asking this question in the first place?

What makes me think that this is a good question? Has scripture indicated to me that this question is a good idea? We need to ask those questions. We need to have a sense of distrust in ourselves, a distrust in our instincts, a distrust in our assumptions. And say, how are we trusting the Lord in this, or are we simply leaning on our own understand? I'll give one example of this. I went on a missions trip to meet with some missionaries about a year and a half ago, and I was so Blown away by the unbiblical practices that were there.

People who claim to love the Lord, people who claim to be trying to serve Him according to Scripture, but things like because they're in a Muslim-dominated country, having their church services on Friday. Why? Why do you think Friday is a good day for you to gather? Do we not have a day that's called the Lord's Day? Is that not Sunday? Yes, but we're here. Ah. Maybe you're just leaning on your own understanding. If you can't give me a good reason from Scripture why the church in any country can't gather on Sunday, maybe you're doing it wrong.

And last I checked, didn't the church start in an age, in a place of persecution, and in a place where they didn't worship on Sunday? And what did they do? They worshiped on Sunday. They endured the persecution. And God blessed, and God honored that. If you're saying something like, oh, in this missionary context, we can do this on Friday. Well, maybe not. Maybe you're not thinking about this appropriately. When he comes to the Lord's Supper, the same thing. If you decide to have something other than the fruit of the vine as your drink at the Lord's Supper, based upon what example?

Where would you get that from? You wouldn't get that from the Word of God. It's not contained in there. We have a good example. Fruit of the vine. If you're going to come up with something different, where did your example come from that led you to think you could do something different? And if it didn't come from God's word, Then, what understanding are you leaning on to get there? Those are just two brief examples, but I think that those are things that we need to consider: how often are we coming into our life, into our culture, into our context?

And living on assumptions that we assumed were just biblical, or we assumed were just right. We need to receive the Word of God with humility. We need to receive the Word of God with a teachable. spirit. We need to receive the word of God with a sense of self-distrust and not lean on our own understanding, but in all our ways acknowledge him and allow him to make our path Straight. And we do that by reasoning, like Jesus did in the Gospel of Matthew, looking deep, long, closely at the Word of God, so as to reason as our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

Christ reasons. So fear the Lord, hear the word of the Lord, and lastly, delight in God's word. There are all kinds of people in this room this morning. Some are old, some are young, some are men, some are women. We could continue going on. I'm sure there's lots of differences that we could find. Some are celebrating new life. Others are mourning the loss of life. In all those instances, regardless of who you are. are and regardless of where you are, God's word is sufficient for life and godliness through what you're going through.

Psalm 119, 49. Remember your word to your servant, in which you have made me hope. This is my comfort in my affliction, that your promises give me life. The insolent utterly deride me, but I do not turn away from your law. When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord. Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked who fors me. Your law. Your statutes have been my songs in the house of my sojournings. I remember your name in the night, O Lord. And keep your law. This blessing has fallen to me that I have kept your precept.

I want to encourage you to delight in the law of the Lord. Lord, and the way you do that is by tasting it. So often Scripture talks about our relationship with God and our relationship with His Word as tasting and seeing that the Lord. Is good. It's not a mere acknowledgment that the meal in front of you looks very nice and has clearly been very well put together. It's about imbibing that by partaking. In that, and living based upon the words that God has given us. Adam in the Garden of Eden failed to give Eve a word.

She was there with a serpent. You read Genesis chapter 3. You have absolutely no idea that Adam is there until you find out that she gave him the fruit. Jesus Christ. Christ is not that way. Adam was a bad husband who failed his bride. Jesus Christ is a good husband. Perfect for his bride. And unlike Adam, where Adam didn't speak, Jesus Christ has spoken. It is here. It protects us. It guards us. It watches over us. It exhorts us. It comforts us. It transforms us. It tells us all the things we're supposed to do.

To believe. It tells us all the things that we ought not to believe. It tells us all the practices we should stop doing. And it tells us all the practices. We should start doing so that you are equipped for every good work because God has shown you what is good and what He requires of you. I hope in this new year you have a renewed vigor to study the Word of God, knowing that as you open it, this is the living Word of God, and He says something to you. and it transforms us and renews us into the image of His Son, Jesus Christ.

Let us pray. Father, we are so grateful for your word. That it is a sufficient rule for faith and practice. Father, forgive us for those times that we read it like the Sadducees. And we bring unsanctified reasoning to the text, asking inappropriate questions, seeking inappropriate answers. Forgive us for being like the Pharisees and not going far enough and saying those things that we ought to say because we know the consequences that it will bring upon our life. Forgive us for not meditating on your law day and night.

Forgive us for not delighting in your word and calling it sweet, sweeter than honey in our mouths. Forgive us for having neglected it. For not having looked at it deeply like Jesus did. Father, we know that we are insufficient, but we know that by your grace you have given us a sufficient word. Father, we pray that by your Spirit He would take this word, bring it to us, and that He would transform us, that we would always be growing in those things that we ought to believe, always be shunning those things which We're not to believe, that we would flee practices that are ungodly, and we'd pursue righteousness.

We cannot do this but by the Spirit of God. So, Father, we pray that your Spirit would work in us to equip us for every good work. Thank you for your word. Father, we want to end where we stay. Started, we ask that you would establish your word to us, your servants, as that which produces reverence for you. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, our King. Amen.