[The morning coffee has kicked and we’re ready to go. Another big day – not only for talks and workshops, but also for the strand groups. For those reading, and inclined, please pray with us that the delegates continue to be helpfully equipped to wield the sword of God’s Word. Pray also that holiness, godliness and overflowing love be the greatest response to this all.]
Day 4 | Morning Talk | Mark Baddeley | God’s Christ Centred Word
Introduction
Imagine hearing a sermon series on the topic of ‘Birds’. All the content will be driven by the bible. Question: would this be a biblical sermon series?
Or what about these topics:
- 5 ways to raise up your children
- tips on dating
- dieting and being fit
And again, all the content will be driven by the bible.
Tough huh? :)
- Inspiration
We start with 2 Timothy 3 well known verse – that all Scripture is God-breathed.
We note that when other biblical writers refer to each other there is never a distinction between the biblical author and God. While some parts of scripture seem to be the direct product of divine revelation (for instance the prophets who receive a supernatural revelation), there are other bits which are very human (for instance the letters of the New Testament).
- What is the word of God?
Scripture
Scripture comes to us in different ways. Some bits are highly supernatural, some bits are very human, and some bits are in between. Through it all one suspects that the authors weren’t expecting to be writing scripture as we know it. And yet, Paul tells us that however it has come together it is all God-breathed: all of it is what God intends to communicate.
At this point there is a debate on this issue though. The agreement is that scripture is God’s communication to us. The division is over the manner in which this communication takes place – whether every single detail and grammatical point is inspired. So that Scripture is fully human and fully divinely inspired. On the other end of the debate there are those who would argue that some aspects and details aren’t overly important or divine (but more human), including some errors. The primary importance is the overall message.
Our starting point: what scripture says and what it is communicating is what God is communicating to use.
Christ Jesus
When we hear ‘the word of God’ we think of scripture itself. But in John 1, and Hebrews 1, the word is Jesus himself. It’s the Lord Jesus Christ who brings the knowledge of God, who brings salvation, who brings the full glory of God.
In the OT nobody saw a form, they only heard a voice. But for those of us in the New Covenant God has come out of the darkness and into the light and revealed himself – in the face of Jewish carpenter! Jesus is God on public display – God can be known personally in a way that wasn’t possible in the OT. We can see the very form of God in Jesus. As we read the gospels and get a sense of Jesus in them we get a sense of who God is.
The gospel
Paul’s characteristic phrase when he refers to the word of God/truth he’s referring to the gospel. The message about Jesus. For Paul in particular that message is the word of God. If you receive it by faith you know God personally, you come into relationship with God, you move from death to life and become a new creation. The Word of God, the thing that creates a saving reality, is the gospel.
How do they relate?
God speaks, and what he says is written down. One of the things he needs to tell us about is the Lord Jesus, and particularly the gospel that we need to believe and be saved by. And the reason why we believe the gospel is because we find it in the bible.
ie. Scripture –> gospel –> Christ Jesus
Going the other way, when we come into relationship with God through Jesus and the gospel, we come to understand that something like the Old Testament is also the Word of God. Why do I read the New Testament? Because Jesus commissioned his apostles and his word there. But for us non-Jews we sort of slip the Old Testament into our lives and adopt that as our own as well.
ie. Christ Jesus –> gospel –> Scripture
Here’s the thing – both these models are good and bad.
The issue with the first model – it unhelpfully flattens the whole of scripture as a collection of stuff, and you can kinda take and leave parts. Scripture becomes the larger category and the gospel’s importance can be lost.
The issue with the second model is that the bible gets pitted against Jesus. For instance the ‘WWJD’ fad which often elevated our personal view of Jesus over scripture. Martin Luther sort of had this as well – he disliking the book of James because he couldn’t find the gospel in it.
So what is the point of scripture?
- What is the job description for God’s word?
Give information
The first thing to say is that the Word of God is there to give us knowledge and information when we are ignorant. We are ignorant of who God is.
But it can’t be this alone – so many books in our Christian book shops use the bible this way: that the bible can give us information about dieting, raising kids, dating…etc.
Rescue people in need
The second thing to say is that the bible’s job is to rescue people in need. We are in desperate need, we are in mortal peril, we face death and judgement, we’re enslaved to the world, the devil and our own sinful hearts. We are in danger as the anger of God is upon us.
And fundamentally the Word of God is the life ring thrown to us drowning in the sea.
Establish new relationship — promises
Regulate the relationship – commands, instructions
Give the knowledge needed to establish the promises, commands, and instructions
The Word of God’s core business is not just to download information to us – it’s to rescue us.
God is fully capable of filling up our libraries with books of information. But he doesn’t – in fact 66 books are actually not a lot of words. Why does he speak at all? To rescue us, to give us that better life in relationship with him. The knowledge and information serves his promises and commands, to give us what we need to know to trust him and obey him.
God does not care about fulfilling our intellectual curiosity (with all our questions that come from the bible and the gaps that are so apparent). But God does care about the fact that we are drowning and need saving.
Even in 2 Timothy 3 Paul speaks of scripture to make us wise in order to have salvation in the Lord Jesus.
So a sermon has to have the same purpose of God’s speech and be focused on the same direction. God doesn’t speak about birds in order to give us information about birds, but he speaks about birds occasionally to help us understand salvation further.
- Scripture, gospel, Christ—natural partners
Scripture is the word of God. Jesus is the word of God. The gospel is the word of God. We can’t separate or pit them against each other.
Scripture is the mechanism by which we understand the gospel and Jesus. And in order to understand the scriptures we need to come to Jesus in faith. We can’t have access to Jesus outside of scripture (unless someone explains it to us orally) – to deepen our relationship with Jesus we need scripture. There is a natural partnership.
There is no Jesus who is not taught by scripture. Neither is there any scripture which is not centred around Jesus.
Reflections
The question for us: do we see the word of God has this laser-like focus. Or do we treat scripture as, yeah, about Jesus, but there’s all this other living and wisdom stuff! Or do we see scripture as completely revolving around and focused upon and upholding the glory and magnificence of Jesus.
[God doesn’t care about satisfying every curiosity and question we have – God cares that we are in mortal danger and in need of rescue. The bible is Jesus centred.]
Day 4 | Evening Talk | Richard Gibbson | Our Great High Priest
Sabbath rest
Exegesis is hard work. Reading the text, working on the preaching, wondering if you have bridged the cultural gap, wondering if you’ve worded yourself well. After it all, Gibbo is looking forward to rest.
In God’s kindness and mercy to Israel he had given them a sabbath rest – a day each week to rest from their labours.
The eternal sabbath to come – the resting with God, the enjoyment of his presence for eternity – lies ahead of us. But it could slip from our hands – and we are warned against drifting from it through the book of Hebrews.
Doctrine of Scripture
Chapter 4 in Hebrews is a wonderful chance to think about our doctrine of scripture. Verses 12-13 take us into the heart of the doctrine of scripture.
The rest remains open (4:3-11)
As God said in Psalm 95
Verses 1-2 are a reminder of what was said before regarding that former generation who refused God and were refused entry into the promised land.
The author of Hebrews quotes again from Psalm 95. This verse reaches forward to us – those people in the wilderness had a gospel preached to them, they were evangelised to, they were minutes away from consummating the promises from God but were overwhelmed by the big people in the land, they balked, and they disobeyed God. So they missed out on the land of rest.
As God said somewhere (Genesis 2:2)
Don’t you love it that the author says ‘somewhere it is said…’ when referencing scripture! Anyway…
In chapter 2 of Genesis we have recorded the 7th Day of creation, the day of rest. Even this part of scripture which speaks of God in third person is God’s speaking. Another handy little reminder of this author’s doctrine of scripture.
So when God rested, put his feet up and enjoyed with satisfaction what he had created – the author reminds us that this rest remains open to people ever since. And open for people to enter into.
As God said through David (Ps 95)
It’s important that this word is not left as a timeless word – it was spoken to David centuries after they had entered the wilderness. The point is that the rest back then must still be open in David’s time. By David’s time they had taken the land and settled it – but the rest had not exhausted it, the land had not fulfilled the ultimate rest. It was partial, a shadow of the reality that is coming.
Despite Joshua’s efforts
Verse 8 – Joshua’s efforts to take the land didn’t give the great rest. Even where the rest is partially fufilled there is still a greater reality to be taken hold of. This is the situation that we find ourselves.
So make sure you enter
Verse 9 onwards reminds us that we, presently, are on the brink of entering that rest. If we, who have the promise of rest in Jesus right in front of us, if we can’t trust God with it, if you are sick of persecution and harassment, sick of saying no to sin – understand the tragic consequence of saying no to Jesus. Understand how tragic it is – as tragic as those in the wilderness who fell.
In verse 9 there is a reference to the ‘Sabbath rest’ – a place of eternal joy, no more grieving, no more sin, no more dealing with hostility, no more persecution, losing possessions, being thrown into jail as a Christian, no more terrorism, all our labours done – and entering into the glorious celebration with God. ‘Sabbath rest’ is a glorious celebration.
In the verses that follow there is a remarkable reflection of what has been going on for us over the last few nights.
The risk of reading Scripture (4:12-13)
Scripture
alive and active
When we use the word ‘doctrine’ we can think of something stuffy and dry. But here the author ‘unchains the lion’ (ala Spurgeon on defending the bible). God does not mess around with us when he speaks. It’s living because it’s the very extension of himself. God’s word is living because He is the living God, and it expresses to us his intentions and thoughts.
There is a danger to bibliolatry, but the much greater and more prevalent danger is to drive the wedge between God and his word. Eg – God really is at work in our music at church (we put up with the preaching), God is really at work in my experience which is so much more real to me than the bible. There are all kinds of spirituality around us which are not the spirituality of God. When we want the reality of God addressing us and of God’s thoughts then we open up the bible.
In our lives, churches and world the reality is that transformation will not occur apart from his word. That is the way that God works. Even if there is a dramatic and phenomenal pouring out of his Spirit, it will do so through the preaching of His word.
penetrating
The sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Another point at which we cannot divide, or drive a wedge, is between God and his Spirit.
One reason the author uses this image of the sword for the Word of God – because the author has been thinking about numbers 14.
Often we lose heart when it comes to the effect and power of God’s word to bring change in people. But in Numbers 14, after the rebellion the people wanted to try to take the land again. Moses warns them in v41 onwards that they would fall by the sword. The sword of the Amalakites made them fall, yes, but it was also the sword of God’s Word that had promised judgement by which they fell.
judging
The sword of God’s word is not just a unwieldy thing swung wildly – but is also a surgeon’s scalpel. Penetrating deeply and incisively, into the inner most and deepest parts of our secretive heart. And this Word comes in and exposes them. Every little dark thought and dirty deed. The Word will bring us to conviction of every one of these, and bring us grace of being warned, the grace of a chance to repent and find life.
Us
Exposed
Naked
in his sight
Our soul is exposed before God. We are naked before him all the time, there are no fig leaves that can protect us. God sees through me every moment of every day. I am in his presence all the time. Even when we think we are getting away with sin, we never are.
The bible shows me the MRI scan that he is taking – and showing us the hardness of our heart. God has us in his sights and grip and we cannot get out of that.
Despite the fact that most commentaries say this is the end of the unit and the next unit moves on, it would leave us exposed, naked and judged to simply leave things here. But… wow… the next verses…
The rescue for exposed sinners (4:14-16)
A great high priest in heaven
We have a great high priest who has come to help us in our exposed naked judged and condemned state.
Have we been exposed by God’s Word? Jesus says come to me and hide in me and find refuge and I will keep you safe.
Hold firm
A priest tempted in every way, but without sin
Jesus was tempted fully in every way. The temptation in the wilderness is Jesus’ experiencing temptation to a level just like us. He knows what it’s like to hear that tempting voice, feel the allure of turning his back on his Father. This experience makes it possible for him to know what we go through.
“Come to me, all you who are weary & burdened & I will give you rest”
In Jesus’ tender hearted love he came to rescue us. He was exposed, naked, and judged – yet without sin. And now he invites us to come to him and find rest.
[The final talk is another stunning reminder that God’s Word exposes every corner of our darkened hearts and minds – and Jesus, our perfect friend who has been through every temptation we have, offers refuge. Do not harden your hearts towards him.]
Before the throne of God above
I have a strong, a perfect plea
A great High Priest whose name is Love,
Who ever lives and pleads for me.
My name is graven on his hands,
My name is written on his heart;
I know that while in heaven he stands
No tongue can bid me thence depart,
No tongue can bid me thence depart.
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