Community Covenant Church - Sermons - Children of God and His Word

October 8, 2006

Children of God and His Word

Luke 11:14-28; Hebrews 4:12-13

Many years ago my father gave me his father’s pocket watch. Grandpa Johnson had lived and worked in Watertown, MA and his beautiful gold pocket watch had been manufactured by the American Waltham Watch Company. Everything about the watch was special to me because of its connection with Dad & Grandpa; everything, that is, except for one thing, it did not run.

So one day, about 5 years ago, I brought this watch to Charles Sayah. I know that some of you here this morning remember Charles & Nancy Sayah and their children. Back then, Charles ran his father’s jewelry business. After visiting with them in their home I knew that Charles collected pocket watches, so when I told him about my Grandpa’s watch he was eager to see it.

Recognizing my love for this watch, Charles told me of a man who fixes old pocket watches. According to Charles he was the only person left in Massachusetts who could fix what was wrong with my watch. Charles graciously waved his store’s commission, and within a couple weeks by Grandpa Johnson’s watch was back in my possession, but this time running, and continues to do so just as long as I remember to wind it.

Now what I discovered needed to be done to fix the watch, was that this watch repairman had to manufacture a tiny piece in the movement of the watch which had long since gone extinct.

His knowledge of watches, His ability to identify the broken piece, and his skill to re-craft that piece, and to re-start this special watch, made this person not only unique but very much needed and very appreciated by people with broken watches.

Have you ever needed something repaired; a lawn mower, a car, some leaky plumbing? Today many things are never fixed, just thrown away and replaced. But occasionally we do have something we want repaired. Perhaps you’ve been able to fix some of those things on your own, but what about those things beyond your ability; beyond a phone call to a friend, beyond the yellow pages, beyond your know resources?

What happens when you need:

- a medical specialist because of cancer, or

- a counselor because of unresolved issues?

I think it is safe to conclude that when we all experience brokenness in our lives, our ultimate goal is to find someone who best understands our condition, who is best able to identify that which is broken within us, and who can offer to us what we need to be healed and to re-discover wholeness in life.

Today, we are talking about such a quest for wholeness and healing in a world defined by brokenness. We are talking about Who it is we can resource, who can best offer us healing.

- Who best understands us and our world?

- Who has the best ability to define what is broken?

- Who has the ability to re-create, or to redeem that which was broken, so that a person’s life, a family, a nation, a world can work as it was designed to work?

Today we are talking about our quest for wholeness and healing; specifically, we are talking about how we are able to access God, the ultimate healer, in order to receive the help we need.

To understand our quest we need a broader definition of the “Word of God” than most of us commonly work under. “God’s Word” is a term we throw around freely in evangelical circles but one we often fail to grasp its fullness. And yet it worth wrestling with, for God’s Word is power for those who receive it, believe it and obey it; power for healing & power for wholeness. To summarize a great deal of theology, “God’s Word” is the self-communication of God. It is what we yearn for when we acknowledge our broken state. It is what we need when our prideful attempts to fix a problem have run into dead ends.

When we live in the truth that that the One who understands us the best, the One who sees our brokenness most clearly, the One who has the ability to redeem and re-create, is the One who originally created everything including you and me, then “God’s Word” becomes our heart’s desire. There is no one... nothing... that is able to better “speak” to our needs than God’s Word.

But here we have a problem. God is God, and we are not. A truth I am reminded of every so often is simple how great and awesome God is, and how “small” we are in comparison to God. As I recently described to girls at Pelletier and to our Confirmation class, our ability to comprehend and communicate with God can be likened to a goldfish understanding and talking with you or me. On our own we cannot; we cannot comprehend God nor can we receive His Word. The truth is, if God didn’t want us to know Him, we wouldn’t.

But the good news is that He does; as we sang in a hymn last week, “God has spoken, God has spoken”... and then on the last verse “God is speaking”. It is because of God’s initiative to speak to us in ways we can perceive, that His Words touch us, empower us, bless us, and heal us.

While many people, including many Christians, have failed to appreciate the power of God’s Word for their life and some have limited their definition of “God’s Word”, God has spoken to humanity through creation, through an oral tradition translated into the Holy Bible, and most clearly through Jesus Christ.

1. While most people think first of God’s Word as the Bible, as the Psalmist declares, God’s “speech”, His “knowledge” and His “voice” is proclaimed through His creation.

The Psalmist wrote and the Children of God sang:

Psalm 19:1-11

1 The heavens declare the glory of God;
the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

2 Day after day they pour forth speech;
night after night they display knowledge.

3 There is no speech or language
where their voice is not heard.

4 Their voice goes out into all the earth,
their words to the ends of the world.
In the heavens he has pitched a tent for the sun,

5 which is like a bridegroom coming forth from his pavilion,
like a champion rejoicing to run his course.

6 It rises at one end of the heavens
and makes its circuit to the other;
nothing is hidden from its heat.

7 The law of the LORD is perfect,
       reviving the soul.
       The statutes of the LORD are trustworthy,
       making wise the simple.

8 The precepts of the LORD are right,
       giving joy to the heart.
       The commands of the LORD are radiant,
       giving light to the eyes.

9 The fear of the LORD is pure,
       enduring forever.
       The ordinances of the LORD are sure
       and altogether righteous.

10 They are more precious than gold,
       than much pure gold;
       they are sweeter than honey,
       than honey from the comb.

11 By them is your servant warned;
in keeping them there is great reward.

The Apostle Paul even referred to the truth revealed by God to all people through creation:

Romans 1:18-23

18The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, 19since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. 20For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. 22Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools 23and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

While creation itself is not God; neither men nor women, plants nor animals, creation does declare truth about God, for it was by God’s Word that all things came into being, and all that exists tells us things about God.

I think many Christians fail to hear God in nature as they rightfully reject the worship of nature practiced by some. While we certainly do not worship God’s creation, we sense God’s Word:

- as we notice the vastness and beauty of creation,

- as we observe the regeneration of life

after the struggle of winter,

- as we, like Jesus, note how God feeds the birds of the air,

and clothes the flowers of the field.

Do you seek after God’s Word in His creation?

2. In addition to creation, the Bible proclaims God’s Word in even greater detail.

Initially through an oral tradition, when truth was carefully passed down generation to generation through repeated story-telling, all the way to the first written scrolls, to printing presses and now into computer memory chips, the 66 inspired books of the Old and New Testaments describe a God who has chosen to reveal Himself to us in ways we can understand.

For among human beings, our primary means of communicating is through words, spoken and written. While linguists tell us that greater communication happens through body language; intense eyes, tapping fingers, slouching shoulder, yawning, most of us speak or write when we want to send a message.

Likewise, God has spoken, and by His Spirit we have accounts of His creation, we have His Law, we have history and stories of His interaction with his people. We have glimpses of His heart through the concerns of the Prophets, we have inspired letters between believers, and we have the Gospels.

God took the initiative to speak to us in a way we communicate with each other, in a way we can perceive Him. His Holy Scriptures touch us, empower us, bless us, and heal us. Psalm 119, the longest chapter in the Bible, is all about the written Word of God. We read in Psalm 119:9-16...

Psalm 119:9-16

9 How can a young man keep his way pure?
By living according to your word.

10 I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands.

11 I have hidden your word in my heart
that I might not sin against you.

12 Praise be to you, O LORD;
teach me your decrees.

13 With my lips I recount
all the laws that come from your mouth.

14 I rejoice in following your statutes
as one rejoices in great riches.

15 I meditate on your precepts
and consider your ways.

16 I delight in your decrees;
I will not neglect your word.

In a resource designed for small group support, one of the authors, Karen Lee-Thorpe, offered a personal example of the power of God’s scriptures healing her. She wrote:

There was a time in my life when consistent Bible reading paid off. I had been molested as a child, and I carried into adulthood a feeling that I was somehow dirty. I felt myself unworthy of a good man. Eventually I made my way into counseling, but a year of talking through my childhood didn’t lift that sense of dirtiness.

During that time I was reading the Bible each day. I read through the Gospels and continually identified with the lepers and outcasts. I wished that Jesus would touch me the way he touched the leper and made him clean. Eventually I reached the middle of the book of Acts. In Acts 10:9-23 I read about a vision God gave Peter to convince him that God had opened the door of faith to the disreputable Gentiles. Three times in the vision a voice ordered Peter, “Do not call anything impure that God had made clean.”

I stared at the verse. I felt as though God was giving me an order. I started to cry. I realize that Jesus had probably touched me months or even years ago – the way he touched the leper – but I hadn’t believed him.

I knew that if my counselor had simply quoted the verse to me, I might not have heard it in my heart. God had been able to get through to me because I had been reading the New Testament consistently. God had used the stories from the Gospels and I came to Acts with a prepared heart.

I memorized the verse from Acts. After that, whenever the old feelings of dirtiness began to creep back in, I quoted the verse to myself. On my wedding day, God’s words were there for me.

Karen Lee-Thorpe’s testimony is that “God’s words were there for me.” Are they there for you? Do you receive God’s Word for your life by reading the Bible? Do you hear God’s messages for the healing of your brokenness? Do you know that because of God’s Spirit His words recorded centuries ago are just as alive today as they were when first communicated?

3. Creation... Bible... Jesus is the Word of God incarnate.

Finally, one might ask why a Bible-believing congregation, such as ours, is so in love with Jesus. It is because as we celebrate the gift of God’s Word, we have in Jesus the very embodiment of that Word... the word made flesh... the word made practical for all humanity.

Again as I recently spoke at Pelletier and in Confirmation; I asked them what an Almighty God would do if he wanted to make sure his Word, His self-communication, was understood by human beings.

Doesn’t it make sense that a God who wanted to reestablish relationship with human beings would come as a baby..... and, to communicate His Word He would live as a human being... a gifted teacher, a holy human being who would not give in to the sin of this world but would show us what it means to perfectly live according to God’s Word?

When Jesus came he declared:

Matthew 5:17-18

17"Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them. 18I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished.

... Jesus was sending a very powerful message in his culture: To fulfill the Law and the Prophets, was a cultural way of stating that Jesus came to property interpret the written Word, so that the Children of God could correctly live out God’s Word.

You see, what Jesus does is that He takes God’s Word from scripture, which has been poorly taught by others, and through correct interpretation He gives us, in his life and teachings, God’s Word in it’s purest form.

- He takes 600+ laws and gives us two

- He challenges all the goals of humanity by calling us to love Him by obeying His words and taking up our cross and follow Him.

- For as he declares in John 14:23-24:

If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

We love Jesus because He first loved us, and we believe that Jesus is God’s Word incarnate. We love Jesus because in Jesus we discover the power of God’s Word.

In Luke 11:14-28 we find an interesting story... too complex for me to expound upon in my time remaining, but a story describing:

- the power of God’s Word over human brokenness,

- the power of God’s Word to divide believers from non-believers, and

- the power of God’s Word to protect us from evil’s worst.

It is very interesting to me that in the end after Jesus, the incarnate Word of God, had healed and taught with such great power, that a person shouted out:

Luke 11:27b-28

"Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you." (To which Jesus replied.) "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it."

Mothers were often honored in Jewish culture through the accomplishments of their sons, but Jesus points to the hearing and obeying of God’s Word as the source of true blessing in our lives. Some people will be lucky enough to be blessed in life by having loving and caring parents, but the Good News Jesus shares here is that whether that is true for our lives or not, a greater blessing is available to all, to all who seek after, receive and obey the Word of God.

Today I invite you to ask yourself if the Word of God is there for you? Because God has spoken, and is speaking, the Word is there, but the question is, “Are you receiving it?”

Are you seeking to discover God as you live in His creation?

Are you reading the scriptures and growing in your understanding of them?

Are you loving Jesus by following God’s Word in Him?

Where are you seeking healing for your brokenness?

"Blessed .... are those who hear the word of God and obey it."

AMEN

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION (r).