Good morning! It is
such a pleasure to greet you this morning in the name of our Lord, Jesus
Christ. I am Tim Roberts and I am the pastor here at Sunrise Church. I pray
that you feel right at home and will receive a special blessing from God for
being with us.
I would like to
begin this morning with us looking at our focus scripture for today. It comes
from Paul second letter to his young protégé, Timothy, encouraging him in his
calling of serving God.
2 Timothy
3.16 (CEB)
Every scripture is
inspired by God and is useful for teaching, for showing mistakes, for
correcting, and for training character
[Prayer]
Over the
last several weeks, we have been taking this time as an opportunity to look at
our Mission, Vision and Value statements in closer detail. We are doing this
because we believe these principles were implanted by God into our collective
hearts, to serve as a reminder of who we are, what we hold dear and what our
purpose is. This morning we continue looking at our Values, those
non-negotiable ideals we have and that without, Sunrise would not be who we
are.
It's
funny to see how values differ from person to person and church to church. I
witnessed this first-hand just the other day as I sat in one of the local auto
repair shops, waiting to get my car serviced and inspected. While I was waiting
on the job to be done, I was perusing some of the news stories of on the
Internet and I overheard a conversation strike up between two other patrons who
were waiting on their cars to be serviced. As it often happens down here in the
South, one of the men asked the other, "So, where do you go to
church?" The other man replied that he frequents many different churches
because he hadn't found one that quite matched up with his understanding of the
Bible. The first man quickly told him that he goes to one of the United
Methodist Churches in the area. The man in-between churches queried, "You
do?" to which the first started back with, "Yep, I've been there
about all my life. It's a good church too! We got this here woman preacher and
she has done a great job in the four years she's been there. Yeah, we were
about dead until she got there and now we're growing pretty good!"
Of
course, with my wife also being a pastor, I perked up a bit to see the
reaction. The other gent did not fail me. He responded, "Well, I'm glad I
don't have to be held accountable for other people."
By this
time, I knew where this was going, but I was going to keep my mouth shut for a
while. The second man then inquired, "So, tell me, what do the Methodists
have against the blood of Jesus?" Our Methodist brother was a bit
perplexed and replied, "What do you mean?" The fellow then said,
"Well, you've taken the blood out of your songs." My head started
craning in all sorts of directions, but I was trying my best to keep out of the
argument - well because like a friend of mine once said, "Arguing with
some people is like wrestling with a pig in the mud - after a while, you find
out that the pig likes it." But, I couldn't help myself so I interjected,
"I'm sorry gentlemen, but as I was sitting here, I overheard your
conversation and I must ask you sir, 'Where are you getting your
information?'" The Methodist brother looked a bit relieved and the second
man looked at me and replied, "What?" So I proceeded to tell him I
was a United Methodist pastor and some of the information he had was simply not
true. He once again responded that we had taken the blood out of all our hymns.
I quickly recalled for him "Nothing but the Blood of Jesus"
"Rock of Ages" and the other scores of our hymns that speak of Jesus'
cleansing blood. He did not seem to quite believe me so I opened up the Hymnal
on my laptop and did a quick search for blood and showed him the results.
With
that, he sat there for a minute. Then he slowly began to nod. I thought that maybe
I had convinced him that Methodists weren't quite the heathens he had
originally envisioned. After a few more moments, he responded, "Well, I
did not know that, but tell me, Why don't you Methodist read the Bible?"
Luckily, by that
time my car was ready and I was able to not get back into another mud pit. But
while this gentleman does have a somewhat skewed opinion of our church, his
response did bring back to my mind a statement I heard one of our bishops,
Richard Wilke, make several years back. He said, "If biblical illiteracy
were a disease, we would be in the midst of an epidemic."
That's why I am
almost ecstatic that one of the core values of Sunrise addresses this point. So
please read me our focus value for today:
We Trust the Bible as
God's Inspired Word - a testament of God's love for the world.
[Restate]
We trust the Bible as God's inspired
word - a testament of God's love for the world.
Allow me to pause
for just a moment and ask, What does that word, "inspire" mean?
Although I believe I have a pretty decent understanding of the word, I decided
to look it up, so we will all have the same idea. So, here is what I found:
1. To be the cause or source
of
2. To guide by divine
influence
So, right off the bat, we begin to get
this idea that the Bible is more than just some ordinary book. It is more than
one of The New York Times bestsellers
(which it is - with an average sale of over 40,000 copies each day). It is more
than one of Oprah's "must reads."
The Bible is foundational for people of
faith.
But why? Why is the Bible important to
begin with? I mean, isn't just doing good works, especially the God things,
what's really important? Surely God doesn't expect us to sit around and read
when there is so much work to be done!
I cannot deny that there is plenty of good things we could
be doing and there are an innumerable amount of God-things that we ought to be
doing, but delving into scripture is paramount for God's people. Here's why - It
reminds us of God's immeasurable love for us.
Imagine someone who begins working with wood. He or she goes
out and procures all the necessary tools to perfect their newfound hobby. After
years of continuous honing of skills, that person becomes known as a craftsman.
Do you think this person still needs all the tools they originally acquired?
Some of the tools will probably have been replaced and some may not be needed,
but there is one tool that is always needed - the square. Use of the square in
carpentry is imperative if the craftsman is going to ensure their piece is
sound and of high quality. Those who proceed without a square may get-by in the
short run, but as time (or distance) increases the misalignment is not only
apparent, it may also lead to disastrous consequences.
For we who call ourselves people of faith, the Bible is our
square. It keeps us aligned to the will of God. Without it, all those
God-things we begin to do, become just good things before ceasing all together.
Now some
people love to study the Bible. I have seen people and small groups get into
some of the finite details in their study of scripture. I hear them discuss the
various biblical criticisms such as historical, textual, source, form,
rhetorical, canonical, redaction, psychological and narrative to name a few. I
have some friends who get into the dispensational mindset as they try to find
some hidden meaning within. Yet sometimes I wonder, are we missing the point?
Several years ago, my family and I vacationed in Maui, one
of the main Hawaiian islands. Once we arrived at the condo at which we were
staying, one of the first things I did was to call my parents to let them know
we arrived without any problems. As I talked with my mother, who had never
outside of the continental states, she asked, "What's the view like?"
I described it best I could, which considering I was in Hawaii, was woefully
inadequate. But I wonder what if I had answered her this way: "Well, mom,
we have a beautiful condo that faces the western shore of the island. I am
looking out of a picture window that provides a panoramic view of the ocean.
The window is almost eight feet tall and is divided into three sections. We had
a scraping of the glass and will be able to tell you the chemical composition
of the glass as I have had experts analyze the scraping, along with the history
and development of the glass. The glass is set in steel frames which are
painted black and I will tell you about the composition of those steel frames
the next time I call. Also at a later call, I will tell you about the putty
that holds the glass into the frames and it's formation and its application in
other areas. Finally, once I have the opportunity to do some other research, I
will inform you of the method that the management utilizes to keeping the
windows clean - what solvents they use and the methods they employ to keep the
window's acuity as pristine as possible. So, as you can tell, the view is
fantastic."
Do you
think that response would have really answered my mom's question? Do you think
that if I had given her that answer that maybe I was missing out on "the
big picture" that was just beyond my focus?
Before I
go any further, let me say that I highly value the exegetical study of
scripture. I find it to be invaluable to my growth as a pastor and as a child
of God. But at the same time, I have come to understand that it must be in
balance with the understanding above and beyond anything else, the Bible is
God's inspired word. If I fail
to keep this at the forefront of any study then this study will cloud my
understanding rather than enlighten.
Wow,
there was that word again. Did you catch it? The word, "inspired."
If you will
remember, just a little while ago, I gave you a couple of definitions for that
word
1. To be the cause or source
of
2. To guide by divine
influence
While those may well be adequate
definitions, there is one more that I would like for you to consider for it though:
1. To be the cause or source
of
2. To guide by divine
influence
3. To breathe life into
Think about that for a moment in our context, friends! What
we have here are God's words! God's living words! God's living words of love!
That is exactly why we hold this to be a Value for us here at Sunrise. Look at
it again with me:
We Trust the Bible as God's Inspired Word - a testament of God's
love for the world.
In his notes that he made in his book, Conversations, which is sort of a commentary of The Message, Eugene Peterson put it this
way - If you believe that scripture is inspired, that is - God-breathed, it
will affect the way you read it. If you don't, it will not only affect the way
you read it, but also whether you read it at all.
We trust the Bible as God's inspired word - a testament of
God's love for the world.
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