Jesus gave us a command that we’ve been examining. He told us to “Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”
Today I want to focus on the first part of verse 20, that we are meant to teach the disciples we make to observe all that Jesus commanded. Have you ever heard the saying that you can’t teach what you don’t know? It’s true. But, the good thing about this command to us, to teach others about Jesus’ commands, is that we’re not expected to be experts about the Bible in order to be able to teach it! We teach what we know, and as we teach, we ourselves grow.
Hebrews 11:3 says, “By faith we understand that the worlds were prepared by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things which are visible.“
This is just one example that we have from the Bible where we’re told that God made everything exist just by speaking. Just by saying a few words. In the Creation account in Genesis, He says, let there be light, and there’s light. He says, let there be land, and there’s land. He said let there be fish and animals and birds, and there were fish and animals and birds.
John 1:3 tells us that nothing which has been created could exist unless He had spoken it into existence.
John 6:63 says that His Spirit is what gives life to every living thing.
Deuteronomy 8:3 tells us that we cannot exist on bread alone, but rather that we rely on every word that comes from the mouth of God to sustain our life.
Matthew 24:35 says that His words will never pass away, they will never fade.
Acts 12:24 says that just through the power of God’s word, the church was multiplied and increased.
Hebrews 4:12 tells us that God’s word has the power to pierce our soul and spirit and to judge the intentions and thoughts of our hearts.
Do you see how powerful the words of God are? His words create and sustain everything that we see, even you and I. His words are eternal, just like Him. His words make things grow. His word judges our hearts. His words have tremendous power that we just can’t fully grasp or understand.
What this means for us, is that when we pick up this book, the Bible, and we open its pages to read what is written within, we are reading the very words of God: words that when spoken by Him have the power to create, to give life, to grow things, to judge hearts and souls. When we read these words, we’re not just reading words that some guy scratched out on a piece of parchment. These words are God-breathed, inspired, given to us to teach us all that He has said to us.
I want you to look at 1 Peter 2:2-3, “Like newborn babies, crave pure spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up in your salvation, now that you have tasted that the Lord is good.”
The spiritual milk that Peter is talking about, the thing that is supposed to make us grow up in our salvation, the thing that we’re supposed to crave, some translations say desire, when we come to the Lord and we have tasted His goodness, is the Word of God. His Word. Scripture. The Bible. We’re supposed to crave it.
By His Word alone we live and breath and have our being.
His Word is a vital part of growing up in our salvation. Without it, we can’t hope to mature in our faith. We know we should study God’s Word. We know we should read the Bible. We hopefully know how important it is to our health as Christ’s disciples.
I read a very good point the other day, that the Word of God is meant to be our daily bread, not cake for special occasions only.
Unfortunately, many of us, actually, probably all of us, at some point in our walk with Christ has approached the life-giving Word of God for the wrong reasons.
I want you this morning to closely examine those motives. As we go through a few wrong motivations for studying God’s Word, I want you to honestly reflect on your own motivations.
We can sometimes come to God’s Word out of guilt. We know we should be reading the Bible, we know it should be our daily bread. Psalm 1 says that the man who meditates on the Word of the Lord day and night is blessed. We know we should be spending time with Him this way, so we come to Him, we approach His Word out of guilt.
But that’s the opposite of what God desires for us. Remember, Peter told us that we should crave God’s Word. God desires for us to want to spend time with Him through His Word. He desires for us to want to grow in our knowledge of Him.
Psalm 119 gives us a lot of great insight into the heart of a person who greatly desires to know God through His Word, not out of guilt, but out of love. Psalm 119:16 says, “I delight in your decrees; I will not neglect your word.” Verses 47-48 say, “for I delight in your commands because I love them. I reach out for your commands, which I love, that I may meditate on your decrees.” Verse 72 says, “The law from your mouth is more precious to me than thousands of pieces of silver and gold.” Verses 97-98 say, “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long. Your commands are always with me,”
Pray that if you find yourself coming to God’s Word out of guilt, that He gives you a desire for His Word, that you might hunger and thirst for it because of your love for the Lord.
We can also sometimes come to God’s Word out of a desire to gain status in the church. This might seem silly, but if you think hard enough, I’m sure you can probably think of someone you’ve known who was known for what they knew about the Bible, and they were prideful about it.
Now, it’s not wrong to know the Bible. It’s not wrong to want to know the Bible more, it’s what we should want, we should desire to know what it says, to be able to recall what it says during our times of need when we need God’s guidance. But, we want to be careful never to approach God’s Word simply to gain more knowledge, or to be a prideful “expert” in the Word. After all, this is what one of Jesus’ chief complaints against the Pharisees was, was that they knew the Law, they knew God’s Word backward and forward, but they never allowed God’s Word to change them and to lead them to a deeper relationship with God.
This is what we want to avoid. Reading God’s Word isn’t just about gaining more knowledge. Studying God’s Word isn’t about how much more you know than anyone at church. Knowing God’s Word isn’t so you can pridefully boast about how much you know.
Pray that if you have been tempted to come to God’s Word just for the sake of knowing more, out of pride and a desire to sort of “show off”, that He would bring you rather to a place where you desire to read His Word because it teaches you more about His great love for you.
We can also sometimes come to God’s Word just for teaching material. This is especially true if you teach a Bible study, or have to give a devotion of some sort for a group in the church that meets. While we do know that all of Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, among other things, we want to be sure that this is not the only reason we study His Word.
I do hope that we examine our hearts this morning, and examine our motivations for why we study the Bible. And if you find any wrong motivation, then I want us to consider this as well: the question, why did God give us the Bible? In finding an answer to this question, we can better understand why Peter says we should desire God’s Word like pure spiritual food.
So, why did God give us the Bible? God gave us His Word to teach us about Himself. You can write that in your bulletins if you’re taking notes this morning. Through God’s Word, we learn about Him.
Genesis begins with a God who existed and spoke everything into existence. Revelation ends with God reigning over all of His creation for all eternity. But in the in-between, we learn about His goodness, His kindness, His power, justice, mercy, grace, anger, faithfulness, holiness, and everything else we can learn about Him through what He has revealed in His Word.
The main point of everything we’ve been talking about and learning for the last two months has been about becoming better disciples of Christ. If we’re going to do that, then we need to read the only book that tells us about the one we’re trying to follow.
God gave us the Bible to teach us about ourselves and the world we live in. You can write that down in your bulletin as well. The Bible is full of explanations about the world, because the God who inspired the Bible to be written created the world.
The Bible is also full of wisdom for individuals. It teaches us about rightful responses to our emotions. It teaches us about human nature and how that nature fits into God’s plan. So, as we study the Bible, we should be seeking to understand God better, we should be seeking to understand His world better, and we should be seeking to understand ourselves better.
God also gave us the Bible to enable us to live Godly lives. You can write that down. 2 Peter 1:3 says that God’s “divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us to His own glory and excellence.” When we study God’s word, one of our greatest motivators should be so that we are equipped and enabled to live Godly lives that please the Lord.
Remember what Paul said, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” (2 Tim. 3:16-17).
God gave us His Word so we would be made complete! When we read it and study it and meditate on it, it’s meant to pierce our thoughts and hearts and expose who we really are. So, if you find that when you read the Bible, you aren’t changing, then I would suggest a different approach to reading the Bible. Read and ask yourself, “What does this mean for me? How should what I’ve just read affect me? What can I do to allow God’s Spirit to change me so my life reflects Christ better?”
God gave us His Word to lead us to a relationship with Him. You can write that down, too. He wants us to know Him. His Word invites us to come and reason with Him, that means He wants us to logically think about what He has written to us. He wants us to have a relationship with Him. Think of it this way: every relationship requires communication, right? In a relationship we express our thoughts, emotions, concerns, and hopes and through that expression, we strengthen the relationship. Why would it be any different with God? The Bible is God’s way that He has chosen to express to us His thoughts, His emotions, His concerns, His hope, so if we neglect that, then we miss the communication He’s trying to use to have a relationship with us.
God’s Word is alive and active. How many times have you read a passage and it may not have meant much to you the first 100 times you read it, but when you read it that 101st time, all of a sudden it comes alive and speaks to you and changes you? That’s because God’s Spirit is using that passage to actively communicate something to you that He wants you to know! Isn’t that neat? God’s Spirit is speaking to you!
God gave us the Bible to exalt Jesus. You can write that down. All of Scripture points to Christ Jesus as our Savior. All of the events we read about in Biblical history point to His Son. Through God’s Word, we learn that it is only possible to have a relationship with God through His Son. Through the Bible, we read about God’s redemptive plan for all of humanity! Through His Word we’re told about the coming judgment and return of Christ. All of this with the goal of exalting Christ Jesus to the glory of God!
Finally, God gave us the Bible to prepare us for our earthly, God-given mission. You can write that down, too. We’ve talked about this extensively the last two months, that we were not put on this earth and saved by faith in Christ Jesus just for ourselves. We are saved to speak salvation to others so they might be saved as well. 2 Corinthians 5:20 says that we are God’s ambassadors for Christ! We are a part of His redemptive plan, not just because He saves us, but because He desires for us to partner with Him to see others come to His Son.
So, what this means is that when we read Scripture, we should view it as our marching orders. It says “go”, we go. It says “stay”, we stay. It says “pray”, we pray. It says “love”, we love. It says “kneel”, we kneel.
Before I ask our questions, I want us to just consider all that we’ve heard. That the Bible is literally God’s words to us, the very same word that spoke things into creation and sustain life, He has seen fit to give to us. So, we want to be careful of our motives for reading this book, this Word of God. We want to make sure we understand why He gave us His Word so we approach reading His Word with the right heart. When we read His Word, we are meeting with Him and He is speaking to us. So prepare yourself to meet with God!
Here’s the questions I want you to consider and answer this week:
1. Take a minute to think about your past experience with studying the Bible. Which of the wrong motivations from the message are you guilty of? Can you think of any others?
2. Take a minute to think through why God gave us the Bible. How should these things affect the way you think about studying the Bible?
3. Read 1 Peter 2:1-2. What would your life look like if you desired the Word as Peter described? How do you tend to respond to the Bible’s teaching? Would you say that you approach it humbly with a desire to change? How do you need to adjust your approach to studying the Bible?
Spend some time in prayer this week. Ask God to purify your heart of any wrong motives for studying His Word. Ask Him to lead you to a deeper longing for His Word.