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The Wheel: the Word Part I

Sermon Transcript

The following is a lightly edited transcript generated from the audio; it may contain small errors.

Opening

Open your Bibles to Psalm 1 if you would. Now last week we started talking about the wheel. I had a funny conversation with David Snyder after church. We were having lunch and he said, you know, he said I visited a church in the south and the pastor was talking about God’s wheel during the sermon and then I realized at the end that what he was trying to say was God’s will, but he was saying God’s wheel. Of course, if you know Sammy, you know exactly what I’m talking about. But thank you very much. So we do want to talk about God’s will and God’s wheel. Talk about both. Let’s read Psalm 1 together.

Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; but his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper. The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish.

(Psalm 1:1–6)

Blessed is the man or woman—yeah, man or woman. It’s the only two genders we have. Although you wouldn’t know it today. Now we begin to talk about the wheel, and I think I mentioned last week that I was going to change the wheel. Now is there a wheel? Don’t put the wheel in. Does anybody remember the wheel from last week? Is there a wheel up there? No, that’s not supposed to be there. I said don’t put the wheel up. Don’t put the wheel up. Well, that ruined that illustration. Okay, put the wheel back up. Okay, I changed the wheel just a little bit. If you remember the wheel from last week, I was going to quiz you on last week, but now it’s all messed up. The wheel last week was entitled “The Obedient Christian.” That’s a good title, but I think we can misread it, because what happens is when you talk about the Christian life and you talk about what are referred to as spiritual disciplines like the Word and prayer, etc., these things can become a new law. You follow me? A new law. And so the Christian life, which is a life of discipline, becomes a legalistic thing.

Means of Grace, Not a New Law

And that’s really not what it’s supposed to be. Because the spokes on the wheel are not laws in the sense of—yeah, you know what I mean by that. They are means of grace. Means of grace. So today I suspect that unless you’re fasting, you’re going to eat food today. But there’s no law that requires you to eat today. Is there? No. But you’re going to eat it. Why? Because you like it. Because you need it. Because you want it. So just as eating is a means—my son’s thinking, dad, please—just as eating is a means to feed the body, so these means of grace are the means by which we feed the soul. And we don’t have to be told to eat. Now children will need to be told to eat certain things, right? Eat the green beans, eat the green stuff. But generally they don’t need to be told to eat. My kids, I need to tell them to stop eating generally. So this is why I think “the obedient Christian” is true; however, it can be misleading. We don’t want to look at these as new laws, and then the Christian life becomes a mechanical legalistic thing. That’s not what it is to be. The Christian life is a life of grace and a life of the Holy Spirit. Amen. It is to be a Spirit-filled, grace-filled life. Now that doesn’t eliminate discipline at all. Discipline is different than legalism. So I was going to put the phrase “the mature Christian,” but more and more I think that concept is not a good concept. It’s misleading. There is such a thing as maturity in the Bible, but I think we use the term maturity in a way that is not consistent with Scripture, and here’s why I don’t like the label, the mature Christian. I think that many Christians who’ve been saved for a while, whatever that while is, five years, ten years, some of you [audio unclear] there is no point at which you stop growing. There’s never a point at which you arrive now and therefore I don’t need to grow, because you’re a growing Christian or you’re a not-growing Christian, and a not-growing Christian is what? A backsliding Christian, because in the Christian life you’re either progressing or regressing. You’re not sitting in the same place. I think you are, but probably it’s like the proverbial frog in the kettle, right?

Growing Christians

How many times have you heard about these things? How many times, if you walk with the Lord for 10 or 20 or 30 years, how many times have you heard these things—and not just me, but you hear them on the radio, you read them. You hear these things over and over and over. The question is not how many times have you heard them. The question is, are you doing them? Because the reality, the truth of the matter is that many mature Christians, if they were to honestly, in the presence of God, submit to the Holy Spirit, look at that wheel, and allow God to speak to them about what they are doing, not what they are professing, they would have to admit that they are not doing many of these things. Because I know Christians that have been saved for 10, 15, 20 years and they’ve never shared the gospel with anybody. And I know Christians who have known the Lord for years and they don’t know their Bibles better than a child. Because the reality is, and we all do it, I’m not just talking to you, I’m preaching to me too, is that we think we know something when we simply hear it. But we don’t know it until we do it. Until these things are woven into our lives, and until these practices are actually practiced, then we don’t know them in the sense that the Bible uses the word knowledge. When we were told to grow in grace and knowledge, it’s not simply a speculative or theoretical knowledge.

Many of you have walked with the Lord for many years, and I thought for sure it would—I felt that I was being offensive. But clearly, the Holy Spirit is telling me to address this because we don’t know what we think we know. Now let me ask you, how many hours did you spend in the Word this week? Not minutes, hours. How many people have you witnessed to this week? How many hours did you spend in private prayer and worship? How many hours did you spend in serving others? Well, there you go. So you’re thinking, gee, pastor, you’re making me feel bad. Good. And here’s why. I don’t want anybody motivated by guilt, but I want you to pay attention, because some of you are not paying attention. You’re not paying attention to sermons, you’re not paying attention to the Bible when you read it, if you read it, the little you read it. You’re not paying attention to what’s happening to your family, you’re not paying attention. And part of the problem is because you’ve heard it so many times, you’ve hit the snooze button on the Christian life. Oh, another sermon about that? I know that, about Bible reading, I know that, but we don’t know that until we do that.

Knowledge and Wisdom

Because that’s what the Bible calls not just knowledge, but what the Bible calls wisdom. Because in the Bible, the wise man is the man who knows that and then does that. You see, wisdom is a lifestyle, just as folly is a lifestyle. And so we need to pay attention to the things that we think we know. We think we know these things. We think we do. But the true test of maturity is not how long we’ve been saved. It is, are we walking the walk? Are the spokes on our wheel even? And is our Christian life rolling? Because let me tell you something: when you short one spoke, and you short another, and you short another, when the wheel collapses, you get stuck, and the Christian life doesn’t move, or it takes a whole lot of energy to get that wheel to move because it’s wobbly. Sound like a Christian life? A lot of energy. So as we talk about the wheel—that’s wheel, Sammy, not will—as we talk about these disciplines or practices, you must continue to ask yourself as I am asking myself, not what do I think I know, but how am I living? Because the truth of the matter is this, if we are not engaging in these practices—and these are not all of them, but these are foundational—if we are not engaging in these practices, we will not be a growing Christian, we won’t grow. Stop eating today. Eventually you will die. You have to feed your body, hence you must feed your soul. Amen?

Look at Matthew 4. We’ll come back to the Psalm in a minute. Go to Matthew 4. Jesus is in the wilderness and Jesus is being tempted. And the tempter says in verse 3, “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become bread.” Jesus at this point was hungry. He had been fasting. He was very hungry. He wanted food. So of course the appetites would comply, if [audio unclear] God. And when you read the entire account, there’s three temptations, there’s three responses by Jesus, and in every case he responds with this phrase, “It stands written.” It’s the perfect tense in the Greek, which means it was written in the past, and it’s still written now, it stands. That was his response, the Word of God. And if Jesus needed the Word of God—he was the Word of God—how much more do we? Amen?

The Nature of the Word

I want to say briefly a word about the nature of the Word. What do I mean with that? First of all, is that the Word of God is fundamentally different than the word of man. It’s a different kind of word. And we see this in Hebrews. We’re going to look at a lot. Look at the Word of God: it is living and powerful and sharper. The Word of God is living, it is powerful, and it is sharp. So the Word of God is different than man’s word. Because man’s word is not living, man’s word is dead. God’s Word is living. This is what Peter says if you go to 1 Peter. Look at 1 Peter chapter 1, he says, verse 22—I’m not going to wait for you. Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth, you’re all mature, so you can get right there, right? Get right there. “Obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’” And so because the Word of God is living, it generates life. And that’s why we are told in James 1 that we were begotten or born again by the Word. The Word of God is compared to a seed, and in that seed it looks like it’s dead, but in reality, once it’s buried, it generates because there’s life in there, and that life brings forth life. The Word of God is a living seed, if you will, and it brings forth life. The Word of God quickens into life.

Go to John chapter 6. In John 6, Jesus is talking to the Jews about who He is, and He’s telling them that He’s the bread of life, that we must eat His body and drink His blood. Of course, they were offended at all this. In verse 60, therefore many of His disciples, when they heard this, said, “This is a hard saying; who can understand it?” When Jesus knew in Himself that His disciples complained about this, He said to them, “Does this offend you?” Okay, I’ll change my message. Oh no, he doesn’t say that, does it? “Does this offend you?” [audio unclear] “they are life.”

Hearing the Word

And this is another illustration we’re going to show you that is used by the Navigators, and it’s called the Word Hand. The Word Hand. See it? We’re going to talk about these briefly. The first one I want to talk about is hearing the Word. When we talk about hearing the Word, we mean listening to the Word proclaimed, taught, preached, etc. We’re told in Romans 10 that faith comes by hearing the Word of God, or the gospel, the message of the Word. Look at Galatians chapter 3, if you would. In Galatians 3, Paul is exhorting them not to try to live the Christian life in the flesh. He says in verse 2:

This only I want to learn from you: Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun in the Spirit, are you now being made perfect by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things in vain—if indeed it was in vain? Therefore He who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you, does He do it by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?

(Galatians 3:2–5)

So you see this phrase, “the hearing of faith.” So we need to hear the Word of God. That is to say, we need to listen to the Word of God preached, declared, taught, if you will. You will hear many people today say, I don’t need to go to church, I’ve got my Bible and my coffee, I can sit at home and read my Bible. I don’t need to hear any teaching or preaching. The problem with that is, number one, it’s unbiblical. But number two, the reason it’s unbiblical is because even in our interaction with the Word, we can avoid those texts that we know are there and don’t like. And we’ve all done it. We’ve all done it. If you’ve walked with the Lord for any time, you’ve done it. So you’re involved in maybe a certain sin, so maybe you’re messing around sexually, well you’re not going to read 1 Corinthians because it talks about immorality a lot, eh, we’ll avoid that. And so we can be selective in our reading of the Word, and some people fall into habits in the reading of the Word, right? So maybe they have a favorite gospel, and if they’re going to read the gospel they always read John. Or maybe they have a couple epistles they really like, and maybe they like Psalms or Proverbs and they read those a lot, and omit many, many other portions of the Word. All Scripture is given for our warning, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, etc., that we may be thoroughly furnished, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So we have to, as a minimum—and many Christians don’t even do that anymore, but it’s a minimum—we ought to be hearing the Word as often as we are able.

Reading the Word

We need to be reading God’s Word on a regular basis, and we need to be reading God’s Word on a systematic basis. Again, we don’t want to be selective. I don’t know if you have a Bible reading plan, but if you don’t, you need one. Because you will fall into habits, which your Bible reading will become selective, and you may know certain passages very well, and other portions of Scripture, not at all. More and more nowadays it’s difficult to use Old Testament illustrations in a sermon because people don’t know what you’re talking about. Because they’ve never read the Old Testament. So you want to allude to a cool incident in Elijah’s life and people are like, huh? Because they’ve never read Kings or Samuel. They don’t read their Bibles anymore. So if you’re going to grow in your knowledge of the Word then you have to read the entire Bible and you need to have a reading plan. Now there’s not one divine plan. God didn’t say this is how you read it. You’ve probably seen Bible reading plans. If not you should find out. You can talk to me or just Google it. Just Google it. Bible reading plan. You find all kinds of Bible reading plans. Read it through in a year, read it through in 90 days, read it through in two years. Many different plans. But we need to be reading the Word regularly. We need to be reading the Word systematically. You don’t want to fall into [audio unclear] this is where we see how different the Word is, compared to food. Because you see the Word, it’s funny, is that when you don’t eat a meal, you know it. You feel it, right? And because you missed the meal, you get hungry, it creates more desire in you. You want to eat more. With the Word, desire actually goes down. It’s interesting. The more you read the Word, the more you will want to read the Word. Just the way it is. And the less you read it, the less you will want to, and hence the less you will. So there has to be a plan to do it. And I would recommend that you, whatever plan works for you, I’ve used different plans. I usually have two places in the Old Testament I’m reading, a place in the Gospels and a place in the Epistles.

And what we don’t want to do with the Word is we don’t want to have a plan that we just kind of rush through. Here’s my Bible reading plan, I’ve got to read this chapter today and I’m busy but I’m going to read it. I did my chapter and I checked it off. That’s not honoring to the Word and it’s not beneficial to you. If you’re going to read the Word, you need to read it while you’re awake. Some of you that means you do it in the morning. Some of you that means you do it at lunchtime, some of you it means right after dinner, maybe some of you that’s later in the night, whatever works, you have to be awake. Not just physically, I mean awake. You need to be paying attention to what the Word is saying. You have to think about what you’re reading.

Studying the Word

Then, studying means you not only think about the Word, but then you use other means and tools to understand that Word. So, that means you might use a commentary, a Bible dictionary, a lexicon, a concordance, various tools so that you can dig in and study the Word and not just read the Word. My most rewarding times in the Word are probably when I’m studying the Word. And the reason, I think, is because at that point, your mind is fully engaged, is so fully engaged. In other words, you’re really paying attention to what the Word is saying. And I was sharing with my daughter the other day that one of the reasons I read the New Testament in Greek is because, although it’s a lot harder than English, it forces, because it’s hard, it forces me to really concentrate. And so when I’m reading it in Greek it’s amazing how many things I see that I don’t see in English. Are they there in English? Yeah, you don’t need to read the Greek. The problem is I’m not paying attention when I read in English. I’m not thinking about it because I’m so familiar with the words in the language. And so it forces me to stop and think and focus and then it’s amazing what you see that’s there that you miss when you just do this cursory reading. That’s why in addition to reading you have to do studying. And there’s many ways to study the Word. You can do a book study, a word study, a topic study. There’s many different approaches. And there are good books that you can get at Basics Bookstore. There are books there on Bible study methods. There are books which will help you study a particular book if you want to study a particular book. And so we have to be digging into the Word at a deeper level. Amen. Go to the book of Proverbs. Look what it says in Proverbs 2:

My son, if you receive my words, and treasure my commands within you, so that you incline your ear to wisdom, and apply your heart to understanding; yes, if you cry out for discernment, and lift up your voice for understanding, if you seek her as silver, and search for her as for hidden treasures…

(Proverbs 2:1–4)

That is a description of studying the Word. It’s like digging a mine. You dig down, you remove the dirt, the rocks out of the way, and you search, and you labor, and you get into it. You get into the Word. Some of you are thinking, Pastor, I’m not an egghead like you. You don’t need to be an egghead. You just need to desire the things of God and as you do that will create a hunger in you to know more and to dig deeper. I love to talk to Laura Dean about the catechism because she was raised in not only a Christian home—Laura has a unique honor of being a pastor’s kid. And it wasn’t until she began to teach her own children the catechism and she began to study the catechism that she began to learn all kinds of things about the Word. Why? Because although she’d been reading it for years, it required her now to study at a deeper level. And that study has brought tremendous growth in her life. So we need to be studying the Word of God, not just reading it.

Memorizing the Word

Fourthly, we need to memorize the Word. Okay, memorize the Word. When I was a baby Christian, I was told the importance of memorizing the Word, and I said, that’s cool, I’ll never be able to do that because I’ve never memorized anything other than my phone number. I don’t even know if at that time I memorized my social security number. Of course now you don’t need to memorize anything because you just put it all on your phone, right? But I was convinced of the importance of that and so I began what worked for me. I just took three-by-five index cards and I wrote the address on one side. On the other side I wrote the verse out. I punched a hole in it. I put it on a little ring. I put the ring on my belt clip and that went with me everywhere I went. Pretty nerdy, huh? Pretty nerdy. Guess what? It worked. So I’d be sitting in my car at a stoplight. I’d look at my card and read a verse. It’d be at work, have a two-minute break. Look at the verse. It’s amazing, all the Scripture that I memorized over the years that way. If you want to go there, Psalm 119 says, in verse 9, “How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. With my whole heart I have sought You; oh, let me not wander from Your commandments. Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” I’ve hidden the Word in my heart. That is really a description of memorizing the Word. Knowing the Word so well, the Word is residing in your heart. So even if you don’t have a Bible with you, you’re able to recall the Word to mind when it is needed. Or better yet, the Holy Spirit is able to call the Word to mind because you’ve hidden it in your heart. So we need to be memorizing the Word.

Meditation

Lastly, meditation. I’ll probably talk, because of time, I think we’ll talk more about this next week because this is fundamental. On the illustration of the hand, they put meditation intentionally on the thumb, because when you think about using your hand, no matter what you’re using, your thumb is for all kinds of things, right? So in a sense, meditation is woven into all of these other aspects of the Word. Hearing it, reading it, studying it, memorizing it, we’re meditating on it, which means we are pondering it, thinking about it, considering it, and then applying it to ourselves. Okay? We’re meditating. Yeah, I think I’m going to reserve my comments on meditation for next week, because we need to spend a little more time talking about meditation. But I do want to read you a quote by Thomas Brooks. He says this:

Dear friends, we must buy truth even if the price is ever so dear. Every parcel of truth is as precious as the filings of gold. We must either live with it or die for it. As Ruth said to Naomi, so gracious spirits say, “Where truth goes I will go, and where it lodges I will lodge, and nothing but death shall part me and truth.” A man may lawfully sell his house, land and jewels, but truth exceeds all prices and must not be sold. It is our heritage and joy.

Amen. He goes on to say, our forefathers have bought truth with their blood. And this is true. Because many Christians have literally, not figuratively, literally died so that the Bible could be put into the vernacular languages. Think about that. So they’ve bought the truth with their blood. We should be willing to lay down anything that we may purchase this precious jewel. It is worth more than the heavens and the earth and will make men live happily, die comfortably and reign eternally. “In seeking truth, remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths that make them sweet and profitable to the soul.” I want to read that again. “In seeking truth, remember, it is not hasty reading, but serious meditating upon holy and heavenly truths that make them sweet and profitable to the soul.”

I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry. So, in conclusion, the Word Hand, the simple illustration, which is used by the Navigators and maybe other ministries to tell the baby Christian how they ought to approach the Word. So, as I begin, so I conclude by asking you, how’s your hand doing? How’s your Word hand doing? Be honest. Be honest. Now, I know you’re all busy, and that’s always the first objection, but as we just read by Thomas Brooks and as we just read in Proverbs 2, God Himself tells us to seek, to desire, to cry out. In other words, so valuable is spiritual truth, which is in God’s Word, so valuable, it says that it is more valuable than gold, than rubies. Therefore, it’s so valuable, we ought to take the time to hear it, to read it, to study it, to memorize it, and to meditate on it. Amen. And if you will be honest, and by the way, if you want a copy of this, I’ll email it to all of you. If you will take that Word Hand, you will say, Jesus, help me have a healthy hand. And you’ll be honest. And you will begin to do. If you begin to do, then you will see the benefits in your life. You will. It’s not you might, you will. The Word of God is powerful, and it transforms lives. And if you want a transformed life, then you must be a student of the Word. You must hear it, you must read it, you must study it, you must memorize it, and you must meditate upon it. And the Word of God will change you.

Closing

Let’s stand and pray. Lord, I thank you for your Word. What a precious gift. And I pray, Lord, for every one of us, myself included, that if we’re neglecting your Word, God, I pray that right now we would acknowledge before you that it is a sin, that we have shunned your gracious provision. And that’s insulting to you, Father. I thank you for the forgiveness that we have in Jesus Christ. And I thank you that if we confess our sins, you are faithful and just to forgive us. And that we can leave this assembly forgiven and cleansed. And that today we can change. Today we can begin to do that which we profess to know. And that is my prayer, Father, and nothing more, that we would simply do what we know. When it comes to your Word, Father, I pray that we would be those who love and cherish and honor your Word, because it is through your Word that we know you. And my deepest heart’s desire, Lord, is that we would be a people that love our God and our Savior Jesus Christ. And we pray these things in His name, amen.