9 Essentials to Living the Christian Life: The Word

Today we go to the second essential for living the Christian life.

And on your blank diagram, in the bottom arrow, the arrow that is at the base, right there under Christ, write the word, Word. W-O-R-D.

and the verses that go with that are John 8, 31, and 32. John 8, 31, and 32.

The bottom arrow, right under Christ, the base arrow, you write the word, word, and the verses that go with that arrow are John 8, 31, and 32.

Those are the memory verses for this week. Say them with me. It's on your handout. This week's memory verse. If you abide, together, if you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

Let's pray. today Lord as we turn to this second essential of the Christian life it is my prayer that you will open our eyes to the truth that the word is an essential ingredient of this Christian life it is not an option

forgive us for our neglect of the word the dust on our Bibles is a testament against us May we be people who know the word, who understand the word, but more importantly, people who live the word. For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.

You'll have to stick with me today. I actually have the PowerPoint presentation ready, but I always know I'm in trouble if I get here after Louise. So I decided not to try to get all the stuff set up at the last second. so stick with me. There's a terrible disconnect among people who call themselves Christian today, and that disconnect was highlighted in some of the surveys you filled out for me last week.

I'm going to pick one survey I got. They're all anonymous, so I don't know whose it was and don't want to know. But one of the questions on the survey I asked was, do you have a regular time each week for Bible study and prayer. And another question was, how would you rate your growth in Christ during the last year? I got one person who said excellent on the question, how would you rate your growth in Christ?

Excellent.

Sounds good. But that same person who said excellent on the question when asked, do you have a regular time each week for prayer and reading of God's Word, they said no.

Yet, when they were asked the question about their growth in Christ, they said excellent. Now, there may be some way they were reading those questions that in their minds that is not a disconnect. But I sat there and read it for a long time, and I said it would be hard for me to conceive how anyone would rate their relationship and growth in Christ as excellent when they said I have no regular time for reading God's Word in prayer.

This disconnect between the importance of God's Word and the Christian life was evident in a story I heard from Walt Kaiser who was president of Gordon-Colwell Seminary this past week, he had to go to a convention of new seminary presidents. And he's an older seminary president, but he was in with some new seminary presidents. And they had to ask, they were saying, you know, what kind of problems are you dealing with as president of the seminary? And here's one question that was asked by one seminary president. He said, if your faculty has a faculty dinner and you're inviting the faculty of a seminary to come to your faculty dinner, and one of those faculty members is coming to this faculty and spouse dinner, but the person that the faculty member wants to bring is just his significant other, not a spouse, what do you do? Do you invite him and the significant other or don't you?

And one said, well, let me ask you this question. What if the significant other is of the same sex and they're living together in a lesbian or homosexual relationship? Do you invite them?

That question I might anticipate at many institutions of higher learning that often exhibit lower moral standards. but I was not expecting to hear it at a meeting of seminary presidents. But there's a strange disconnect. We come to church, we say the word is important, but somehow, somehow we think we can live the Christian life and just ignore what it says. We don't live it.

I don't know if it's because we don't know it. we are we're just flooded with information today from so many sources including sources about the Bible we've got information just it's just anywhere you turn you can get information about the Bible but maybe we don't take the time to really know it maybe that's one problem but I perceive the greater problem is we don't care what we know we're going to do what we want to do because right and wrong, good and evil, truth and error is supreme to what God says. And God should judge the church if we ignore his word and he will. And I submit to you that one reason the Christian church in America is so sorrowfully blase is because God is judging us because we ignore his word and we don't live it. So I'm going to press us this morning to understand what Christ wanted to teach the people to whom he was talking when he says, if you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.

Here's the context. It's probably the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the great Jewish pilgrimage pilgrimage feasts. Huge crowds came to this feast in Jerusalem. It was a fall festival.

Jesus goes secretly to the feast. You have to read John chapter 7 and chapter 8 to get all of that I'm telling you, but I want to give you this background. Jesus goes secretly to the feast. His brothers, who we're told did not believe him at this point in time, want him to go to the feast publicly. They want him to go and declare himself, and I think they want to sort of see if Jesus can stand the scrutiny of the crowds. But we're told his brothers don't believe him. But Jesus says, no, y'all go on ahead without me. But then he secretly goes to the feast.

And it's during that feast, he kind of watches and waits, but finally he stands up and he begins to teach. And as soon as he begins to teach, there is great opposition to him. There's some him the pharisees are enraged by his claims to be the water that is living water to be the light that is the light of the world but as he preaches and as he teaches there is a group of jews who say they believe him now this is where you got to look with me now in your Bible. John chapter 8. See verse 31, John 8, 31. To the Jews, are you with me? To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, if you abide in my word, then you're truly my disciples and you should know the truth and the truth shall set you free.

I think in this context, that word believed, you ought to put in quotation marks. Because if you go on and read the rest of chapter 8, you're going to find out they really didn't believe him. These are the folks who walked to the front in church and said, hey, I believe. But they didn't really. a genuine belief.

And that becomes evident that it's only a professed belief and not a genuine belief as you read the rest of the passage. Jesus makes it clear as he talks with them and as they respond to him that these people have not been set free from sin who claim to believe. They're still slaves to sin and their father is really the devil who is the father of all lies.

You see, when they said to Jesus, we believe, he then said, well, let's see what the mark of a true disciple is. Let's measure, let's test. Are you a true disciple? And what I want us to look at for just a moment are the marks of genuine discipleship. The marks of genuine discipleship.

And here they are. First, a genuine disciple is a learner and a follower. A genuine disciple is a learner and a follower. If you abide in my word, then you are truly my disciples. That word disciple has a real special meaning, a specific meaning from the Greek language.

A disciple is one who is learning, but he's learning as he is following someone. The disciple was the one who followed after somebody, and as he followed, he learned from the one he followed.

So a true disciple of Christ is going to be someone who is following after Christ and who is learning from Christ as he follows.

the second genuine mark of a disciple is a genuine disciple is one who abides in the word of Christ. If you abide in my word, Christ said, then you are truly my disciples. That is, you are following me and learning me. But to know if you are genuinely this disciple who's following and learning from me, you must be abiding in my word. To abide means, and here's That word has two aspects to it.

To abide means to dwell or live in a place. And then the second aspect of it is on a continuous and permanent basis. To abide means to dwell or live in a place on a continuous and permanent basis. if you are genuinely Christ's disciple you will live and dwell in His Word day in and day out I'm not going to say you'll be perfect you won't be but the thrust of your life will be a regular, continuous studying, learning, abiding in His Word you cannot separate discipleship from abiding in christ's word it is an essential ingredient and it's not i'm going to read this week and take a year off it is abiding on a continuous and permanent basis do you hear me this is the long haul the disciple has said i'm yours for life. And because I'm yours, I'm following you and want to learn from you. I want to know your word. I want to soak it up. I want to learn everything that you want me to know.

Because my life is Christ. To live is Christ. I want to know everything. Help me to know it.

there are many who claim to be christ who don't live on in his word at all or very little and to the extent they do it is not this sort of continuous permanent permanent abiding in the word it's sort of a hit and miss every now and then sort of thing

the word we're told in scripture scripture gets a lot of metaphors or pictures of what the Bible or Scripture is to the disciple. I'm going to give you a few of those right here. The word is the disciple's food and water. Just as we can't live without food and water physically, you can't live spiritually without food and water. And I'm giving you some references there.

Jeremiah 15, 16, Thy words were found and I ate them, Jeremiah says. and the delight of my heart. Psalm 1, 1 to 3. How blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked nor sit in the seat of scoffers nor stand in the path of sinners nor sit in the seat of scoffers but his delight is in the law of the Lord and in his law he meditates day and night and he will be like a tree firmly planted by streams of water. The word watering, watering.

He will be firmly planted by streams of water. It'll be like a tree which yields its fruit in its season and its leaf does not wither. And in whatever he does, he prospers. You want to grow in Christ. When people say, I want to grow in Christ, what do I do?

You get into the scripture. It is the food and water of the spiritual life. The second picture is, it is light for the journey of faith. Psalm 119, 105, Thy word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path. And as we use the light of Scripture, it shows us the direction to go, but it also shines a spotlight on ourselves and shows us how we need to change.

Thirdly, the Word is the disciple's delight. And fourthly, the Word is the disciple's teacher. Teacher.

If you abide in my Word, you're truly my disciples, and you will know the truth because the Word's going to teach us what the truth is. So the word is food and water, light, delight, and it is our teacher. You cannot claim to love Christ and not be in and obeying his word. You cannot claim to know God and yet ignore what he says. In fact, John, when he wrote 1 John, will say, The person who says, I know him, but doesn't do what he says is a liar.

John didn't mention many words about the importance of Scripture. And Jesus would say later in the Gospel of John, He who has my commands and keeps them, he's the one that loves me. You love Jesus? You love Jesus? The test is not how you feel. The test is what you do.

If you obey him, that is evidence that you love him. You cannot claim to believe him, love him, and know him, and then ignore and disobey his word. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, those who believe obey his word. Those who believe obey.

Are you abiding in the word of Christ, dwelling and living in it on a continuous and permanent basis? c a genuine disciple knows the truth i put quotes around those and quotes around the truth because it's important for us to understand what both those words mean to know is to understand with a certainty that transforms transforms. This is C1 at the bottom of page one. To know is to understand with a certainty that transforms, that changes us. One of the things that just rankled the Roman emperors back in the early days of the Christian church is that these Christians were so certain about the truth. They knew Jesus was the Christ. They knew he was Lord. They knew he lived in heaven. They knew he was coming again. They knew the Roman emperors were not supreme. They knew the gladiatorial games where they were killing human beings for sport were evil and they said so. They knew that abortion and infanticide which were practiced regularly in the Roman world and were devastating the Roman world were wrong there was no question about it they didn't waffle when it came to issues like that they knew but that kind of certainty that kind of on those essential issues of life just angered people they didn't want people who were just so certain about the truth and when they were unyielding and living for it.

Is that not true in our culture? Is there not in our culture today this element, if you know for certain the truth and stand unyieldingly for it that there's something wrong with you, number one, and number two, you're not really the loving person you claim to be. I am telling you that what Christ is talking about here is knowing with a certainty that will change you.

this kind of truth without being changed. Know it in the sense that they mean here. This isn't just head knowledge but it's the kind of knowledge that penetrates to the heart and to the will and it changes how we live.

If you're a genuine disciple, you're going to know the truth. By going to the Word, you're going to see that

truth and you're going to be certain about it and it's going to change you. Now I'm not saying they're not or secondary kind of issues that we can have a lot of different opinions about. There certainly are issues like that. But when we're coming to the central truths of the faith and the central truth about what is right and wrong, there is only one Lord. There is on many issues only one thing that is right and everything else is wrong.

And we as Christians need to be in the Word so we can know that. And it will give us that certainty. The reason that the Word on your diagram is the bottom stake, is because if you're going to live this Christian life, you've got to have that stake driven deep in the ground so you can stand firm. You've got to know the truth. That word has got to be the foundation on which we live our lives.

The second point, the last line on the bottom of page one, to know implies that we are students of God's word. You don't know this word without studying it. to know implies that we are students of God's word

a lot of people want to listen you know they like to listen to their favorite preacher favorite teacher but a lot of people don't really want to learn because learning implies effort and study alright turn the page the truth we've talked about what it means to know this is knowledge that is a certain knowledge that changes us Truth, you shall know the truth. What is the truth? Well, the truth is the gospel for sure, that Jesus Christ is Savior and Lord. He is the one and only one who can give us eternal life. But that word truth is broad enough to include all that which is real and not false.

Real, not false. That which is good, not evil. That which is right, not wrong.

That which is truth, not error. The Christian life is a life of black and white when it comes to the essentials. And again, this is part of what can really rankle people about the Christian faith. when it comes to the essential issues of life Christianity says there is no gray.

There is right and there is wrong. There is truth and there is error. There is good and there is evil.

And it stands very boldly for that.

you know I think one problem we have as we start to try to live the Christian life is that we don't realize how many areas of life God's word really addresses but if you start to study it carefully you're going to see that it not only gives you the truth about salvation how do we have a right relationship with God through Christ. But it just touches about everything we do. It teaches us about how we're to think, what we're to fill our minds with, that which is pure and holy and good. It teaches us about what we are to watch.

It teaches us about how we're to talk, the words that come out of our mouth are to be of a certain quality and a certain character and scripture is very clear on this scripture teaches us what we're to believe about ourselves and about God it teaches us how we're to live when it comes to marriage and sex

divorce remarriage

dress. Oh, not particular what color or type of clothes, but what is the one thing scripture teaches us over and over is dress for the Christian. The one requirement and the only one is that it be modest and also not ostentatious.

Good lesson for adults, but maybe more so for our young people. Modesty of dress. I see a lot of bare midriffs on Christian girls. I wonder, is that modest? And modesty sometimes can have something of a cultural context.

But Scripture tells us how we're, teaches us how to, it talks to us about our stuff and our money. and it gets dangerously close to our pocketbooks, doesn't it? It teaches we're not to be addicted to stuff. We're not to have affluenza. We're not to covet after other things that people have.

How are we to relate to the poor? What are we to eat? Scripture talks to us about eating, usually more about quantity than type of food. How about our relationship to government? How we're to spend our time.

When we work, how are we to work? Scripture tells us we're to work for the Lord, to be diligent. We're not employed by the employer so much as we're employed by God, so we work hard. How are we to treat those who mistreat us? Scripture teaches us that.

How are we to treat one another?

Scripture teaches us that. How are we to handle conflict within the body of Christ? Scripture tells us it's very plain. How are we to handle conflict with our neighbor? Scripture teaches us.

How are we to deal with sin in the body of Christ? Scripture teaches us. I'm going to press you that so often when we face issues in life and when we face problems or we have decisions to make on issues we need to stop and ask, does scripture address this? Usually scripture addresses it by giving you principles principles that you can then apply to very particular situations the problem is we either don't know the principles one, or if we do we ignore them but I submit to you Christians need to more often slow down just a little bit when they come to making decisions sometimes it seemed like mundane decisions and say what does scripture teach here and how should I live this is part of growing in Christ is starting to ask these questions and day by day starting to see how scripture wants me to live and for me I have found I'll have to find I deal with things one at a time. I have a hard time just transforming all the bad stuff about me. So I have to take single issues.

But I'll take one thing. One area in my life that has been transformed over the last number of years is my view about possessions and stuff. It hasn't been an easy transition, but it's been one of those things I have to keep constantly going back to Christ and saying, how am I supposed to view money and stuff. What am I supposed to do with it? Is it just for me and my kingdom or is it for you and your kingdom?

Your issue may be different, but you've got to start with that issue and say, alright, help me today to live it, live it, until it becomes a part of you and then work on other areas of life.

A genuine disciple, lastly, has been set free.

this freedom is spiritual and moral freedom spiritual and moral freedom

you should know the truth and the truth will set you free the most freeing

from bondage about which scripture talks is freedom from sin and development of a right relationship with Christ. The scriptures teach us the gospel, which is a message that sets people free. The guilt, the sin, can be part of the past and history. Because in the gospel we find the truth that says you can repent and turn to Christ and have a new life. There's freedom from sin.

Freedom from all of those horrible, terrible, difficult positions we get ourselves into because we ignore the truth of Scripture. Truth sets us free by our being bound by it. And I want to tell you after 20 years of law practice, I can tell you that the people who are most free are not those who think they can just do whatever they want to do. People who think they can have multiple relationships outside of a marriage, they think they're free. deep they don't know it. They're pulled and tied by so many different relationships and problems.

They just don't realize how deep in slavery they are. The person who is free is the person who has a spouse and loves that one spouse just like scripture says. That person is free to live life the way life was meant to be lived. The person, there's so many addictions we have, so many problems we have that if we would listen to the truth of scripture it sort of takes away all of those problems we face in life and help set us free. Moral living is the key to freedom.

The moral living of scripture. You want to be bound, you just do whatever you want to do. And don't ignore scripture. You're going to find yourself enslaved so deep, tied up so many ways, your head's going to be turned in so many directions, you're not going to know which way you're coming. I want people to be free, and Christ wants people to be free.

to know and live by his word. He wants us to have the abundant life. He came that we might have life and have it more abundantly. But we find that when we find freedom in Christ. I watched a film last night with some friends on the life of William Carey who went to India in the late 1700s.

And when he got to India, he found a country that was bound in its pagan religions and traditions. They were throwing babies into the Ganges River to sacrifice them to their pagan gods. They were burning young widows with their husbands. It was a practice called Suti. It was practiced by the Indians when Carrie went there.

And the practice was that if a young woman's husband died, she was burned with her husband.

I guess men developed that to encourage young women to take care of them, keep them healthy. But it was a horrible, horrible practice. And in the movie, they came and they quoted this verse. You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free. People of India who came to know Christ were set free from those kind of practices in which they were bound.

Would not this country experience great freedom if we were free from some of our addictions to what we think makes us free?

30 years ago this year, Roe versus Wade.

45 million babies. You shall know the truth. The truth will set you free. You're free to kill your children? freedom? What kind of slavery is that? That you will even kill your offspring. We are so bound in darkness we don't know it. Freedom just to acquire more and more stuff so we work harder and harder. We're more stressed now even though we are more affluent than many decades ago in this country. We're so stressed because we're so bound by our stuff. You want freedom? Get a biblical about work. I don't know what your addiction is, but if you want freedom, if you want freedom, come to Christ and his word. Well, here are my lessons for life.

We'll go through these fairly quickly. A, I don't have time is the cry of the disobedient and the lazy. As I took your surveys last week and looked at them, what was the biggest hindrance to your living the Christian life? According to the survey, the number one problem was time. I don't have time for God and His Word.

Your time doesn't change. We've all got the same amount of time. The question is, how will we allocate our time? It's not that you don't have time or I don't have time. It's that we're just disobedient or lazy or both.

We just won't do what God has told us we're supposed to do. We won't give priority to the things he says come first. If you don't have time for his word, your life is out of whack. And something else needs to change. It's an excuse, I don't have time.

We think it makes us look good that we're constantly busy. And it's sort of a, it's one of those, yeah, I know I'm wrong. that makes us look halfway good. I'm busy. I'm an important person.

I've got so many things on my plate and my agenda that I'm occupied. They can't do without me at this place of business or in this organization or this aspect of my life. I have to be there. They can't do without me. They can.

They'll get by. You put priorities the way God wants them, you'll be all right. And they will too. second find a regular time each week preferably daily for reading and prayer there may be some days that you really can't devote but i think most days we should be able to some of you are morning people get up in the morning spend a few minutes some of you do better doing it at night do it at night but find a time to do it regular small doses is better than one big dose regular I'd rather you do five to ten minutes a day every day than try to do three hours one day and take off three weeks. Regular small doses is better.

A chapter a day helps keep the devil away. You know? And I would submit for most of us, probably, if we were doing one chapter, reading one chapter carefully each day and trying to understand it and then trying to apply it to our lives, we'd probably be a lot farther ahead than we are right now. and you can read most chapters in probably four to five minutes.

If you don't know where to start, you can get some Bible reading plans, but if you just want to start reading today, I say start in the book of Acts and start taking a chapter a day. And when you get done with Acts, go to the book of Matthew. Next, read for information and transformation. It is not, Jesus doesn't want us to just be biblical scholars who have a lot of head knowledge about the Bible. Information is important though, and we need to know the Bible.

But we need to let it change us. And as we read it, we can't just say this is ancient history. We have to say, what is he trying to teach me today? How can I be different?

Next, buy a good study Bible. You have to have one, and there's some good ones out there today. If you don't know which one to get, I recommend the NIV Study Bible. There's now a 2002 edition. It just came out.

Or you can read the New American Standard Study Bible, which has the same notes. But there's some really good study Bibles out there. Get you one, and when you read the preacher preaches in church or the teacher teaches Sunday school, Read the text, but then go read the notes. It'll help you learn. Next, practice assessing the views of others and your own views in light of what the Bible says and teach your children to do the same.

One of the most helpful exercises that I've been able to do with my children over the years is watch the news with them some and see what's reported and then talk about today's issues from a biblical perspective and help them to see what's right and wrong, what's good and evil, what's truth and error. You need to start listening to what people are saying, all the commentators, all the editorials, and you need to say, now how does that square with what the Bible teaches? We need to develop that kind of thought process so that we can screen out what is good and what is not good. Lastly, love Christ by loving and obeying His Word. You want to love Jesus?

Prove it by reading His Word and studying it. Those who believe, obey this Word. I hope we'll be that kind of people. Let's pray.

Lord, help us. Lord, first forgive us.

Through blood and sweat and tears, you gave us this Word. Blood and sweat and tears of many human authors. the blood, sweat, and tears of your own son.

Forgive us for ignoring it. Help us to live it. Help us to be different. Help us to be changed. And then help us to change others around us because we've been transformed by the truth of your word.

For it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.