Envisioning GracePoint: 
Proclaiming and Embodying God’s Word
John 1:1-14

Introduction
We are on week two of a six-week sermon series exploring together our new Vision Statement.  Each week we are exploring one of the seven Biblical purposes of why the Church exists.  

Any organization, even a local church, over time can lose sight of its main purpose.  Most established congregations reach a point in their history where they become primarily focused on meeting the needs of their members and on self preservation; they adopt a “country club” mentality.  But as G.K. Chesterton once said, “the church is the only organization that exits for its non-members!”  The primary purpose of all we do should not be to meet our needs and appease our preferences.  

The purpose of each local congregation is to please God by partnering with God in saving the lost from going to eternal hell, and making devoted followers of Christ.  If we are not converting sinners and making disciples we are failing in the two central callings of the Church.

There are seven Biblical purposes for why we exist as a local congregation.  These seven Biblical purposes for the church serve as the framework for our vision statement, and we have restructured our elder positions around these seven Biblical purposes.  Let’s review these seven Biblical purposes as expresses in our vision statement.

GracePoint will be
 a fellowship of people in brokenness
embraced by God’s extravagant grace, and sent into mission to
reclaim the captive (evangelism),
restore the wounded (healing of body, soul, spirit, and relationships),
and redeploy the equipped (discipleship).  
As we live and share the gospel of grace, seekers and believers of all ages
will become devoted Christ-followers who engage in
proclaiming and embodying God’s Word,
persevering Prayer,
passionate Worship,
life-changing Fellowship,
life-long Equipping,
life-encompassing Stewardship,
and life-giving Missional Outreach.

Everything we do from now on must help us fulfill these seven Biblical purposes or we will not do it.  Last month we explored in detail the Biblical Purpose of “persevering prayer.”  Last week we explored “passionate worship.”  This morning we will explore what does it mean for us to be a people who “proclaim and embody God’s Word.”

Gandhi quote.  “You Christians look after a document containing enough dynamite to blow all civilization to pieces, turn the world upside down, and bring peace to a battle-torn planet.  But you treat it as though it is nothing more that a piece of literature.”  


What We Believe About the Bible

Jesus Christ is the Word of God.  This truth redefines all truth.  This truth redefines how we must understand and live out the truth of God’s Word.  Because of the incarnation, because Christ became the Word of God in human form, God’s Word is no longer words on a page to understand and obey, but God’s Word in now a relationship to embrace and to be embraced by.

If we are to be a people of prayer, a place of grace, and a partner with God, proclaiming and embodying the Living Word, Jesus Christ and His gospel of grace and truth must be our central task.  What we believe about the Bible does make a major difference in how we live out our faith, and in how we worship God.  God commands and desires to be worshipped in spirit and truth, and so we need to always be in the pursuit of the truth in regards to the Scriptures.

As Reformed, Presbyterians within the Evangelical Presbyterian denomination, this is the official doctrine of Scripture embraced by the EPC and by me:

All Scripture is self-attesting and being Truth,
requires our unreserved submission in all areas
of life. The infallible Word of God, the sixty-six
books of the Old and New Testaments, is a
complete and unified witness to God’s
redemptive acts culminating in the incarnation
of the Living Word, the Lord Jesus Christ. The
Bible, uniquely and fully inspired by the Holy
Spirit, is the supreme and final authority on all
matters on which it speaks.

We believe that the 66 books of the Bible are:
•    fully inspired, that is, the Holy Spirit revealed God’s Word through human authors  
•     infallible, meaning that it is incapable of revealing error, it is truth, and will ultimately
       accomplish all God decrees it to accomplish.  
•    authoritative, meaning that it reveals how God commands us to worship, love, and
       obey Him, and that every human, especially believers, will be held accountable for
        how well we obeyed its commands and claimed its promises.
•    But most importantly, we believe that the Bible is incarnational, it reveals the Living Word,
        Jesus Christ, and the gospel, God’s Story of Redemption


How Best to Approach God’s Word

How we approach the Bible determines how we lives out our faith.  
Some common ways to approach the Bible:
•    The Bible is mostly a theology textbook
•    The Bible is mostly an instruction manual for how to live a successful, fruitful, godly life
•    The Bible is mostly mystery, too hard to understand, and so best left for more learned people to tell me what it means
•    The Bible is a divine rule book that is impossible to obey, or for others, a rule book that if followed too closely would take all the fun out of life

You can certainly disagree, but I insist that all these approaches to the Bible are inadequate at best, and dangerous at worst.  

The Bible certainly reveals theology.  But when we have this as the primary lens with how we read the Bible, it fosters an academic understanding of the faith that more often than not fosters arrogant intellectualism than a life of humble love of God and others.  The Bible itself warns us “knowledge puffs us but love builds up.”   

This doesn’t mean that we should not pursue knowledge.  But it is a matter of motivation and purpose.  We should never pursue knowledge for knowledge’s sake.  We pursue understanding of who God is, and who we are as God’s children, so that we can love God and love others more fervently and sincerely.

The Bible also certainly reveals godly principles that if obeyed will increase the odds, although not guarantee, that we will have a stronger marriage, healthier relationships, parent better, be more successful in our vocation, and bear more fruit in ministry.  But God’s Word is not a manual for how to live out the American Dream!  

The Bible certainly contains passages that are hard to understand.  The depth of truth in each passage is inexhaustible.  But everything that is most important can be understood by virtually anyone who simply picks up this Book and reads it with a humble heart dependent on the Holy Spirit.  

A first grader can read the Bible and come to the realization that God loves us, that Christ died and rose again to forgive us and make us children of God, and that the Holy Spirit is now available to help us be like Jesus and to love God and others.  Everything else is secondary!

As Mark Twain once said, “It’s not the things in the Bible I don’t understand that trouble me, it’s the things I do understand!”  Now sadly, he was saying this in a cynical, unbelieving manner.  But also sadly, many of us use theological debate over words, or theology, or interpretation as a cover up for not dealing with the most confronting and important question, namely: How are we obeying what we already know and so living a life of loving God and loving others?

The Bible also certainly reveals the commandments of God, and the threat of eternal damnation for those that don’t obey God.  But the Bible also reveals that we are absolutely incapable of ever fully obeying God’s commands!  And so the Bible is not a rule book, but a revelation of the gospel of grace that empowers us with the desire and ability to love God and others!  

So if approaching the Bible primarily as theology, instructions, mystery, or rules, is woefully inadequate, what is the best way to read the Bible?  
•    The Bible is primarily God’s Story of redemption, which we call the gospel,
•    and an avenue to connect with God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit in intimate relationship
•    As we inhabit this Story and embrace this relationship, we grow to love God and love others, and so fulfill the Great Commandment and Great Commission

The Word of God is not the static words on a page.  The Word of God is the revelation of Jesus Christ and the gospel of grace that arises out of the inspired written Words as the Holy Spirit illuminates and empowers them!


God’s Word as God’s Grand Story of Redemption

So this should be the energy, motivation, and outcome of our encounters with the Word of God: to encounter the person of Jesus Christ and the gospel of grace, and to do so in a way that shapes who we are and how we live.

I am asserting, that we will do this most powerfully when we reject approaching the Bible primarily as textbook, instruction manual, impossible to understand mystery, or rule book.  Instead, I am asserting that the best way to understand the Bible is the revelation of God’s transcendent Story.  

Indeed, God could have chosen any format to reveal His Word to us.  God could have given us a theology guide revealing crystal clear truth under each of the main headings of systematic theology.  God could have given us an instruction manual or rule book that was all laid in specific categories of what to do when.  Instead, God gave us narrative, story, the Bible is some 80% story.  

Seeing the Bible as Story means that it reveals God’s master plan for the human race and all creation.  We cannot really grasp any particular passage from Scripture unless we understand how it fits into the overall story of redemption that the whole Bible tells.  Likewise, we cannot really understand what God is up to in each of our lives unless we understand how our life story fits in to God’s grand story.

When we call God’s Word, God’s Story, we are not calling it a made up story, or just a work or literature, or that it contains myths.  The Bible is a true story.  When God says there was a Noah and an Ark, then we believe there was a real Noah and a real ark.  When the Bible says Christ did miracles and rose from the dead, then we believe it.  This doesn’t mean we take everything the Bible says completely literally.  

One important aspect of interpreting the story of the Bible is that you apply the right tools of interpretation according to the genre of the section of the Bible story you are studying.  In other words, you interrupt history sections differently from prophecy.  You interpret Epistles differently than the apocalyptic genre found in Revelations.  

The Bible is an inspired story. God wrote it.  The Bible is an authoritative story.  We don’t read it as if we are reading a Tolkien novel.  The Story of the Bible is empowered by the Holy Spirit to shape our story.  

Each of our lives is always being shaped by the larger narrative we were born into.  How you see yourself, God, others, and reality, is a product of your personal story.  Your personal story includes your family of origin, your upbringing, your ethic roots, the culmination of all your experiences.  

What happens when you become a Christian, is that you become redlined by a larger story: God’s grand Story of redemption.  Now your life story begins to make sense, have purpose, and becomes increasingly shaped by God’s Story.  

This is how God’s Story shapes our story.  As we inhabit God’s Story, God’s Word, we discover more and more who God is, and who we are as God’s child.  This revelation than is empowered by the Holy Spirit to reshape how we see God, ourselves, others, and life.  It is out of this continual reshaping, which we call transformation, that we become more like Christ in living lives of faith, hope, and love.  


Inhabiting God’s Story: Seeing our Story Connected to God’s Story

For the Story of the Bible to shape our life story, we must be people who inhabit the Story of God.  We must live lives saturated in God’s Word.  Our interaction with God’s Word must go so beyond a devotional reading now and then, or even in-depth study such as a Precept class.  We must not compartmentalize God’s Word.  We must embody God’s Word.  That is, God’s Word should be always stirring in our hearts, shaping how we respond to life, defining our identity.

I have emphasized this truth many times, and I will continue to do so always.  There is no more powerful way to stay saturated and abiding in God’s Word than through memorization and meditation.  Psalm 119 is an ode to God’s Word.  Now in the Old Testament, God’s Word is often called God’s Law.  When you read the word “Law” almost always you can substitute the word “God’s Word.”  Eight times in this one Psalm David reveals that he secret to his ability to love and obey God is because he mediates on the Word day and night.  

In addition to memorization and meditation, here are some other avenues to inhabit the Story of God, to stay saturated in God’s Word:
•    Have three avenues of consuming the Word, (1) devotional reading where you read very slowly and use very short passages, (2) big-picture reading where you are always making your way through the whole Bible, (3) personal and group in-depth study
•    Listen to the Word on tape or CD while you are in your house, driving around, walking, exercising, etc.
•    Listen to praise music that incorporates much Scripture
•    Listening to Biblical sermons and teachings
•    Through prayer ministry where Christ speaks God’s truth directly to us

This is how our Vision Statement expresses all that we’ve been exploring about God’s Word:


God’s Word in Our Vision Statement

Proclaiming and Embodying GOD’S WORD, shaping who we are and
how we live (John 1:14).

Jesus Christ is the Living Word and so truth is relational.  Through the Bible, we encounter the Father’s heart of love, the Son’s gospel of grace, and the Holy Spirit’s power so that we may love and worship God, become who we are as God’s adopted children, and participate in God’s redemptive plans.


God’s Word as the Gospel Story

As a local congregation, we will continue our 117 year heritage of proclaiming the uncompromised Word of God.  We will declare God’s Story, God’s gospel of grace through our lives, in study, in teaching and in preaching.   

The main point of this sermon is that to live in and proclaim God’s Word is to live and declare God’s Grand Story of Redemption, the gospel of grace.  The gospel declares that all those who call on the name of the Lord will be saved!  The gospel declares that even when we respond to God’s gift of faith and grace, and become Spirit-filled adopted children of God, every second of our life is still stained with sin.  Yet this same gospel declares that over every second of a Christ-follower’s sin-stained life God still declares us His forgiven, holy, and beloved children!  

This gospel declares that those of us in Christ are given the Holy Spirit, so that we now have both the desire and the ability to obey God’s commandments.  This gospel reveals that these commandments don’t take away the fun in life.  On the contrary, to obey God means to live a life of inexpressible joy, peace that stronger than life’s chaos, overcoming faith, hope that’s stronger than life’s pain, and love of God, others and even self that is full of grace, unconditional, and stronger than death!

Our Vision Statement further expresses how we will embody God’s Word:
•    We will be like the deeply rooted trees of Psalm 1 and the fruitful vines of John 15 living lives saturated in God’s Word and abiding in Christ.  

•    Our preaching and teaching will connect people to Christ in the fullness of His grace and truth with the goal of fostering lives of faith, hope, and love.  


Jesus Christ is the Living Word

This second statement defines the theology and purpose that needs to drive all our preaching teaching, and study.  As we read in I Tim 1:5 “But the goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.”   

All our encounters with God’s Word should connect us in deeper, closer relationship with Jesus Christ.  Because Jesus Christ, the eternal Word of God, became the eternally incarnated, made flesh, Living Word of God, all truth must now be understood in relational terms.  

Truth is predominantly relational not propositional.  Truth is not static statements on a page to understanding apply.  Truth is a personal relationship with Jesus Christ in whom we discover all the wisdom of God.
    John 1:14:
The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.  We have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

When we sit down to devotionally read or to study in-depth, the Bible, the energy that is stirring in our heart should not be mostly,
“O God tell me how to make life work,” or
“O God please let me understand predestination, or
 “O God please tell me how bad I’m messing up and what I need to do to make you more pleased with me.”  

Instead, we should open up the Word of God, and out of the depths of our heart should be the cry:
“O God, please just show me more and more who you are in all your glory, and beauty, and majesty.  Please let me more and more feel how much you love me.  Let me see more and more how your unconditional love and inexhaustible grace makes me who I am as your child.  Please fill me more and more with Christ’s love, Christ’s faith, Christ’s hope, Christ’s righteousness, Christ’s power.”  

The fruit of all our Bible reading, Bible study, Scripture memorization and mediation, should be a heart that loves God and loves others more deeply and sincerely.   

We should walk away from our devotion time, our Bible studies, our worship services, not with just more knowledge, or feeling more self-competent, but more dependent on the Holy Spirit, more deeply in love with our triune God of grace, with our faith emboldened, our hope intensified, and our love enflamed!