Foundations of Faith: Written Authority

Welcome to Delight in Grace, the teaching ministry of Rich Powell, Pastor of Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. Plenty of people claim to have answers and solutions to our problems.

Opinions are abundant wherever we look. But the Bible is different. It is, as D. Helm put it, the true and authoritative story of God as He enters human history. Biblical faith, far from being man-made, is a response to God's self-disclosure. He has turned on the light for us through His Word.

Scripture is reliable and trustworthy. It holds the answers for the greatest longings of our soul. Today we're tuning in to this message titled, Written Authority.

Let's listen in. But we were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For when He received honor and glory from God the Father, and the voice was borne to Him by the majestic glory, this is my beloved Son with whom I am well pleased. We ourselves heard this very voice borne from heaven, for we were with Him on the holy mountain. And we have the prophetic Word more fully confirmed, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.

Knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of Scripture comes from someone's own interpretation, for no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Let us bow our heads for prayer. Heavenly Father, thank You for this time we have together this morning. I pray, Father, that it will be a blessing and an encouragement to all of us as we worship You and make much of You, and as we learn from Your Word, and as we fellowship with one another. And Father, thank You for Your great love for us. Thank You that You loved us so much that You sent Your Son Jesus to come to this earth and live as a man, and suffer a horrible death on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins, so that we don't have to do so, so that we can be reconciled to You and have life everlasting.

Father, Rich has entitled this series of sermons on 2 Peter as, Live as People Who Remember. So I ask that in our daily lives, Father, that we will live them with the memory of the great love You have for us, and the great cost that that love was willing to pay for our salvation. Father, we thank You also for Your great faithfulness. We thank You for Your many promises that You have given to us in Scripture, and that You are a faithful, promise-keeping God. We thank You, Father, that when we sin and we come to You and we confess our sins, that You are faithful and just to forgive us our sins. Thank You, Father, for that. Thank You that when we endure hardship and suffering, Father, that You are faithfully working in those circumstances for our own eternal good.

You have told us that Your children are predestined to be conformed to the image of Your Son, and we thank You that You are faithfully working in our lives to that goal. Father, Pastor Rich told us last week that if we don't remember the truth, then we won't live the truth. So Father, please help us to remember the truth of Your great love and Your great faithfulness to us, Father, so that it will strengthen us to walk in a manner worthy of our calling. Thank You, Father, for Pastor Rich and his faithful service to this congregation. I pray that You be with him now as he brings Your Word to us, Father.

Guide him and direct him and be with him. Thank You, Father, for Your great goodness to us. In Jesus' name, amen. Thank you, Vic. A robust memory is vital to a meaningful life.

That is true physically, emotionally, psychologically, spiritually. This is why Peter writes this letter, because he knows that as an apostle who is soon about to leave the scene, there's going to be a lot of information that will inundate the followers of Jesus that will want to cause them to forget the truth of Jesus Christ and who He is and who they are in Christ. Which is why in verses 10 to 14, he mentions numerous times that it's his ambition that he will in every way provide for them to be able to remember these things and recall them to mind, because he knows that a robust memory is vital to a meaningful life.

In this series now that we're looking at, verses 16 to 21, the verses that Vic just read for us this morning, this sub-series of the book is entitled Foundations of Faith. So you have faith. This is what you believe. So you can identify what you believe. What is your justification for it?

Because you know what? There are a lot of other systems out there that claim to be true. And there are going to be people who are in the churches and they're going to be speaking other truths. How do you know what you believe is true? What is the foundation of your faith?

Is it justifiable? Can you offer good reason for believing what you believe? That's why Peter's writing this section right here. The foundations of faith, first of all, is objective reality.

The Christian faith is anchored in history. Real people in real time and space. Real events of history.

Objective reality. Secondly, confirmed prophecy. God planned and promised. He foretold. And then it came to be.

Hundreds, even thousands of years later. Confirmed prophecy. Today we're going to be looking at the third foundation of faith and that is written authority. We're looking at verse 20 today, knowing this first of all, that no prophecy of, what's the next word? Scripture. That is written authority. No prophecy of scripture comes from someone's own interpretation. And the next one we'll study next week, which will be transcendent truth.

We'll be at Vienna Baptist Church next Sunday. It hit the news this last week that a gentleman by the name of Patrice Runner operated a scam for more than 20 years. He was a copywriter and he did so under the pen name of Maria Duvall, where he would offer people psychic services. And they would write in and he would respond to them, sometimes with trinkets, sometimes with formulas, sometimes with letters.

Over a span of more than 20 years he raked in over 200 million dollars. What does that tell us? People want information. People want information and they want information beyond what they have. They want information from a source outside of themselves. Now clearly they're looking in the wrong places, right?

Because this was definitely a scam and he was charged with it, taken to court. But people want it. Why do people want information? Because we are created in the image of God. Every human being, that's what sets us apart from all other parts of creation, including animals, all plant life. We are created in the image of God, meaning we desire a higher purpose and an ultimate good. We want to know what that is.

We want to know, we crave to know what's ahead of us. That's the image of God. God has made this known to us.

He's put it in writing. I like what Mark Twain said. This is so true because I think Peter would definitely agree with this. The trouble with the world is not that people know too little, it is that they know so many things that just aren't so. Where is your truth coming from? Where is your information coming from?

I was, Andrea can be my witness this morning, I was struggling with passion this morning in the sense that reading news articles, headlines, watching news videos and the stuff that people believe, the narratives that are created that have no anchor in reality and yet people just follow it. It boggles my mind. But then I also realize that I'm very capable of doing that myself.

Where does my truth come from? People crave information. And you know, as it goes in this world, you have people will promise you something and they'll say, oh, this is what we will do for you. And you and you say, OK, you go and you do this great deal is coming down.

Right. And you go and you tell your friends, this person said they're going to do this for me. And the first thing they're going to say is, what do you have it in writing? Do you have it in writing?

Why? Because what is written is authoritative. What is written is authoritative. That did not escape Peter when he talked about the prophecies of scripture. He's going to give us a very deep and profound and high understanding of the authority of written scripture in these two verses 20 and 21. Thanks for joining us here at Delight in Grace. You've been listening to Rich Powell, the lead pastor at Grace Bible Church in Winston-Salem. The Delight in Grace mission is to help you know that God designed you to realize your highest good and your deepest satisfaction in him. The one who is infinitely good. We hope you'll join us again on weekdays at 10 a.m..