What Scripture Requires #1

Grace does not exempt you from obedience.

It is given to help you obey. And you can see that expressed in Psalm 119 in multiple verses. Welcome to The Truth Pulpit with Don Green, founding pastor of Truth Community Church in Cincinnati, Ohio.

I'm Bill Wright. And today, as Don continues in his series called The Magnificent Word, he'll take a close look at what it means to truly trust and obey God's holy word, and how doing so will profoundly change your life. Go ahead and open your Bible to Psalm 119, and let's join Don right now for today's lesson in The Truth Pulpit. Psalm 119, as we've said, is the longest psalm in the Psalter. It is the longest chapter in the Bible. And it is devoted almost exclusively, every verse of it, to a testimony to the wonders and the power and the beauty and the perfection of the word of God. And all of its 176 verses, save one or two, explicitly refer to the word of God in what is written.

It is a poetic masterpiece of matchless greatness. It tells us what Scripture is. It tells us what Scripture does. And it also models for us and shows us what Scripture requires from us. Scripture is the word of God. It is true. It is faithful.

It is unchanging. It is a righteous word from a righteous God, and it reflects the perfections of all of his wonderful attributes. And so we have this high view of Scripture that is not simply academic or theoretical to us.

It owns our allegiances. It owns the way that we think and the way that we live, and we commit ourselves to that, and we give our lives to that, individually and as a church. That is the only proper way to respond to the word of God. And so it's what Scripture is and what Scripture does evokes that in us.

And so that brings us to our final area of consideration, Psalm 119, with all of those things said. Today's message is about what Scripture requires. What Scripture requires. If it is the living word of God, and it is, if it does these things, these beneficial things in our hearts, then isn't it obvious that Scripture would require something from us? Scripture is not like any other book. It comes to us and it asserts authority over us. Scripture comes and demands a response from us. And if Scripture is what it is and Scripture does what it does, then that requires a response from us. Beloved, it requires a response from you. We cannot evade this or avoid it, and the believing heart does not even want to do that.

But if this book is the high and lofty thing that it presents itself to be, we can't ignore it. We must come under its rule, under its authority, and respond to it in an appropriate way. And just as we've done in the past two messages, I'm going to give you a five-part response to it here so that there's a total, when the series is all said and done, three main points with 15 sub-points that give us a fairly comprehensive way of the way that we should think and respond to the Word of God. If Scripture is what it says it is and does what it says it does, then what do we do in response?

Number one, we do this. We obey it. We obey it, and we see that laid out for us from Psalm 119. Throughout this psalm, the psalmist is expressing his commitment to keep the Word of God. Look at the first four verses of Psalm 119 with me, and this is the opening to the psalm. This is the entrance way into all of the other riches of the psalm and the riches of God's Word. The entrance way is through a faith-based obedience, and so we see this right from the beginning. Verse one, how blessed are those whose way is blameless, who walk in the law of the Lord. How blessed are those who observe his testimonies, who seek him with all their heart.

They also do no unrighteousness. They walk in his ways. You have ordained your precepts that we should keep them diligently. Notice these words for obedience and a lifestyle pattern of responding to the Word of God. Verse one, those whose way is blameless, those who walk in the law of the Lord.

You know, these metaphors of expressing a pattern of life. Look at verse two, they observe his testimonies. Verse three, they do no unrighteousness.

They walk in his ways. You've ordained your precepts so that we should keep them diligently. Right from the very beginning of Psalm 119, the psalmist is expressing a commitment to obey the Word of God, and is expressing obedience as the fundamental response to the Word of God. There's a sense in which everything else flows from that. And so what does it mean to keep the Word?

Well, let me just give a little summary for you. To keep the Word has the idea of giving your careful attention to it. You're giving careful attention to it, and as you learn your obligations from God's Word, you do them carefully.

You are learning not simply for mental exercise. The point of learning God's Word is so that it could be responded to in faith, and that it could be responded to in obedience, to do what the Bible says to do. Now listen, I understand that in our current environment, and the way that things have been conditioned over the past few decades, is that as soon as someone hears this, there is inevitably an objection, well that sounds like legalism to me, as if obedience was somehow a bad thing. Well listen, if you think obedience is a bad thing, there is something bad going on, but it's not the concept of obedience.

What's bad is your theology. What's bad is to think that an emphasis on obedience to Scripture is somehow inconsistent with a call to faith in Christ. We cannot save ourselves by our obedience, but friends, God saves you in His grace. God puts His Spirit in you so that you would be enabled to obey and to respond to the precepts of Scripture. And you should never divorce the two in their minds as if there is faith and then there is obedience, and never the twain shall meet.

No, that's not biblical thinking at all. What we're talking about here in obedience is the faith-based response to the living Scriptures that conforms our lives to what it says. And listen, to the true believer, the true believer who has felt the weight of sin, and has been saved and delivered from that, and has new life coursing through his veins, the call to obedience is not an irksome thing. The call to obedience is not something to be resisted. The true believer says, well, yes, of course, I came to Christ to be delivered from sin because I want my life now to be pleasing to God. And so tell me how I can be pleasing to Him.

Tell me what He wants so that I can do it. That's the heart of a true believer. And a true believer is not interested in a kind of teaching and a kind of theology that says you can live whatever way you want to now that you've become a Christian because it's all covered by grace. The true Christian responds to that and says, listen, grace saved me in order to enable me to obey. Grace saved me, yes, to deliver me from the penalty of my sin. Grace saved me in order to take me to heaven.

But it did more than that. Grace comes to enable me to live a life that is to the glory of God while I am left here on earth. And the true Christian embraces that. And so grace does not exempt you from obedience.

It is given to help you obey. And you can see that expressed in Psalm 119 and in multiple verses. In addition to what we've already looked at, look at verse 55. Psalm 119, verse 55.

And I'll try to slow down so you're able to stay with me in these as we look at these different texts. Psalm 119, verse 55. O Lord, I remember your name in the night and keep your law. Verse 88. Revive me according to your lovingkindness so that I may keep the testimony of your mouth. Verse 101. I have restrained my feet from every evil way that I may keep your word, that I may give careful attention to it and do what it tells me to do. And then the psalm almost completely climaxes on this theme in verse 166. Psalm 119, verse 166. I hope for your salvation, O Lord, and do your commandments. My soul keeps your testimonies, and I love them exceedingly. I keep your precepts and your testimonies, for all my ways are before you. I ask you, my friends, I ask you whether that fundamental principle is the governing way that you think about God's Word, that you view God's Word as something that has authority over you, something that is to be obeyed, obeyed when it commands your affections, obeyed when it commands your tongue, obeyed when it commands your actions. We're not talking about whether you're perfect or not. We understand that none of us are. We understand that we all fall short of the glory of God.

We are talking about something else. We're talking about whether there is this living, abiding principle in your heart that loves and respects the Word of God so much that you view it as an object of your obedience. You view it as something that has personal authority over you. As God's Word revealed to man, you're a man, you're created, you're a Christian, you're redeemed by the blood of Christ, then His Word has authority over you. I'm asking you whether you obey it like that, whether you obey it from the heart, whether there is sincerity in your response to the Word of God, or whether you're just living a hypocritical life of show for the appearance of men without a living, abiding reality that is defining your affections. Do you obey Scripture because Scripture requires you to do so? Do you see Scripture as a word to be obeyed? Do you pick up the Bible and say, speak, your servant listens.

I'm paying attention. I pay attention in order to respond and obey. That's the starting point of a heart response to the Word of God. It's what the Word of God requires.

If it's the Word of our Maker, it could be no other way. Now secondly, in addition to obedience, there's this issue, what does the Word of God require? It requires you to trust it. It requires you to trust it. This obedience that we are speaking of, this obedience which the Christian gives in response to the Word of God, it's not something that is cold and detached.

It's not something that is resented. No, we come to this Word of God knowing that it is true and it is righteous and it is unchanging and it is a source of joy. We come to the Word of God and we have something in response to that. We have a settled confidence in the Word. That's the idea of trust. There's a settled confidence in the authority and the truth of the Word of God. And so we trust it.

And what trust does and what trust expresses is this. When you trust the Word of God, you're saying, I have a sense of security in the accuracy and the truth and the power of the Word of God. I'm confident in that. I believe that.

I'm settled in my trust of that. And while there may be things that I don't understand, there may be questions that I don't have immediate answers to, I am confident that the Word of God is true and accurate and if there's a lack of understanding, it's on my part. The weakness is on my part, not in the Word of God. And so we have this sense of well-being because our hope and our perspective on life is grounded in the certainties of God's Word. And that comes from placing your confidence in Scripture. Let me show you a small handful of passages to this point. In Psalm 119, verse 42. Psalm 119, verse 42. And I suppose I should say as you're turning there, if you're just joining us, that we're approaching this psalm thematically rather than verse by verse.

We're seeing themes rather than going through the 176 verses sequentially. And in this matter of trust, look at verse 42. We'll start in verse 41. He says, May your lovingkindnesses also come to me, O Lord, your salvation according to your word. So I will have an answer for him who reproaches me, for I trust in your word.

I trust in your word. Verse 66. Teach me good discernment and knowledge, for I believe in your commandments. Psalm 116.

Give you just a moment to turn there. Psalm 116. Sustain me according to your word that I may live, and do not let me be ashamed of my hope.

Verse 17. Uphold me that I may be safe, that I may have regard for your statutes continually. There is this overarching, there is this abiding sense of safety that the believer has when he is taking his refuge in the word of God, in the promises of God, in the incarnate word, Jesus Christ, who is revealed in the word of God. When we are consciously putting our faith and our confidence and our hope in the scriptures and in the Christ that the scriptures reveal, there is this sense of well-being and certainty that comes over us that is fueled by the spirit of God as he honors our faith in the word of God. We trust his word.

And then finally in verse 165, Psalm 119 verse 165, it says those who love your law have great peace, and nothing causes them to stumble. If scripture is what it says it is, if scripture does what it says it does, then you should have, you can have, many of you do have a confident expectation that God will honor your trust in it. And so as we face new things and new philosophies and new fads rise up in the church, we're continually brought back to this fundamental point. Are we going to trust the revealed word of God as being sufficient for the people of God? Listen, we don't need new man-centered, man-founded philosophies to help us understand what's to be done in the church today. We just need to go back to the word of God and honor it. This is our philosophy of ministry at Truth Community Church. It's very, very simple to understand and remember it. We preach the word of God and then we deal with the consequences.

That's it. We preach the word of God, we teach it, we speak it to one another in private conversations. We center things around the word of God and then we let the Spirit of God lead and direct us through it all.

That was what we said from the very first day that we met and nothing has changed since then. And the reason that we can make it that simple is because we have, as a church, we have that level of confidence and certainty in the power of the word of God to accomplish His purposes. And we don't have to add a lot of bells and whistles.

We don't have to add a lot of programs to make that work. It's enough to honor the word of God and let Him do what He will. And we can do that because we trust His word. Turn over to 2 Timothy chapter 3 with me to just give a New Testament accent to this. 2 Timothy, just before the book of Hebrews, 2 Timothy chapter 3.

Oh, there's so much to say about this. You see Paul expressing this to his young disciple Timothy as Paul is about to depart this earth and enter into his eternal reward. His parting instruction to Timothy is this, beginning in verse 14. You, however, continue in the things that you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them. Timothy, you've learned these things and you've come to convictions about them. Don't abandon the convictions.

Trust the word of God and stay in it. And he says in verse 15, From childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. The word of God is sufficient to lead a lost sinner to saving faith in Christ. The word of God, the four corners of the 66 books of the Bible, is the word that we preach. And Scripture says that faith comes from hearing and hearing by the word of Christ, Romans 10. And so we preach the word because we understand that God uses His word to open hearts to believe in Christ.

That's why we emphasize it. The salvation of souls is central to the Great Commission. Go and make disciples. Well, the way that you make disciples is by teaching them the word of God, not entertaining them with all kinds of silly things from the platform. Not as one church has done recently, multiple churches actually, by turning your auditorium into a rodeo and bringing in wild horses and trying to make some kind of weird statement of illustration by what you have going on in the platform. Listen, churches do that. Pastors do that because they do not actually trust the word of God in the end. And they think that they have to put on a show in order to get people to respond to the word of God.

That's not true. That's not true, and it's an exposing of a false philosophy of ministry, if not a false teacher himself. Scripture is enough, and I can't imagine being in ministry with any other motive or reason to exist.

And so it goes on. Verse 15 says it's enough to lead the unsaved to Christ. Verses 16 and 17, it's enough to guide the Christian in his daily life. All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. There is nothing in your life that a proper understanding and application of Scripture does not make you sufficient to respond to. Otherwise, those statements from the inspired writings of the apostle Paul would not be true. And so what do we do?

What do we do in response to that? We trust it, and as we're going to see at the end of today's message, we preach it. Chapter 4, verse 1, 2 Timothy. I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead and by his appearing and his kingdom. Listen, because Scripture is sufficient to lead people to faith in Christ, because Scripture is sufficient to lead Christians to maturity, because of that, the charge, the biblical charge to us is found in verse 2, simply stated, preach the Word. Preach the Word, because Scripture is what it is, because Scripture does what it does, preach the Word. And part of the way that you manifest your trust in Scripture is is that you proclaim it, and you put your wholehearted confidence in the fact that you believe God will honor his Word in your heart and in your life.

Well, thirdly, Psalm 119 teaches us to obey the Word of God, teaches us to trust the Word of God. It requires that response from us. You start to see that it's laying a claim on the whole man. It's laying a claim on everything that you are, everything that you love, everything that you think. It's laying a claim on every motion of your heart. It's incredible.

Number three, what do we do in response to it? We love it. We love it. As we understand what Scripture is and what Scripture does, we come to love it. The Word of God, the instruction manual for the Christian seeking to honor God with his or her whole life. Well, our teacher, Dawn Green, will continue in this series called The Magnificent Word next time on The Truth Pulpit, and we do hope you'll join us then. Meanwhile, if you'd like to find out more about this ministry or perhaps you'd like to share this broadcast with a friend or a loved one, just go to thetruthpulpit.com. Once there, you'll find Dawn's library of free study materials available to you 24-7.

Again, that's thetruthpulpit.com. And now here's Dawn with a closing word before we bring our time today to a close. As we close today's broadcast, I just want to thank the faithful staff and generous friends who make this broadcast possible. I may be the voice of The Truth Pulpit, but the teaching would not reach you without the partnership of many others behind the scenes. So I say thank you to them, and thank you to you who listen. It is a privilege for me to serve Christ by serving you in the teaching of God's Word. Thanks, Dawn. And friend, I'm Bill Wright, hoping you'll join us again next time as we continue with the study of God's magnificent Word here on The Truth Pulpit.