SERMON – "THE GOD OF THE WORD"

INTRODUCTION

When I was a young boy I used to lay awake at night wondering about God. Not that I was a pious young man, by any stretch. I would contemplate what He must be like. In my young mind I would wonder whether He looked like me -- or whether His appearance was so huge and foreign that He couldn’t be seen from just one point of view. I was curious about where He came, whether or not He was a part of a race of gods, did He kind of float around in the universe or did He have a "place" of some kind. Yes, I was kind of weird – but, oddly enough, I never doubted the existence of God; I just didn’t know what He was. I didn’t know how to relate to Him.

I didn’t have what you would call a religious upbringing, but my parents belonged to big Methodist church in suburban central Ohio, and I must have been a member there because they gave me a Bible – it was a Revised Standard Version that I still have on my bookshelf. It has a presentation page dated September 8, 1957 and it is signed by Rev. Kenneth F. Clark, Jr.. I can’t remember who he is, I don’t even have a face in my memory associated with this name from my past. …But he gave me a Bible when I was 9 years old, like – I imagine—he gave to many other children who attended Worthington Methodist Church.

Being, I think, a fairly normal (though admittedly weird) young man I made attempts to read my Bible – I even dedicated myself reading it cover to cover, although I can’t remember getting farther than the story of Noah and the Ark. But again, oddly enough, I never doubted that the Bible Rev. Clark had given me was the Word of God; I just couldn’t understand it. I didn’t know it related to me.

So, without religious training and completely ignorant of the Scriptures, as a boy of 9 or 10 years I KNEW that God existed and that the Bible was His Book. And, you know – I don’t think my life experience has been that much different than anyone else, ever. I believe that all of us, being created as the image-bearers of God, carry in us the conviction that God is and that His truth is revealed to us in the Holy Bible. I hope to demonstrate that conviction in this message.

Today, I am going to try to make you better theologians. I say "better", because we are all theologians. We are not all equal as theologians, but we are all theologians.

So, today it is my goal to continue your theological education while inspiring you all to live godly in Christ Jesus. A lofty goal, admittedly. But it is the desire of every preacher of the gospel of Jesus Christ to edify those who hear the message, and be some small means of God’s grace in bringing all of us to a more complete understanding of the Word of God – even though we who are privileged to preach the gospel know how profoundly we lack, and what sinners we are.

Now, we Evangelical types make much of our view of the Bible; and, we Reformed Evangelicals even more. This morning, I want to begin to help us see clearly the importance of not merely how we view the Scriptures, but how we use them, and apply them in our lives every day. However, in order to accomplish this goal we must first be able to view God correctly. The Word of God cannot be separated from the God of the Word.