Morning. I’d like to start by turning to Deuteronomy chapter 11 verse 19:
You shall teach them to your children, speaking of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up.
Deuteronomy 11.19
Let’s pray. Lord, I just thank you for this morning. Lord, thank you that we’ve all been able to come in to fellowship with each other. Lord, I just pray that you will bring your Word this morning. Lord, I pray that you’ll help me speak Lord, and that you’ll help people’s hearts receive the Word you want them to receive. In Jesus’ name, amen.
I’ve recently started trying to read through the Bible slowly, with my boys, to get through about two chapters a day (if we’re lucky!). And we’ve been slowly working through Deuteronomy, and it was interesting when I came across this verse. It kind of hit home to me because we had been reading a lot in Deuteronomy and Leviticus before and there’s a lot of emphasis there on the Law: how the Israelites are to obey the Law, how the Levites are to run the Temple and all their duties, and what the priests are supposed to do and all the things they have to look after, and things like that.
An interesting thing was when it came to who is responsible for teaching God’s Law. It wasn’t the duty of the Levites or the priests to teach it to the people, it was the responsibilities of fathers to teach it to their children, and they’re supposed to be doing it all the time.
And the thing for me that hit home is that fathers are all different kinds of people, of all different ages, all different professions, all different education, skills, gifts.
We are all different people: new Christians, old Christians, but God expects all of us to look after the faith of our children.
That means that Christ, that God’s Word, needs to be accessible to every single person. It’s not just for the pastor, not just for the preacher, not just for the evangelist. God’s Word is for everyone.
In today’s world, with so much easy access to information, so much easy access to teachers from all over the world, we can very easily just sit and listen to other people preaching the Word of God to us, or to other people explaining God’s Word to us, but how much time do we spend ourselves in God’s Word?
Don’t get me wrong, we are greatly blessed to have access to all the teachers and God even says in Ephesians 4 that he gave us teachers specifically to help open the world for us.
11 And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, 12 for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, 13 till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; 14 that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning craftiness of deceitful plotting, 15 but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head—Christ— 16 from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.
Ephesians 4.11-16
But God’s Word is also there for us to delve into. So today, I wanted to look into the importance of us taking our own personal time and spending that time reading God’s Word, and spending time in the Bible for ourselves.
Before we start, I thought it would be important to look at how God’s Word is accessible to all of us.
How does God make his Word accessible to all of us?
As you saw in the opening scripture, God wants fathers to look after the faith of their children and He reiterates that in the New Testament as well.
So, you see in Ephesians 6 verse 4,
And you, fathers, do not provoke your children to wrath, but bring them up in the training and admonition of the Lord.
Ephesians 6.4
God’s expectation is the same throughout all time. He expected it in the Old Testament, expects it in the New Testament, that we are supposed to bring up our children in the Lord.
So, how can we, as believers of all different levels of faith, in all different parts of our walk, or at different degrees of knowledge of the Word, be able to able to do that? How are we to take care of teaching the Word of God to our children?
To me, the answer is nicely summed up in 1 Corinthians 2.6-16:
2 For I determined not to know anything among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. 3 I was with you in weakness, in fear, and in much trembling. 4 And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
6 However, we speak wisdom among those who are mature, yet not the wisdom of this age, nor of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. 7 But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, 8 which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory.
9 But as it is written: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”
10 But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 11 For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
13 These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. 14 But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. 16 For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
1 Corinthians 2.2-16?
There’s quite a lot to take in there but, to me, the interesting thing is that there are two kinds of wisdom:
- There’s the wisdom of the world of this age which is always changing from age to age, and then,
- There’s the wisdom of God. And the wisdom of God is the same today as it was yesterday and forever because God does not change.
As we saw, the natural man does not accept the wisdom of God and that’s because the natural man does not have the Spirit of God. But, fortunately, when we are saved, as you saw in verse 12, God gives us His Spirit.
12 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.
1 Corinthians 2.12
So, we see that in 1 Corinthians 6 verse 19
Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?
1 Corinthians 6.19
and we see again in Romans 8 verse 9-11
9 But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God dwells in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His. 10 And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the Spirit is life because of righteousness. 11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.
Romans 8.9-11
We see in these verses that, when we are saved God, gives us His Spirit and that it is His Spirit in God’s Word, who searches the depths of God.
And in verse 11 the Spirit knows the thoughts of God and, since God knows everything and His Spirit is in you, God knows your thoughts. Therefore, God’s Spirit knows our thoughts too.
If the Spirit of God is in us and the Spirit of God knows us, and the Spirit of God can open God’s Word to us, He can also open His Word specifically for us.
And we see in 1 Peter 1.23 that God’s Word is a living Word as it says:
having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever,
1 Peter 1.23
and in Hebrews 4.12 it talks about
For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.
Hebrews 4.12
Therefore, through the Spirit of God, He can make His Word alive to you.
As you saw, the natural man does not understand the things of God. But when we read the Word of God, God’s Spirit brings that Word alive for us.
So, you don’t need to be a great theologian or a mature Christian saved for years, you don’t need to be of high education. All you have to do is be saved, be willing to listen to the Spirit of God and trust in God and God will enable you to read His Word and He’ll open it up to you at the time you need it, for the reasons you need it, and in the place you need it.
Because, the amazing thing I found about God’s Word over the years is that,
no matter how often you read it, and you read the same verse over and over, it can speak to you different things at different times. Its meaning doesn’t change but God can bring out for you what it means, what it needs to do for you at that time, without taking away from its truth.
As we grow, we can grow in God’s Word, but God’s Word is accessible to anyone who’s willing to take the time to read it and that’s why, for me, it’s important that teachers can open up God’s Word to us and really help with understanding, but when you take time and you meditate on it, and you read it for yourself, it gives time for God to really talk to you and to open up His Word for you.