Our Beliefs : Sermons : Sermon Archive - 2004 : February 15, 2004
Jesus and the Word
Epiphany 6
Presented by guest preacher Pastor Glen Schaumberg of Trinity, Waukesha
Many of you have seen the rows of books in my office. Most of the books are theological in nature. Some are Bible reference books and Bible commentaries. Some are books on specific topics. Some are historical books. If you wonder if I have really read all those books, the answer is no. There are books that are still in their wrapper. There are some books that should be tossed out. There are some books that have bad theology in them. Some are in German. In another hundred years most of my books would be labeled as dinosaurs and would not even sell for a quarter at a garage sale.
Contrast that with the fact that the Bible keeps on selling and selling. It outsells all other books year after year. At least one book of the Bible is available in over 1978 different languages. The whole Bible can be purchased in 322 languages. That means the vast majority of people living on earth today could read the Bible in a language that they understand. The Old Testament has as one of its chief purposes to foretell the coming of the Messiah. The New Testament presents the fulfillment of those prophecies and tells the story of Christ's life on earth and how that news spread. That is an amazing thing. The Bible is really all about Jesus Christ. He is the central character of the whole Bible. Yet that story has not fallen into the dustbin of history. That message of God's love and his forgiveness of sins is one message that never gets old and out-of-date.
The Waukesha library is promoting plans to expand its facilities. Maybe there is a real need, but it struck me that if the librarians went through the existing books on their shelves and tossed out every book that has not been checked out for the last five or ten years, they might not even need to expand. There are millions of books sitting on library shelves that are just never read. They just take up space. Wise King Solomon once said, "Of making many books there is no end, and much study wearies the body." (Ecclesiastes 12:12)
But the Bible is never going to fall into that category for one simple reason: The Bible is God's Word. As such it is the truth, and as the truth it will last. Jesus said, "Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away." The rest of the books in the world will be burned and gone when the world is destroyed, and copies of the Bible as well, but not the Word of God which is in it.
Today we are going to have a chance to see how Jesus reacted to the Word. We are going to talk about Jesus and the Word. We will observe that
I. Jesus Heard the Word,
II. Jesus Learned the Word, and
III. Jesus Taught the Word.
The first item we want to pursue is that Jesus Heard the Word. This interesting statement appears in our text: "He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went to the synagogue, as was his custom." The Bible leaves so much unsaid about the early life of Jesus. We have a better picture of the early life of Abraham Lincoln than we do of Jesus. But there is one important fact about the life of Christ that should make us take note. Jesus regularly heard the Word. He went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as was his custom. There are good habits and bad habits. That can also hold true when it comes to going to church, or the synagogue at the time of Christ. You will have a habit in that regard. It will either be your habit to be in church faithfully and regularly, or else your habit will be to be in church seldom and haphazardly. The habit that Jesus had was to go to the synagogue every Sabbath day.
The reason for going to the synagogue in Jesus' day was not just to fulfill God's will, or to worship God. The key ingredient was hearing the Word of God. It is very possible that Jesus did not have a copy of the Old Testament in his home in Nazareth. Copies of the Old Testament were very costly and very rare. Copies were usually only kept in the synagogues. Copies of the books of the Bible had to be copied by hand, one letter at a time. The copies were not in book form as we are used to having, their copies were on rolls or scrolls. The scrolls were often made of parchment which is animal skins. Today we have much freer access to the Bible. We can read it or listen to it being read in our homes. We can listen to cassette tapes of the Bible in our car or in our homes. Copies are usually found in motel rooms and in drawers in hospitals. Some of you even have the Bible on your home computer. The availability of the Bible is much greater than at the time of Christ, but that does not necessarily mean that more people hear or read it.
This story will warm your heart. A man in Kansas City was severely injured in an explosion. Evangelist Robert Sumner tells about him in his book, The Wonder of the Word of God. The victim's face was badly disfigured, and he lost his eyesight as well as both hands. He was just a new Christian, and one of his greatest disappointments was that he could no longer read the Bible. Then he heard about a lady in England who read braille with her lips. Hoping to do the same, he sent for some books of the Bible in braille. Much to his dismay he discovered that the nerve endings in his lips had been destroyed by the explosion. One day, as he brought one of the braille pages to his lips, his tongue happened to touch a few of the raised characters and he could feel them. Like a flash he thought, "I can read the Bible using my tongue." At the time Robert Sumner wrote his book, the man had "read" through the entire Bible four times. How about us who have eyes? How many times have we read through the Bible?
The second point we want to make is that Jesus Learned the Word. As Jesus was in the synagogue he was asked to read one of the Scripture portions. This also would serve as the words for his sermon. This is what we are told: "The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: 'The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.' " Books in those days were written on rolls of parchment, not printed on pages and sewed together as we are used to. To read one of the scrolls you had to roll it open to the right spot. The books of the Bible as God gave them did not even have divisions into chapters and verses. How did Jesus know where to look in the scroll of Isaiah? Easy! Jesus had learned the Word. As God, Jesus could simply have tapped into his divinity and known the whole Bible without ever looking at it. But Jesus, as he lived on earth, often put aside his divine powers and lived his life like the rest of us humans do. That involved studying and learning the Bible. Jesus knew where to find Isaiah 61 and all the rest of the Old Testament so that he could quote the Word frequently as he taught. Many believers remain weak because they fail to store up in their minds helpful passages from the Word of God. In times of stress, sorrow, or temptation, the Holy Spirit can bring those passages to comfort, warn, and direct them.
The followers of some pagan religions are often required to saturate their minds with their sacred writings. For instance, it is said that no one can teach in a Mohammedan mosque until he has first memorized the entire Koran! One woman relates that for 21 hours she heard a group of Buddhist priests quoting their devotional literature from memory.
Michael Billester once gave a Bible to a humble villager in eastern Poland. Returning a few years later, he learned that 200 people had become believers through using it. When the group gathered to hear him preach, he suggested that before he spoke he would like each person to quote some verses of Scripture. One man rose and said, "Perhaps, Brother, we've misunderstood you. Did you mean verses or chapters?" Billester was astonished. "Are you saying there are people here who could recite complete chapters of the Bible?" That was precisely the case. In fact, 13 of them knew half of Genesis and the books of Matthew and Luke. Another had committed all the psalms to memory. Combined, the 200 knew virtually the entire Bible. How far do you think we would get if we had to recite the Bible chapters from memory?
The third point we need to make is that Jesus Taught the Word. First we are told: "He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him." Then later we are told when he was in Nazareth: "Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, 'Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.' " It is fine to hear the Word and to learn the Word, but that does not help people much. The final step must also be to teach the Word. That is one of the chief features of Jesus' ministry. When Jesus was sitting out in Peter's boat we are told: "He sat down and taught the people from the boat." When Jesus was in Capernaum, we are told: "So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them." When the multitudes gathered at the feeding of the five thousand we are told: "When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things."
Don't get the impression that everyone loved it when Jesus taught the Word. When Jesus read the words of Isaiah chapter 61 he made the claim that the prophet Isaiah was really writing about him. You heard those words read earlier in the service. The words were a prophecy of Jesus who would preach the good news of the gospel and do miracles as well. When Jesus claimed that he was really that promised Messiah, that was too much for the people of Nazareth. They took him to the edge of a cliff and were going to shove him over the edge to his death. But Jesus walked through the crowd and left. He never came back to his hometown and made his headquarters in Capernaum instead.
If the teaching of the Word occupied so much of Jesus' time, it should likewise consume much of the time and energy of our church. Every Bible Class, every Sunday School lesson, every worship service and every sermon should be a matter of teaching the Word of God. The reason for that is so simple. It is only through the Word that we can find the truth that we are not only sinners but that Jesus is also our Savior from sin. Only the Word can determine what is right or wrong behavior. Only the Word can impact the soul and energize faith.
A few weeks ago Iran was devastated by a killer earthquake. The death toll has now mounted to over 30,000. That makes it worse than the earthquakes that caused such terrible suffering in Mexico City in 1985 and in Ecuador in 1987. Imagine that you were one of those victims buried under the rubble of your own home, barely able to breathe, fearing that you cannot survive until rescuers can find you or reach you? How would you face a likely death? Frightened? In stark terror? Or with hope? And peace? What will determine that? Faith and the Word of God! If you believe what the Word of God teaches, then you will be much like the dying thief who heard Jesus say: "Today you will with me in paradise." The precious Word is the tool the Holy Spirit uses to give such faith. Learn it, love it and live it.
