September 15 Sermon: Everything We Need
In this message, we explore the sufficiency of Scripture in three key areas: salvation, holiness, and worship. God’s Word is always enough, regardless of our circumstances. It guides us, transforms us, and reveals how we are to worship Him. Join us as we uncover the power and authority of Scripture in every area of life.
Contemplate these questions as you listen to this week’s message:
How does trusting in the sufficiency of Scripture free us from relying on our works or human philosophies for salvation?
What does storing God’s Word in our hearts mean, and how does this shape our pursuit of holiness?
How does Scripture guide us in worship, and why is it essential to approach worship based on God's commands rather than human preferences?
Transcript:
When I was in Boy Scouts, every year we had an activity known as the Klondike Derby. This was always one activity activity that was in the month of January. We would go to the Scout reservation at Newton Hills, near Kent, South Dakota, and do this event. Now, this activity was not just hiking or getting together to work on merit badges. Each patrol in these scout troops had a sled that resembled a dog sled. Just so you know, we didn't have dogs. We were the dogs. The sleds had ropes, and we would pull this sled and traverse the paths of Newton Hills, having that sled behind us from station to station, doing all these assorted activities. I remember this being a really fun activity. At 49 years old, I'm not sure why that was fun, but we loved it. We look forward to it every year. I remember one year there wasn't any snow, and we thought, Why can't we just put wheels on the sled and still do it?
Instead, it was canceled, but we enjoyed this. I have several memories of these activities. But one of my primary recollections that I have is putting together the meal. We had to plan the meal, bring the supplies along on the sled, and then prepare it along the path. Whenever the dinner break was, we would stop there, build a fire, and do it. In fact, I think this was such a significant part of the activity that they had adult volunteers come around and taste test our food, and at the end of the day, you would be awarded if you had the best dish. At a Scout Meter prior to one Klondike Derby, I recall looking through a Scout Dutch oven cookbook for a recipe that we could prepare during that event. Like any group of middle school-aged boys, we perused that book looking for the easiest recipe. We wanted something simple, and we ended up deciding on a dish. I don't remember what exactly it was called, but I do remember that it had the word cowboy in it. Imagine that, a Dutch oven cookbook having a dish with the word cowboy in it. But anyway, This recipe had two ingredients: kidney beans and ground beef.
Now, after pulling on that sled for a couple of hours, the break for the noon meal came and we set to starting our fire, browning the hamburger and using the can openers on our Swiss army knives. If you've ever done that, that takes a while. I remember us handing the different cans of kidney beans around and several of us doing it so that we could get it done. And soon it had been warmed, the hamburger was cooked, and it was time to dine. Our group of young men surrounding the fire on that day gave that dish rave views. We couldn't believe how good it was. There may have even been some discussion about how we thought that we might have a shot of winning the cooking contest with our delectable dish made with two whole ingredients. Well, sometime after that event, I remembered how good that was, and I decided to make it at home. To say that I was extremely underwhelmed would be a gross misunderstanding. It wasn't terrible. I got it down. I didn't waste the food. But without the strenuous activity of the Klondike Derby, it just wasn't the same. It filled my stomach.
It was sufficient to provide nourishment. But my perception of the meal was drastically impacted by the circumstances that I ate it under originally. As I looked back, I realized that meal seemed amazing because of those circumstances. We were tired, we were hungry. Anything warm was going to taste great. But outside of that context, the meal just didn't hold up. Yet unlike that dish, scripture isn't dependent on our circumstances, for the sufficiency of it, for the enjoyment of it, for what it can do for us in our lives. Scripture is always sufficient. Whether we're in a moment of clarity or confusion, peace or struggle, scripture is enough. As we think on this idea that we're looking at today on the sufficiency of Scripture, we're going to focus on three specific areas today. The first thing that we're going to consider is the sufficiency of the word for salvation. The word of God is a revelation for the people of God to hear and to believe. We don't need more information. What has been revealed in Scripture is sufficient for the saving of God's people. Second, what he has revealed is sufficient for our growing in Holiness.
While scripture doesn't line out every possible scenario that we can face in this life, it is sufficient to tell us how to live a life that is pleasing to God. Finally, we will consider how scripture is sufficient to tell us how to worship. God has revealed how he desires to be worshiped, and it is sufficient to inform the worship of the people of God. As we discuss this sufficiency of scripture for salvation, today, we will take a look at the passage that we read from the 10th chapter of Romans. Last week, when we considered the authority of scripture, I mentioned that it's important to hold to the authority of Scripture because scripture speaks to our salvation with authority. It declares that we are saved by faith alone through grace alone because of the work of Jesus alone. And throughout history, as humans have surveyed the world around us, we make universal observations. And there's something that people have always been able to clearly see. The world is broken. Many conclusions have been made about what this means and what the solution to this problem should be. But we know universally that something is wrong. Some conclude that we need to ascend to a higher spiritual plane of consciousness to escape this brokenness.
Others hope in some technological solution, perhaps. You hear people speak of maybe someday our consciousness will be able to be uploaded into a machine and we can live forever that way. Better hope nobody unplugs you, right? But when we say that scripture speaks with authority and sufficiency for salvation, we need to remember, we are not just saying it does this in regards to how we are saved. It also informs us so that we know what we are being saved from. Because the problem that we face is It's a result of human sin. It's a problem of rebellion against a Holy God. We don't need to speculate what is wrong. Scripture is clear to how the world is broken and why it's broken. It's because of this that we know that only scripture can give us the cure. The word of God informs us that the price that needs to be paid for rebellion against a holy God is death. The story of the Bible lets us know that God let the sacrifice of an animal stand in for a time for the sin of humanity. But then in the fullness of time, God the Son took on human flesh to bear the punishment that we deserve for our sin.
After taking on that wrath, he tells us that he was victorious over that death that he suffered for us. That is the story of salvation. We receive this gift by faith alone. We do not add to it by our good works or by some ritual observation. Salvation is by confessing that Jesus is Lord and believing in your heart that God raised him from the dead. This word of salvation comes to us. By faith, we read here that we are justified. We are declared righteous before a Holy God. So this faith comes to us by hearing the word of Christ. The gospel comes to us, and the Holy spirit creates faith in our hearts to believe. And many hear of this truth from scripture, and their assumption is there's no way that this can be enough, that it isn't sufficient. Throughout history, humans have invented rituals or benchmarks of spiritual ascent because they just can't come to grips with the fact that it isn't about them working themselves back to God, that it isn't humans elevating themselves back to God. It's hard to come to grips with the truth that God comes to us. What this displays is a lack of trust in the sufficiency of scripture to tell us about our problem.
If the problem is that we are separated from a Holy God, separated from his absolute perfect Holiness, then my works will never be able to bridge that gap. The fall has rendered us dead in trespasses and sins. We need to be brought to life. Only God can rescue his creation from our fallen state. And understanding the sufficiency of scripture salvation calls us to trust fully in God's word, not in our own efforts or the latest human philosophies. The Bible is clear, salvation is by faith in Christ alone, and no additional works or spiritual achievements are necessary. So the question for us today is, are we resting in the finished work of Christ as revealed in Scripture, or are we still striving to add to what God has already completed? We need to let this truth free us from the burden that we put on ourselves of self-reliance. Let the sufficiency of scripture fill us with the assurance that God's word is enough, that it tells us this story of salvation, and the Holy spirit uses God's word to bring us to life and to bring us to faith in salvation. Having confidence in this is important as we transition to considering the sufficiency of scripture and helping us live in Holiness.
Because if we misunderstand salvation, We're going to get the calls in Scripture for holding living wrong. Because if we don't trust in the sufficiency of the message of salvation, we will think that that isn't enough and that we need to do something. Then when we hear the commands to live a holy life, we will think that we are now meriting righteousness for ourselves, that we are ascending to God, that we are scoring points with God to earn our salvation. But when we understand the fullness of the gospel, we will know that the calls to live a godly life are rooted in thankfulness, and they are rooted in gratitude. The calls for holy living in scripture are not a staircase that we climb to make our way to God. When we understand this grace, we realize that we want to serve God and obey him in love because of the love that he has first shown to us in Jesus. How do we do this? Well, today I want to look at Psalm 119 that we read earlier because it shows us how we can navigate this world and live a pure and holy life. This way to appear life is, we are told, is to guard it according to the word of God.
It is holy scripture that shows us how to live. While the law of God is written on our consciences and it's written in our hearts, we must go to the word of God. Scripture provides us clarity on what a holy life looks like because it removes the idea of what God desires. It removes the idea that this is about what I feel about what he has said. I often think that God desires what I think he desires. That he's only looking for a certain thing from me based upon how I feel or how I think I am able to achieve these things. As fallen creatures, it is never good to rely on our own intuition and our own feelings or to assume that because we are feeling something, it is good. Our sinful hearts render us selfish beings. We need the word of God to guide us. We need to know what God's word says regarding how we are to live because our narcissistic hearts are prone to lead us astray. Psalm 119 is a goldmine for verses that show us the wisdom of God's word. But this section here not only tells us that we need to guard our ways according to the word of God, but it also gives us insight into how this is accomplished in us.
Here the Psalm says that he has stored up the word of God in his heart, that he might not sin against him. He knows the word of God. You can tell as you read this, that this is more than just the idea of memorizing God's word, of having it available in our memory banks. It isn't just the idea of storing up the philosophical ideas of scripture in a filing cabinet in our mind. Where is this? Where is this stored up? It's stored up in our hearts. The idea here is that the word of God gets into you at the center of your being, and take it deep within you. As we consider what this means, I think it's vital that we're honest with ourselves. There is no such thing as neutrality. There is no neutrality when it comes to this. We will always be storing something up in our heart. That's always happening. It's a part of who we are. We have loves. We have desires that shape us. This is absolutely unavoidable. What this passage challenges us to ask then is an important question. What am I storing up in my heart? Am I storing up the things of God, or am I storing up the things of the flesh?
What is molding me? What is shaping my love? Is my heart directed towards being conformed to the image of Jesus Christ, or am I being shaped to look like the world? Again, there is no neutrality. I am storing something up in my heart. I am being shaped by everything around me. So often, we get frustrated with our spiritual growth. We feel as though we've stagnated. So We look for a method or a trick that might help us get back on track. We want something easy, but in reality, there is no easy path to Holiness. There isn't. Because we are at war with the world. We are at war with our flesh. I don't know what in the world makes me think that being sanctified could be easy, but I think we are all prone to thinking that way, that there's just one thing that I need that'll fix me. But while there is no easy path, the path that God sets out before us isn't a complicated one. The road to Holiness is a narrow trail, but it is marked out. It is laid out before us. The word of God is sufficient to tell us how to live.
In scripture, we receive the gift of God's law, we receive the words of Jesus, and we have the promises of God's faithfulness and the assurance of forgiveness and salvation. When we fail to follow God's commands, we read that there is forgiveness for us. There is good news that we have the forgiveness of sins in Jesus Christ. We don't need to run off on diverging paths, looking for an effortless path to Holiness, because there isn't one. It's clear, again, it's narrow. It's a difficult path, but the path has been laid out before us by God. As we reflect on the sufficiency of Scripture for living in wholeness, we must recognize that it calls us for a continual pursuit of the word of God. Holiness doesn't come through shortcuts. Holiness doesn't come through personal feelings, but by faithfully following the path that God has laid out in his word. The challenge for us is clear, are we storing up God's word in our hearts? Are we allowing it to shape our desires, our actions, our choices, our loves? This pursuit of Holiness needs to be rooted in scripture, and we can trust that it's sufficient to guide us on this journey.
We need to trust that God's word is enough, that it will lead us in paths of Holiness. As we consider that, and we consider to, once again, think about the sufficiency of Scripture, it's sufficient to tell us of salvation, it's sufficient to tell us how to live and grow in Holiness, but it also tells us that it's sufficient to tell us how to worship God. Just as God's word is sufficient for that salvation and for that Holy living, it reveals to us how we are to approach and worship God. As we consider this, I want us to make sure you feel the progression of what our points are today. Scripture is sufficient to tell us how we are saved. It logically follows then that this good news should tell us how to live in response to that salvation. Then it follows that this God who has saved us, who has shown us this holy life, he is now worthy to be worshiped. And so his word is sufficient to tell us how we are to worship him as well. And so we read today from the end of Deuteronomy 12, and we read into the beginning of chapter 13.
And in this passage, we get an idea of what Why? Why it is that God is deliberate to tell his people how they are to worship him. And so what we see here is the idea that the people of God are set apart. In fact, that is what wholeness means. To be holy means to be set apart, to be different, set apart for God. That is what God has done for his people in bringing them, here in the Book of Deuteronomy, out of the land of Egypt, and he is going to bring them in to the promised land. This is what the conquest that's coming up in the Book of Joshua. This is what the conquest of the land, the promised land, is all about. You see, this is what God is doing for his people. He is saving them. He is bringing them out of the land of Egypt. He has shown them in his law how to live wholly set apart lives, and now he's going to bring them into the promised land. They're going to go in and worship him. It says that they would go into the land. We know the story, and what God said here is that God is going to dispossess the people that occupy the land, and he's going to dispossess their false worship.
Really, the best way to understand this and to understand basically the flow of Genesis, Exodus through Deuteronomy, and then going into the promised land in Joshua, is to understand the beginning of Genesis. That there in the garden, Our first parents were set apart to worship God. They had intimacy with him. They were there with him. Then the serpent came, and through sin, Adam and Eve and all of humanity were removed from the garden. Remember, that's where they were worshiping them. That's what was going on in the garden. Now, the picture that we feel as the people have come out of the slavery of sin and they're heading to the promised land is this idea that they're going into a new Eden. What's going to happen with the dispossessing of the people is that God is expelling the agents of the serpent. He has making worship, set apart worship for the people of God possible in that land. And so the false worship of these pagan people, of their pagan gods, needs to be driven from the land. And so what happens here is God warns them not to inquire about their gods by asking, how did these nations serve their gods?
Now, we know the story of the Old Testament We know that this was the issue that happened over and over and over and over again. The land would be set apart for the worship of the one true God. That would be brought back into Eden, right? But then the idolatry of the nations and the worship of Baal and other false gods would spring up. Remember, these are people who knew the story of God, They knew his rescue of them from Egypt, and yet they continually went after these false gods, and they worship them. And so notice what verse 31, the last verse Verse up here has to say. It says, You shall not worship the Lord your God in that way for every abominable thing that the Lord hates, they have done for their gods, for they even burn their sons and their daughters in the fire of their gods. The worship of these pagan gods was contrary to the law of God. These practices involved more than just false idol bowing before a piece of rock. That wrong, but that wasn't really the issue. Their worship was filled with immoral sexual activity. We can read right here that it was involved child sacrifice.
The law of God and the instructions on how to worship God were given to the people of God for the purpose of keeping them from these abominations. This is why the instructions of the sacrifices and other parts of the Hebrew faith were lined out in such great detail. I know boring for us to read in the Book of Leviticus, but this is why. Because worship of a Holy God is to be set apart from these pagan child sacrifices, these sexually immoral activities that they were using to worship their pagan gods. The people of God were to be set apart. They were holy. They are different. So their worship is to be different than the pagan people who are being driven out of the land. It's It's interesting to see here just how serious God is about these commands that are being given. What's being said here is imagine that someone shows up and they have a vision, and they They're going to be a prophet of some kind. They're even able to do some sign, or they are able to make a prediction and it comes to pass. We would naturally assume that this person seems like a person of God, right?
They must be a messenger from God. Surely they have a direct line to God. And so what they're saying about how we should change our worship, worship God differently, that must be true. They have a sign accompanying them. They're a prophet. We can do these pagan rituals in the worship of Yahweh. But the warning here is that God's testing them. The instructions given by God, they are written down for the people so that they will know that it is not to change. Those rules are sufficient for how they are to worship God. They are to listen to him. They are to obey his voice in his word and serve him and hold fast to what God has commanded them. You can see and understand why this is important. Because even in our day, there are those who come and they claim to speak in the name of God, and they lead people astray. They may even accompany it with some supposed sign or wonder. As humans, we are prone to follow after what's new and what is more exciting. But if the word of God is sufficient to tell us of the salvation that we have in Christ and sufficient for telling us how to live in wholeness, then we can be confident it also is sufficient to inform us how we worship this Holy God.
Now, the natural question that comes from this is, but, Mark, we don't do all that stuff that's lined out in Leviticus with the sacrifices and all the strange attire that the priests wore that they were required to wear. Well, The answer to that natural question that we have is actually found in that word I just said, priest. Remember, priests oversaw sacrifices. As you've heard me say many times before, we have to remember that being a priest was a very bloody job. They oversaw sacrifices. Those Old Testament sacrifice rituals found their fulfillment in the person and work of Jesus Christ. What was described in the Book of Leviticus wasn't done by the people. It was done by the Levitical priesthood, and it happened in the temple. As I've said before, the temple didn't have a congregational area like this where people came in and sang their praises to God. No, it was the Holy of Holies. It was the mercy seat. Only the priests could go into the presence of God once a year, and they had to go in with the blood of the sacrifices. Because of the work of Jesus for his people, we all now come into the presence of God by his blood.
We do not worship with the sacrifice of the blood of an animal, but with the sacrifice of praise because the blood of Jesus was shed for us. Our worship has us called out from the world to be set apart for the worship of God. We praise his great and holy name, and we confess our sins, and we hear of his saving work. God speaks to us through his word, and then we speak his word back to him through our confessions, through our prayers. We sing glory to his Holy name. All of these things are lined out for us in scripture. They're prescribed for us as being a part of the worship of God. This is why each week our worship is soaked with God's word. That's why you find it everywhere, because we believe in the sufficiency of scripture. We believe God's word is sufficient to tell us how to worship. We do not want to come before God with anything more than what he tells us to do. This is the posture that we want to take because we don't want to follow after false us, teachings. We don't want to follow after the delusions of our minds because he is the one who has saved us.
We want to worship him in spirit and in truth. What God has given us in his word is sufficient for our worship. It's sufficient for our growth in Holiness and for our confidence in his salvation for his people. As we close up, I want to return again to thinking about that meal my Scout Patrol made during the Klondike Derby. I can't help but think how much of its appeal came from the situation that we were in. We were cold, we were tired, and we were grateful for something warm. It wasn't about the quality of the ingredients, but the context that made it seem satisfying at the time. But when I tried to recreate that meal at home outside of those conditions, it didn't hold up. And unlike that meal, God's isn't dependent on our circumstances. It's not good just because we're in a tough spot or because we're in need. No matter where we are in life, good or bad, no matter what we face, scripture is always sufficient. It nourishes us for salvation. It guides us in holy living. It instructs us in how to live and how to worship the God who has saved us from our sin.
So the challenge for us then is to take this authoritative and sufficient word and hide it in our hearts that we might not sin against this God who has saved us, and that we might rightly worship him to the glory of his great and holy name. He is worthy of worship because he has saved us. He is worthy of our Holy living to his praise because he is our God, and he has set us apart as his people. So may we take that word deep down in us, that our lives might be lived to his glory. Amen. Let us pray. Almighty and everlasting and glorious God, we praise you for the gift of your word. For in it we hear the story, the story of your people, and we are your people. You have rescued us from sin. You have given us salvation and eternal life. And so we pray that that story would move us to live lives of Holiness and to worship you in spirit and in truth. In those things, may we always see your word is sufficient. May we hide it in our hearts that it might flow out of us, that it might shape us, that we might be witnesses in a lost and dying world. It's in the name of Jesus that we pray. Amen.
