The Divine Crash

Today’s sermon was about the truth of Scripture.  However, I ended up leaving out about 10 minutes worth of material.  You will see it in the notes but you won’t hear it in the audio.

You can hear the audio at the bottom or on iTunes.

Psalm 91:11-12 Because he will order his messengers to help you, to protect you wherever you go. They will carry you with their own hands so you don’t bruise your foot on a stone.

 

Matthew 4:5-6 “After that the devil brought him into the holy city and stood him at the highest point of the temple. He said to him, Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down; for it is written, I will command my angels concerning you, and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone.

 

Luke 4:10-11 “Since you are God’s Son, throw yourself down from here, for it is written: He will command his angels concerning you, to protect you, and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone. 

It is good to be back.  It is good to be home.  It is good to be here with all of you.  I think it is interesting that our scripture is satan quoting the Bible and today is Bible Sunday.

Let’s Pray.

Dear Jesus, the D.S. is here…so please show up and transform my words so that you come forth instead of me. Because if I speak the D.S. will probably fire me. So all I ask is that you break into this place and make it a holy space where your words are like caffene that pours forth to bring us to life and leaves each of us more alive than ever because of you. - amen

So, Satan, meets up with Jesus.  Satan figures he can win against Jesus. which is really a good definition for sin. sin is thinking we are smarter than Jesus.

It is a showdown of epic proportions.  The very embodiment of evil and of love are facing off in a test of who is really going to rule the world.  If you can’t visualize this just picture it as Chuck Norris and any bad guy ever… You get the idea and you also know who is going to win before it even starts.

pretend video clip. that is how fast a fight with chuck Norris is overand that is how fast Jesus destroys sin.

Satan starts it.  Jesus went to pray and be alone but Satan started the fight. Jesus was alone for a very long time and hadn’t eaten and that is when Satan shows up.  evil always seems to show up when we are hungry, alone, lonely, and tired m

It always seems that evil shows up when we are least prepared for it.

It always seems that those who would do you harm strike when we really just don’t want them too.

In this strike satan tries to get Jesus to eat.  To break the fast he has taken.  Jesus wins.

In Satan’s attempt at power he takes Jesus to the highest point of the temple to get Jesus to exert power over the angels.  this is where our Psalm comes in.

A few things happening here.

First, The highest point in the temple could have been the physical or could have been the spiritual.

- The physical would have been at the top of the spire where it was several stories to the ground. This fall would have killed Jesus. It would have meant Jesus was betting his life on the angels. that the one who all things were created is betting his life on the created.

- It wasn’t the fall that would kill him it was the sudden stop at the end.

- The Spiritual in Jewish beliefs the highest point of the temple would have been the holy of holies.  The place where God dwelt. This was the spiritual high place. and if you think that Satan can’t go there we see in job that he can approach the throne of god.

- To jump from here would have been to abandon God and forsake the relationship he had with the creator in hopes that the created would rescue him.

- If this is where Jesus and satan were this would have been spiritually deadly.  Only the creator can determine the beginning and the end of life. Satan is trying to get Jesus to give up his divinity and leave God in favor of creation.

- Only the Creator can save you.  Not the created.

- When you abandon the creator for the favor of the created we end up in all sorts of dangerous and dark places.

- Jesus understands that breaking from God was exactly what would happen on the cross and it wouldn’t be when or how  Satan wanted it but it would be at the divine timing of god as the only way for the salvation of all humanity.

Second, for Satan to get Jesus to do this Satan quotes scripture:

- He quotes Psalm 91:11-12

- But he misquotes it. Satan says “I will command my angels concerning you, and they will take you up in their hands so that you won’t hit your foot on a stone. ”

- The actual verse says “Because he will order his messengers to help you, to protect you wherever you go. They will carry you with their own hands so you don’t bruise your foot on a stone.”

- Satan left off the end of verse 11 “To help you, to protect you, wherever you go.”

- Satan twisted this scripture so that instead of the encouraging promises of God that uplifted Jesus it became a prison meant to beat Jesus down and keep him depressed.  Satan is twisting the scripture to mean “If you are good enough I will rescue you but if you aren’t good enough you won’t be rescued.”

- This is an attempt to make Jesus arrogant and prove he is good enough. it makes salvation into arrogance instead of humility.

- This is something we do a lot. Even without recognizing it we make our personal theology one of works based that if we do enough and are good enough then we will be saved.  The reality of scripture is that you can’t do enough or be good enough but that God has saved you through the blood of Jesus on the cross, not because of anything we have done to earn it but simply because we are loved.

Third, For Jesus the response is about the truth of God’s word. His response in verse 7 is a quote of Deuteronomy 6:16 “Don’t test the Lord your God the way you frustrated him at Massah.

- Massah is the location in Exodus 17 where the people were whining to Moses that there was no water so Moses hit a stone with his staff and out comes water to prove that God was really with them and they would be taken care of.  Exodus 17:6 says that God would be standing there when Moses arrives. God got frustrated with the people because they had stopped trusting in God and were only trusting what they could see. they traded trust in the creator for trust in the created.

- For Jesus his response was to tell Satan the truth of scripture.  That even when you can’t see God this God is right there with You and even when we can’t see god, god is still with us holding all things under his control.

This brings a few questions to mind for us and how we approach our Bible and what it means forums in 2011 where water doesn’t come from stones and the temple isn’t the tallest structure anymore.

1. Do we twist our scripture like Satan does? Instead of reading it so that we can be transformed do we transform it so that we can continue without change.

- Satan twisted it to keep Jesus beat down and depressed.  Does your scripture lift you up or does it beat you down? If it beats you down you aren’t reading it right.

- When we are feeling guilty for our sin do we read John 3:16 and say “That applies to everyone else but me?”

2. Do we force the Bible to say what we want or do we let the Bible force us to change into the image of God?

No matter what you say to that question the answer is you bring your own bias to the Bible. The key is to make your Bias the Bias of the Bible

- “No Man ever believes that the Bible means what it says: He is always convinced that it says what he means.”  - George Bernard Shaw

- No person takes the Bible 100% literally. If you did none of you would ever eat a rare steak and all men would have 1 eyeball. If you take the Bible 100% literally you would never eat a mosquito or wear clothes of more than one fabric.

- What we do is take our life experiences, thoughts, emotions, and ideas and put them into what we read.

- If we aren’t honest about the fact that we do this we can end up down all sorts of dark paths committing all sorts of religious atrocities while pretending God is with us.

- Yet it is unavoidable, we will always do it.

- The important thing is to realize that we do it and ask God to be with us and show us the truth of scripture.

3. Do we actually understand what we are reading? That we are reading the words of life and salvation? Words that have existed for thousands of years and have changed the very fabric of the way the whole world works? Do we grasp that in our reading? Satan doesn’t understand what he is reading.  He knows it very well but doesn’t understand it.

- Look at what Satan does, he quotes this verse but he doesn’t understand that what he is quoting is a jewish song taught to children to teach them not to be afraid of the dark because God’s angels will protect them even when they sleep. He is singing a lullaby to Jesus that is meant to encourage him that God is with him even in the dark.

4. If we want to avoid twisting, manipulating, and destroying scripture then we:

- need to admit that we bring our own bias to the Bible.

- Ask God to show what is really going on in the text

- Read the Bible. Every day.

- We just gave 3rd graders the Bible. When it wears out we will replace it.

- You need a Bible. Get one that you can understand.

- NIV written for 6th Grade reading level

- NASB written for 9th Grade reading level

- NRSV written for 12th grade reading level.

- Find one you are comfortable with.

- Start in a gospel

- Luke if you like history

- John if you like suspense

- Matthew if you like surprises

- Mark if you like just the facts as quickly as possible

- When you don’t read it you don’t know what God is like.  How can you follow a God you don’t know anything about.

- “Ignorance of the Scriptures is ignorance of Christ.” St. Jerome

- Join our Cell Groups. We meet Thursdays at 7 at my house and we are looking to start more very shortly.  In this Cell Group we bring all our questions about the scripture to the table and we talk about them.  We ask questions, we live life together, and we go deep into the scriptures. We encourage each other to get into our Bible and learn the truth about what God is saying to us.

in  our cell groups we study the scripture and ask the holy spirit to show us what it means.  Our cell groups are always open and always growing. We would love to have you join us either there or at the parsonage at 7pm. and if you can’t make it we want to start another Cell Group and continue to mentor each other in our faith journey and multiply disciples of Jesus

5. Lastly, the Bible is not God.  We do not worship the Bible we worship God. Your Bible teaches you about God, and contains all things needed for salvation, and brings you closer to God but it is still just words on a page and unless you ask the Holy Spirit to help you none of it will make sense. and so when we read our bible we must ask god to reveal to us what it means for us today, in this place.

Benediction: “A thousand times over, the death knell of the Bible has been sounded, the funeral procession formed, the inscription cut on the tombstone, and the committal read. But somehow the corpse never says put. No other book has been so chopped, knifed, sifted, scrutinized, and vilified. What book on philosophy or religion or psychology or belles letters of classical or modern times has been subject to such a mass attack as the bible? With such venom and skepticism? With such thoroughness and erudition? Upon every chapter, line and tenet? The Bible is still loved by millions, read by millions and studied by millions. It remains the most published and most read book in the world of literature.” –Bernard Ramm

Filed under:
Sermon by RevBT