Trusted with God’s Words VI: Our Great Example, pt 1

Welcome to The Whole Council. I'm Jon Snyder, and with me again is Teddy. And Teddy, we're looking at our final look at the theme of the kind of person that God can trust with His message or with His Word.

And we've been talking about the cultural setting that makes that perhaps in our day an even more critical question than it has been in previous days.

Yeah, absolutely. And because there's so many voices, there's so much noise going on. And Jon, one of the things that we've not really discussed in this series yet, but I wanted to take just a few minutes and to have you comment on, what we're focused on really is the life and to lead a life that lends to weighty words.

But how do you see this playing out? Because most of the words spoken today are online. So in internet forums, comment sections.

So how do we kind of see that in light of what we're talking about? I think that the tool of the internet should be used by believers as the

Lord, you know, gives opportunity or gives, you know, gifts for that kind of a thing.

Not everybody should write and, you know, speak on the internet. And I mean, we feel that here.

A lot of times we think, you know, is this something we should be doing? And so we feel a clear conscience up to this point.

But I want us to think about the fact that with the internet, while your voice can go wide, let's think of it this way, it tends to be shallow.

Even if you are saying, you know, the greatest things, things that are so clear and penetrating, and that's good.

But the nature of that medium of that tool is that people don't know you.

And so the principles that God gives us in Scripture of having a life that can be looked into and that lends weight and, you know, creates the kind of a context in which a person would want to listen to you.

That's very difficult when we think of the internet. So I think that the way that God has designed is primarily that we start with being the right kind of listener, the right kind of student of God.

All the things we've been talking about in the last weeks, to be a trustworthy messenger, start at home, people that know you best.

Do they want to know what you say about God? And then as we think of those concentric circles working out, you know, neighbors or co -workers or friends and extended family, church.

But if you think of the internet, it's way out on the edge. And so I think that while we should use the internet, it is not the primary means of conveying

God's truth. It is the local Christian whose life is going through all of its ups and downs, right in the middle of a community of people who are watching, believers and unbelievers.

And as that Christian is by the grace of God and able to cling to Christ through all the good and the bad, their words then carry great weight.

But the other dynamic is when we think of giving spiritual counsel to people, being able to know that person better than just someone who wrote a question in on an email is pretty significant.

Whenever we get questions, particularly from churches, maybe someone will say, well, my church, my pastor doesn't do this.

My church doesn't believe this, you know, what am I supposed to do? Or I'm going through terrible struggles and, you know, can you help us?

Generally, I try to find out, you know, do they attend a local church and have they sat down with their pastor or pastors or older believers?

Because it is much more likely that someone who knows us well will be able to know how to apply the scripture to where we're at, rather than a person that's distant.

And, you know, we've given them, as best we can, an honest description of our situation. But even the best we do, often we have...

It's still coming from one perspective. Yeah, we have blind spots. And so that makes our distant advice limited in its helpfulness.

But also, you know, you need someone who can give you godly counsel and then walk alongside you to some degree and to see if you're applying that.

So again, while these principles could apply to a life that God might use through the internet, through a distant communication, it's primarily those that we are around every week that these things are so helpful for.

So I think it's helpful for us to keep in mind the responsibility that God has given us, right?

He's given us a responsibility to speak to and to live life before those who are around us.

And the internet, you know, I think often we run into a problem when we think that we have a responsibility to answer every challenge to Christianity on the internet.

And that's not necessarily the case. Yeah. If you look again at the pattern of Christ, not every question was the right question.

Sometimes people ask Christ a question and He answers something that they should have asked, you know, the woman at the well, which mountain are we supposed to worship on?

And Christ actually speaks to something that's much more significant. Nicodemus, you know, we know you're a great teacher sent from God.

And, and then Jesus drives home talking.

He drives home spiritual principles by talking about something that on the surface looks completely unrelated.

Nicodemus, you're going to have to be born all over again. There is a connection. But when we read the

New Testament, I'm often shocked at how many times it appears that Jesus wasn't listening to the crowd. The truth is

He, out of love and wisdom, He deals with the things that need to be dealt with for their good and God's honor, rather than the curious things that they bring up perhaps.

And internet is, you know, a thousand times worse when it comes to that. These, oh yeah, well, what about this?

And what about this? And, and, you know, everyone has their pet, uh, uh, you know, area of theology or their pet complaint, and they want you to talk about that, or they want you to answer their complaints.

And it, it, you could waste your entire life answering questions that God does not intend you to answer.

Not every religious question needs answering, but if you don't know the person, you don't know if that's a question that needs answering.

Uh, I'll give as a quick example. Many years ago, there were, there were a group of people who were in a church that they were concerned about the drift.

And they asked me to meet with them and talk with them. And, uh, at the, they had a lot of good questions.

And at the end of the meeting, one of the gentlemen kind of chuckled and said, um, well, what about Calvinism?

Now the group was not, um, um, Calvinistically minded, reform minded group of people.

And I knew that, you know, you could see the expressions on the faces of everyone in the group, uh, that one man had already started to think that way.

And the rest of the group were probably tired of him mentioning it and they weren't in agreement. And I felt that the motivation behind the question might've been that I would, uh, kind of visibly side with this person and, you know, affirm his, uh, kind of maybe bashing his

Armenian friends at the time. Um, and so I didn't feel that that question could be answered in a way that was good for people's souls or, um, for the honor of the

Lord. So I, I made some statement and sidestepped the question.

Basically, you know, that's not a question that it looks like needs to be answered right now.

I mean, that, that wasn't where they were at spiritually. So that person ended up going to another church that wanted to talk more about that.

And, um, the people that were in that group, other than that family ended up coming over to the church here.

And we have, you know, discussed, what does the Bible say about the sovereignty of God and all those things that the reformers kind of went back to and called people's attention to again.

Uh, and so they would now be probably in agreement with that other family. But if I didn't know those people, you know, if it was an internet type of communication,

I wouldn't know, is this the kind of question that needs answered? Or is this the kind of person that ought to be told, you know, you talk a lot about that.

And, um, and the way you talk about it probably isn't helpful. So I'm not going to join in, in the echo chamber of their, you know,

Calvinism. Uh, so I, I think, you know, that dynamic, knowing the people, them knowing you, both of those are the way

God designed for us to communicate in, you know, as a major, the major tool.

Yeah. Well, John, I appreciate that. So to get to, you know, kind of the topic of today and where we're moving with this, um, ending with this series, we've looked at, we looked at the type of people that God will entrust with his word.

We looked at the type of people that God will not entrust with his word. And now we're looking at the ultimate example, the, the, the one person who perfectly walked the path, um, that whose footsteps we can follow, you know, in Hebrews one, it says that he is the perfect messenger.

He is unique in all of his ways. In revelation one, he is the faithful witness. When we're looking in the gospels and we see that even his enemies, when they would try to entrap him and ask him questions that would trick him going, you know, even back to the internet again, they were astounded by his words and they recognized that he had an authority and he had a wisdom that they had never encountered before, but also his friends who were, no matter what was happening, he had the perfect word for them.

And we're, we're looking today at that example in Christ. Yeah. You know, when you think of the

New Testament, um, commands and think of the letters, for example, in first John, uh, chapter two,

John writes this by this. We know that we have come to know him. So this is how we know that we're believers, that we know the

Christ that God sent. Um, and he's writing to people probably who many of them had never seen or heard

Christ personally. So how do we know that we really know him? How do we know that we really are followers of Christ?

And he gives one of the many tests he gives one here. He says, if we keep his commandments, the one who says,

I have come to know him and does not keep his commandments is a liar. And the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word in him, in that person, the love of God has truly been perfected by this.

We know that we're in him. The one who says he, the Christian, I abide in him, in Christ.

All right. I am in him or he abides in me ought himself to walk in the same manner as he walked.

So again, John's not talking about spiritual perfection, but a general, uh, kind of the, the portrait, the landscape picture of a life from conversion until today.

Can I see that there is a new quality to my life? There is something there that wasn't there before.

There is a fundamental desire and ability to wake up and live for my

King or to walk as he walked, you know, and again, we're being taught. And so that ought to be a thing that we're growing in, but that applies to the way we speak to people.

Peter says this in first Peter four, whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God.

Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by this strength, which God supplies so that in all things,

God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs glory and dominion forever and ever.

So Peter's talking to normal Christians and says, if you speak, speak in such a way that it's just, it's as it's the utterances of God, you know, or you speak as God would have you to speak.

And for that, we have the pattern of Christ. Absolutely. And so now, John, if that sounds like it's a very bold statement, because it is, but if we were to say that we can follow that pattern, um, that sounds kind of intimidating.

So where do we know, how do we know that that's a pattern we can follow? That's a good question.

How do we know that we as a believer can follow the pattern of Christ? And the simple answer is that it is a true human life that we're looking at.

It is a sinless human life, but we're not looking at deity living as deity on the earth.

When we look at the pattern of Christ, we're looking at deity united to humanity. And for the purpose of redeeming us,

Jesus doing the will of the father by depending upon the spirit, we have a true human walking with God, the father in perfect harmony with him.

And while the, the extent or the degree of obedience is perfection, and we're not going to do that.

The path is common to every believer. You know, how do we respond to the father?

Well, how did the son, how did he pray? How did he study his Bible? How did he relate to family members?

How did he go to church and worship? How did he deal with, you know, temptations that come from outside?

We also have this struggle from within. How does he handle enemies?

How does he love them? How does he teach? All of that is laid out for us. So because of the work of God within and the mighty work of the spirit and the sufficiency of Christ, we can obey what

John said. We can walk as he walked or the same path, even though our footsteps, think of it a simple illustration, his are perfectly straight.

Ours are like a toddler wobbling left and right, falling down, getting back up. His steps are not only perfectly straight.

The stride, you know, is great. He has such a mature stride and we're like toddlers.

We take 20 steps and again, they're kind of crooked, each one, but it is the same path.

It is a human who by the grace of God, in our example, we are depending upon the same spirit

Christ depended upon, who is at work in us. We are looking to God for grace and we are humbling ourselves and for love of this

God, we are walking in submission to him. So that's the same human pattern that Christ left us.

But the question I think that is a little harder to answer is, where do we see that pattern?

Okay. So we admit that we ought to be followers of Jesus Christ. And if he's commanded us to do that, then he has given us everything we need for that.

Peter makes that clear. Everything that we need for life, for godliness, it's been provided.

So where is the pattern? And so if someone were to ask you, Teddy, so where do you see that pattern? What's kind of the first thing that would come to your mind?

Well, I mean, in general, it would just be the gospels, the four gospels. I think the walking, the life of Christ.

Yeah. And I think the gospel of John is the one that gives us the clearest description of that pattern because it's not just kind of a biographical description like Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

Yeah. It's where Christ stops and over and over in ways that we don't have in the other gospels.

John gives material that he knows these things haven't been included in Matthew, Mark, and Luke.

And so John gives us these one -on -one conversations where Jesus describes the interiority of his human devotion and his walk with the

Father. I'm going to give you a few examples. And these all deal with how Christ knew what to say.

All right. So John 7 and verse 16, Jesus says, my teaching is not mine, but his who sent me.

All right. So that's a very basic statement. The Lord Jesus refuses to come to the crowds and give them kind of off the cuff what he thinks should be said.

What he says has, it flows from a life that is walking in harmony with the in such a way that he is unwilling to say his own thing, so to speak, but he is able to say everything

I've been teaching you and saying to you, these are things, they're not just my clever ideas.

These are things that are the things that the Father gave me. These are the Father's teaching.

And so let's just start right there. No preacher, no Sunday school teacher, no deacon, no parent, no worker, you know, employee, no student at university or at high school or junior high has a right to step away from this pattern.

We have to start here. We have to say, be able to say to God at the end of life,

I labored. I know I was imperfect, but my goal was like my

Lord to say things that were your words and not just mine. So for example,

I like the 18th century. I like the 17th century, but I'm not allowed at the end of my life to say,

God, I gave Christ's community church. I gave that church the

Puritan's teachings. I gave them Jonathan Edwards or George Whitfield or Hal Harris's teachings.

I can be helped by those men, but I have to be helped by those men to know what

God says so that at the end of life, I can say by your grace, I labored to give them your teaching, not anyone else's.

Let me give you another verse, two verses down, John 7 verse 18, he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory, but he who is seeking the glory of the one who sent him, he is true and there's no unrighteousness in him.

So here's another fundamental aspect of Jesus's pattern that we have to follow.

It's not just that we bring them God's teaching instead of our clever ideas, but we set our heart daily to live for the pleasure and the glory or the honor of God.

We want people to see how great our savior is in the way that we walk with him.

And so having set our hearts to glorify

God, we can be trusted to speak on his behalf. The opposite is he who speaks from himself seeks his own glory.

So if you find a person who is always kind of giving you what they think, well, you know, in my opinion, or I just feel this way about it, it shows that deeper down in the root system of their life, they are not captivated by the honor and worth of God.

And that's not what they're living for in every other area. So when it comes time to say something spiritual, they just shoot off something, you know, that really is not guided by God's honor.

And also, if I can, that's also such a wonderful test for us. If we feel or if we're in a position where we must speak or we feel like we, okay, this has been said and I have to respond, or this question has been asked and I have to answer.

Am I seeking, am I yearning to answer for the glory of God? Or am I tempted to answer because look how smart

I am. This is something that I know I've studied. I, you know. Right. And think about how

God cannot trust a man or a woman or a young person to speak on his behalf if your life is really all about you.

Okay. So let's say a mom is talking to um, uh, an adult daughter and let's say that the adult daughter, you know, has really broken the heart of her parents as she's become a young adult.

Her choices show that really she's not interested in living for Christ right now.

And she's, you know, maybe she's all in love with some boy that she met and he is not a

Christian. Um, whatever he says, you know, he does not live by Christ's word for Christ.

He does not seem to love Christ in any area of life. And so mom sits down and the daughter is talking about this boy and, oh, you know, he's so wonderful.

And mom knows something has to be said. But when I say this, it's going to be pretty unpopular.

And really, maybe I'm risking my friendship with my daughter to say something that has to be said for love of my daughter and for love of God.

And so the question, the test is there, there's the road divides, you know, there's a, there's a why in the road on the right hand side.

There is, I can say some nice sounding things that, that really preserve me, um, that, that really are more about me.

I want my daughter to know I'm a nice person. Uh, you know, I care about her and I'm, I'm there for her.

I'm a great mom. So I make a choice that is really all about me or the left hand of the, of the, of the divided road is what, what about God's honor?

What about the real good of the soul in front of me? But that may risk a lot and, but I'm not here for me.

I'm here for God. And so I have to, if my desire is for God to be honored,

I'm going to have to say these things. And of course, they are also the very best things to say for the person sitting in front of you.

And that's also why it's so important. We talked about this in a previous episode. Uh, so if you haven't watched or listened to it, go back to the one where we talked about, you must first have your soul plowed by the word of God.

Yeah. And so a person who's captured with the greatness of God is delivered from the temptation of skewing or adjusting the message so that people will still like us.

So we lay that on the altar, my reputation for being a nice person, you know, my reputation for being so understandable, so friendly.

I lay that on the altar as a living sacrifice. And for the glory of God, I say what he would have me to say.

And, um, and that's, you know, it sounds easy, but that's very costly. And the cost will come to us frequently as adults in particular.

And, um, you know, the test is not, do I know what to say theologically? The deep test is, do

I live for the glory of God and therefore I can be trusted to speak for him?

Or do I speak from myself? Because as Jesus says, I'm really seeking my own glory.

I, I, my life is all about me. Uh, a third thing, John chapter three, verse 11, uh,

Christ says, truly, truly, I say to you, he's speaking to Nicodemus, a Bible professor of the day.

We speak of what we know and testify of what we have seen, and you do not accept our testimony.

Now here in dealing with Nicodemus, there's a, there's another one of those little windows into the human life of Jesus and the way he served or spoke on behalf of God.

In contrast to Nicodemus, who maybe had a great library and had studied hard and was, you know, a sincere fellow.

Nicodemus spoke what he knew, maybe we could say by hearsay. Well, this, this, you know, great rabbi said this, and this rabbi said this, and this rabbi said this, and this teacher said this, and my seminary professor said this.

And Jesus says to him, there's a difference between the way you teach and the way I teach. And in fact, he says, we, the way you teach and the way me and my followers teach, you speak hearsay, we speak what we know, what we have seen, what we have experienced.

There is an experiential knowledge of the things that are said in the life of Jesus of Nazareth.

He is not just saying things because he's read them in a book. He is saying things because they are the word of God and they are the words of God that have found their place in his own life.

So there is an experiential acquaintance with the things, and that is the pattern of Christ.

And that is very different than a man who simply gives great religious truths, but he has no real acquaintance with it.

So I am a, I'm a gadget guy. I love gadgets. It's not fortunate, but one of the things that I have seen in my own life in this, if someone were to come to me and say,

I've got this problem that's happening in my vehicle right now. And I can say, Hey, if you'll go to AutoZone or O 'Reilly's, you can get this tool that I just watched a review on that's made particularly for this problem.

And it helps with doing this thing. And I've, I've seen tons of those. There is something vastly different between that and saying,

Oh, here, this is a tool that I've used that has helped me that I've, you know, been able to fix it with that.

And it's, you know, it's worn, it's greasy, it's dirty. And you can tell that this thing has been used.

That is the difference between a theoretical, theoretical knowledge of, Oh, I watched a video on this and experiential.

Yeah. Let me give you two examples of other believers who were sinners saved by grace.

And though they are Bible writers, they're apostles. They are not essentially different than any believer today.

They have a different task, but not a different path, uh, you know, fundamentally and not a different way of walking with the

Lord. So one is John and in first John, this is how he opens his letter.

What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands or handled concerning the word of life and the life was manifested.

And we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the father and was manifested to us.

What we have seen and heard. We proclaim to you also so that you too may have fellowship with us.

And indeed our fellowship is with the father and with his son, Jesus Christ, these things we write to you so that our joy may be made complete.

So there is an example of a, of a flawed man saved by grace who wasn't sinlessly perfect.

And he's writing to a group of people and he says, listen, the things

I'm telling you about Jesus Christ, which may cost your life at this time, you know, will certainly cost you a lot.

I'm writing these things to you so that you and we both might have full joy in God, but you can believe what

I'm saying because it is, it, these are things that I have handled and seen and heard firsthand.

I have lived on these truths. These are the words of the Messiah. And these are words that I have lived on.

And I've paid by this time, a terrible cost. And I'm telling you it's worth it.

And so we listen to a man like that much more, uh, you know, then we would, in a different way, then we would listen to a person that says,

I've read a lot of good things about this person. So a very experiential grasp of the truths that he's telling.

Another example is Paul. And in 2 Corinthians 4 verse 13, Paul's been saying a lot of things about Christ to a church that is in danger of drifting terribly.

And he then says this, having the same spirit of faith, having that same kind of faith, according to what is written,

I believe, therefore I spoke. We also believe. And therefore we also speak. And Paul's quoting an old

Testament phrase. So having the same faith as old

Testament believers who wrote and said, look, we believe these things. We've lived on these things.

That's why we are saying these things to you. So Paul says, it's the same for me. I believe these things.

I heard the gospel of Jesus Christ. You know, I didn't walk with him for three years. I've heard the reports of the other apostles.

I've studied the old Testament. You know, of course, Christ conquered Paul in an extraordinary way on the road to Damascus.

But I have, I have come to be gripped by these truths and these truths have completely reoriented my life.

You know, they have recalibrated me. They have undone me and remade me. And every day

I'm living on these truths. I believe, and I'm telling you these things.

I mean, I risk my life to bring these truths to you. And it's the same kind of faith the old Testament believers had.

And it's the same faith that we have to have. I am firmly convinced of the truths of these things in my own experience.

I've lived them. I've tasted these things. I've seen, I've handled these things. They are real.

They're not just words on a page. And that's why I'm bringing them to you. It's not why they're true. They're true because they're the word of God.

But the reason I'm talking about them is because I've, I believe them. I've lived in them.

Now we're going to have to stop here and pick up next week with, um, more of the gospel accounts of, okay, but how did

Christ know what to say? We know that he had a heart that was toward the glory of his father.

He brought what his father said. He himself spoke what he knew experientially to be true as a man, not, not, not just as God, but as a man and his followers.

Also, we see that pattern in them, but where exactly do we see how he learned it?

Did he have a spiritual antenna because he was God that, that got, you know, immediate feeds or did he have to use the same means that we have to use?