A WOW Moment with Jordan, Mercedes and Pastor Josiah

What's up, friends? Hello. Hello.

I love it when you do that. I love it when he hums. Who, me? Uh, let's see, let's see.

We are on, yeah, it's the public page. We did it! I'm muting that.

I don't want to hear myself. Just in case there's ever a comment. That's what

I do. Okay. Good evening, everybody.

Thank you for joining us today. Me and Jordan are running, are running the show today,

I guess. Vicki's here. She's just hanging out in the background. We have

Pastor Josiah with us today. Hey, friends. He's been here many times, so I guess we can just kind of dive right into it.

Pastor Josiah, what did you pick for us today? Well, I kind of forgot

I was going to be picking something until about six or seven minutes ago. But, last night on our study of 2

Peter, we ended our topic talking about what the Bible is. So that's what we're going to do tonight. We're going to do a topical discussion on what the

Word of God is, what the Bible itself is. So we're going to start in the book of Hebrews, chapter 4.

I haven't made a certain joke I love in a while, so I need someone else to make it. Hey, Jordan, how do you know

God loves coffee? Hebrews.

Hebrews. I haven't made that joke in a long time.

Oh, that was funny. Alright. The book of Hebrews, chapter 4.

Oh, by the way, a little tribute for some of you. Hebrews is the only book in the New Testament that we're not exactly sure who wrote it.

We have some guesses. We have some guesses, but we're not exactly sure. Is it just one person? Say again?

Was it just one? It doesn't have to be. It doesn't have to be. But, you know, not really sure.

Hebrews, chapter 4. Jordan, would you read verse 12 and 13? For the word of God is a living and effective and sharper than any double -edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of the soul and spirit, joints and marrow.

It is able to judge the ideas and thoughts of the heart. No creature is hidden from him, but all things are naked and exposed to the eyes of him, to whom we must give an account.

When God is living and effective, sharper than any double -edged sword, penetrating as far as the separation of soul and spirit.

By the way, something gets glossed over there. Notice there's a difference between soul and spirit, and the word of God can even distinguish things as closely related as that.

Joints and marrow, so on and so forth. This is not a broad hacking sword.

This is a double -edged slicing sword. That's what the word of God does. It penetrates.

It distinguishes. It separates what needs to be separated. I've given this analogy many times before, but it's worth doing again.

I think I said it last night, and I'll say it again. 2 Timothy 3 .16 says that the word of God is theanustos.

That's God breathed. And our confession as Christians, and has been for millennia, is that the

Bible has 40 -something writers, but one author, and that's God. That has been our confession the whole time.

And here the writer of Hebrews is telling us the word of God is living and effective, though parts of it were written 1 ,500 years before this writer was ever born.

He calls it living and effective. He recognized that the words written down by Moses were still applicable to him today, just like his words are still applicable to us today.

And he recognized that. The writer of Hebrews goes on in chapter 10, as Jordan's about to read for us.

The writer of Hebrews goes on, and even though it's not explicit, there's some very interesting, implicit things in Hebrews 10 that we've actually talked about here before on this show?

Program? Show? Bible study? Study. Yeah, this live. Hebrews chapter 10 is an amazing chapter, and I've been on this before.

I believe that you should own some type of Bible that gives you some indication when a New Testament writer is quoting the

Old Testament. Holman makes it the most obvious because they put it in bold. I don't care if it's a footnote.

I don't really care. Whatever, put it in indention, all caps, italicized, I don't really care.

Some type of way where you can know the Old Testament is being quoted because the readers would have known exactly what he was quoting from.

If you notice, in chapter 10, we have an amazing statement. I want

Jordan to read verse 5, and 5 only.

Therefore, as he was coming into the world, he said, You did not want sacrifice and offering, but you prepared a body for me.

As he was coming in the world, who are we talking about there? Jesus. Can anyone tell me where the quote right there in verse 5 through 7 is from?

Psalms 40. Psalms 40. Did Jesus write Psalm 40?

And Mercedes' answer is our confession. Does everyone understand what I'm getting at here? Look at how amazing that is.

We're talking about a psalm written by David. Okay? A thousand years before Jesus was ever born.

This is Jesus' I can't say great that many times. Whatever. Fourteen times grandfather.

I think you say great thirteen times. Grandfather. And then the writer of Hebrews says in verse 5, as Jesus, as he was coming into the world, he said,

What does that tell you about how he viewed the book of Psalms? This is why people get offended when

I say this because they misunderstand what I mean. I prefer to have a Bible that doesn't have words of Jesus in red.

Because in reality, the whole Bible should be in red. And any indication you have of, or the red letters make it more important, is foreign to the idea of Jesus and David and Mark and Matthew.

They viewed all of Scripture as God breathed. They would have said, they recognized that he wrote all of it. So should we.

He does it again. Look in verse 15. Go ahead, Ms. Jordan. 15 and 16. I apologize.

The Holy Spirit also testifies to us about this. For after he says, this is the covenant

I will make with them. After those days, says the Lord, I will put my laws on their hearts and write them on their minds.

The Holy Spirit says. And I want to note that it says it calls the

Holy Spirit a he here. The only point I'm making there is that the

Holy Spirit is a separate person in the Trinity. In other words, there are three persons.

And we can distinguish each of them as he, he, he. In other words, one nature, one being, three persons.

The Holy Spirit is his own person. That's all I'm trying to get at there. The Holy Spirit said.

Now, what is that quote you just read from, Ms. Jordan? Verse 16 or 17? Jeremiah 31.

I thought Jeremiah wrote the book of Jeremiah. Why is it saying the Holy Spirit wrote it? Well, it's all God breathed.

That's the point I'm trying to say. And when we read Scripture, what we need to recognize is this is

God. If it's living and effective right now, if the writer of Hebrews can look at books written centuries, millennia before he was born and say that is living and effective and that is

Jesus and the Holy Spirit speaking to him now, then that is how we are to look at it. And what's incredible is that we can have books that were literally written to individuals.

Paul writing to Timothy and yet that is still found in stuff God breathed written to us now.

Isn't that amazing? Or like the letter Philemon? Yeah. The letter

Philemon. That is just mind boggling to me. And you know, we studied this last night.

There is some recognition by the New Testament writers that what they are writing was divinely inspired.

We read last night when Peter calls Paul's writing scripture and Paul... But there is no way they just knew exactly how much

God would use a simple letter they were writing to someone else. Isn't that amazing? I was thinking that when you said that, you know, when they are writing all of this, they are not thinking about the whole big, the

Bible that it is being put together in. They are just thinking about the little portions that they have all written.

Just like with our lives, every moment we have, we only see those moments as little bitty struggles.

Little bitty blessings or whatever. But at the end, it comes together to be a bigger picture to where at the end, just like in the

Bible, you can see at the end of it where all of it comes together, New and Old Testament versus you know, just specific chapters or books.

And so like at the end, you will be able to see everything that comes together. Absolutely.

Just like with your life. Like you were talking about with your life. Because you are going to go through things and each little small thing that you go through when you get to be my age, old and elder, then you can look back and see how beautiful the picture is and how

God's grace and mercy and all that has seen you through so much. Well it's like me and you were talking the other day about how everything that we go through when you look back, you go, oh,

I went through this to get here and through this to get here and I got here to get here. You know, that's part of that that not quite it's not finished yet, but that's part of the pieces of the puzzle that have been put together so far.

Or you can look at it as part of the clay that had to be remolded. I have a question about chapter

Hebrews 4. In verse 12. Yes ma 'am.

Okay. So it says that it's the word of God is living and effective, sharper than any double -edged sword.

Can you also pair that with Ephesians 6 .17 where it talks about the sword of the spirit which is

God's word? Yeah. Paul just called it. In fact, there's so many parallels in Hebrews.

Some people say Paul wrote it. But yeah, in Ephesians 6 you're talking about some people call it the armor of God.

And yeah, the sword of the spirit which is the word of God, it tells us what it is. So absolutely. I think what we can recognize at the bare minimum is that the writer of Hebrews had an incredibly high view of Scripture.

To where he can attribute works signed by David to Jesus and works signed by Jeremiah to the

Holy Spirit. We can assume that he has a very high view of Scripture.

He understands exactly what it is. And if we just had this passage in the

Bible, that would be enough. But, we have much more. How about some

Romans 15, shall we? Romans 15. Anyway, some of the people listening have probably heard us talk about that passage in Hebrews 10 before.

But it's just one of the ones that is so stunning to me. I don't want anyone to miss out on that.

It's just that stunning to me. Alright, Romans 15 is one that we did really in -depth last year.

It was myself, Mercedes, and Miss Vicki, I believe. But just to real quick see it.

Romans 15. How about 4 -6, Miss Jordan? For whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction.

Stop right there. Listen to that sentence again. Whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction, current day.

Keep going. So that we may have hope through endurance and through the encouragement from the scriptures.

Now may the God who gives endurance and encouragement allow you to live in harmony with one another according to the command of Christ Jesus, so that you may glorify the

God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ with a united mind and voice.

We had a couple so that's in that passage. Someone tell me what the Greek word for so that is?

Someone? I'll just know it when you say it. He said it last night.

It's also a name for a fake tattoo? Henna. Henna! Of course

Mercedes got that one. Are these real? Are your tattoos fake? Is that what it is?

I remember that now. Because that's how I associated it when you said it.

Who just said henna? My mom! It's not letting me see the

Did I just do a high five on accident? I didn't mean to. Didn't you say that the

Sunday that you preached? No, I didn't mean to. If I did, it was an accident. Yeah, it was.

You would have had to have paid attention. When you preached that Sunday? Yeah. He talked about it last night.

The Bible said it. The point of that word is it tells you the reason for what just happened. So let's look back.

It's the because. In fact, if you look, it starts in verse 4.

So whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction. Why? Why was it written for our instruction? So that we might have hope through endurance.

Where does our encouragement come from? The scriptures. The scriptures. So let's circle that back.

Let's make sure we understand. In one sense, the reason God had

Daniel and David right was not simply for their day, but according to verse 3, it was for our instruction so that we may have encouragement through the scriptures.

Now, the God who gives endurance and encouragement, wait a minute, I thought it came from the scriptures.

Now it's saying it's coming from God. Okay. That comes through found in us.

God who gives endurance and encouragement allow you to live in harmony with one another according to the command of Jesus.

Now why are we to live in harmony with each other according to the command of Jesus? With what?

With a united mind and voice. Where does that united mind and voice come from? Starts from the top.

The scriptures. It's the whole triangle thing, right? If you are trying to get closer to somebody and this person leaves where they're at and changes who they are to move closer to this person, they're losing a little bit of who they are.

If they move this way, but if they have a common goal in mind and they both move towards that goal, they get closer together as they move towards that goal.

Right here, if we're all getting encouragement from the same scripture, then we can live in harmony with one another because we have a united mind and voice.

Plus, the scripture comes from God and other encouragements come from man which are flawed.

Exactly. That's what we're talking about with that, right? Yeah. Exactly.

Cherry is not my favorite flavor of Coke. It tastes like cough syrup. It does, especially now that you said that.

Thank you. It was already ruined for him anyway. He didn't like it. He got ruined cherry

Coke, man. So, that is

Paul's view of the scripture. We saying a theme yet? Last night we read

Peter's view of the scripture in 2 Peter chapter 1. We're not going to read it again, but he's the one who said,

No prophecy has ever come for the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. Remember that? 2 Peter 1, 20 and 21. So, Peter's view of the scripture is just as high is that as men wrote, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the

Holy Spirit. You know what's in the book of Romans? Exactly what God wanted to be. Is that a word?

More or less. Because Paul was carried along by the Holy Spirit. Not in a robotic sense of Paul had no control over his hand, but in a compatible sense of Paul was writing, speaking from God as he was carried along by the

Holy Spirit. Okay. That is

Paul's view of the scripture. How about David's view of the scripture, shall we?

Now, let's go to the book of Psalms and let's do 119, but let's do

Psalm 19 Yeah, here we go.

Psalm 19 It's the one after 18. Well, I know that.

You're almost there. There you go. Psalm what? Chapter 19. 19. Alright.

Miss Jordan. In Psalm 19 would you read 7 through the end?

7 through the end. Okay. I will not interrupt. Take your time. The instruction of the Lord is perfect, renewing one's life.

The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of the

Lord are right, making the heart glad. The command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up.

The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The ordinances of the

Lord are reliable and altogether righteous. They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold, and sweeter than honey, which comes from the honeycomb.

In addition, your servant is warned by them. There is a great reward in keeping them. Who perceives his unintentional sins, cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins. Do not let them rule over me.

Then I will be innocent and cleansed from blatant rebellion. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you,

Lord, my rock and my redeemer. That is a worthwhile prayer every day, by the way. Verse 14.

The instruction of the Lord is perfect. Notice you're referring to the Scripture as instruction.

It is perfect, renewing one's life. The testimony of the

Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise. The precepts of the

Lord are right, making the heart glad. Making the heart glad.

People often see Christianity, sanctification, as, they'll say something like this, well, um,

I just have to accept the fact that I'm gonna be angry and upset and gloomy all the time because I have to obey

God now and I can't do what I want to anymore. So, I'm just gonna be upset and angry the rest of my life and never get to have fun again.

What people don't understand is that as the Holy Spirit works on you, you will start to love the things of God and hate the things of the flesh more and more every day.

And those of you who are saved and maybe have been for a while, know what I speak of where the things that used to bring you happiness don't really do it for you anymore.

Look at this again. The precepts of the Lord are the right, making the heart glad.

Glad. And when you're united in mind and voice, you start loving each other more and more and you still do have those fun times.

Yeah, of course. And joy with each other and gladness with each other. Of course. Look, the point is, as He increases and you increase, that you start to love what

He loves and hate what He hates. Right? You start to know what makes Him tick.

That which He loves. And if you're being made more and more in His image, you will begin to hate sin more and more and love to obey more and more.

And it is a process. God decided to do sanctification as a process. That's what

He decided to do. And I think the reason would be so that we would have a lifelong reliance on Him as opposed to a one -time transformation and now we don't need

Him anymore. It makes our eyes light up. The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.

The ordinance of the Lord We're just, we're reusing different synonyms to describe the same thing, right?

Precepts, ordinances, instruction, right? The ordinance of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous.

They are more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold, sweeter than honey.

In 11, your servant is worn by them. There's great reward in keeping them.

God blesses obedience. Who perceives as unintentional sin?

On His own, nobody. It's unintentional. Cleanse me from my hidden faults.

Moreover, keep your servant from willful sins. Don't let them rule over me. Then I'll be innocent and cleansed from blight and rebellion.

Verse 14 May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable to you,

Yahweh, my Rock, and my Redeemer. Real quick, can you explain fear of the

Lord? Proverbs calls it the beginning of wisdom.

I would say respect. That's not quite strong enough of a word. But it's not fear as in...

Scared. It's fear as in trembling. And there's a difference between trembling and scared.

One is in awe. The right word is awe, but that word has been so abused in our day.

If I say awe or awesome, people have a wrong idea. If something is awe or awful, it doesn't mean bad.

It means it's full of awe. Awe is jaw drop in wonder.

I fear God. I don't have nightmares.

I'm not afraid of God. And the difference between that is I tremble at His power,

His worth, and His holiness. And yet, I can walk into His courts and say,

Hey, Dad. And the balance between that is this. Ava is the best example of this.

Ava fears me, but she's not scared of me. That's the best example

I have of that as my two -year -old. If God, since God is the universal sovereign, one sin would be cosmic treason.

R .C. Sproul said that one time. He is the universal sovereign, so one sin is treason.

Cosmic treason. Well, I certainly have done way more than one.

It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. I know that God loves me, and God has forgiven me.

But I still have that fear and trembling of, that is God that I wronged.

But it is not a cower. It is a, and He saved me, and He loves me.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. Proverbs says that. You know,

Romans says when there's a universal indictment of the world, he says there's no fear of God before their eyes.

Then Proverbs says the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. You can't begin to understand salvation if you don't understand in some regard who it is you've sinned against.

It's God. You know, it's kind of like this. You know, you have siblings.

If you wronged your younger sibling, it doesn't become as fearful until your father finds out.

All of a sudden, now it's more fearful. Why did it not bother me as much 30 minutes ago?

When you realize who you've sinned against, it ups the ante quite a bit, doesn't it?

Yeah. The more I realize who

God is and who it is we've rebelled against, it's like, oh.

Then you have even a greater understanding of how much grace has been given to you based on who you sinned against.

For whom much is owed, much has been forgiven. For whom little is owed, little has been forgiven, right? That's the fear of the

Lord. The fear of the Lord is an awful respect. When I say awful, I don't mean bad.

I mean awful respect. Not a respect like, hey, you know, yeah, I respect them in the modern sense.

In a true awe respect. That's the fear of the Lord. That's David's view of the

Scripture. That's a pretty high view of Scripture, don't you? Hey, Matt's watching.

What's up, dude? Alright, so, when we talk about the

Word of God, those are the terms that we're using, right?

They're righteous, they're perfect, they can make you wise for understanding, so on and so forth, right?

And then, I would probably just do one more, Miss Jordan, and I think we've made our point.

And it's in the book of Matthew, and I don't remember what chapter, so I'm going to have to go find it. It's either 19 or 22.

Pretty close. Is that okay? What time is it, Miss Vicki?

Seven. Wonderful. We have read this one, I get all my videos confused, on here before.

How about that? Can I say that? One of these. It's gotta be,

I know we've read this one, on here before. Okay.

Let me set the scene for you. This is in Matthew 22. Let me set the scene for you.

Now, we have the Sadducees here. Now, just to put some things in perspective about Pharisees and Sadducees, I think sometimes we read those, we don't really know what groups those are.

Let me give you a summary. The Pharisees believed in the whole

Old Testament, and also their man -made laws, they added to it later on.

Okay? And they were all binding. Even their man -made ones. They were legalists in the sense, remember, a legalist is not someone who's old school.

A legalist, legal means law. That's why they were sad, you see. That's right!

So, and the Pharisees weren't fair, you see. That's from a song.

I'm sorry, I interrupted. I'm sorry, I had to get it out. I thought it, you said it. That's true, that's a bad thing.

Oh my gosh. The Pharisees, they believed in the whole

Testament. They were legalists because legal means law. A legalist is anyone who makes something the law of God that is not the law of God.

In other words, if I said it's a sin to own an android.

Okay. I said if. That would be making something a law of God that is not a law of God.

That's legalism. Everyone got it? It's a sin for women to wear pants.

Yes, that is not a law of God. So, now, it's different for someone to say

I would prefer that I did it, right? But if you say, if you make something a law of God that is not a law of God, that is legalism.

Okay? That's the Pharisees. The Sadducees were kind of the opposite.

They only read the first five books of the Old Testament. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.

They didn't read any of the other ones. And there was other things. They also did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.

So, you know, in the end, we will all be resurrected, some of the lives. They didn't believe in that. It's explicitly mentioned in Daniel, but because they don't typically read anything but the first five books, they didn't read

Daniel. My point is, if you look in verse 23, it explicitly says they did not believe in the resurrection, right?

Now, when I say the resurrection, we're not even at Jesus' resurrection. I mean the resurrection of the dead at the end, right?

Matthew 22, they're trying to trick him. And what they're asking him is, remember, they don't believe in the resurrection.

Hey, Rabbi. Hey, teacher. Okay? If this woman is married to a husband, and he dies, and she marries another guy, and he dies, she marries another guy, and he dies seven times, right?

Who will she be married to in heaven at the resurrection of the dead? Remember, they don't believe in the resurrection of the dead, right?

They're trying to trap him. Jesus answers in verse 29, so what

I would like is for Jordan to read 29 through 33.

Jesus answered them, You are deceived because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God.

For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are they given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Now concerning the resurrection of the dead, haven't you read what was spoken to you by God?

I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.

And when the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teachings. Okay. There's a lot there.

Keep in mind, Jesus has told the group of Jewish leaders that you don't know the Scriptures. Verse 29,

Why are they deceived? Because, the word because of there, why are they deceived? They don't know the

Scriptures or the power of God. How can we be deceived? Not knowing the Scriptures. How can we not be deceived?

By knowing the Scriptures. You were deceived because you don't know the Scriptures or the power of God. For in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.

Okay? So, marriage won't be the same in heaven because we're all married to the

Lamb. The angels are not married in heaven either. Verse 31, Now concerning the resurrection of the dead, this is vital.

Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? I am the

God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob. Where's that quote from? Exodus 36. Exodus.

Did they read Exodus? Yes. They did. They knew this.

They had this memorized, but they didn't know it. They knew it. They didn't know it. Which is what a lot of people do.

Yeah. Don't feel bad. Have you not read

Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? This is in Jesus' day.

Exodus was written 1400 years before this. And Jesus can look at them and point to a document 14 to 1500 years old and say,

Have you not read what God said to you? Even though it was written in a land, a different land, by a different group of people, 1400 to 1500 years before, have you not read what was spoken to you by God?

God already spoke to you. Yes, I understand it was 1500 years ago.

This is God speaking to you right now. Have you not read what God spoke? God has spoken through his word, his written word.

Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? And then it goes further. Exodus 3.

Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are all dead, but God says, I am the

God of Abraham. Even though he's dead, I'm not the God of the dead, I'm the God of the living because they're with me in heaven right now.

I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He's not the God of the dead, he's the God of the living. I'm the

God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. He's not the

God of the dead, he's the God of the living. My point in this one is,

Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew is pointing out The Books of Moses is written 1400 -1500 years before these guys lifetime.

It's God speaking to them right now. So that we can look at the Bible written centuries, millennia before us, and it's

God speaking to us right now. That's the

Word of God. I can literally look to myself, or Mercedes, or Jordan, or Miss Vicki, and say,

God has already answered that question, right here. Have you not read what God has spoken to you?

And you can't say, no, this was Matthew writing to, yes, I understand that was Matthew writing to first century

Jews. I understand that fully. And whatever was written in the past was written for our instruction.

This is God speaking to you right now. With that authority, and the authority Jesus lays with that scripture, this is

Jesus speaking. Jesus could have said, I am telling you, here's how it's going to be, she won't be married to any of them because they'll be like the angels in heaven.

Instead, Jesus appeals to scripture and says, God has already answered this question. By the way,

I wrote that. The sass Jesus gives us.

Rachel and I called him the sass master. He is the sass master. He's the sass master. Yes.

He's the sass master. There's a chapter in Matthew when he's like, the disciples are talking about them not washing their hands or something.

And he's like, why are you talking about them? You're just as dirty as them or something. And I was like, wow.

It was a point where I think it's the Pharisees come up to him and say, why are your disciples picking grain on the

Sabbath? He goes, because I'm Lord of the Sabbath. Next question. It's good to be the king.

It's hilarious. Exactly. Well, that was your,

I'm assuming that was your wrap up. That's my wrap up. All right. That made me want to crunch wrap from Taco Bell when you said that.

That's not good. Five -layer breaders are the way to go from there. Too many beans. Absolutely not. Yeah. What you just said is demonstrably false.

Really? Have you not read? Okay, that's too far. It's not a universal truth. That almost went too far. I don't know. Have you not read?

That would be legalism. All right.

Well, thank you for joining us today, Pastor. And look at Bill's comment.

God defined reality 1 ,500 years ago. That's awesome. I love Bill. I love you too.

No problem. Thanks for hanging out with us. And everybody have a good evening.

Thanks, guys. Love you guys. Bye. Bye. Bye.