Authority

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 Now we live in a world of lies and it’s getting harder and harder to know who is telling the truth. Take a look with me on the photo, on the screen.

 Anybody see this photo when it first came out? Except where it says, I made sure to put fake on there so you don’t freak out. Like, where are we going? What is happening? For those on the audio experience today, this is a picture of former President Donald Trump being arrested and taken, uh, and being taken somewhere.

Uh, when I first saw this photo, I was actually on the phone with one of my pastor friends and I, I admit, I was scrolling Twitter while talking on the phone. So this was not me being a good friend, but I stopped in my tracks, no longer understood anything my friend was saying because I had to compute. Is this real?

And if so, do I need to go get my kids from school, right? Like, is something crazy about to happen? Go ahead and look at the next  picture. Even worse, I saw this one and thought, oh no, like our former president is running away from the police. Ha, you know, mayhem is about to begin now. This is actually after freaking out for 15 seconds.

I looked at the Twitter timeline and it says, this is actually just ai. So this was all fake. This was just off a prompt that they told the AI Make an image where it looks like President Donald Trump is getting arrested and running away. When you actually zoom in on the photos, you’ll see weird things like President Trump has six fingers instead of five, and there’s little clues there, but guess what?

It’s getting harder and harder to tell the truth to be a little less political and a little more fun. Look at this next slide.   Have you guys ever seen this deep fake Tom Cruise? Anybody on TikTok? Yeah. I promise I do more than check social media, but here I am talking about how much I’m on it, and so it’s pretty crazy.

I was actually listening to a podcast this week of the guy on your right who is the real person. He said he was act. He said his whole life people said he looked like Tom Cruise, so he learned his man mannerisms began to act like him, and then he discovered an AI technology that can embed Tom Cruise’s face.

Over his own. And I remember the first TikTok that came out of Tom Cruise. Everyone legit thought this was Tom Cruise. And it was insane because Tom has been very private, uh, you know, never on social media before. You should look it up. It is actually pretty fascinating. It’s getting harder and harder to tell the truth.

Is it not? It’s actually pretty terrifying thinking about what can we believe or not believe. This isn’t to mention all the lies you and I were sold even in childhood. I know one lie that I think about, although I’m grateful for it, but still a little bitter, was that everyone had to go to college. We were forced that.

And, um, I’m still paying off the loans. Amen. To the glory of God, right? We weren’t told about the loan part. We were told, don’t worry, you’ll get a job that will pay for it in abundance. Well, pastoring, I was real smart on that move, right? I thought there’s no way, right? There’s a lot of lies. We’ve been told a lie that is told through movies and media and all sorts of things as be true to yourself no matter the cost.

And yet it has led. And we understand if you’re here this morning and the result of that, and there’s grace, but it has led to hard things like divorce, body mutilation, depression, and even suicide. But this shouldn’t shock us that we are in a world of lies after all. The devil in Genesis chapter three, what did he do?

He didn’t attack Adam and Eve with a stick. Instead, he just used an idea. His chief tactic is that of deception, and it comes in many forms, and that’s why we are doing our next practice. We just finished three months talking about Sabbath. We’re now introducing the new practice for the next three months, talking about how to be formed by scripture because the church has a wonderful and yet weighty responsibility to be loyal to the way of truth in a world of lies.

And this we believe is only achieved via submission to the scriptures. An ancient library of writings that have all one story that’s leading to the person and work of King Jesus. More on that next week. Now, what has happened though, and a lot of us in a world looking how it’s a world of lies, so we need to hold on to the truth.

It has begun, and I think from a sincere place, you have statements like the following. The Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. Anybody heard that phrase before? Awesome. 

If you grew up like me, this phrase didn’t really bother you much. I actually took a lot of pride in saying, yeah, the Bible says it. I believe it, and that settles it. There is. There is no other argument about it. But I also realized growing up, I didn’t have mentors that abused the scriptures and used it to lord over me to do things that took advantage of me.

I, I didn’t have hypocritical family members that used the Bible, you know, but then didn’t follow it themselves. And so when I heard a phrase like this, I thought, sure. Right. I, I think I was raised in a, in a really healthy discipleship environment. I had no problem with that. Even this morning in my reading of the scriptures, I was in the book of Joshua and it talked about how they made this altar and they put these stones there together and, and, uh, and Joshua says, and the stones remain there today.

And I remember in junior high reading this, and I thought, that’s incredible. Even if we went there today, those stones would always be there. Why? Cuz I believe in the word of God. And it says, if it’s there today, if I go there today in the 21st century, it’ll still be there. Guess what? It’s probably not there.

Why? Well, it was there when he wrote it, and that was thousands of years ago, right? And so some of us though are, uh, you know, blessed with a more analytical mind, pastor Caleb. And so when he hears a phrase like the Bible says it, I believe it, and that settles it. This doesn’t really sit well. And maybe you’re like him praying for you.

I’m kidding. This is two weeks in a row. I’m messing with you, Caleb. I’m so sorry. You deserve it now. So the Bible says that I believe it, that settles, it has one problem. It assumes that it is the correct interpretation. Have you and I, I imagine we have met people who use the Bible to say all sorts of things that it doesn’t mean, but then they use the phrase, but the Bible says it, so you have to believe it, and that settles it in end of discussion.

In the hands of a false teacher. The Bible says, slavery and polygamy are not only accepted, but should be celebrated. In the hands of a false teacher. The Bible says, financial prosperity and physical health are promised to every person who just believes in the hands of a false teacher. The Bible says that one race is superior to another, or that women should only wear dresses to church and that’s it, right?

Some of these are more, are more like difficult than others or more harmful than others, but it’s not hard to see how some people have actually walked away from the faith and detached themselves from the truth claims of the Bible because it has been used and abused in the wrong hands. Now this phrase, the Bible says it, I believe it.

That settles it from a non cynical perspective, it actually comes from a really helpful doctrine that’s called scripture alone. Now there’s really, this is one of the key moments movements that we have in the Reformation, and starting in 1517 when Martin Luther nailed the 95 feces to the door at that church in Germany, it was this emphasis that the Bible has to have the final authority scripture alone.

And this was really helpful because this was in a time Martin Luther saw the corruption of the church. The papacy and the priesthood would add to the Bible and they would say, Hey, hey, hey, we are priests. We are men of God. We’re allowed to do it. Just follow it. And so you had things like purgatory where people had to pay financial gifts towards the, the, the Catholic, holy Catholic Church.

And every time you did that, maybe your grandfather or your great-grandfather went from purgatory and, and to heaven. Let me be clear, we do not believe or preach that doctrine. It’s another example though of why the reformers were saying, let’s go back to scripture alone, cuz I don’t see that in the text and I know the Pope said it, but if the Bible doesn’t set it, then it’s, it’s not a thing anymore.

Now, I also believe though, that the reformers will be first to tell you when you’re studying the Bible, you will always use other outside sources. But it’s the Bible that is the final authority. But we do use other things to help us understand. Now, let me put it this way, it’ll be on your screen. Our interpretations are always influenced by four factors.

Number one is scripture itself. That should be the top priority. Number two is tradition, three reason and four experience. I would argue it should be in that order. When you’re wrestling with the text, what does the scripture itself say and what does the Bible say about the Bible? Okay. What does my tradition say about this moment?

Right? Some of us grew in traditions that are good or bad. We have to know that this will influence how we naturally think, right? So to claim you only read scripture and nothing else influences you, is to be blind to your preferences, to not understand your upbringing and to not really realize that you are in a cultural moment, that it’s teaching you things that have lodged from your head into your heart, and it’s really hard for you to even notice how much it has swayed your reading of the Bible.

I actually get really nervous about those people that say it’s just the Bible. Yes, but like if you don’t know the other things that influence you, you’re influenced by them more than anybody. Let me give you some examples. If you grew up in a more conservative household, there’s passages like firsty, two, exhorts only men to be elders in the church.

Now, if you grew up in a conservative household and you liked it, that passage comes easy. You read First Timothy two, you say amen and you move on. But if you grew up in a different environment where maybe you saw abuse and women were overlooked, or maybe in a more just progressive environment in general, this passage gets really hard and you have to wrestle with it.

In fact, I think that that text is very ambiguous and there’s a lot we have to learn from. And if you’re interested, we have a message on that, on our YouTube channel. Not gonna preach it. Now, I like how I just brought that out and now we’re not gonna deal with it, but go look at it later. Another example, if you grew up in a Pentecostal environment, passages like on tongues do one of two things, cuz you grew up in the tradition, maybe you understand it a little bit more.

So sometimes when you read about tongues, you love it or you hate it because of your upbringing, right? Because you either saw it used in a healthy way or abused, and so you. It really does depend. So whenever you see a text, you are filtering everything through the Bible itself, but also tradition, reason and experience.

And these four factors are always at play. The question is how often do you prioritize them? But more in that later, but especially hear me as a modern person living in the 21st century, our tradition, reason, and experience heavily influence the way you and I relate to scripture, and I think it especially influences the way you and I submit to the scriptures or lack thereof.

One of the, if you go to form by jesus.com/scripture, we have a lot of free resources on there to help you. One of them is the Bible Project. There’s a playlist. It’s 14 videos, and it’s like what we think is the most comprehensive way to help you understand how to read the Bible. And so go check that out on our website.

Um, but another book we recommend is by Robert Mahoen. It’s called Shaped by the Word. And here’s a line from him, uh, that I thought was really helpful for what we’re trying to address today. He said, the following says, the moment you opened this book to read. Now, of course, he’s talking about his actual book, but now he’s gonna give connotations to the Bible as well.

A powerful set of pre-condition dynamics of perception went into operation. You are the victim of a lifelong, educationally enhanced learning mode that establishes you as the controlling power. In parentheses, reader who seeks to master a body of information. That can be used by you. This is using technique, method and model to advance your own purposes, and in this case, spiritual formation.

You see that every time we have been trained to study where we are in charge and we can determine what it means. And this of course, doesn’t work when you’re reading the scriptures. We’re really intentional. This four week series as we’re looking at formed by scripture, it is not. We are informed by scripture.

Instead, it’s something even more difficult. We are seeking to be formed by it. One way to put it, our end goal at Passion Creek is not that, that you and I think about scripture, we want to be so formed by it that you and I begin to think scripture. That’s a totally different world, and that requires humility and that requires the Holy Spirit.

So let’s invite him now. Father God, thank you. For your grace. Thank you God, that you are such a generous God that you decided to reveal yourself to us through your word. God, I know that there’s general revelation that we can look outside. We can look at the Grand Canyon and know, man, there must be a creator.

But yet, in your grace, you gave us special revelation. You gave us the holy writings of scripture. And so God, I ask that you would form us by it. I ask you, God, as we look at these next three months, really focusing on what this practice means in our everyday life, may you open our hearts to see this as an invitation to more.

This is an invitation to abundance, and that your way living by the scriptures is easy and your yoke is light. In Jesus’ name I pray, everybody says Amen. Amen. Amen. So we are formed by scripture because we are apprentices of our Rabbi Jesus. If you’re new here, we like to talk about this all the time. We want to be with Jesus.

We want to become like Jesus, and we want to do what Jesus did. And one obvious way you and I imitate our rabbi is fidelity to the Bible. Jesus being fully God, fully man, spent his whole life on earth fully submitting to the scriptures. We believe if you read the text, he committed his brain to studying the scriptures.

We also see he humbled himself and he humbled his heart to obey the scripture. So take a look with me at just a few verses that shows Jesus’ loyalty and confidence in the word of God. And then we’ll really look at John 10. I encourage you, I know that I’ve encouraged this in the past, that we’re such a digital church.

You guys can use your phone. But let me encourage you, especially in this scripture series, just to start bringing an actual hard copy of God’s word. There’s something about it. I’d love to hear the churning of the pages. So turn with me to John chapter 10. We’re looking at just 34 to 36. Again, no shame if you have a phone today.

Totally cool. I’m just saying, what if we started doing that? That’d be pretty incredible. John, chapter 10. We actually preached on this passage just a few weeks ago, but not in this particular line. Let me show. This is real quick. Verse 34. It says, Jesus answered them, isn’t it written in your law? I said, you are Gods.

If he called those to whom the word of God came Gods and underline this phrase, and the scripture cannot be broken. Do you say you are blossoming to the one? Uh, the Father set apart and sent into the world because I said, I am the son of God. Now, because of time, we’re not gonna get into the context of that whole thing.

Encourage you to study that this week. I want us to see that line in verse 35, and the scripture cannot be broken. Another translation says, cannot be set aside. What is Jesus doing here? He’s actually quoting an obscure verse in Psalm 82. Notice he is not quoting. From the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Leviticus, number, Deuteronomy, he’s not even quoting, um, from Isaiah, the great prophet that everybody likes to quote.

Instead, he’s quoting a psalm, and it’s not even a Psalm of David. It’s a Psalm of Asaf. Someone you and I know very little about, why is this important? We tend to say, oh yeah, we really like the parts of the Bible, but then we ignore others. Jesus is saying, no, all of scripture cannot be set aside. Even this obscure reference in Psalm 82.

What point am I making Jesus believed in the authority of scripture, and if he is our master, so should we. Let’s look at another verse, mark. 1236. We’re in the gospels here, so it’s the first beginning part of the New Testament. Mark chapter 12, verse 36.

Said the following, David himself, this is Jesus speaking, says by the Holy Spirit, the Lord declare to my Lord, sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet. What is Jesus acknowledging here simultaneously, he is saying, the Bible was written by man. David himself said this word, but he’s also simultaneously saying it was written by God, by the Holy Spirit.

We’re gonna dive into that concept even more this coming week, um, next Sunday, but for now, those two verses help us see. Jesus was loyal and confident in the words of scripture, all of them. In fact, in his most trying moments, he was breathing out scripture. He wasn’t just thinking about it, he was thinking it.

Matthew Ford, Jesus dues with the devil and the wilderness, and what does he do? He quotes Deuteronomy chapter eight and chapter six, Matthew 27. Mark 15. Jesus is on the cross about to die, and what does he do? He utters scripture. He says, Psalm 22, when you are in your deepest pain, what’s really within you will come out?

And for Jesus, it’s the words of scripture. Again, we seek to be formed by scripture because Jesus was formed by it. John, stop for the win. Listen to this quote. The overriding reason for accepting the divine inspiration and authority of scripture is plain loyalty to Jesus. Our understanding of everything is conditioned by what Jesus taught and that includes his teaching about the Bible.

We have no liberty to exclude anything from Jesus’ teaching and say, I believe what he taught about this, but not what he taught about that. What possible right? Do we have to be selective? Okay, now let’s look at the main text we have for today, Matthew chapter five. One thing we’re gonna be encouraging you to do is to start memorizing scripture throughout these next few months, and hopefully it becomes a lifetime practice.

So let me give you in NIV cuz that’s my heart language. That’s what I memorized. Let me give you the context of Matthew five leading up to verse 17, which we will read together. Now, when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up to a mountainside and he sat down. His disciples came to him and he began to teach them.

He said, blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs as the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are those who mourn, for they’ll be comforted. Blessed are the meek for they will inherit the earth. Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. Blessed are the merciful for they will be shown mercy, blessed of the pure and heart, for they will see God blessed of the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and blessed are you. When people insult you, persecute you falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me, rejoice and be glad because great is your reward in heaven. For in the same way they persecuted the prophets for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

Then he moves on. He says, you are the salt of the earth. If the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It’s no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot. You are the light of the world. A town built on a hill cannot be hidden. Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl.

Instead, they put it on its stand and it gives light to everyone in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others that they may see your good deeds and glorify your father in heaven. And now he transitions to verse 17. He says, don’t think I’ve come to abolish the law of the prophets.

I’ve not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them. For truly, I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen will by any means disappear from the law until everything is accomplished. Therefore, anyone who sets aside even one of the least of these commands and teaches others accordingly will be called least in the kingdom of heaven.

But whoever practices and teaches these commands will be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees, And the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven. We have to see, this is in the context of a Sermon on the mountain.

He goes on, and we’re gonna look at that a little bit later. But let, let’s look at a few of these lines now in the csb, in Matthew chapter five, verse 17. Notice this line. He says, I have not come to abolish the law or the prophets. This phrase, law of the prophets, is a typical way to refer to the Bible of his day.

This is just the Old Testament law is the Torah, which is the first five books of the Bible. The prophets is the rest. Another way in his time that they would reference, um, they would reference the Bible is to say, the law of the prophets and the writings either way would work. So he is saying, I’m not come to abolish the Bible, but to fulfill it.

What does that word abolish mean? Another translation is to disobey or to demolish it, or even to, in our language today, deconstruct the Bible. What was happening is Jesus was teaching the Bible in such a profound way. Everyone started to say He’s, he doesn’t believe the Bible because his version is so different than everything else we’ve ever heard.

And Jesus is saying, no, no, no. I’m abolishing your interpretation of the Bible. I’m here to say, no, I’m fulfilling. I’m showing you what the Bible was always about, and that leads that to that word. Fulfill this word fulfill. You would think He would say, I’ve not come to disobey the Bible, but to what? Obey the Bible, right?

That’s the obvi. I’m not. I’m not doing, I’m not disobeying. I’m obeying. Instead, he says, I come, come to disobey, but to fulfill it, one commentator says The Old Testament is like a cup, and Jesus is the liquid that fills up the cup. Great to look at, but doesn’t serve its purpose until you fill it with liquid.

The Old Testament is a great thing to study, but it doesn’t come alive until you see the person and work of Jesus woven all throughout the Old Testament and including into the new. Then he goes on to say in verse 18, until heaven and earth pass away, or in the NIV v disappear. Now this is a just a phrase of saying, the Bible is gonna last forever.

You think, man, even, even if heaven and Earth disappear, This Bible will still be here. This is authority of God’s word. Then he has that phrase, not the smallest letter or one stroke of a letter will pass away. This is really hard for us because it’s very common today when we read the scriptures to ignore different parts of the Bible.

I had a friend one time that he says he loves the Bible. He just doesn’t like Genesis one through 11, and I’m like, you don’t understand the Bible if you take out one through 11, cuz that’s all about sin. That’s like literally everything is. What’s wrong with the world is one, there’s three through 11 and so we have a tendency to do that and so he’s saying, look, everything matters.

Everything in the text was there for a reason, and when we begin to pick and choose what to follow, we can have it say whatever we want. Then in verse 19, he says, whoever breaks these commands, I like the niv. It says, sets aside. This is the word is luo. It could also mean to loosen, this is a play on words.

He’s essentially saying, if you set aside the Bible and the kingdom, you’ll be set aside as well. Like there is a relationship. John Mark Comer says, for Jesus, there is a reciprocal relationship between how we approach the Bible and the level of our experience in the kingdom of God, right? And so if you do and teach these commands, if you treat the Bible as great, guess what happens?

You’ll be great in the kingdom. So how we deal, how we are formed by the scriptures is a really, really big deal. And I love, by the way, this, this phrase, uh, in the niv, it says, uh, sorry, CSB says, whoever does and teaches these commands and the niv V, which I typically like CSB more, but I love how the NIV V says, whoever practices and teaches these commands, this is why you and I work constantly talking about the practices of Jesus.

We wanna practice his lifestyle. Selfishly, I wanna be great in the kingdom. And it says, if you do it and tell other people to do it, you’re gonna be great. So I hope you do it with me. But Jesus says to do it. So that’s what we’re doing. All right now. Here’s the question we have to ask if we’re serious students of the word here in Matthew chapter five, he is showing two outcomes.

There’s people who set aside the commands of the Bible, set aside God’s authority, and those are people who are, practice it, teach it, hold it in high regards. So the question we have to ask ourselves is, what are ways we can set aside the authority of God’s word in our lives? And let’s make sure we don’t do that right?

And so there’s at least two for the sake of time, I’m gonna only mention two. First, we’re gonna have what I’m gonna call the legalist reader, and the second is the ambiguous reader. So number one, you can become a legalist reader. Now this is best represented in the people group called the Pharisees. This was among the crowd that in Jesus’ day.

Now let me give some helpful context to Pharisees. We, they give a, they have a really bad rap for us today, and rightly so. Jesus calls them whitewash tombs. He calls ’em all sorts of words that are pretty . Pretty terrible. But we have to remember in the context, the crowds would’ve looked to the Pharisees and thought, if the Pharisees don’t make it to heaven, none of us will.

They’re the Sunday school. All stars. They have the whole Bible memorized front and back, right? And they, they loved the Bible. They just misused it. Now remember the four factors to interpreting scripture. Scripture, tradition, reason, experience. What happens when you become a legalist reader? The legalist reader values tradition over scripture.

That’s where they went wrong. They value tradition over scripture. Let me give you example, rooted in the text mark chapter two. Um, we actually read this together during our Sabbath series, verse 23 on the Sabbath. He was going, Jesus was going through the grain fills, and his disciples began to make their way picking some heads of grain.

The Pharisees, these legalistic people right? Said to him, look. Why are they doing what is not lawful on the Sabbath? Verse 25, you said to them, have you never read what David and, and those who are with him did when he was in need and hungry, how he entered the house of God in the time of abitha, the priest, the, the high priest, and ate the bread of the presence, which is not lawful for anyone to eat except the priest, and also gave some to his companions.

Then he told them the Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath. So then the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. A quick reading of this text will make you think Jesus is breaking abolishing the Bible. But we looked at this in the Sabbath series. What? What was it? Jesus is not breaking the commands of scripture.

He’s breaking the commands of mishna. Mishna was an oral tradition made into a book. The Ishk was a set of rules the Pharisees created. So if these are the rules the Bible has, they’re gonna make a fence around the Torah. So they have so many rules that even if you broke a few of those, you still haven’t yet broken the actual rules in the Bible.

Well, after centuries of doing that, the Pharisees started to equate the Mishna with the Bible, and they were saying, you’re breaking the Bible. And Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no. I’m still following the Holy Word of God. I’m not following your tradition that you imposed on the word of God. You see that what legalistic readers do, and maybe you and I are guilty of this, we subtly impose man-made traditions on top of God, breathed instruction, and that reaps havoc in your life.

Last week, our main idea was keeping his commands doesn’t earn me God’s love, but it churns me to God’s love. The legalist says, no, no, no. Keeping his commands doesn’t churn you to God’s love. It earns you God’s love. This little twist of words. Changes the whole meaning. This is what a, what a legalistic reader does.

You’ll notice this if you’re a legal, uh, uh, a legalistic reader. They’re typically literal but not literary. Tim Mackey actually of the Bible project calls this the golden tablet’s view. What this means is they don’t take account for genre humanity. Hyperbole. A quick example, the fall of the Berlin Wall, right?

One of the headlines of when the Berlin Wall fell, this wasn’t in the Bible by the way. This was in our lifetime. When the Berlin Wall fell, there was a, a headline that said it was the collapse heard around the world. Now, did we hear the fall of the Berlin Wall in Arizona? Those who are old, did they right?

I’m just kidding. Don’t make those jokes straight. But I wasn’t here. Uh, did they? No, of course not. But what do we know that meant? We know literature. That was a beautiful phrase of saying that was a churning point in history, and we’re all different because of it. A literalist would say, no, everyone heard it, or That person’s a liar.

You’ve missed the point. Right? And so we have, what legalistic readers do is they put the infa on the wrong slab. I’m gonna let that sink in, right? Well, I see what he did there, right? And so when tradition is higher than authority, you develop a cold heart and you misuse and abuse the scriptures. So a lot of this Christian life as we’re in groups, is acknowledging those traditions and wrestling and laying them down at the feet of scripture.

Secondly is the ambiguous reader. This is the Sadducees. The Sadducees in this day that Jesus was also talking to. These were the religious elites. So the Pharaoh, uh, sorry, the Pharisees believed if everyone in Israel just followed the whole Torah for one day, the new kingdom would come. They would rule and reign.

They would defeat Rome and everything would be better. The Sadducees were like, no, that’s not gonna work. What we have to do is get in power with Rome. And so they were actually willing to budge on a lot of the Torah in the name of influence, and they thought, this is worth it, because then we’ll be at a seat of power.

You probably see this happen a lot today and how people try to get involved in politics in a way that probably isn’t the best. Now hear me? Of the four factors, here’s what an ambiguous reader does. The ambiguous reader values reason over scripture. Again, whether he or she admits it or not. Now, let me be clear.

This isn’t saying scripture isn’t readable, uh, reasonable. It very much is. I love the quote by Dallas Willard. He says, faith is not opposed to knowledge. It is opposed to sight. And so there are times it always makes sense, but it’s never like rational it because it causes, it requires us to sacrifice. It requires us to, to serve and to give and do things we don’t naturally want to do quickly.

Matthew 22. I know I need to hurry here. Matthew 22 is an example of the sades really being fast and loose with the scriptures and treating everything as ambiguous and really they can kind of come up with whatever interpretation they would like. 23, that same day. Some sades who say there’s no resurrection came up to him and questioned him.

So they’ve already budged on that part of the Bible teacher, MOS, uh, teacher Moses said if a man dies having no children, his brothers to marries his, his wife and raise up his offspring for his brother. Now there were seven brothers among us. The first got married and died having no offspring. He left his wife to his brother.

The same thing happened to the second also and the third, and so to all the seven. Last of all, the woman died in the resurrection. Then whose wife will she be of the seven for? They all had married her. I want us to see the Sadducees were being real smart alecky here. They weren’t being innocent like teach us.

They’re saying Gotcha. The Bible doesn’t make sense sometimes. Found it. What do you have to say about that? I love how Jesus says you answer them. You are mistaken because you don’t know the scriptures or the power of God. And I love it. He goes on to re reference the resurrection and angels, the two things that they do not believe in Jesus is just poking and prodded at him at that point and it’s pretty incredible.

Now the sades, there was a lot in the Bible they didn’t believe and that’s why they were sad. You see? Come on, come on. But he, I even got claps. Let’s go. That means I’ll never stop. Whoever did that, I’ll never stop. Okay? Now what is Jesus saying here? His answer was, you’ve missed the whole point. You don’t understand scripture.

You’re trying to find the loopholes, and as a result you have missed out on the power of God. An ambiguous reader has the skill to talk themself out of anything. If they like this part of the Bible, it’s gospel. If they don’t like it, it’s a beautiful metaphor cuz he clapped. Metaphors be with you right in honor of May 4th.

I’m full of them. Keep clapping. Um, I’ll stop. Okay. Now an ambiguous reader is, believes in literary but not literal. So they have the opposite problem. And maybe that’s you, and maybe that’s me. It’s common to treat the Bible as an ancient document. That’s filled with great stories and you use literal device, literary devices.

For example, you can point to literature and get yourself out of uncomfortable things like hell. That’s an antiquated idea. Let’s look at the literature. He didn’t mean actual hell or giving a percentage to God. That’s so old covenant. That’s so Old Testament. Let’s wiggle ourselves out of that. Or sex outside of marriage being okay.

As long as it’s monogamous, right, you can take it as literature and get yourself out of anything, and this type of reading is common among us. Mahoen again and shaped by the word, we often are not looking for a transforming encounter with God. We are more often seeking some tidbits of information that will enhance our self-protective understanding of the Christian faith without challenging or confronting the way we live in the world.

Now, what’s the problem? As we close the Bible, of course, is a library of literature that often should be interpreted as literal. And so it takes work to study it, to know the context, to ask questions, to read the study Bible, to ask your pastor Caleb what it meant, right? It takes work, but Jesus gets to the heart of it in verse 20 of Matthew chapter five.

He goes on to say, for I tell you, unless your righteousness also means goodness from the inside out, unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter into the kingdom of God. He is saying, until you’re really foreign by the scripture, it’s not gonna do anything for your life.

Verse 20 is actually an introduction to the rest of his sermon, and so the rest of chapter five, he starts by saying, you have heard it said either from a legalist point of view or an ambiguous point of view, but I say to you, chapter six and seven, he exposes the hypocrisy of the legalists and the ambiguous readers.

Saying they’re not actually living it out. They know a lot about it, but it hasn’t changed their life. And he’s saying, no, this should change your life. Donald McLeod, the Scottish theologian, he says, for Jesus, jat and tittle, loyalty to scripture is neither legalistic nor evasive, or which I would say ambiguous, jat and tittle.

Fulfillment of the law means avoiding anger as well as homicide, lust, as well as fortification, swearing, as well as perjury. It means churning the other cheek, going the extra mile and blowing no trumpets. When we make donations to charity, Jesus is saying, when you’re actually formed by scripture, it changes you from the inside out.

That if you’re a legalist and ambiguous, you only look at the outside in and you never let it change you. And so the Pharisees and Sadducees knew how to read the Bible, but they never allowed the Bible to read them. And so as we start this four week series and talk about it a lot, today’s main theme is authority.

Are the scriptures, the authority of your life. And so I thought about asking the question for like the response time, do I buy what the Bible says? We’d love to answer that with you. We think that’s a kind of legitimate question. We actually wrote a, uh, well, pastor Caleb wrote a great scripture guide that you’re gonna grab on your way out that answers a lot of those questions.

There’s a lot of legitimacy to the scriptures, but I know too many people that will say, I believe it. God said it, that settles it. And yet they live like they never done Reddit their whole life. I know people who, who want the 10 Commandments to go back in school, and yet they can’t name you seven of ’em.

So I think a better question is not, do I buy what it says? Think a better question. I want us to think about. In this moment is, does the Bible guide all you do not just believe, but do you? Do you live it out? Let me give you a couple examples. Acts 20, verse 35. It says, Jesus said it is more blessed to give than to receive.

And my question to you is that guiding your life, do you actually believe it’s better to give than to receive? Or are you waiting to give once you’ve received enough, that means you don’t believe what Jesus says. Hebrews 13, four says not to have intimacy outside of a covenant marriage. Does that guides your, in my reality, Matthew six 16, it says, when you fast, not if you fast, has fasting just always been a suggestion to you, right?

Like the Bible, like, man, if you want to experience its genuine life that’s on offer, you have to follow it. It. But we’ve been trained since birth. We are control. We are captains of our own ship. And I will like this as long as I like it, but if it says something that I don’t like, then I’m ignoring it.

Avoiding it, or throwing it out altogether. Friends, you live that life and it doesn’t lead to abundance. It leads to despair. It leads to heartache. It leads to a life that God did not design you to live. One Peter five, seven, cast all your anxieties on him because he cares for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I gotta stress a little.

I’m just a worry war. That’s what I do. Aren’t I so cute? I like to worry. So that’s what I’m gonna do. No, the Bible says to give it to him. Yeah, but I’m a perfectionist. Give it to him. Right? And so there is grace, and this doesn’t mean as we walk out, man, you have to follow every little thing. But the Holy Spirit does.

He so graciously says, okay, it’s not about earning, it’s about churning. Right? So this isn’t like, Make sure you do it. No. It’s churning to his love, churning to trust his commands. And typically the way the Holy Spirit responds is he just gives you one thing to wrestle with. Today’s a successful day. Not if you leave and follow every part of the Bible, but that’s the Holy Spirit God.

What is something that I have been reluctant and resistant and what’s your invitation for me to do today? If, if we do that church, we will be a people that is formed by the truth in a world that’s so desperately needs it because it is filled with lies, but it requires our humility, requires us to say, your ways higher than my ways.

Your thoughts higher than my thoughts. It will be my joy to say your will, your way. Always Holy Spirit, would you give us a heart to do that?