The Word Of God Is Alive

Introduction

Those terrorists who flew airplanes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center believed they were doing the will of God. By this heinous act they believed they would become martyrs and live in paradise forever with 70 virgins.

Recently an American missionary, Martin Burnham, was killed and his wife wounded resulting from a kidnapping by Muslim terrorists in the Philippines. But these terrorists are not unique. The pages of history are stained with the blood of victims killed by those who believed they knew what God is like and what God wants. By their torturous and murderous acts, they believed they were tools in God's hands carrying out His purpose.

The prime example is our Lord. The people who instigated His death were chief religious leaders of Israel. The high priest himself directed and sanctioned the plot. Here is the only man who was allowed in the temple's holy of holies, which according to Jewish belief was the one place on earth where God dwelled. But it was this man who said to rulers debating the fate of Jesus: "For you, it is better that one man die for the nation than for the whole nation to die." That is, killing Jesus is a good thing-good for us, good for the people. This is what God wants.

I. What is God Like and What Does God Want

In this dangerous age of terrorism, therefore, the most critical subject we face is not political. It is not sociological. It is theological. Terrorists have forced this generation to face the questions: What is God like? What does God want? Never, therefore, has there been a time of greater need for the gospel of Jesus Christ than this moment. For the New Testament is forthright-even adamant. This world finds answers to those momentous questions about God in Jesus Christ and in Jesus Christ alone. Listen to John 1:18: "Nobody has seen God at any time." Nobody knows God. Nobody knows what God is like. Nobody knows what God wants. Isaiah said, "Truly, thou art a God who hidest thyself" (Isaiah 45:15).

To extrapolate the words of Winston Churchill, God dwells in "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma." How then can we possibly know God? John answers: "the only begotten Son of God who dwells in intimate oneness with the Father, He made him known." The word translated "made him known" means "to introduce." Jesus introduced God to the world. "Here He is," Jesus said, "Here is God. This is what God is like. This is what God wants."

Until last October, I had five granddaughters and only one grandson. His name is Kevin. He is four years old. I called Kevin my only begotten. Now if I wanted to talk to my granddaughter I had a choice. I had five of them. I could talk with Karen, Kellie, Emilie, Lauren or Jesse. But if I wanted to talk to my grandson, I had no choice. I had to talk with Kevin. He was my only begotten grandson.

If you want to know God and what God is like, you have only one place to go. God doesn't have ten sons. God doesn't have two sons. He has one son. Jesus is God's only begotten. You talk about being politically incorrect. That is anathema to this culture.

The buzz word of the culture is "diversity." And that includes religion. We want diversity in religion. We want diverse ways to God. The Muslim way. The Hindu way. The Buddhist way. The New Age way.

Some Christian denominations in order to appease the critics and conform to modish dogma now resist stating that Jesus Christ alone is Savior and Lord.

Living as a Christian in this culture is much like the early Christians experienced in the Roman Empire. The Roman authorities told the Christians, "It's OK for you to confess that Jesus is Lord just as long as you confess also that Caesar is Lord." Diversity! In like manner, this culture says to us, "It’s OK to believe in Christ as Lord just so long as you also say that Buddha is Lord. Mohammed is Lord. The Hindu gods are Lord." Diversity! The early Christians said, "No! Caesar is not Lord. Jesus Christ alone is Lord." And we must say that too.

II. We Know What God is Like by Looking at Jesus

That Christ is the revelation of God is what the New Testament means by Christ being the word of God. "In the beginning the word was the word and the word was with God, and the word was

God" (John 1:1). By our words we communicate. We reveal our thoughts, what we want, what we are. So Christ as the Word of God is God coming out of mystery, out of the unknowable. The Word of God is God communicating. God revealing Himself. God making Himself known. God introducing Himself.

How did God introduce Himself to the world? "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us" (John 1:14). The basic meaning of the word translated "dwelling" is "tent." It is a picture of a nomad coming to a community of nomad people who live in tents. And the person came and pitched his tent among their tents. He lived among them. And as He lived among us, John said, "we beheld His glory, the glory of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth." Jesus introduced God to them. And God is grace. God is truth.

Distinct from the religions of the world, the revelation of the Word of God in the flesh, Jesus Christ, is alone the truth of God. In Him alone can the world learn what God is like and what God wants. To be sure, Paul said that from the beginning of time, a knowledge of God has been evident from things God created. But that knowledge is limited to two precepts: God is and God is powerful (Romans 1:20). That is important knowledge. But when you sit in a doctor's office and you are told you have cancer, or when you see the coffin of a loved one closed the last time, those precepts that God is and God is powerful don't help much.

Recently I called a friend whose wife has been critically ill. When he rushed her to the emergency room, she was unconscious. He thought she was dead. They worked with her all night trying to save her life. In those fearful, painful hours, what helped my friend was not the knowledge that God is and God is powerful. What helped him was the revelation that came only in God's only begotten Son: the truth of God. What God is really like. God is grace. God is love. God knows me-all about me and my wife and my family. And God cares. And God is with us in this emergency room. He will sustain us. That is the truth of God. That is the grace of God. And John said, when He pitched his tent among us, that is what we saw. We saw His glory. We saw grace and truth.

The reason we know what God is like is that Jesus was flesh of our flesh, bone of our bone, blood of our blood. He hungered, he thirsted, he grew tired as we do. He bled like we bleed. He hurt like we hurt. He suffered as we suffer. He grieved as we grieve. He had family problems. His own family didn't understand Him or appreciate Him. They said, "He's crazy." He was tempted in every way as we are. He was mortal as we are. He died. He was a human being in the flesh. But embodied in that human flesh was God. That is the reason we know what God is like. We can understand human flesh. Further, John said, "We heard" this Word of God. "We saw Him with our eyes. We looked at him. With our hands, we touched Him" (I John 1:1). This Word of God pitched His tent among us. He lived among us as one of us, as a human being. But this Word become flesh, this Word who pitched His tent among the apostles, that tent was nailed to a cross. This only begotten of God was crucified. He was dead, buried, raised, and ascended. This Word of God which revealed to them what God is and what God wants is now gone.

How then can the world know what God is and what God wants? John said, "We saw Him. We heard Him. And "what we saw and heard we proclaim to you" in order that you may have the same experience with Him as we had. That you may know God in Christ as we did. "That you may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ" (I John 1:3). That is precisely what occurred. Those who believed the apostles' message had the same experience with the Word as they did. They experience His glory, the "glory of the only begotten of the Father full of grace and truth." How did that happen? The Word who was crucified in the flesh returned as the Word in the Spirit. At Pentecost the Word who had cast His tent in His flesh among the believers now in His Spirit cast His tent within them. He lived inside of them. The Word that lived in the flesh of Jesus of Nazareth now lives in the flesh of Peter James and John. So when the apostles preached the message of what they had seen and heard, that message was inspired by and empowered by the Word that lived within them. And, therefore, the preached message itself became the Word of God. And the Word in the message was "alive and powerful and sharper than any two edged sword" (Hebrews 4:12). When they heard the message on Pentecost the people cried out, "Tell us, what can we do?" The apostles told them, and three thousand were saved (Acts 2:37ff). When Paul and Silas came to Thessalonica, the mayor and city council said, "Those who have turned the world upside down have now come to our town too" (Acts 17:6).

III. Our World Needs for us to Preach, Teach and Sing Jesus

But here we are today in this fearful day when terrorists kill thousands in the name of God believing this is what God wants. And nineteen hundred years have passed since someone preached the gospel who had heard, seen and touched the Word that became flesh. So what can we do? What do we have to do with? We possess precisely what the apostles possessed. We have the Word and the Spirit. For that same Word of God who on Pentecost came to dwell in the apostles, has now pitched tent within us. He dwells in us. And we have the same Word to proclaim as they did. The Word is now in book form. It is the New Testament. And all the New Testament is scripture, and "all scripture is God-breathed" (2 Timothy 3:16). When we preach, teach, and sing the Word, that same Jesus pitches His tent among the hearers. And just as the apostles, they behold His glory, the glory of the only begotten Son of God, full of grace and truth.

I was pastor of the Sylvan Hills Baptist Church in southwest Atlanta. The church was one of the leading churches in the Atlanta area. And the congregation wanted it to continue to be so. In fact, they wanted to be even larger and greater than it was. I was in agreement with that mission. But during my pastorate, all southwest Atlanta experienced changed. A lot of members and leaders moved to other areas. And the church soon ceased to be a church of southwest Atlanta and returned to be a church of the small community of Sylvan Hills. This was unacceptable to some members. They could not give up their suburban, big church dream. But I felt the Lord leading me to refocus the church. Our mission now was to develop ministries to people of the community. They had needs.

Their families had needs. Their children had needs. The community was still an Anglo community as the church was. But the newcomers had different church backgrounds. Many would never attend our church. Most would never join our church. Nevertheless, we would minister, and we would witness. If some did join our church, we would welcome them and rejoice. But if they did not, we would still minister to them the grace and love of Jesus Christ. So we became a ministering congregation. This became very meaningful to those members who shared in that ministry. But some of the members could not agree to what we were doing. They were vocal. And they made my life difficult. I even began to wonder if I had really understood the Lord's direction. One Friday during that traumatic time I went to a room away from the church office where I prepared my Sunday sermons. Nothing unusual about that. I did that every Friday. But this Friday, when I sat down at my desk, I felt an unusual presence of Christ. I wondered what this meant. And the words that came to me were those Jesus spoke in the gospel that said: "In such an hour as you think not the Son of Man comes" (Matthew 24:44). I thought, "What does that mean? That scripture refers to the return of Christ. What does that have to do with me and with this experience with the Lord now? Then I remember that the word translated the Son of man "comes" really means "presence." Then it struck me. That is exactly what happened. I wasn't thinking about an immediate presence of the Christ with me. I was concentrating on what I was going to preach on Sunday. But in such an hour as I thought not, the Son of Man came to me in His presence. What that said to me was that the Lord was saying to me, "Stop doubting. You have not misunderstood me. How you are leading the church is precisely what I want you do. I know it's difficult. But I am with you."

Conclusion

Years after I left that pastorate, I was conducting a funeral of one of the members. After the burial, one of the men who been a deacon in those days, simply said to me, "You were right" - exactly what the Lord said to me on that Friday morning years before. What happened was that the Word God as Spirit who lives within me lifted a verse of the Word of God as scripture out of its context and original meaning and used those same words to speak a current, personal, powerful, encouraging word of God to me. That same experience is available to us all. For the hymn is right: "The word of God is alive; it lives in the world today; correcting, consoling, connecting mankind, The Word of God is alive."