The Living Word of God

Preached on Sunday, May 4, 2014

Rehearsal Dinner 

Scripture:  I Peter1:13-25

            Last Saturday morning I stood at the front of the beautiful Church of the Apostles in Atlanta for the wedding of my friend David Roberts.  Several of you know David – he’s been here to visit, he served as our realtor when we moved and has traveled Matagalpa, Nicaragua with us.  David, Marcia and I went to college together and have remained close friend all of these years.   David is my age and has never been married – never even been close. 

            Last October as I sat in my church office, I received a call from David.  I was trying to finish a project and get out the door to pick up my daughter.  I looked down at my iphone and texted him – “Can’t talk, will call back quickly.”  He then texted me these infamous words:  “Cool – looking to arrange some pre-marital counseling.”

I quickly forgot my project and my daughter waiting for me.  Incredulously, I texted “For???”  And then his next line had me:  “ME!” With that simple exchange, God miraculously brought Stacey into our lives. 

As I stood before David and Stacey surrounded by beautiful stain glass windows of the Gospel story – I marveled at how God had brought them together, formed them into a couple as they prepared for this wedding ceremony.  Now, they had acknowledged their covenant with God and each other through the exchange vows and the giving and receiving of rings.  Then … as a represented of God, the community and even the state I made this proclamation:  I am thrilled and overjoyed to pronounce you – husband and wife and to declare you joined forever in the sight of God in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.    

Before these words they were still David and Stacey.  After these words, they were Mr. and Mrs. David Roberts.

Words have meaning and power in our lives.  The old ditty – “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” – simply isn’t true.  Words released in the world bounce and bounce with both the power to heal and the power to destroy.  Just ask Donald Sterling, the owner of the LA Clippers basketball team about the power of words.  When his recorded words were played for all the world to hear – he lost his entire franchise. 

            Author Patrick Rothfuss gives us a glimpse of this power when he says:  “Words are pale shadows of forgotten names. As names have power, words have power. Words can light fires in the minds of men. Words can wring tears from the hardest hearts.”

Joseph Conrad gets at the same thing when he talks about his task as an author:  “My task, which I am trying to achieve is, by the power of the written word, to make you hear, to make you feel--it is, before all, to make you see.”
            Yet – more powerful words exist even beyond these examples.  The words of the Creator lie under all that we say.  Peter gives us a glimpse of these powerful words in 1:23:  “You have been born anew, not of perishable but of imperishable seed, through the living and enduring word of God.”

In 1 Peter, the author writes to a congregation of people persecuted in the name of the Jesus.  In this verse, he names the force behind the transformation of their lives – the Word of God. 

            When we hear phrase “the Word of God” – we might easily imagine an old time, mountain, preacher red in the face pacing across the front of a church waving a big, bulky study Bible in the air and saying,  “Brothers and sisters – you have got the get into the WORD of God!”  As impressive and powerful as this preacher imagined our Bible – Peter has even more in mind when he mentions the Living and Enduring Word of God. 

            Peter’s phrase points us to three examples of the Word of God in scripture.

1.     God’s Spoken Word

God's spoken word has the power to create what it announces.  In the first chapter of Genesis we read:  Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  God spoke light into the being.   The entire poem in chapter 1 over and over … and God said – and it was so. 

The Old Testament recognizes the power of God’s spoken Word.  When we read the sermons of the prophets they remind the people of Israel of the power of God’s Word.  Before every sermon you see these words:  “And thus says the Lord, the God of Israel.”  These are not merely sermons from the mouths of a good preacher – this is the Word of God spoken with power in our lives and in the world.    

2.     God’s Word made Flesh

God’s word is made flesh in the incarnation of God in the person of Jesus.  At the beginning of the Gospel of John the author connections the ancient understanding of the power of God’s Spoken word with the arrival of God made flesh in the person of Jesus Christ. 

Listen to the first verses of the Gospel:  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. … And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.”

The Living and Eternal word of God walked the hills and the shores of Galilee, and the streets and alleys of Jerusalem.  The word of God put on skin and spoke to us in human form.  When we look at the ministry of Jesus, we see the power of this living word release in a new way in the world. 

One day, Jesus is teaching in a house when all of sudden the roof begins to rain down upon him.  The crowded space gets restless as 4 friends tear through the roof and lower a crippled man down at the feet of Jesus.  What does Jesus do – he tells the man with everyone there – “Your sins are forgiven.”  Murmers begin – who is the man who thinks he can forgive sins.  Then, Jesus says, just so everyone knows the power of God’s Word made flesh – “Take up your mat and go home.’  The cripple man stands to the amazement of the whole house.  The Word of God made flesh. 

John says the same word of God present at creation – from the beginning – is present in the person of Jesus – and still speaks. 

3.     God’s Word - the Bible

Although Peter did not have our present Bible, today, we acknowledge the power of God’s living and eternal Word is still available to us in the world through the Bible.  We encounter the Living and eternal word of God in theses scriptures and new things happen in human lives. 

Martin Luther of reformation fame thought it was unfortunate that the Word of God had to be written. He called it a "quenching of the Sprit" because we end up limiting the ways God might speak to us.  Luther preferred to speak of the living word rather than the word as book. The Word of God, he wrote, was to be a living and active word; a word alive in the ears of the hearer. Luther might have gotten this insight from v. 25 of today's text where the word of God is identified with the living voice of preaching.

In fact, this understanding of the Word of God – spoken, in flesh, and written – shapes the very heart of my preaching.   I exist as a preacher to release the Living Word of God into our lives and world in this place and at this time.  Starting with the Written Word of God, I attempt to explore its contents so that each of us in our own ways each Sunday are confronted or consoled or challenged by the Living Word of God in the world. 

            In the first chapter of 1^st Peter we see the results of Living and eternal word of God released into the lives of the congregation.    They have been born again by a power greater than this world. 

            This is today’s Good News:  God’s Living Word creates, redeems and forms us into God’s word for the World. 

Implication:

            The Living Word of God released into our lives to create, redeem and form has implications for how we live our lives.  You see, God is still speaking these Living Words into the places of our lives where we need them.  These living words of God are both indicative – inviting us to be the People of God formed in grace – and imperative – calling us to live differently. 

            Look at the words of Grace God speaks over and to us in this passage. 

            In v. 15 – in grace we are called Holy.  As he who called you is holy, be holy yourselves in all your conduct; 16 for it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”  We are a people who have been set apart by the Word of God. 

            In v. 18, in grace we are called ransomed.  “You know that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your ancestors, not with perishable things like silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ.”  We have been ransomed from sin by the death and resurrection of the Word of God in Jesus. 

            In v. 21, in grace we are formed in trust.  Through him you have come to trust in God, who raised him from the dead and gave him glory, so that your faith and hope are set on God.”  We have been offered a relationship of trust with the Living Word of God in Christ. 

            God’s living Word speaking with grace gives voice to who we are as Children of God – we are holy, ransomed and formed

            And at the same time, the Living Word of God speaks words of challenge to us – Imperative words - that do not allow us to remain where we are. 

            v. 13 says:  prepare your minds for action; discipline yourselves.  To be Word of God to the world – we need to prepare ourselves for the work God has for us.  This is not something we can take for granted – it requires discipline, intentional action where we focus on the priorities of God in our lives.

            V. 14 says:  do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance.  To be the Word of God in the world, we must choose who will form us – will it be God’s living word or the desires of this world.  This is a choice we make about how we live our lives. 

            v. 22 says:  love one another deeply from the heart.  The results of God’s Living Word in our lives is love – genuine, mutual love

In your sermon guide – in response to both the indicative and the imperative Words of God in this passage – reflect on 2 questions: 

How is the Word of God shaping who I am and who I am becoming?   How does the Word of God challenge me to engage the world around me?

Invitation:

            All of us need the living, eternal Word of God in our lives shaping us, redeeming us, forming us to be God’s Word into the world.  Each of us needs different words at time times in our lives.  This morning – the Gospel invites each of us to hear the Words of God that meet the needs in our lives. 

·       To those who are afraid – God says – “It’s me.  It’s alright.  Don’t be afraid.”

·       To those who are hopeless – God says – “We are hard-pressed on every side, yet not crushed; we are perplexed, but not in despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed.”

·       To those who have been hurt by others – God says – “I heal the brokenhearted and bind up their wounds.

·       To those who are overwhelmed and stuck – God says - Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” 

·       To those who grieve – God says - Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted

·       To those facing a tough situation and do not know where to turn – God says - Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you

·       To those struggling with the magnitude and power of sin in your life – God says - If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

·       To those who are stressed and filled with anxiety God says - Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid”

·       To those facing the impossible -  God says   - ‘With men this is impossible, but with God all things are possible’

The living and eternal Word of God still has power and meaning today.  It speaks truth and peace and challenge into our lives.  This Living Word creates, redeems and forms us into God’s word for the World. 

Are you courageous and willing to release God’s living Word into your life?  Are you brave and willing to receive it when it arrives?  Like the small group of disciples waiting in the Upper Room in Jerusalem when the Holy Spirit arrived with power and fire - are you ready to the transformation of God by the Living Word? 

            This is the hope and purpose and meaning the Living and eternal word of God brings into our lives. 

            At the end of the passage in 1 Peter, the author summarizes the Word of God for us:  “That word is the good news that was announced to you.”

            This is good news for you and me – and for all the world:    God’s Living Word creates, redeems and forms us into God’s word for the World.    Words do have power to change us – if we let them.