This sermon challenges us to reconsider how we value the Bible, contrasting earthly presents with the “precious gift” of God’s revelation. Anchored in 1 Peter 1:23, the message explains that Scripture is the “imperishable seed” responsible for our spiritual birth and the “spiritual milk” necessary for our growth. As believers, we must move beyond a casual reading of Scripture and develop a desperate hunger for God’s truth. The Bible is not just a book of rules, but the living medium through which we encounter Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.
Transcript
I would like for you to open your Bible to First Peter, chapter 1. And we’re going to look at several verses this morning because I’m going to have something like a topical sermon, which I don’t usually do, but we’re going to look at this verse in 1 Peter chapter 1 and looking at verse 23. 1 Peter chapter 1:23. So, let me read that message. The apostle Peter is writing to his scattered people, believers in Christ, mostly pretty much Jewish believers at that time. They were going through all kinds of difficulties and tribulations and he’s calling attention to their faith in Christ and what they’ve received from Christ. Verse 23 of chapter 1 says, “For you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable, that is through the living and enduring word of God.”
Last week we looked at Richard Rogers… I talked about the little booklet that I’d been reading, Richard Rogers, Holy Helps for a Godly Life. And we looked in particular, we didn’t really spend all that much time in that book actually, but he has a section on giving thanks and the importance of thankfulness and we considered that last week. What I thought I might do because these holy helps are graces of God. So whenever we think about them, whenever we consider these gifts from God which enable a person who has faith in Jesus Christ to gain strength in the Lord and to grow up materially and to have the benefits of blessing. When we consider each of these things and use these things then it is through these means of grace that a believer is sanctified. It’s the means of grace that a believer grows stronger more like Jesus Christ himself. Gains maturity, enables them to gain strength to be able to oppose sinfulness and to be able to carry out and minister to people through the giftedness of the spirit of God in their life. So, we’re going to think about first of all the gift of the ministry of the word of God this morning. So, having read that passage, let me ask God’s blessing on his word this morning.
Opening Prayer
Father, we thank you for the preciousness of your gifts to us, beginning with the revelation of yourself to us. What a precious gift that is. Help us this morning to understand how precious your words are to us. What it means for us eternally. But father how we should glorify your name because of such grace that you’ve given us. Help us Lord in these things. We pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
The Value of a Gift
Well, in our house because Christmas is just a few weeks away, we’ve been thinking about presents that we’re going to purchase or trying to figure out how to get to certain members of our family and thinking about what the person might value. You know, you want to give a gift that somebody values. Sometimes when we give gifts, we try to make them as personal as possible. Sometimes we make our gifts. Not that we probably wouldn’t do better by buying something. But just to make it personal, but it’s something that we invest ourselves into in some way. Because gifts are often more precious to us because they’re an expression of love from someone.
I have received gifts in my past from people who gave me gifts because they felt like it was the thing to do, you know, it was just obligatory. So you get a gift I don’t remember many of those gifts, you know, because they really didn’t mean that much to me. You can you might receive a gift and it might be a really good gift and you actually not value it. It’s interesting, you know, why we value certain gifts and what it is we set our hearts on when we receive and give gifts. That’s the kind of thing I was thinking about as I was looking at and thinking again about these holy helps for godly living. God has given us many gifts, abundant gifts and yet you know unless we understand the expression of the heart of God and giving the gift. I wonder if we value that gift as we should. And one of the things that strikes me is that too often we actually fail to comprehend and understand the preciousness of God’s gifts to us.
It’s important that we recognize the gifts he gives. The first section in Roger’s book has to do with the revelation of God to man. God gives the gift of revealing himself to us and we carry our Bibles around with us. Some of us carry our Bibles around with us. We take them to church with us. We have them in our household. And yet it’s easy for us to take them as something that is so casual. Give it not the thought or value that they truly deserve. When you think about Adam and Eve in the garden, God investing giving them life and such precious things live, bringing them and placing them into paradise and their open rebellion, willful rebellion against God and the consequences of that which is separation from God. It could have ended. It would have been absolutely just for God to end it all there, never speak to them or communicate with them again. But God doesn’t do that. He continues by having a conversation with Adam and Eve, by talking to them, by pointing out their sinfulness, by making a plan of redemption, making through the sacrifice of an animal, he clothe them, which symbolizes a lot. As you look at future scripture, God doesn’t cut off the revelation of himself from them, even though that is the ultimate consequence of everyone who dies spiritually. Out of abundant grace, God has continued to give his revelation to us through his holy word. It’s a powerful thing.
The Authoritative Word of God
In Rogers Holy Helps, he points out that the Bible is the authoritative word of God. It’s authoritative because of the one who is speaking. The word of God is inspired by the Holy Spirit of God. It is God himself. God worked through men of old. It tells us in the New Testament the whole prophets and the fathers and he communicates exactly what God wants communicated. It is ultimately the word of God. As you see over and over as you read through the prophets time and time again, they began with “The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah the prophet.” The word of the Lord came to and the phrase was repeated over and over again. It is the precious word of God. The same powerful word that brought about the creation of this universe. Everything that there is, the whole cosmos, that kind of power is invested in God’s word.
So the first precious gift that we should especially consider and value is the authoritative word of God. And a couple of verses that points to that authority is Galatians 1:8. You know, how do you compare God’s word? Well, the Apostle Paul said to the Galatians, “If you hear me speak or if you hear an angel of God, if an angel of God came down to you and told you something.” You’d probably listen to him if an angel of God came down to you and told you something. He says, “If an angel of God comes down from heaven and or comes down and tells you something and that doesn’t agree with the word of God, let them be accursed.” Now, the word of God has priority over all things, over anything that I tell you over anything that anyone else tells you. It is the authoritative word of God. And it is true. It’s accurate. And we need to value it.
It’s powerful because it is inspired by God. It is God breathed. It says in 2 Corinthians 3:16, “And it’s sufficient for all of life. All scriptures and inspired of God is profitable for teaching or proof for correction for training in righteousness.” All these things are part of the benefits of the word of God. Jesus in Matthew 11:25, Jesus prays, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and revealed them to infants.” Now, what is Jesus saying there when he’s talking about his revelation? He’s really referring, it’s a prayer to God of thanksgiving in response to the people to the people’s response to him. And what is he saying? He’s saying that God has revealed something to infants to people who you wouldn’t expect to know. Not to the wise, not to brilliant people. But God’s revelation is such that it is clear. It is so clear that the most important truths of the word of God is easily understood by the simplest people. The most necessary points are understood by simple and ignorant people. You don’t have to be profoundly educated to be able to comprehend powerful truths from the word of God and to it affect your heart and change your life and transport you out of the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light.
The Life-Giving Power of the Word
So there’s no gift more precious, more powerful than the life-giving revelation of God himself through his word because it is powerful. The word of God is powerful because it gives life. That’s the point of this passage we read this morning. That’s the main idea in first Peter 1 in verse 23 when he says you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable. He’s making an analogy. He’s making an analogy about that that has to do with human conception and people coming to life initially with physical life. The idea of the seed coming and bringing about the conception of a person and giving them physical life which is in this world perishable. You live your life, you grow old, you get sick and you die. It’s perishable. You wear out physically in this world. But God gives something else. You’ve not been born again through a seed which is perishable, but what is imperishable. The word of God is the seed that’s planted into the heart that gives spiritual life to a person that causes them to be born again.
It meets with the faith that God has wrought in the heart. And as a result of faith, by the way, comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. It’s a work of the spirit of God and the heart of person. And when you hear the word of God, the Holy Spirit of God uses his word to change us, to convict us, to convict us of our sinfulness, to awaken us to the powerful love of God, to give us a picture of the glory of Christ in our hearts, to change us inside out. It’s transforming and it’s powerful. It causes us to be born again. Again, as this passage says, it is extraordinarily incredible the fact that you have an soul that can be renewed in Jesus Christ. You have a soul that will last forever, but you have a soul transformed by the word of God into a relationship with God that is blessed forever. What a difference that is being changed from the kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light and glory.
So the word of God is powerful and it is God-given. That’s why by the way James says he chose God chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all he created. That’s what it is for a believer. You come to faith in Christ. You are born again. You are born given birth through the truth, the word of truth, and nothing else can save you. There’s not a thing in this world that’s going to redeem your soul. You can look and fascinate yourself with all sorts of things in this world. You can educate yourself in a thousand ways. You can steep yourself in history and learn deep truths that might equip you for planning a future in this life, but it’s not going to save your soul or meet any spiritual need that you have in eternity. You can look to philosophies, you can look to scientists, you can learn a great deal of things, but you’re not going to find anything that’s beneficial to your soul.
I think one of the reasons that it is easy for us to value stuff of this world rather than our soul, the word of God given to strengthen our spirit and soul is that we don’t tend to value our soul and spirit. We tend to forget about it. We tend to not think about it as if we don’t have a soul or spirit. But the Bible’s the Lord Jesus said you know that if we fail to consider I mean what does it gain a man he says if you gain all of the world and yet lose your soul now the soul is crucial it’s what will endure. If you’re a person who’s been redeemed by Christ you’ll receive a new glorious eternal body. And your soul will endure this life and enter into heaven and receive that body. You’ll receive that body on that resurrection day. But you have a soul that is eternal and it can be lost into eternity in hell or it can be regenerated by the power of God’s word. You see, it is the word of God. It’s God himself revealed to us through his word that changes us from darkness to light that gives us life in Christ. Jesus said, “Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the spirit gives birth to spirit.” If we’re to experience the life of God, we must experience in the only way that we can get it, and that’s through the Bible as the Holy Spirit works through it in us.
Spiritual Nourishment
So the value of the Bible in the book holy helps he’s calling our attention to how important this is. He does it he talks about preaching a lot in there as well putting yourself under the ministry of the word of God and he calls attention to the fact that it tells us in Ephesians chapter 4 for example that God gives gifted people to his church including pastor teachers. And the point of giving pastor teachers to the church is to help us is to for the building up of the body of Christ to the work of the ministry of God for all everyone to be doing the work of God through the ministry of the word of God as it’s explained to you through a gifted teacher. But of course he also talks about private study coming to the word of God daily and we do that out of necessity. If God brought you to life by the power of his word and you have spiritual life in you now, how do you sustain? How is that life sustained? How does it continue? How does it grow? How does it develop? Well, it develops through the word of God. We gain spiritual nourishment through the word of God.
Jesus said, Man shall not live by bread alone. Jesus is tempted by Satan. He’s been fasting for days. He’s physically hungry. Hard to imagine how hungry he might have been. But when tempted to eat to perform a miracle to suit himself. No, he trusts the father. And he says he quotes the passage from Deuteronomy and says, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” In Deuteronomy 8, that passage, the passage, Moses writes to remind Israel of what took place in the wilderness when God sent the mana. He gave them mana to eat. And the mana was given with certain rules and it was, you know, if you didn’t listen to God’s instruction then you suffered consequences by not being able to benefit from the mana. But Moses said the reason that God did that was to humble you and to let you be hungry and to feed you with mana that you didn’t know before. Neither did your fathers know that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. We live and gain nourishment and strength through the word of God. If we don’t get the word of God, then we become spiritually weak. We become anemic in the faith and so our souls grow weak.
Deuteronomy also that passage from Deuteronomy is also quoted in Psalm 19 where the Bible is taught to be an all-sufficient revelation. It’s able to turn us from our sin to lead us through the difficulties that we have in life and feed and enrich us so that we’re able to enjoy the full benefits of spiritual life. We’re to feed the new nature while starving the old nature. We’re to feed on truth of the word of God, thinking about it, meditating on it, appreciating it, applying it and setting aside those things that disagree that the Bible makes clear is sinful ways of the world around us. So the text says in 1 Peter 2:1 and 2 it says therefore rid yourselves of all malice and all deceit, hypocrisy, envy, slander of every kind. And like newborn babes, crave pure spiritual milk so that you may grow up in your salvation. Repeatedly in the Bible, the word of God, the Bible, we’re instructed to hunger and thirst for righteousness. We are instructed to value the word of God and to feed on it as if it’s the milk that a baby needs to grow up in Christ. We are told that it is to be our strong meat as well. We’re to gain spiritual strength and as we mature, we’re to understand more and more of the word of God. One preacher from a few generations ago pointed out that pretty much every revival that has come about has come about at the same time a new appreciation for God’s word takes place a new understanding and appreciation of the word of God. And I think that may be quite true. It is through the word of God and the value of the word of God that we are given spiritual strength that brings about the change that brings about the strength that we need to be a blessings to people.
So we’re to feed this new nature. It’s like in that passage in 1 Peter 2 it’s like the world the old nature and the pattern of our former life the way we lived before and the habits that we developed and the habits of all the people around us so many people around us that works against the soul well it’s like a lion in a cage has placed that into a cage for the believer so that we’re not affected by it. But you don’t want to continue feeding that and encouraging it and nurturing it. God says that as far as we are concerned, I mean the overactivity in the believer’s life, I mean we have freedom from that. We have we can fall into it, but we have freedom from that as a believer. So, we’re not to feed that. We’re not to encourage it. We’re not to grow in it, to think about it, to value it, to hold on to it. We’re to starve that fleshly nature. And we’re to feed the spirit. And that is done through the study of the word of God, through coming to understand the word of God and the precious truths that God has about himself to us.
A Thirst for Righteousness
So, we should desire it intensely. We should hunger for it. It should be sweet to our taste like honey. We should value it and precious. It should be precious to us. There was an illustration from the life of a man named Major Gilbert, Major V. Gilbert. He had a book called The Last Crusade. And it was his experience in World War I when he brought he was part of a group that brought about the liberation of Palestine in World War I and the story the Gilbert’s account goes driving up from Beersa a combined force of British Australians and New Zealanders were pressing on the rear of the Turkish retreat over the Arab desert and the problem is as they advanced They advanced ahead of their water bottle, the their water carrying camel train. They went way ahead and the camel train ended up getting hilled back and so they were out in that desert without any water and it wasn’t long before all their water bottles were empty and they began to starve.
It said Gilbert writes, “Our heads ached and our eyes became bloodshot and dim with the blinding glare. Our tongues began to swell. Our tips turned purplish black and burst. Those who dropped out of the column were never seen again. But the desperate force battled on to Shira.” And there were wells at Shira. And so they managed to get there before nightfall. If they hadn’t, they wouldn’t have survived. None of them. He said, “We fought that day.” Gilbert writes, “As men fight for their lives, we Shira stationed on the hills of the retreating Turks. And the first object which met our view were a great stone sistns full of cold clear drinking water. And still night the sound of water running in the tanks could be heard distinctly maddening in its nearness. But nobody or murmured that he said when orders were given for the battalion to fall in too deep facing the cistrants. So they took all the people who were especially sick and needy and gave them water first. And they did it in an orderly way. And the guys at the end of the line had to wait four hours before they got a drink. That’s thirsty. That’s thirsty.
Major Gilbert said, “We learned our first real Bible lesson on that march from Beersa to Shira of Wales. If such were our thirst for God, for righteousness, for his will in our life, a consuming, all embracing, preoccupying desire, how rich the fruit of the spirit, how rich in the fruits of the spirit we would be.” That’s true. God wants us to desire, be passionate about his word and value it to it needs to be precious to us, not just to know it or to come to understand it in a way but actually to embrace it with her heart in a real way to consume it.
Now the story is told of Stuart Brisco in one of his he was addressing an audience. They were having a conversation with the with his congregation and he said what do the commandments what what do you do with the commandments in the scripture? And this little old lady raised her hand and she said underline mine in blue. Well, you can underline them all in blue. That’s may not be a bad thing to do, but the commandments are given for us to obey. That was his point. We are given the word of God to hear it, to be changed through it, to listen to it, to respect it, to value it, and hold it precious to us. We’re to have a desire for the word of God. It is important that we do we do that.
Christ, The Ultimate Revelation
As we think about God’s revelation it’s really important that we realize that all of the word of God leads us to an understanding of who he is. The point of it is to cause us to understand him. And that’s why the ultimate revelation of God is the person of Jesus Christ himself. Jesus is the ultimate revelation of God. The Bible is meant to lead us to Christ and Jesus Christ is the one who reveals to us God himself. In John 14, Philip says to Jesus, “Show us the father and that that’ll suffice us. That’ll be enough for us.” And Jesus says, “Have I been so long with you and Have you not known me? He who has seen me has seen the father.” Jesus is the perfect picture, the perfect revelation of God. He tells if you’ve seen Jesus, the invisible father is revealed through him.
Hebrews talks about the revelation of the Old Testament. And the very first chapter, very first verse, God revealed himself by speaking to the church, the fathers of the you know the fathers of Israel and the prophets. And he says that he did that in many ways. But he says in these last days he’s spoken to us in his son. He’s saying that Jesus Christ is a revelation of God. And he says whom he appointed heir of all things through whom he made the world. And he’s the radiance of his glory and the exact representation of his nature. And he upholds all things by the word of his power. And when he made a purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty on high. Jesus Christ reveals perfectly the heavenly father.
Colossians 3:15 says that he is the image of the invisible god. He is we celebrate At this time of the year, he is the word made flesh. In John chapter 1, it says, “In the beginning was the word. The word was God.” And in verse 14, it says, “The word was made flesh.” Jesus is the word. He is the revelation of God. He is all that we can know about God. He’s the point of all of our history. And through But what he has given us, we come to know God in the only way that we truly can through his ministry and mediation. So we need to recognize that the Bible leads us to Christ. When we come to Christ through faith, we are introduced and brought into the very kingdom of God. And we have an eternal relationship with God that lasts forever. Precious gifts.
Practical Application
Now, this is a precious gift. I’ve talked about it so abstractly. I’m not sure we’ve gotten it, but it is so precious. It’s a gift that we cannot value. We can choose not to really value it, not to think about it. We can get caught up in all sorts of stuff in this world and things and not value God’s word. But it is so crucial that we hunger for it, that we thirst for it, that we make it a priority in our life. When we come to the word of God, just a few guidelines as we close, we have to come to the word of God each time prayerfully. It’s a spiritual the word of God is spiritual. It’s living. It’s the living word of God. And we come to it spiritually through prayer, asking God to teach us and talking to him as we read and study and meditate on the word.
We’re to do it consistently. We’re to be persistent. You know, if for some reason something interrupts your time with the Lord for a few days, well, don’t get discouraged and quit. You know, three days is better than no days. Spend some time with the Lord. Keep at it and be persistent. The Bible is meant to be obeyed. We apply it. It’s an easy thing for us. It’s an easy thing for me to come to the word of God and think about how it applies to you. The first and crucial thing that I must do is think about how it applies to me has to apply to me. When you come to the word of God and when you hear a sermon, it’s easy for us to think about who it might apply to. But it all applies to us. It applies to us. And so we need to ask God for wisdom in applying it to our life. To have whether we like a sermon or not or whether we listen to these words of God and think, “Well, that’s pretty plain and I knew all of that to begin with.” Has it changed us in any way? Do we value the word of God? Is it making a difference in our life?
You know, actually making a plan and then carrying it out, saying, you know, this afternoon I’m going to open up the book of Proverbs or I’m going to read through the book of James or I’m going to start reading the Gospel of John and I’m going to do that through the I’m going to read John’s gospel through the month of December. And you make it practical and you enter into a an experience and a journey and a joy because it is nothing is you’re going to get a lot of Christmas presents this year. But if you just took a book of the Bible like the Gospel of John and read through it this month, you would get more joy from that than most other things that will last you much longer. It’s a precious gift that God has given. If we value it, if we desire it, if we open that package and receive it, then it’ll be a precious gift that we will bring joy and blessing to our life. So that’s what we have this morning. Let me pray for us.
Closing Prayer
Father, we thank you for the preciousness of your word which through your word you give us life and through your word you give us spiritual nourishment and strength that equips us for life. Through the Bible and through the revelation it gives us of our savior, the Lord Jesus, we are brought into fellowship with one another. We’re brought into peace with you. We’re given special, wonderful, precious gifts that are beyond our comprehension. And how easy it is for us to neglect such a precious thing. We ask that you awaken our hearts again to the value of your word. Lord, to take the time to value it, to read it, to use it, to eat the food and not just admire it. Lord, please use this word to strengthen this church and equip us for the work that you’ve called us to that we may glorify your name and lead others to glorify your name. Bless us we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
