Means of Grace: Scripture

Rather than trying to address all of those things myself, I'm going to let the Bible speak for itself. We're going to read this passage where the Bible is talking about itself, and I want to talk about that and let the Bible speak to some of these challenges and what it is. Crazy idea, I know. Let's try it.

We're going to read Hebrews chapter four, verses 12 through 13. Let's read it together.

For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as the division of soul and spirit of both joints and marrow and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must answer. — Hebrews 4:12-13

Let's use another means of grace and go to God in prayer. Lord Jesus, we need your grace. We ask you to pour it out on us. Lord, use your word. Speak grace to our hearts today. Lord, fill us, transform us, change us, enliven us. We pray these things in your son's name. Amen.

The Word is Living, Active, and Piercing

Alright, our outline for this morning is going to follow the text very directly. We're going to talk about how the word of God is living. We're going to talk about how the word of God is active, and we're going to talk about how the word is piercing and dividing. Three points.

The Word of God is Living

So we're going to talk about how the word of God is living. The Bible says it's living. I'm a big fan of Monty Python. You guys know Monty Python? Young people, do you know Monty? Okay, good. I see some nods from some young people. That always makes me feel good.

So Monty Python's Holy Grail—there's this scene where the plague has happened and there's a guy with a wheelbarrow, and he's wheeling it through the streets saying, "Bring out your dead, right?" They're bringing out dead bodies and throwing them in the wheelbarrow. Eventually they bring out this guy who's not dead. And the guy goes, "I'm not dead yet, right?" And the guy with the wheelbarrow says, "Yes, you are. Be quiet." They kind of have this back and forth where the guy who's alive is arguing that he's alive and the other guy is like, "No, no, you're dead."

I feel like oftentimes that's the conversation we have with the Bible. We're the guy with the wheelbarrow and the Bible repeatedly is saying, "I'm alive." And we're going to go, "No, you're not. You're dead."

There's a commentary that I actually really love—I love the content of the commentary. It's great. But the subtitle is "Bringing the Bible to Life." As though that's something we need to do, right? Every time I'm preaching a sermon, I feel like it's my job to bring the Bible to life to you. That's how we feel and that's how we approach this. We feel like we've got to bring this to life, we've got to do all this stuff to make it alive. And the Bible says, "I'm not dead."

The Bible doesn't just say that in Hebrews, by the way. That is an overwhelming message of Scripture about itself. It says it all over the place. For example, 1 Peter 1:23 says:

The word is living and abiding — 1 Peter 1:23

There are many other places where it talks about this. Isaiah 40:8 says the Bible is not only alive but that it's eternal, right?

All flesh is like the grass and the flowers, and the flowers wither and fade and die. But the word of the Lord—what does it do? It lasts forever, right? — Isaiah 40:8

It's not just alive, it's eternal.

And the Bible, when it talks about the word, is talking about both the gospel and Scripture, but it's also talking about a person, right? It's also talking about a person. John 1 talks about the word becoming flesh, right? So when we talk about the word being living and active, the biggest and most profound thing that the Bible has to say is that it actually became a living, breathing person and came in the form of Jesus Christ.

Now, it's not surprising that the world thinks this is dead. Because does it think Christ is alive? No. But what the Bible says over and over about itself is that it's alive. It's living. It's breathing and it's not going to die.

But what does it say about us? That's really interesting. It's less optimistic about us. I mean, to be clear, in the beginning, God breathes life into us. But pretty much from then on, it's all death. We are dead in our trespasses and sins. There are story after story of corruption and decay and our dying.

The Bible is pretty clear. The outlook for us is not good. Apart from what it brings to us. And so here's the irony, right? The word talks about it bringing us to life. John 7 talks about the word being producing living waters like water that actually brings us to life. First Peter talks about it being an imperishable seed that's planted in us and brings us eternal life.

So here's the irony. We think we have to give life to this. But the truth is, this is what gives us life, right? If we get it backwards, totally. And God has given us this living and imperishable word not as something that we need to care for and cultivate and breathe life into but as something that's going to do that to us. But isn't it interesting how we flip that? And in flipping that, make this about us instead of making this about what he's doing in us.

There's three reasons that I want to tease out why the fact that the word is alive is just a really amazing grace for us.

First: The Word is Alive and Powerful

First of all, when we think about this as our works, there's a sense in which there are things that we create that bring life to each other. Have you ever witnessed that, been in any situation where that's happened? Maybe you're on a sports team and your coach kneels down in the center and says, "Alright, we're going to give it to him on the left," or whatever—like the pep talk. Or maybe you watched a Kid President video on YouTube once. You know, it's just like a pep talk, right? And then afterwards you're kind of like, alright, let's go. You feel enlivened.

So we experience some of that. It's almost like those talks are magical to some degree, right? To the degree that that's just a shadow of what God's word is, right? God's word is literally magical. He spoke light into existence with his word. When he talks, stuff happens everywhere, comes to life. Out of his word, blossoms all sorts of things.

Second Corinthians 4 compares directly God speaking light into existence and the stuff he's doing in your heart:

God who spoke light from darkness is bringing light into you who are dark — 2 Corinthians 4

And so rather than seeing this as just another TED talk, some sort of plain and mundane instruction, if we see sermons like just another lecture that we're listening to, then we miss the reality that this is magic. This is powerful stuff. This is the word of God that's doing active things. It's alive. And we need to approach it that way because that is an incredible grace to be given that. It's so alive we can't encounter it without experiencing some of that.

The word goes forth and it doesn't return empty. It accomplishes what it's supposed to do.

It's alive and that's a grace.

Second: The Word Cannot Die

Secondly, it's a grace that it can't die. When I was talking about all those challenges, I worry about the Bible becoming obsolete, about it being lost in the shuffle. I worry about people engaging with it as a means of guilt. Sometimes I do that and sometimes I don't know how to get out of that. But its promise about itself is that it's never going to die. It's never going to become obsolete. It can't be squashed by Satan. That's an incredible grace. An incredible promise. It's not up to me to keep this thing alive. It's eternal. What a grace to be given it.

Third: We'll Never Outgrow It

Thirdly, we're never going to outgrow it. It's alive and growing and flourishing. It's so alive. It's so much more alive than us, right? That coming into contact brings life.

Oftentimes, I think we believe we've outgrown this. But that's impossible, given that it is living water. Someone once said that the word is shallow enough for a baby to wade in but deep enough for an elephant to drown in. I know lots of people who are like, "I can't approach this book because I don't understand it." But then you get into it and you start to see that even the simplest person can benefit from it and it brings flourishing in their life.

I've also been sitting in a seminary classroom with probably my smartest seminary professor who's going on and on about some aspect of the beauty of this word and just gone, "Wow, that's so deep."

But then, one of my classmates raises his hand and says, "Doctor Frame, what about this passage?" And I watched him go, "I've never thought about it in this context before." Over his face, this awe about the beauty of scripture goes.

Some of you feel like you've outgrown this. Some of you are afraid you're going to outgrow it. Let me just tell you, it ain't going to happen. It's so alive and so flourishing. It's so deep and so beautiful and so rich. You're never going to get sick of it.

Now, of course, I know that sometimes you engage with it and you feel like, "I'm kind of sick of this." But I think that's because we approach it with this expectation that it's dead. If we come with this expectation that God is actually living and breathing life into us through this, there should be an incredible excitement about what's going on.

Living and Active

Alright, so it's alive. Let's move on. Let's talk about how it's active.

Living and active — Hebrews 4:12

We have a pet at the Sutton House. Never thought we would get a pet because we have five children. It feels like they're pets—lots of responsibility with five children. Don't really feel like we want anymore. But we were at the beach and one of our kids talked me into getting a pet. They were in one of those stores, you know, the wings where you go in—and you know what they sell? Hermit crabs. So we have a hermit crab. I was convinced this thing would not last a month. We've had it for almost two years. But I kind of like the hermit crab. His name is Clay. Clay the hermit crab.

I like him because we put some food in there once a week, make sure he has water. Sometimes we don't see him for months at a time. There was one period where he totally disappeared and I was convinced he was dead somewhere in there. I was just thinking, "I don't know how I'm going to break this to the kids." Anyway, we had a babysitter, Paris Hunt, come over and she was worried that he was dead. She dug him out and found him alive. He had just buried himself in the sand and hadn't come up for three months. Hermit crabs do that. Great pets. I highly recommend them. You can go out of town and don't worry about it.

Here's the deal though. A lot of us think about scripture like it's a hermit crab, right? Like we're pretty sure it's alive. We haven't seen it in a while. Not sure it's doing anything. Well, that's not the way the Bible talks about itself at all.

There's this passage: "living and active." I've already talked about how God in creation speaks a word and everything comes into existence. That's pretty exciting and pretty active. The word talks about itself bringing about repentance and faith, speaking new life into us, feeding our souls, washing Christ's Church. And beyond scripture—even historically—if you look at the impact that the word of God has had on our world, if you spend any amount of time studying that at all, it's pretty impressive. I mean, overwhelming.

Think about its impact on beauty and the arts. Think about its impact on law and morality historically. You could go through any number of categories and just start thinking about that and you go, "Wow. This thing's had an impact. The word of God has had an impact on our world, on our culture, on our history."

And you know what's interesting? We think of our relationship with this as incredibly active, but the way this describes our relationship with it is incredibly passive. Listen to this. This is how the scriptures talk about us in relationship to the word: We receive it. We're transformed by it. We're born again. We're fed. We're washed. We're encouraged. We're built up. We're convicted. We're rebuked. These are some of the words. Almost all passive.

Do you see that? This thing is more active in our relationship with it than we are. Now, that's not to say that we don't have some activity with this. We are, in fact, instructed and it does talk about us meditating on it. It talks about us reading it. It talks about us preaching it and living it. But almost all of those active things are in response to its initiation.

There's this sense that we feel like we've got to initiate with this, but it's God's word that's living and active.

It goes forth and doesn't return void — Isaiah 55:11

It's coming for you. It's not buried in the sand waiting for you to dig it out. It's coming to dig you out of the sand. That is how the Bible talks about itself. That is how the Bible talks about the word. It's active. And that's a grace. That is a huge grace—that it's coming for you, that it's not waiting on you, that it sends people like me to come and speak it to you.

Have you ever experienced the word of God coming for you? Maybe it came through a friend.

Maybe it was you're watching a movie and all of a sudden, you realize this is a biblical theme and it reminds you of this, right? It's so embedded in our culture. There are so many ways in which the Bible can come for you. But we kind of ignore that and act like it's up to us to come and find it. God wants you to see—this is an incredible grace that I have sent out my word to come and get you. It's coming.

Think about Augustine's testimony, Saint Augustine. Have you ever heard that? His Confessions? He's in a park and he hears a voice to take up and read, and there's the Bible and he starts reading it and it changes his life. He becomes a Christian. There are all kinds of stories like that—of the word coming for people.

So there are no secret Bible codes. The Bible's not waiting on you to figure it out, waiting on you to really engage with it. It's all through our worship service. If you come here from beginning to end, I hope you get a sense of God's word coming for you. Again, rhythmically, like beating a drum. It's coming. It's active. It's in every part of our worship service.

Don't Neglect Engaging Scripture

Now, I do want to say as an aside, that doesn't mean you should dismiss those one-year Bible reading plans or stop engaging with it or initiating with it, right? Paul says at one point in Romans:

Do you think we should sin so that grace may abound? Absolutely not.

If you think grace will abound by you avoiding this book, some of you think that. You're like, "Okay, I'm not going to let this become a means of guilt. So I'm just not going to read it and therefore experience God's grace." That might happen, but this is the ordinary means of grace. This is the regular one that God left for you. So read the Bible less so that grace may abound? Absolutely not.

When I first met Katie, my wife, we were at Tirnanogue Irish Pub—no longer there. I had heard all this stuff like people had been telling me: don't ask a girl for her number because that's too forward and aggressive. If you want to be a modern man, give her your number and wait for her to call you. I'm not sure that was good advice, but that was what I was thinking when I met Kate. So I gave her my phone number. A month and a half later, she finally called me. I didn't answer—it went to voicemail—but guess what that meant? She was interested.

And I listened to that voicemail probably a hundred times in the first week that I had it. I kept it for six months, long after we started dating. Every now and then, I'd go back and listen to that voicemail message—that first time when Katie expressed interest. I experienced her love by going back to it. You would have said I was ridiculous if I was like, "Well, I'm just not going to listen to that voicemail message because I want to experience her interest." That's not how it works, right?

Some of you act like this: "I'm going to taste how good this is by not eating it." Like having a piece of cake and saying it's going to be better if I just don't engage with it. So read it. But don't act like it's depending on you for the magic to happen. It's alive. It's active. It's coming for you.

Two Graces of Scripture

Secondly, there's a second grace from this: it's transforming you, right? We talked about Augustine—that was instantaneous. He converted reading the Bible. Boom. Instant transformation. You could see it in his testimony very clearly. It's not always the case that the Bible's transformation is that instantaneous and clear.

Being in this church for twenty years, I have seen the Bible do some amazing things in people's lives over a decade. Often times, they can't see it because it's in them and it's slow and progressive. But it's there. So it's a grace that this is active. It's changing you. Transforming you. If you don't feel like it is, I'd encourage you—sometime this week, find somebody that has known you for a little while and say, "How do you see the Bible transforming me?" I bet they'll point out some things that you don't see. Try it.

Thirdly, it's a grace that this transforms you in ways that make you active. It's actually pushing you to change in ways and act in ways that actually matter. Remember me saying, don't come to this thinking that it depends on you. It doesn't. But I'll tell you this: once you encounter this, rather than you working to try and earn God's salvation, his favor—what it will change in you is you will not be able to resist working in ways that spread his favor. He will transform you and make you active in ways that matter.

You know, there's this very famous Spurgeon quote. Some of you know exactly what I'm talking about.

As soon as I said Spurgeon and the word, you're talking about the Bible and how it doesn't need to be defended and doesn't depend on our activity. Here's the quote. He says:

The Word of God can take care of itself and it'll do so if we preach it and cease defending it. See that lion? They have caged him for his preservation, shut him up behind iron bars to secure him from his foes. See how a band of armed men have gathered together to protect the lion? What a clatter they make with their swords and spears. These mighty men are intent upon defending a lion. Oh fools and slow of heart. Open that door. Let the Lord of the forest come forth free. Who will dare to encounter him? What does he want with your guardian care? Let the pure gospel go forth in all of its lion-like majesty and it will soon clear its own way and ease itself of its adversaries.

The Bible isn't a hermit crab. If anything, we're the hermit crab. The Bible is a lion that's coming for you. It's active and it doesn't need us to accomplish its work, but it will use us to accomplish its work. And what a grace, right?

It's Piercing and Dividing

Alright, so it's living, it's active. Now we're going to talk about it being piercing and dividing. This is the most fun. This is the part that, obviously, on first reading, you're like, "Oh, obviously, this is the grace part." Let me read it again.

It's sharper than a two-edged sword, even penetrating as far as division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there's no creature hidden from his sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of him to whom we must answer. — Hebrews 4:12-13

Right? Just so grace. Like, when you think of grace, you think of that passage, I'm sure. But it is. Let me explain.

Essentially, what this is talking about—dividing soul and spirit—it's like carving out the parts of us that are broken and flawed from the parts that are holy and sanctified. So dividing soul and spirit, separating joints and marrow—bone and marrow are kind of an indication of life and death. You can have bone without life, without marrow, right? So it's carving out the life from the death. That's the picture here.

And judging the intentions of the heart is an image of total exposure, right? It's like cutting through all of our junk to see us. It's an undressing, a dissection, an examination. And I get that that doesn't feel like grace. But it absolutely is.

Here's the image: I wrote this sermon like two or three weeks ago during the Daniel Fast, so this first illustration was totally inspired by that moment. I need you to understand I was not allowed to eat meat. But the first thing that came to my mind when I pictured this—it's like when you're cooking a steak and you gotta cut into it to see if it's done, right? And you do, and you find that it's done, and you just get that steak ready. That's an image of this.

You could also think about digging clay out of the sand to find the life in it. That's maybe getting a little bit more to the grace aspect of this. But maybe the best illustration would be a sculptor chiseling out an image out of a rock. That's what this is describing. God is carving away all of the junk in order to reveal the Christ in us. And what a grace. That's a grace in so many ways.

But first I want you to see the irony. What do we think we do with this book? We think we examine it, dissect it, and evaluate it. That's often how we approach it. When in truth, this is the device in which we are examined and dissected. Think about a steak trying to cut into a knife to see if it's done. That's often how we approach this.

Harvard—I love this—on its crest, kind of harkening back to its olden days and its roots as kind of a rich theology school, they have a book that's facing up, representing all of the studies—liberal arts, sciences, right? Like we sit over the book and we examine it and learn. But the Bible is pictured in a book facing down. I love that. Because it's the book that dissects us. It's the book that's essentially the authority over us. We don't look down on it. We look up to it. And its judgments of us are part of how we learn about ourselves. Do you see that image?

And this is a grace, right? This is a grace. It's first of all a grace. I hope you see—you don't have to clean yourself up to come to this. It's ready for all of your junk.

It's ready to cut through all of that. So often people think they have to have this stretch of holiness before they study the Bible. They don't want to defile it or come unprepared. No. God's word wants you to come. It wants to carve that out. It's ready for your junk.

Secondly, it removes the junk. It exposes it for what it is and extracts it. It's kind of like talking about cancer surgery. I don't think anybody that I know who has experienced cancer surgery is like, "That was great." But it is a grace if they're able to get all of that cancer out and preserve your life. That is a grace. So while this description of God's word may not be fun, it is a grace in that sense.

Then thirdly, I talk about that chiseling aspect of the word revealing Christ in you. I love how Tom prayed. We were praying for a diverse unity. The Bible talks about us being one with Christ, our union with Christ. Have you ever thought about what that looks like? Being one with Christ? There are other things that are one with Christ—the Father and the Spirit. And do you see that they're both unified and distinct?

So I think the Bible teaches that we have an individual distinction. You are a person. And as we are one with Christ, what happens in our union with Christ—what's displayed as the chiseling process completes—is the uniqueness of who you are as you were intended to be, perfected in Jesus. You're not lost. But you get him, and you have his identity. It's as mysterious as the Trinity. And it's amazing.

So as you read this book and those parts of you get revealed, what a grace. What a grace to see yourself emerge as you were intended to be.

I can't help but think about Jesus and Lazarus. He shows up at the tomb and what does he do?

Lazarus, come forth.

Lazarus comes out of the tomb. That's essentially what the word of God is doing to you. It's calling you out of the tomb that is our current existence. Calling out the life in you from the death. And calling you out and giving you a picture—a small picture as we're walking through this world headed toward glorification. Our sanctification is kind of the trajectory of that. We're starting to get glimpses of the glorified form of who we will be in heaven. What a grace.

It's piercing and dividing. It's active. It's alive.

The Means of Grace in Conclusion

I want to kind of conclude by talking about the means of grace in general. This is the last sermon in this series. God gave us the means of grace to give us everything we need for our witness in the world, to achieve our mission of living, speaking, and serving as the very presence of Christ. We have public worship and fellowship which serve as the pipes, and then we have the word, sacraments, and prayer which are kind of the water—essentially the grace that is given to us, that nourishes us. The regular administration of the means of grace in the context of the church have changed the world again and again.

Our prayer is that Christ would so deeply apply his grace to our church that we would grow and be used in more ways than we can ask or imagine.

I want to conclude by telling you this story. Many of you know that Josephine Walker was a member of our church for more than a decade. A dear saint. She passed away before Christmas, and we had a funeral service. It was such a beautiful service, so laced with Scripture. All these different people came up and shared about their experience with her and her love of God and her love of God's word. I really felt like five sermons were preached before I got up to preach. I actually shortened my sermon because so many things had already been said. It was such a rich service, and I was so encouraged walking away.

About a week later, we got this letter. And I just want to read it to you:

"Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, thank you for all your wonderful care with my neighbor, Miss Josephine. I'm writing to you asking you to consider doing something in memory of her. Would you please seek the Lord about starting a Bible study for us at Glenwood Towers? The kingdom of God does not have a retirement age since our lives are eternal with Jesus as our Lord and Savior. Here at Glenwood Towers, we've been isolated from church and from the teaching of his word. Would you consider starting this study in Miss Josephine's honor?"

What a privilege to get this letter. What a grace.

I called this woman immediately. Her passion for God's word was so convicting. I just told her, "Look, I don't know what we're going to do to make this happen. I don't know what the rules are at Glenwood Towers, but we're going to make this happen—and it's happening."

But you know, I hung up the phone and I started thinking: 70, 80 years old. This woman has engaged with the word of God her whole life, it seems to me. She certainly knows more about it than I do. She probably quoted no less than 40 different passages of scripture to me as she was pleading with us to start this study. I mean, I was just like, "I think you need to start a study for us."

And I'm thinking about this. I'm imagining: alright, I'm 70, 80 years old. I'm in a retirement home. I know a lot about God's word. That's how I feel now, alright? I don't think she needs anything from us. But I think she's so optimistic about what this will do in her life and our lives. She just doesn't want to miss out on doing it together.

What an incredible privilege for her to ask us into that. That is a picture of what God has given us—these means of grace ordinarily available to us. What a privilege. What a joy that we get to interact with it on the regular.

Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we pray that you would give us a heart for the means of grace and particularly for your word. Lord, forgive us for thinking that your word is dependent upon us, that we have to make it interesting or breathe life into it, or that we need to initiate with it as though somehow our salvation is kind of up to us. Lord, instead, help us to see what it looks like to respond responsibly to your incredible message of grace that's contained in it. Lord, overwhelm us with the truth of your love and your grace. And Lord, use it in us together for the glorification of your name in this world. We pray these things in Christ's name. Amen.