Scripture’s Power
When I preached on 2 Timothy last year, I remember getting to chapter 3 and beginning to work on a sermon called A Scripture-Soaked Life. And the week that this sermon needed to be done was the same week Shereen and I moved homes, so things were quite chaotic.
One of the things we moved was a piano - my gran’s old piano - from my folks’ house to our new home. And during that week I was wrestling with this sermon – I felt like I had no words to say, and on the Tuesday evening I opened the piano bench up to find some old sheet music to play to clear my head.
Live by Scripture
And there in the piano bench I found an old sermon manuscript from probably the first or second sermon I ever preached. It was a talk for the youth of Trinity Methodist Church which I gave in 2008. It was called The Word is Alive. I was tasked with telling the youth about the Bible.
So I sat there reading through is… and, it was a pretty bad sermon. Very shallow, not much knowledge there! But I was on the right track. Because I spoke about how when Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by Satan he said “it is written” each time he was tempted, and used the words of Scripture to fight back against the enemy.
I tried to convince the youth to do the same. And perhaps this week I can try to convince us to do this – to use the Word of God, the Bible, as a weapon in the spiritual warfare that we face each day.
I want to do a lot more than that, to be honest – I want to convince us this that this book is God’s Word, that it is powerful, that it is delightful and sweet, that it is solid and dependable, that it is ever-living and always relevant.
But for today, let us be reminded that just as Jesus countered the temptations of Satan by wielding the Scriptures, so we can do exactly that. In fact, when he was tempted to turn stones into bread, we read this in Matthew 4:4 “Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
Wield the Word
Later on Paul would write to the early Christians about putting on the full armour of God, and he says to take up “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:17 NIV11). The Bible is our sword, our – not against people, but against temptations from the evil one.
Today, temptations will come your way. You know the type of temptations that you are prone to. Don’t be surprised when the temptations come. Be prepared. And remember, you have a weapon that can slice through those temptations – you have God’s Word, which has all the truth in the world you need to remind you of the Spirit’s power and the victory over sin that is yours in Christ.
Wield the sword today, and watch the devil flee from you!
