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October 8, 2017

"Did God Really Say?"

Series: Shock & Awe: The Year of the Bible 2017 Passage: Luke 1:1–80

Sunday Sermon: October 8th, 2017

Key Verse - 1:37 “For no Word from God shall be void of power.” American Standard Version

1. We have certainty about the truthfulness of the Bible; God’s words are verifiable; and therefore, existentially satisfying, vv. 1-4.
2. God’s words work to comfort, console; they also gladden by repentance, hope, and fulfillment, vv. 5-17.
3. God’s words are His sure work, vv. 13, 19, 20, 22, 24, 25, 37, 38, 45.
4. God’s sure Word is centered on Jesus, Luke 1:31-33; Luke 24:25-27, 44-49.
5. God’s words call us to prepare for Him by repenting, vv. 16-17.

… perhaps the most important means of grace, certainly the means of grace almost entirely unmentioned in current publication on spirituality, is the Word of God. On the night he was betrayed, Jesus prayed, "Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth" (John 17:17)—and there will never be much sanctification apart from the word of truth. It is the entrance of God's Word that brings light. It is constant meditation on God's law that distinguishes the wise from the unwise, the just from the unjust (Psalm 1). I do not deny that certain kinds of Bible study can be singularly arid, skeptical, merely formal, just as certain approaches to the Lord's table may do more harm than good (1 Corinthians 11:17 ff.). But the heavy stress in Scripture on understanding, absorbing, meditating upon, proclaiming, memorizing ("hiding it in one's heart"), reading, and hearing the word of God is so striking that it will be ignored at our peril. That is why the best of the evangelical heritage has always emphasized what might be called the spirituality of the Word.
D.A. Carson

other sermons in this series