Today, we’re going to be talking about the God’s Word, the Bible in our message series called The Book of Life. The American Bible Society has recently released in-depth findings from their annual “The State of the Bible” survey for 2012. Bibles are everywhere in America, 85% of households own a Bible and the average number of Bibles is 4.3 per household. 79% of Americans believe they are knowledgeable about the Bible, but the majority, 54%, could not identify the first 5 books of the Bible. Approximately half, 46% of Americans, believe that the Bible, the Koran and the book of Mormon are different expressions of the same spiritual truths. Nothing could be farther from the truth. 50% of high school seniors think that Sodom and Gomorrah were married. It’s no wonder our nation is in the state it’s in. The Bible is God’s essential tool to live a live wisely and successfully. Without it, people are doomed to failure in their lives.
Today, my message is entitled “Seeing Jesus in the Word.” The importance of God’s Word is how it relates to Jesus. You cannot divorce God’s Word from the God who wrote it. The only way you can truly understand the Bible and apply it to your life is through the Holy Spirit, who lives inside every believer and guides the seeker to the truth. For you see, there are people who actually know what the Bible says from cover to cover, but the truth has not penetrated their hearts. Jesus speaks of such people in …
John 5:39-40 (NIV) You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
The Scriptures point us to Jesus, who gives eternal life. So, today, I want to motivate and encourage you see Jesus in the Word. God has given us His Word to draw us closer to Jesus. If you love Jesus, you will love God’s Word. If you love God’s Word more, you will love Jesus more and more.
1 John 1:1 (NIV) That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched–this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.
Here John calls Jesus, the Word of life. The Bible is not just a dry, dusty book, it is the Book of Life that draws us closer to the Word of Life, Jesus Christ. When we read the Bible, God wants us to see and learn more about Jesus from every page.
Luke 24:27, 44 (NIV) And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. He said to them, “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.”
It’s not just the Gospels that speak about Jesus. Jesus lives on every page, if you can see Him there. My prayer is that after today, you will see your Bible in a new light. You will see Jesus in the Word every time you open it. Today, we’re going to look at a passage from the Gospel of John, to learn more about the relationship between Jesus and the Word.