Why I Believe The Bible

Oh, good morning, church. Some of you are doing all right this morning. Hey, uh uh I'm sure you've noticed by now that schools are kind of back in session. Traffic's happening a little bit different than it has been throughout the summer. I I wanted to say something here real quickly. Um we have most of you know we have uh our school came Camelback Academy on our campus and we have over six we have about 600 students that this is their home for the week that they every day come here and they get their education.

One of the things that happens here is in a number of our rooms especially the cafe and the gymnasium but even a few a number of the other rooms we change them over. We we have what we call a bumpin team and a bumpout team. The bumpin team meets early in the morning here and make sure everything's okay and set up and and the bumpout team meets after this service and and they actually get it back to to the rooms being able to be used by the school. What what we've noticed this year is our bumpin team is struggling a little bit.

And so I mentioned this to the first service and and I said to the first service, if any of you would like to, you could actually come here just about an hour earlier and and take part in helping set up the gymnasium specifically is what what we're what we're looking at. You could you could make you could begin to serve maybe once a week or or once a month or twice a month and and get here an hour early and help just set up.

So I just want to throw that out there. some some we had some respond this morning and we're filling it in a little bit. We could use a even a few more. If if if you're not serving anywhere and you might you might think you want to do that, you could even come here before the first service, do that and then and then leave and then you'd have the whole rest of your Sunday to to go play golf or or whatever whatever you think you'd want to do.

But I just want to throw that out there. But you just go ahead and pray about it and make a decision. Don't even bother praying about it. just make a decision a and and say, you know what, I want to do that. And and maybe once a month you could you could do that on a Sunday or twice a month, but t take advantage of the opportunity to serve. Everything happens here at Camelback because we are faithful. We all of us are faithful and not only our giving, but in serving. We're in this series that we're calling I believe.

And what I what I what I want for our church is I want to make sure that all of us fully understand what we believe and why we believe it. Because the reality is in our lives, storms come and the foundation can be shaky if it's not on something solid and and and and difficult things happen in our lives and relationships can break apart. And so often at times like this, we we can find ourselves at a place where where even our we our faith foundation begins to be shaken.

But but if our foundation is solid enough, which is our goal, and and and we are we are all in on what God wants to do in our lives and and you know, we we have decisions we make in life. There's a there's a big decision that you and I make. Do I do I really believe there is a God or or don't I believe there is a God? And and and there are many questions like that.

And and sometimes you may even feel like you're on the fence. But as we walk through this series, I want clarity in our hearts and in our mind as to who God is, what he's doing, the big picture in life, even the smaller pictures in life. and and as we follow Christ and as we move forward. I talked last week about the Apostles Creed. If you missed that, get get on online and watch it. And today, what I want to talk about is the Bible. I I want us to look at the Bible. Can I trust the Bible? Is the Bible what it really is the Bible really what it says that it is?

Is it what God says that it is? And and I I think this morning as we look at that together that you and I can walk away from here ah having settled that issue in our hearts I wanted to look at what a number of things about the Bible but the first thing I wanted to start with was it what does the Bible say about the Bible and there's so many verses about that but I I went to this one verse in second Timothy second Timothy Timothy was written by the apostle Paul. Paul wrote two letters to Tim to Timothy. Timothy was serving as the leader of the church in Ephes.

He was he was kind of the pastor of the churches that were in Ephes and he and he was leading them. And Timothy was very young. Paul had he was Paul's protege. Paul had really raised him and led him and and and there's there's even more to say about Timothy. But but but Paul writes this second letter to Timothy and the book of Acts makes it clear to you and I that really right after this is the last letter that Paul writes. Paul wrote 13 letters in the New Testament. 13 of the books are written by Paul and and this is the very last one that he writes.

And soon after this Paul and as a matter of fact he writes it from jail. He he knows that his life is coming to an end. He he knows that he that he's going to pay the price and and Nero's in charge and and he's going to be put to death. Interestingly enough, Paul happens to be a Roman citizen. Because he's a Roman citizen, most of the disciples were killed in brutal ways. Peter was executed on a cross upside down. and and and if you if I go through them all, they were just all they all died in in in horrible ways for their faith. Paul, because he was a Roman citizen, had the privilege of a quick execution.

Paul was beheaded and that was that was a that was a as a citizen you were allowed to be quickly if if you were to be executed you were allowed to have it done quickly and soon after he writes this letter Paul the apostle is executed but he's writing this letter to Timothy and he says Timothy all scripture is God breathed And it's useful for teaching. It's useful for rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness. What is righteousness? It's useful for training in right standing with God. God's word will take you to a place where you clearly have right standing with God.

Some of us have spent much of our lives not in that place. correcting and training in righteousness so that the servant of God, that's you and I, may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. God has good works for us to do serving early in the morning at children's ministry. In talking about the Bible, see, I I believe that the Bible is perfect just as it is. You don't need anything. You don't need another book to go alongside with the Bible to help you understand the Bible. We don't need to add anything to it. We don't need to take anything away from it.

As a matter of fact, the scripture talks about that and it says woe to anyone who who does that. It says it in Revelations. We I I just we believe that it is perfect. It's all you need as a parent. It's all you and I need as a spouse in terms of our relationships and our friendships. God's word really is all we need in following Jesus. That's really all we need. If you're all in on social media, you you probably need that more than anyone. God's word is there for you and I. There are over 7 billion smartphones in the world today. 7 billion smartphones with 1 billion apps.

In the average person today consumes more than 34 gigabytes of information. The average person consumes more than 34 gigabytes of information. In 1970, the average person consumed more than 34 gigabytes a year. A year. We live in the most knowledgerrich era in history. And yet the rates of anxiety, depression, burnout, and suicide are skyrocketing. The information is God's word will will lead us. God's word does so many things for us and in us and through us in our lives.

And I want to just look at a few of those quickly this morning. One of the things the Bible does is it checks our motives. You see, the more you and I read the Bible, the more the Bible reads us. The more we read God's word, it it just it it gets into our thinking and into our heart. And and then when then when we're on a path or we're we're thinking about doing something, there's this little voice that said, "Do you do you really want to do that? Do do you really want to spend that money on that?

Do you do you really think that you ought to God's word checks our motives?" The other thing it does is is it it gives us direction in our lives. Psalm 119 says, "Your word is a lamp to my feet and it's a light to my path." As I'm walking through life and I'm following Christ, his word makes clear where I'm going. And as as I'm walking through life, his word helps me see clearly each step that I'm taking through life. and not not only the the lamp to my feet, but a light to my path. The the path that I'm on, the direction that I'm going.

I'm walking through and I'm following Jesus and I'm on this path that clearly has a great destination, but but but then I see something that gets me looking over here and and and I'm off that path. And God's word lets you and I know so clearly, hey, hey, you you're drifting. you're off the path. It's it's it makes it so clear to us that passage we just read. It's good for teaching and rebuking and correcting and training in righteousness. So, so that we can do every good work that he has for us.

Romans 12:2 says, "Don't conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." And he does the renewing of our mind through his word. It's it's the programming that he changes in our thinking. He he takes out the thinking that really is hurting us and taking us in the wrong direction direction and he places his word in our thinking and he leads us through his word. God's word also tells us all about Jesus. All about Jesus.

And whether you have been following Christ for two weeks or 20 years, one thing has not changed. He's still the potter and you and I are still the clay. He's still at work in our lives as we're walking through and his word is giving us correction. He's changing us. He He's taking things out of our thinking and placing other things in. He He's taking us from a path that's just a little bit off and getting us back to where he wants us to be.

And the more I look at God's word, there is just clearly I I just want to look with you at a few facts. I mean, we This is 66 books. 66 books comprise our Bible. 39 in the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament. 40 authors, 40 human beings wrote these 66 books and they were written in three different languages. Parts of it were written in Aramaic and parts of it in Hebrew and parts of it in Greek.

And not only that, but it was written on three different continents. It was written in Africa. It was written in Asia. And it was written in Europe. And this is how God put this together for us. And over 1,500 years was the span that these 66 books were written. I find it absolutely amazing. It's fascinating to me because it was written by kings, doctors, fishermen, prophets, priests, shepherds, military leaders, a tax collector, a scholar, and a farmer. If you were God or if I were God, would we would that be the group of people we'd have gone to? That's the group of people he went to. 66 books and yet it tells one story.

One story that just rolls across the pages. It It starts with creation and then the fall and then God chooses Israel. He chooses this nation as his own, as his favorite. And then it talks about a Messiah coming. And then Jesus shows up on the scene. And then the church is born and and it ends with a new creation in Revelation. And each book just moves the story forward. He starts in Genesis with paradise being lost and he ends in Revelation with a brand new paradise. this book that we call our Bible.

And the Old Testament and the New Testament, they they fit together just like a glove. They they fit together so well. There's 400 years in the middle that that that God says nothing and and nothing pretty much happens, but but yet they just melt together. there. The Old Testament talks about the Messiah that's going to come and the New Testament just records his arrival from four different gospels. That's our Bible. Let me talk just for a second about archaeology.

And there's there's so much to to pick from. I I had to narrow it down. Some have wondered about Pilate and and and was pilot was was pilot really involved in this process and and and then archaeology gives us the pilot stone which which clarifies pilot's historical role in this. And then there's the the Teldan uh um inscription which which was a whole statue that actually talked about David's family, the the house of David and and the the biblical dynasty of the house of David and that was in question and in wonders and critics were saying is was that really true?

And then the the Teldan statue was found, pieces of it that made clear that the house of David was a part of this biblical dynasty. Archaeology has given us Hezekiah's tunnel in Jerusalem. It had was unearthed. Archaeology has given us the pool of Bethada and the pool of Saleom. Both of them were unearthed through archaeology confirming God's word. And then there's the Cyrus cylinder which really clarifies the entire Persian exile aligning it with scripture. And then one of my absolute favorites are the manuscripts. There's there's not just archaeology, but there are the manuscripts, the the original translation, the original writings way back to the beginning, the New Testament.

There isn't an ancient book that even comes close to the amount of manuscripts of the New Testament. 5800 surviving Greek manuscripts of the New Testament, plus thousands more in Latin and other languages. Original manuscripts transcribed by scribes. All of them perfectly aligning. And as you look at other manuscripts and other writings, there just is nothing that even comes close. The few that that that are out there, we have Plato. They they they have only 200 manuscripts from Plato.

Tacitus, there are only 20 and there are a few others. and and there are so few of of writers that we would think there would be so many of and yet the New Testament 5800 surviving Greek manuscripts and then there's the Old Testament because the Old Testament was was was a point for critics for years and years. Critics claimed that the Old Testament had changed dramatically over the centuries. They they claimed that as it was rewritten and handed down, it it looked almost nothing like the original.

And then in 1947, right off the Dead Sea, not far from the West Bank, there there were shepherds who in a cave found manuscripts that dated back a thousand years earlier than the earliest one that we had. A thousand years earlier. And we refer to them as the Dead Sea Scrolls. And the Dead Sea Scrolls changed everything because the the last documents that they had dated back so far. And the comments were they had to be so different from the original.

But the Dead Sea Scrolls proved without question that a thousand years earlier they were almost identical. It said it showed remarkable consistency, demonstrating the care with which the scriptures had been copied and preserved. The critics no longer could make the same claims. Manuscripts huge part of God's word, huge part of telling you and I this hasn't changed in thousands of years. And then we have fulfilled prophecies. There are at least 300. Some scholars say close to 400. I'm only going to do five. I'm going to take it easy on us. In Micah chapter 5, it tells us ahead of time that Jesus was going to be born in Bethlehem.

If if you were in their day and you were waiting for the Messiah, this is probably one of the last places you would expect your Messiah to come from. We sing, "Oh little town of Bethlehem," we should be singing, "Oh tiny town of Bethlehem," because that's how small it was. And in Isaiah chapter 7, it clearly talks about the virgin birth, 930 years before Jesus was born. Zechariah says so clearly that he will be betrayed for 30 pieces of silver.

Psalm 22 says his hands and his feet are going to be pierced which is what happened on the cross. Prophecy also tells us that that not one bone in his body will be broken which is the absolute exception for crucifixion. The soldiers almost all the time, whoever was being crucified, they broke their legs so that they would die faster, so that the crucifixion would end sooner. They always broke their legs. And Daniel chapter 9 gives us timing of the Messiah, not just vague predictions here. centuries written centuries beforehand and then fulfilled Jesus. See, here's what Jesus thought of God's word. He quoted it over and over again. He quoted Genesis. He quoted Exodus. He quoted Deuteronomy. He quoted the Psalms.

He quoted Isaiah. He quoted Daniel. He quoted Jonah over and over again. When Satan tempted him, the only response Jesus had to Satan was to quote God's word. What Jesus thought of God's word bears tremendous decisive weight. You might say, "Well, James, that's all good stuff, but but why does why does this matter? Why why does it matter?" I I think we need to be so careful to not just think of this as an old religious book because because our culture looks at God's word as an old religious book when it is so much more than that. It it is historically grounded.

It's it's been wonderfully preserved for thousands of years for you and for me. and it's prophetically fulfilled and it's affirmed by archaeology. But there's something else about this book. It has transformed millions of lives for thousands of years from where they were to where God wanted to take them. And this book is internally unified. I want to lean into that here for a few minutes. It is internally unified. A gentleman named Christopher Harrison is a computer scientist and he got together with a minister named Kristoff Rimheld and the two of them wanted to wanted to put together a description of the Bible.

They they they they wanted to show the Bible in in ways that it had not been shown before. And being a computer scientist, that's the direction that they went. And I I I I want to show you a graph on the screen. This is this has been around probably around nine years or so. And and so many Bible scholars are looking at this because it it just in in a wonderful way. It is it's showing the wonder through technology and the and the beauty that God has through a computer.

Let me explain it to you. All the way across the bottom here, you see all this white and all this gray. That white over there, that's actually the book of Genesis. And and these are all of the books of the Bible. And not just the books of the Bible. These are the chapters of the Bible. the the the long lines and short lines. Those are all chapters of the Bible. This is the New Testament right here. This this white one right over here.

And and that that line right in the middle. Do do you want to guess what that is? Tell me. Psalms. Which particular Psalm? The 119th Psalm. The 119th Psalm is the longest chapter in the Bible. 76 verses long. And that's why you see that dip right there in the middle. You know what that psalm is all about? That psalm is all about the trustworthiness of God and the goodness of God. And that's why it shows so clearly. That's why there's so much in there. My grandfather memorized the 119th Psalm during World War I.

And my grandmother talked about how that was the thing that took him through that entire period in his life. These are cross references from Bible verses to Bible verses, from person to Bible verses. It's a crosssection of not just people but verses and locations. And some of them are actually even footnotes in the Bible and they cross reference from one to the other. And the length of the line the when the lines are longer there are more verses that are that are a part of that process.

And they kept putting this into the computer and they come up with this this this dimension that you and I are looking at and and and you you see the reality is you can look at this and and and and it's it's onedimensional as we look at it on the screen but the reality is this starts a creation. This goes to Revelation. This really is not onedimensional. The you can you can travel in this forever. It just goes on and on and on and I spent two and a half hours, actually five hours because I watched it twice. I in getting ready for today, there was just way too much.

I had to get it down to what I want to share with and I watched Dr. Jordan Peterson because online he has this series introduction to the idea of God and he he's not a Bible scholar. He he he he doesn't even profess to be a a Christian. And he he he just is an absolutely brilliant mind and and and he he just keeps more and more looking at this whole concept of the Bible of God and and and so many so many quotes that that that I could have come out of that with and look at with you and I.

One of the things he says he he he was talking to his class this two and a half hours that I was watching and before he put this on the screen and began to explain to them what it was like I'm explaining it to you except he was way better than at it and and and he was exp before he put that on the screen he told this story of of a movie that that he he remember seeing and I I didn't I I I don't even remember the name of the movie but he but he told the story of the movie, how it started and and through the movie, the things that happened and he told the end of it and and then he put this on the screen and I thought to myself, what what what was that all about?

And and right in the middle of this discussion, he stops and he says that movie that I told you about from from the beginning of that movie to the end of that movie that there there were about five hyperlinks. In other words, if you were to take the movie and draw the lines from beginning to end of key things that mattered, there were only five. And then then he turns around and he looked at this. And he said, "There are about 65,000." The guys who designed it have an exact number. They say it's 63,779. I I think Peterson is convinced that there are even more than that.

And and he looked at this and he and he looked at his class and he said, "I believe that the Bible could be considered the first hyperlink hyperlink book." And the class laughed and Jordan Peterson said, "No, no, no. I'm serious. I'm serious." and and they got quiet and then he began to continue to talk about this. See, only God can do something like that. Only God can take his word and put a clear internal integrity to his word. 65,000 hyperlinks earlier in in that teaching. He said something else. He said, "No matter how educated you are, you are not educated enough to discuss the psychological psychological significance of the biblical story.

You think you're going to match your brain up against the Bible and over and over again. This this is not a theological teacher. This is a mind that is saying don't dismiss this. Only God church. 40 human authors, three languages, three continents, written over 1,500 years by kings, doctors, fishermanmen, prophets, priests, tax collector, a scholar, and a farmer. I find it fascinating what God chose to use. Ultimately, it takes me all the way back in church on Sunday as a kid in a class learning from my teachers.

And we all sat there together, little kids, and we sang the B I B L E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God, the B I B L E. And I just had to throw together a simple little acrostic. This is God's word be for breathed by God. The breath of God himself. All scripture is God breathed. Paul said I internally unified. 66 books one story. B is backed up by history. archaeology and history and the manuscripts.

Hebrews 4:12 says, "For the word of God is alive, and it's active, and it's sharper than any two-edged sword, and it penetrates even to the dividing the soul and the spirit and the joints and the marrow. It judges the thoughts and the attitudes of our heart." In in other words, it works on us even at the deepest level. E, it's established through evidence, manuscripts, prophecy, preservation. It's established through the millions of lives. It has been transformed. See, Christianity is not a blind faith religion. God never wanted us to put our brains on this shelf. He wants us to engage our brains fully this morning. This is God's word. I believe God's word is our final authority.

And I believe more than anything else, what we simply need to do is believe it. And the thing that we struggle with the most is just doing what it says. I struggle with that. you struggle with. We just don't want to surrender. And God says, "Oh, I want to transform you to so much more then you understand." Stand with me this morning. Let me pray with you. The B I Ble E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God. The B I B L E. Father, your children, we're here this morning.

And Lord, as we stop and look at your word, so much more to your word than we can even begin to understand. This graphic gets our attention, but it's it still is only a part.

I pray father for all of us even here this morning for whatever area that each of us and it may be different for so many of us but whatever point and whatever area and whatever thing in our life that your word has just been working on us and saying you need to change this or you need to do that. what whatever that is this continual process Lord so so that the the foundation in our lives and the structure of our lives and our relationship with you just continues to get stronger and stronger and stronger and and that the result of that would be trusting you more and living in the benefit of your peace and your love that no matter what comes at us We can trust you.

We can trust your word. Father, that's our our prayer this morning. I pray in a in a deep and a rich way to the very core of us. You touch us and make us aware of that and give us the courage to be willing to do the things you ask. In your name we pray. Amen. Amen.