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Past Ponderings

Sunday, January 22, 2017

PONDERING... You Are What You Eat (Matt 4:4, Ps 119:103, Jer 15:16)

(Preached at Providence Baptist Church on January 22, 2017 after Gideon Tim Gatson spoke.)

You Are What You Eat
(Feel free to replace this with a better title in your mind :D) 
GIST: Read your Bible.
SCRIPTURE: Matthew 4:4, Psalm 119:103, and Jeremiah 15:16
4 But he answered, “It is written,“‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”
-Matthew 4:4 
103 How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!
-Psalm 119:103  
Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O Lord, God of hosts.
-Jeremiah 15:16
    
      I have two brothers. We all love to eat, so meal time at our house rarely required much persuasion. Unless the food was exceptionally... "special", which of course is a completely different illustration. However, not all the children in my life now share our enthusiasm for eating. In fact, how some of them survive on tiny assortments of bread, cheese, and carrots is a testimony to God's grace in itself. When I was praying and thinking about what to say in our short time together this morning, I was reminded of things I have heard parents say to try and get their children to eat. At our house, I think talking up the excellent qualities of the meal (which basically never works) and then resorting to various minor threats and demonstrating our ability to count (which also never really work) are probably the most common failed attempts--and after doing some 'googling' in preparation for this, I have discovered that I am apparently destroying my children because of this and should be more democratic and less oppressive in my approach... :). Nonetheless, growing up I remember guilt being the primary tactic used to get my friends to eat, and two phrases in particular stick out as the most frequently used ammunition: 

1) You could starve in a sea of food.
2) There are children in (fill in the third world country) who would love to eat this.
    
      Now, I don't want to keep you long today, and I won't need to. It will not take any time to develop this point because I think most of you see where I'm going with this already. Hopefully, you're starting to feel the same conviction I have this week. Praise the Lord for the work of the Gideons. They are putting the Word of God into the hands of people. We need this. The Scriptures we read just a moment ago remind us of this need. We are meant to live by every word that comes from the mouth of God, to feed on the Scripture, to long for it like sweet honey. Do we? Do you?
     Think about it like this. I know many of us share a wake-up weakness--coffee. Several of you have actually shared with me how much you look forward to that warm cup every morning. Some, I know, even rely on this brew as motivation for getting out of bed. And if by some chance you're unable to take in your normal dose? The rest of your day is off...maybe even destroyed :). We feel this for hot water running over ground up beans. What do you feel about God's Word?
     The Gideons are trying to get the Word into the hands of people who do not have it. Most of us here today have several copies. There are four within reach of my nightstand right now. What's our excuse? You are surrounded by the Words which promise to give us life, but are you starving in a sea of food? Because I assure you, there are people all over the world who would love to eat this.
     If we have the Word, but don't read it, it is like not having it at all---a tragic waste. Within our reach is the Word of Life, but we struggle in vain to face every day on our own. I know I sound like a broken record up here, likely due to my own failings and need to be reminded of the same core truths. Nonetheless, the message today is simple: Read your Bible. Don't waste the gift.



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