Sermon Tone Analysis

Call to worship (voice recorder)

Faithful Father, we begin today by giving you thanks.

Your love endures forever, it never fails.

Though there are many ways in which we have failed, we have not exceeded the supply of your mercy and grace.

We thank you for revealing yourself to us through your Word.

As we open the Bible today we pray that we would hear your voice.

We ask that your Holy Spirit would be at work, opening our ears to hear and our hearts to receive your Word.

May we be transformed into your likeness.

Through Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.

HYMN: To God be the glory 3.5min

SONG: You were the Word (Beautiful name) 5.75min

Prayer 7min

Today is going to be slightly different.

I am going to read a bible verse, then ask a couple of questions to think about, and then pray.

It is all related to Bible Sunday.

1. Read: So also will be the word that I speak — it will not fail to do what I plan for it; it will do everything I send it to do.

(Isaiah 55.11, GNB) Think: How is Bible reading part of my life each day?

Am I listening to what God is saying through his word?

Pray: Lord God, the Bible is a gift that brings truth, hope and freedom to our lives.

Help me to hunger and thirst for your words.

2. Read: All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful for teaching the truth, rebuking error, correcting faults, and giving instruction for right living.

(2 Timothy 3.16, GNB) Think: Are you engaging with the Bible in the best way you can? Do you take time to consider how you might need to respond to what you’ve read?

Pray: Thank you God for inspiring all the authors of the books in the Bible.

Thank you for the Bible.

Help me to grow in wisdom and understanding.

Please let your gracious word convict, inspire and help me today.

3. Read: 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, ESV) Think: Are you eager to read God’s word and allow it to shape your perspective and actions?

Pray: Lord God, guide me when I read your word.

Speak to me through the Scriptures.

Help me to seek you, listen to you and obey you.

4. Read: As you have promised, keep me from falling; don’t let me be overcome by evil.

(Psalm 119.133,

GNB) Think: In what way can you walk more closely with God? Identify a key step you can take.

Pray: Dear Father, direct my steps in the wisdom found in the Bible.

Prevent me from stumbling and help me to live in a way that honours you.

Amen.

5. Read: For it is you who light my lamp; the LORD my God lightens my darkness.

(Psalm 18.28, ESV) Think: In what way can you walk more closely with God? Identify a key step you can take.

Pray: Thank you that I have been reached by your word.

Please create opportunities for the Bible to be shared with more people, here in England and Wales as well as around the world.

Please inspire mission workers, church leaders and individuals to communicate your promises to others.

Amen.

Song: Thy Word is a lamp 3min

Bible Society Video 3.75 min

Notices 4min, Offering and Kid’s out

Bible Society Powerpoint 4min

RECORD!

The Bible Society have also produced a sermon on this passage - the link will be on the Oldfield website by tomorrow along with today’s sermon.

The invitation

Tozer said: The person who would know God must give time to Him.

He or she must count no time wasted which is spent in the cultivation of His acquaintance.

He or she must give himself to meditation and prayer hours on end.

So did the saints of old, the glorious company of the apostles and prophets and the believing members of the Church in all generations.

(Tozer edited)

This passage of Scripture we read is trying to get us see that even if we have nothing or if we have everything why do we think that we will be satisfied with anything less than God Himself?

Let me ask again this very important question: why do we think that we will be satisfied with anything less than God Himself?

The limit of our knowledge of God is down to us, and how much we let Him into our lives.

When DL Moody was to visit England on a revival crusade an old pastor here said why do we need this Moody fellow to come here?

Does he have a monopoly on the Holy Spirit?

To which a wiser young pastor replied.

No.

But the Holy Spirit has a monopoly on him.

To what extent do we spend time with God in prayer and His Word that He has the monopoly on us?

How much you desire is how much you’ll know.

Is this not what it is saying here in verses 1 and 2? Listen again: 2 Why do you spend money for what is not bread, And your wages for what does not satisfy?

And verse 3 says Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, And let your soul delight itself in abundance.

We can never be content with anything other than God Himself.

But do we rely upon the faith of other people’s experience of God to get us through?

Or is it that we have experienced God for ourselves as One who hears and answers our prayers, with Whom we have had the experience of not just knowing the Scriptures saying He is here but knowing He is.

This is the God who sent His Son so we could be reconciled to Him, for what?

A dry faith based upon the Bible?

Or a living faith every day with God in our everyday activities.

You all know that I hold the Bible in the highest esteem, and today IS Bible Sunday!, and I have preached many, many sermons on this for it is where we get all our true understanding of God, His person and His ways; where we get guidance and hope.

But we can miss the point if we do not have a relationship with God that is living and vital.

What did Jesus say?

John 5:39 You search the Scriptures, for in them you think you have eternal life; and these are they which testify of Me.

The invitation that is asked at the beginning: Come to Me is the same invitation that Jesus gives: Come to me for living water and you will not be thirsty.

Come to me for living bread and you will not be hungry.

Come to me you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest.

They missed out because the Living Word was right in front of them and did not see that the Bible was talking about Him.

All Scripture points to Jesus, a real living Person.

Our faith is the true faith, our faith is the living faith, our faith is the only way…do we know this or are we going to miss out?

All that we know about God is found in the Bible.

No experience can contradict the Bible.

If it does then we are interpreting the experience wrongly.

But to experience God is the lifeblood of our Christian life.

We are not called to a staid religion where all we know about God stays in our minds.

Knowledge is good but knowledge that touches the heart is needed.

And we can find out about those who experienced it but we cannot relegate these experiences to the past or to others for God is not just the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and Spurgeon and Luther and Calvin, Corrie Ten Boom, Fanny Cosby, and Hudson Taylor and other names we know, Is He not our God too who is alive just as much now as He was then?

God is a God who acts.

God through Scripture not only says I did in the past and I will do in the future but also I do and I am doing.

God is not absent in the here and now.

God is not just God of the past and God of the future but God of right now who acts and is acting right now.

God is missing today, in this hour, in this very minute.

Do we really believe, as Hebrews tells us, that Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever.

Today.

Today’s stories are tomorrow’s testimonies and the biographies of 50 years’ time.

How can we tell others about Jesus and what He has done if He is not real and alive to us, to you and me?

What is our testimony?