Today, on this Sanctity of Life Sunday, where we celebrate that we have physical life and spiritual life because God has granted us both, where we uphold the sanctity of life from the womb to the tomb and where we declare that we are people of life, and that we will promote life, support life and speak life as the people of God ought to do, we also declare that God’s Word is life.
I want to look at some Scripture with you that affirm the life-giving power and properties of the Word. First up are the words of Solomon.
20 My son, be attentive to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. 21 Let them not escape from your sight; keep them within your heart. 22 For they are LIFE to those who find them and healing to all their flesh. Proverbs 4:20-22
Solomon begins this section of Scripture by saying, “Be attentive to the Word.” Pay attention to the Word. The Word is worthy of our attention. We give our attention to a lot of frivolous things. We watch crazy reels, one right after the other, from people doing skateboard tricks, to people feeding their toddlers, to people trying on various outfits and suggesting we ought to dress the same way, to people making recipes we have no intention of ever trying, to people popping their pimples (don’t act like you don’t know what I’m talking about). I mean, come on! If we see enough value in those things to give our attention to them, surely, we can see the value of giving our attention to the Word.
Notice the three ways we can give attention to God’s Word. We’re told to incline our ear to the Word. We need to hear God’s Word declared. You have a plethora of ways to hear the Word of God. Choose to follow ministers and Bible teachers who hold the Word in high regard. Listen to sermons and podcasts by people who teach the Word as it is and who don’t twist it to say what they want it to say.
Second, Solomon says, “Don’t let the Word escape from your sight.” Read the Word for yourself. Pick a Bible reading plan on the YouVersion Bible app, and read it with friends if you need some accountability, but get your eyes on it.
So, get your ears on the Word, get your eyes on the Word, and third, let it penetrate your heart. Look again at the end of verse 21. Keep the Word within your heart. Meditate on it. Memorize it. Be shaped by the Word. Let it sink in deep. Solomon says, you need to read the Word on multiple levels. That’s what is involved in giving your attention to the Word.
Notice verse 22 again, God’s Words are LIFE to those who find them and is healing to all their flesh. Don’t discount what it means to have life in any given situation. When the news is bad, when the unknown is looming, when the circumstance is confusing, when the relationship is strained, when you don’t see how something will work out, to know that you know that you know that you have LIFE is everything.
What Solomon means by “they are LIFE” is that when situations come at you, situations that have the capacity to take life from you, God’s Word is there to combat those attacks, and even if something steals some facet of your life, some of your emotional strength or zaps you of spiritual energy, help will come to you through the Word of God that will replace what has been lost, that will fill up whatever gets drained and will give you Divine fortitude to keep on living the life that God has in store for His children.
Notice, too, that Solomon says the Word produces healing in a person’s flesh. Healing can come through the Word.
We read that the Word of God is living and active, Hebrews 4:12. The Words in the Bible are alive! When you read the Word, understand there is healing power, there is Divine help IN THE MOMENT.
That is Proverbs 4:22. The next Scripture we read says, My soul clings to the dust. Give me LIFE according to your word! Psalm 119:25
Again, we see that there is life in the Word. The Psalmist, clinging to the dust is a picture that takes us back to the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve fell because of their sin. Their weakness and frailty were on display when God said to them, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, til you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken. For you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” (Genesis 3:19) We all struggle with the effects of humanity’s brokenness. Our hope for life to come to us is to be resuscitated by the Word of God.
Listen, you can cling to the dust, you can cling to the brokenness in this life, or you can run to the Word for life. Look at what he said just a few verses later: “I will run in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart.” (For you set my heart free) Psalm 119:32
This no longer sounds like a weak, frail, puny, dusty and desperate individual. Because the Psalmist feasted on the Word, He was able to run in the way of God’s commandments. He had gained spiritual strength. He went from sitting in the dust to kicking up the dust under his feet. The Lord had enlarged his heart. The Lord had set his heart free from the sin that kept him spiritually feeble. From feeble to free because of the life-giving Word!
Look at the verse before verse 32: “I cling to Your testimonies.” Psalm 119:31 When I read that verse, I thought of this person clinging to the Word, clinging to the testimonies of God, like a shipwrecked man would cling to a life raft or a floating plank in the sea. He was holding on “for dear life” to the Word of Life! In Psalm 119, the writer went from clinging to the dust to clinging to the Word! Listen, what you cling to will determine if rescue comes! The Word of God moved him from the dust to his destiny in Jesus.
In our third life Scripture Jesus said, “Man shall not LIVE by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.” Matthew 4:4
Satan was attacking Jesus in a series of tests. Satan tried to make the first of three temptations about physical hunger. Jesus knew it was about far more. He knew it was about Who or what He was trusting in to deliver Him from evil, to sustain Him in a time of weakness. Church, where we look for satisfaction, where we go to be sustained, where we get our spiritual and emotional nourishment, determines whether we will fall for Satan’s schemes or whether we will walk victoriously in the power of the Spirit.
We know in the wilderness testing that Jesus walked in the power of the Spirit, Luke 4:1. Listen, the Spirit of God and the Word of God are connected. The Word won’t say something contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit won’t say something contrary to the Word. They are going to back each other up. Jesus recited the Word to Satan, and I believe, as He did, the Spirit was lifting Him up because I believe the Spirit will always back the Word! The Spirit of God honors the Word, and the Word honors the Spirit.
What the wilderness temptations of Jesus remind us, is that we are all going to face temptation. We will all be weak in our flesh, and in those moments of weakness, we can give in to the call of the flesh or we can stand fast on the Word and receive life-giving power by the Spirit of God. There is life in the Word!
Jesus called Himself the Bread of Life in John 6. When we feast on the Word, we are feasting on Jesus and taking Him into our being in a way that will build us up. After a very lengthy discussion on Jesus as the Bread of Life, and how spiritually speaking, we have to feed on Him, Jesus connected the Spirit and the Word. This is our last “life” Scripture this morning.
“It is the Spirit who gives life. The flesh is no help at all. “The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and LIFE.” John 6:62-63
The righteousness of Christ is imparted to the believer by the Spirit of God when a person is saved. The Holy Spirit not only conveys this right standing with God to a person, but the Spirit of God deposits the life of Christ inside the believer. As believers take in the Word of God, the Spirit of God enables the believer to grow.
I’ll be honest, some parts of the Word are easier for me to digest than others. Some sit better with my natural tendencies and desires. Other parts of the Word call for sacrifice or for me to deny myself in some way. Other parts, if I apply and obey the Word, well, they cause me to have to humble myself, to confess my sin, to admit I was wrong, to change my ways. The Word isn’t always easy to swallow, is it?
Many people walked away from the Spirit of Life, from the Word of Life in John 6. They said Jesus’ Words were too difficult to accept. What a tragedy. Sadly, this continues to happen in churches across our nation and world. Sadly, people decide it is too hard to follow Jesus, the Life-giver. If you aren’t following the One who gives life, you are following the one who is seeking to assassinate your very soul. Satan wants people to believe the Word is too hard to accept and follow when it is the way of the Word that actually gives people life.
There is no spiritual life apart from Jesus. There is no eternal life apart from Jesus. There is no abundant life on earth without Jesus.
”The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have LIFE and have it abundantly.” John 10:10
31 So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, 32 and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
The Word of God is the truth. The Word of life sets us free to be who God created us to be. Abiding in the Word is the way to every benefit God offers. Don’t walk away from the Word of Life. Walk in it.
