Content Transcript

Introduction

I’m reading from 2 Timothy 3:15, which in our translations is kind of right in the middle of a sentence. It says, “Remember where you came from and how from childhood you have been acquainted with sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for spiritual renewal through faith in Christ Jesus.” It continues, “All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

That’s the text for our message. I just want to start by saying it is so good to be here. I was saying in the Bible class that this is maybe the fifth time since I left that I’ve been able to come back and preach. I’ve preached and taught in hundreds of congregations in our church body and other churches all over the world, but there’s only one that feels like home. When you’re a pastor, you can preach to people or you can preach to your people, and it’s a privilege to be back here.

A Journey of Faith

It has been 19 years since our family heard the call and left here to head to Botswana. That’s 19 years of partnership and prayers—19 years of you believing that God’s word needs to speak every language. We celebrated that New Testament, with 250,000 people having access to God’s word because of you. You said yes to God’s mission; you said yes to sending people. You recognized that there’s a people group out there that we’re never going to meet, but they deserve to hear God speak their language. Of course, you’re not never going to meet them; you’re going to meet them in eternity.

Today, we’re here to celebrate what happened in Botswana and Ghana, but I’m also here to challenge us about what’s happening right here in America, in Kettering, Ohio, and the surrounding area. We do have a bit of a crisis, and crises aren’t only in Africa. Right here, the crisis I’m talking about is related to the word of God.

The Crisis of Engagement

Before I share some numbers, let me clarify that before I was in ministry, I was in accounting. I was corrected between services that my numbers didn’t add up, so I have people to do that for me now. But I’m going to try my best. The American Bible Society released new research last month, and it says that 90% of Americans own a Bible. So, of American households, 90% have a Bible, while 10% do not.

However, only 11% read it every day. Here’s the math: of the 90% that have a Bible, 79% of Americans own a Bible that sits untouched every single day. There’s another 10% that don’t even have a Bible. So, of the 79%, 79% of the total number of Americans have a Bible that sits untouched every day. It’s the precious word of God—God’s very breath, His revelation, His love letter, His owner’s manual—just sitting on shelves collecting dust, unopened.

According to the research, if we lower the bar and say, “Let’s not talk about every day; let’s just talk about half the times a week or even just one time a week,” there’s a category called “scripture engaged” by the American Bible Society. Not even a really high bar. There’s another category called “scripture user,” which means you use the Bible outside of church three times or more per year.

Let’s talk about scripture engaged at least once a week. Of that same group of people, 63% of Americans would tell you they are Christians. They identify as Christians. But only 21% actively engage with scripture at least once a week outside of church.

Think about that: six out of ten Americans say, “I’m a Christian,” but only two out of ten are actually opening the book that tells them what that means and guides them in how that’s going to look in everyday life. In the research document that accompanies all of this, one of the researchers calls this a “famine of the word of God.” You can find a prediction of a famine of the word of God in the book of Amos.

This famine isn’t because we don’t have access to scripture; it’s because we choose not to open it or use it. Let me be clear: I’m not trying to make you feel guilty or shame anyone. But in some ways, this is a matter of life and death. Our lives and how we live them are guided by scripture, and there is the element of spiritual renewal.

Before scripture can do the things that it’s very useful to do—teach you, rebuke you, correct you, train you—it has to do something else first. If this doesn’t happen, nothing else matters. It has to make you wise unto spiritual renewal.

Understanding Wisdom

To define what “wise” means, as we go through this, you can use this definition anytime you’re reading the Bible. To make wise, in the way it’s talked about in scripture, is essentially to tell you how things are the way God sees it. It explains reality from God’s perspective, to make you wise, and in this case, to make you wise unto spiritual renewal.

Let me tell you about how this can look in some other places. I want to introduce you to a lady named Matabo. She is a person in Botswana who, when we arrived to work with the Shakalakari-speaking community, had been going to church her entire life. She had already been attending church services in Setswana, their neighboring language, or English, which she understood well enough. She knew some stories; she knew Jesus died on a cross. She had heard it hundreds of times.

But here’s what she told us: “It was like watching a movie with subtitles in a language that you kind of understand.” You get the basic plot, but you never feel it in your chest. You’re watching this thing, you’re hearing this thing, but you don’t really feel it.

So, she had information, she had religion, she had church attendance, but she didn’t have spiritual renewal. You might wonder if I’m saying she didn’t believe in Jesus and wouldn’t be transformed. I don’t know; I wouldn’t say it that way. That’s what she would say, though—that she did not have spiritual renewal as scripture describes it.

spiritual renewal is a living, breathing, heart-transforming reality. She didn’t have that. Then one day, several years into the translation project, we held a community testing session. We got together and read the Gospel of John for the first time in Shakalakari. One of the translators read John 3:16: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not be lost but have eternal life.”

I was observing all this, and halfway through the reading, Matabo started to cry—not silent, polite crying, but big sobs and body shaking. I thought, “Boy, we must not have done a very good job with this.” But when she finished, she said, “I have heard these words my whole life, but today for the first time, I heard them.”

She realized that God loves her—not just some people out there, but He loves her in the language of her heart. Here’s what I want you to understand: Matabo had that information before. She knew that she had Bibles in other languages, she went to church faithfully, she was a good person. But that day, when she heard God’s word speak directly to her heart, that’s when the Holy Spirit created faith, and that’s when spiritual renewal became real. Everything changed.

The Importance of Engagement

I want you to listen and look up here for a second. You can understand and know about the gospel your whole life and still not know the gospel. You can own multiple Bibles and still not be transformed. You can attend church every Sunday and still miss eternal life because information doesn’t save you. Religion doesn’t save you. Church attendance doesn’t save you. Only Jesus saves you, and scripture is how the Holy Spirit brings you to Him.

Let’s talk about what Paul says in this text because this matters more than anything else we’ll discuss in the entire series, at least from a foundational perspective. In 2 Timothy 3:15, Paul says, “From childhood, you’ve been acquainted with sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for spiritual renewal through faith in Christ Jesus.” Then he says, “All scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness.”

See, that order is important. Before Paul talks about teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness, he talks about spiritual renewal. That’s not an accident; that’s the foundation. Sometimes we get this backwards. We treat the Bible like it’s primarily about us and our behavior, our improvement, and our spiritual growth. It does address those things, and it is for those things. It teaches us how to live, corrects our thinking, and trains us in righteousness. But that’s not its primary purpose. Its primary purpose is to bring you to saving faith in Jesus Christ.

Let me say it again: this is crucial. The Bible isn’t first about what you should do; it’s about what Jesus has already done. It’s an announcement to you. It’s not first about your obedience; it’s about His obedience. It’s not about your works; it’s first about the work on the cross. If you miss that—if you read the Bible and somehow don’t get that—you don’t see Jesus, you don’t encounter grace, you don’t receive spiritual renewal. Then you miss the entire point.

It doesn’t matter how much you know. It doesn’t matter how many Bible studies you’ve attended. It doesn’t matter how many verses you’ve memorized. If scripture hasn’t made you wise unto spiritual renewal, hasn’t taught you about spiritual renewal and the reality the way God sees it, it doesn’t matter how many verses you’ve memorized. It hasn’t done what God has designed it to do.

I’m going to concede that for some of you, this is really basic. But it’s kind of the point, right? It’s basic, but it can’t ever go away. We can’t ever forget it. It is the foundation upon which everything stands.

Three Non-Negotiables

Paul talks about three non-negotiables here. First, scripture makes you wise—wise unto spiritual renewal, not smart, not educated, not religiously informed. Wisdom means seeing reality the way God sees it. It means understanding who you are as a person and the bridge to that, which is Jesus, to what? To God, who is holy. Sinfulness can’t be in the presence of a holy God. He’s bridged the gap through Jesus.

Here’s what’s wild: from personal experience, you can have a PhD in theology and still not have wisdom. You can know Greek and Hebrew and still miss the point because wisdom isn’t about information and piling up information. It’s about transformation. It’s about the Holy Spirit opening your eyes to see what you couldn’t see before. God’s word promises that every time you encounter it, there’s the opportunity that you might see something you didn’t see before.

The Shakalakari people had Bible stories in other languages. They had information, but when they heard scripture in their own language, when God spoke directly to their hearts, they gained wisdom and understood.

So here’s my question for you: when was the last time scripture gave you wisdom? When was the last time you read the Bible itself—not something about it—and something clicked that never clicked before? When was the last time God’s word broke through your assumptions and showed you reality? Has it just become background noise, familiar stories you’ve heard a thousand times, nice thoughts for Sunday morning?

The second non-negotiable: spiritual renewal is through faith. This is crucial. This is where religion falls apart. Scripture doesn’t save you because you read it. It doesn’t save you because you study it. It doesn’t save you because you can quote it. It saves you by creating faith. Romans 10:17 says that most clearly: “Faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

The Holy Spirit uses these words of scripture—these God-breathed words about Jesus—to create faith in your hearts. The word of God can do that. Faith that says, “Yes, I believe. Yes, I trust. I receive what Jesus has done for me.” That’s how it works; it’s how it’s always worked.

But here’s the problem: faith ongoing requires engagement. The Holy Spirit works through this word, but if you never open the word, if you never expose yourself to it, if you’re just kind of waiting for those 52 Sundays—assuming you make all those—if you never let it speak to you, how’s the Spirit supposed to work? How’s that supposed to compete with everything else that’s got attention in your lives?

79% of Bibles in America go untouched every day, which means 79% of Americans who own Bibles are not giving the Holy Spirit the opportunity to create or strengthen faith through God’s word. Let me be blunt: you can’t grow in faith if you’re not in the word. You can’t be strengthened in faith if you’re not reading scripture. You can’t have assurance for spiritual renewal if you’re not hearing God’s word.

There is so much out there competing to rip that away from you. Luther says in his writings— and I don’t even have to quote Luther; it’s just a fact—if we could see the forces arrayed against us that want to rip God’s word out of our hands and hearts and pull us somewhere else, we wouldn’t hesitate to open God’s word. If we could see reality the way God sees it, how often are we hearing?

The third non-negotiable: faith is in Jesus, not in yourself or in Bibles. It’s in Jesus, but the Bible is pointing you there. That’s what we call a means of grace. That’s the heart of the gospel. That’s what Matabo discovered in Botswana. She had spent her whole life trying to be good enough, making sure she showed up at the right place, sang the right songs, gave the right gifts, trying to earn God’s approval, trying to work her way to heaven.

Does that sound familiar? Some of us really try to do what’s right. When things are going wrong, we start talking about karma and what goes around comes around—all this other stuff that has nothing to do with God’s word or how God’s at work in the world. But she heard John 3 in Shakalakari, and everything changed.

She realized this is not about her at work; it’s about God at work. Everything that’s happening here is under God’s control. It’s not about what she does; it’s about what Jesus did. He lived the life she should have lived, died the death she should have died, and rose from the grave to give her a life she could never dream of earning herself. All she has to do—all any of us has to do—is believe. Not believe harder, not become more committed, not clean up our lives first—just believe, receive, trust. That’s the spiritual renewal; that’s the gospel; that’s grace.

The Test of Faith

The test is if someone walks up to you and asks, “How do you know what’s going to happen after you die? Why should God let you into heaven?” I used to get asked that when I was younger. I’d gone to Lutheran schools and church, and I would talk about my church attendance and how good I was. I went to a Lutheran elementary school from fourth grade at a church that still had German services. We had to memorize hymns every week and recite them. I knew all the stuff.

But the answer is, “Because Jesus died for me and rose again, and His righteousness is mine. I haven’t done a darn thing to deserve it or earn it; just because He gave it.” That’s the gospel.

So, those are the three non-negotiables. Let me bring it home with a question that I think we want to sit with a little bit. What if we take a step back and think: what if we’re in the same place as Matabo was that day before she heard God’s word in her language? What if we’ve been around the Bible our whole lives but still haven’t really heard it?

What if we own four or five Bibles? The research shows the average American Christian home has four or five Bibles. Some of us could build furniture with how many Bibles we have in our house. But what if we’re experiencing a famine of the word of God? What if we’ve been treating scripture like a reference book or a moral guide, or something we look up because we’re reading something else that quoted a verse?

It’s so nice to think about, but we’ve been missing the one thing it’s designed to do: to make us wise unto spiritual renewal. Here’s what the research shows: scripture-engaged people who read the Bible four or more times a week, on average, measure higher on every measure of human flourishing. They have more hope, more purpose, more meaning, less anxiety, less stress, more generosity, and are more willing to help.

But it’s not because the Bible is self-help. We don’t need research to tell us this; God’s word speaks of itself in this way that it is living and active. It does what it claims to do. It moves, it shapes, it transforms. That is what the Bible does when we encounter God regularly through His word. Those aren’t just ink on pages; that is God speaking.

Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5, “You study these scriptures because you think that in them you find life, but these are the scriptures that testify to me.” We’re looking for Jesus, and when we have Jesus, we’ve been made wise unto spiritual renewal. Then these scriptures have the power, by the Holy Spirit, to transform us, lead us, and teach us.

The Hard Truth

But the hard truth is only 11% of Americans are doing that. Only 11% are reading scripture daily. 89% of Americans are living a life without the very thing that makes the Christian life possible. 89%—10% don’t even have Bibles, and the rest are trying to grow in faith without engaging with the word that creates faith. They’re trying to find hope without reading the promises that tell us what that hope actually is.

They’re thinking in broad general terms, like, “I know I’m not supposed to be anxious,” or “I know that God will give me a sound mind.” But there are passages that directly say those things that we can commit to memory and say, “I don’t think it’s kind of this way; God Himself told me this very thing. It’s in His word.”

It doesn’t work; it can’t work. It was never designed to work that way. You have to hear the gospel to remember the gospel.

Three Places to Reflect

So, three places that this may be landing for you today:

1. Some of you, possibly here or online, may never have truly heard like Matabo. You’ve been around church your whole life; you know the stories, you know the Bible, you’ve heard about Jesus. I don’t suspect there are tons of you here, but maybe some of you have never had that moment where it became real. You realize this is for you. If that’s you, hear this clearly: that’s what scripture is for. It’s why God gave us His word—not to make you feel guilty, not to give you a new checklist, but to introduce you to Jesus, to tell you that He loves you, that He died for you, and that He rose for you.

If you hear that today, really hear it, the Holy Spirit can use these words and is using these words to create faith in you right now. You don’t have to clean up first; you don’t have to get your act together; you don’t have to become religious. Just hear it, believe it, and receive it. That’s the gospel of spiritual renewal for you.

1. Some of us have heard this before but have just forgotten. We came to faith years ago, maybe in our baptism before we could even remember, or maybe decades ago. You may remember when it was fresh or a season when it became fresh. Things were really being driven by God’s work and the Holy Spirit in your life. You understood grace; you marveled at what Jesus did for you.

But somewhere along the line, real life happens. Things get busy, and you stop reading scripture. Life happens, and slowly but imperceptibly, the gospel becomes background music instead of the main melody of your life. It’s a subtle change. Now you’re trying to live the Christian life on autopilot, trying to be good, trying to show up here, trying to show up on Wednesday night or wherever else we do things here, trying to do the right things. But you’ve lost the joy, the assurance, the wonder.

If that’s you today, the invitation is there to go back to God’s word, back to the gospel, back to the good news that transformed you. It is waiting for you. When we stop engaging with scripture, we forget. We start trusting in ourselves again; we start performing, trying to manage outcomes ourselves on our own strength, by our own character.

1. The third place you may be is wanting someone else to hear. You’re sitting here thinking about someone else, and that’s good. You may be thinking about your grandkids, your kids, a friend, a neighbor, or someone you work with—someone who needs to hear the gospel in a way that makes sense to them.

You may be praying for someone in your life, wondering how to help them. The thing I learned in Botswana and throughout many years of ministry is you cannot make someone hear; only the Holy Spirit can do that. But what you can do is make sure they have access to God’s word, remove barriers, and pray. If there’s someone in your life that you think isn’t going to listen to you, pray for them.

Pray that someone will come into their life that they will listen to, or that some circumstance will point them to Christ and compel them to trust in Him. If you’re praying for someone like that, remember that there are people in your lives who have a relative who is praying the same thing. You may be that person.

Look around and see who God has put in your path, in your place, in your life that you can pray for, invite, or share with. These are all powerful things that God’s word invites us to do. That’s why our work together is so important. There are still millions of people who don’t have scripture in their heart language and can’t read the gospel in a way that speaks clearly to them.

Your witness matters because there are people that God has in your path every single day who don’t know Jesus. Statistically speaking, they probably own Bibles, but they’ve never really heard the gospel. They’ve been around church their whole lives or in a community that has churches, but they don’t know Jesus. God might use you to help them—not through some program or strategy, but simply by sharing what Jesus has done for you, by sharing how He’s speaking to you through scripture, and by letting them see what it looks like when God’s word is alive in someone’s life.

Conclusion

Here’s where we’re headed in the series. Over the coming weeks, we’re going to learn how scripture teaches, rebukes, corrects, and trains us in righteousness. All that’s important, all that’s necessary, all that’s good. But never forget: scripture can’t do any of these things if it hasn’t first done this one thing—to make you wise unto spiritual renewal through faith in Christ. That’s the foundation; that’s where it starts.

That foundation requires engagement. It requires opening God’s word, hearing it, and having faith. So here’s my challenge to you, and I’m going to be direct because it matters too much to be polite.

Stop letting your Bible collect dust. Stop treating scripture like optional reading. If I can fit it in, let’s find a way to do that. Stop pretending you can grow in faith without engaging the word that creates faith.

For the next few weeks, through this Divine Wisdom series and season in our congregation, let’s commit to daily reading—not out of guilt, but recognizing that we’re hungry for something. If you’re hungry for something, this is probably what it is. Something’s missing, and I guarantee you this can fill it—not out of obligation, but out of hunger.

I’m sure the staff here, Pastor Mark, would be glad to help you get started or pick up resources. When you’re regularly in God’s word, the Holy Spirit is working, faith is being created and strengthened, hope is being renewed, and the gospel is becoming real. When you’re not, you’re trying to live on yesterday’s bread, and you just can’t do that.

Martin Luther said, “The church is not a penthouse but a mouth house.” Ironically, that loses something in translation. But what he meant is it’s not about preserving the Bible; it’s not just about having it. It’s about hearing it. It’s about God speaking.

So the question is: are we listening? We have God’s word; we have it in English. We have multiple translations; we have apps on our phones. Those apps have recordings. We have no excuse. But having isn’t enough. That’s what Matabo taught me. She had heard the gospel in other languages for 50 years, but it wasn’t until she heard it in Shakalakari that the Holy Spirit created that saving faith.

Maybe we need to hear it in our heart language too—not literally; we’ve got English Bibles. But I mean spiritually, to hear it anew, to come with an open mind, to think, “I don’t know anything,” or “I’m not coming thinking I already know this passage.”

Let God speak to the deepest parts of who we are in all parts of our lives. That only happens when we open the book, when we read, listen, and engage. That’s the invitation. The same Spirit that worked through that scripture in Botswana wants to do it here.