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We thought a little bit earlier about what our favourite Bible verses might be. And, Heather, can we just not have that one up at the moment? Is that right? Thank you. And I've got my.

I've got my calendar here and I've got one Hannah Dunnett calendar. And we love to hang some of our favourite Bible verses on the wall. And it's one of those calendars, isn't it, with lovely scenic scenes accompanied by Bible verses. So I've got a little cottage here, a little hillside. I am he who will sustain you.

February always has to be nice and bright because it's a bit dark outside. So nice rainbow. The Lord is trustworthy in all he promises and faithful in all he does. And it goes on like that. Lovely pictures, lovely colours, lovely encouraging Bible verses.

So I thought, well, I'd make some of my own. So, Heather, I wonder if we can put some of our scenic scenes with lovely Bible verses on them. Heather, could we have the first one? Okay, so a lovely seaside scene. It says, so the Lord our God also gave into our hands, O King of Bashan and all his army.

We struck them down, leaving no survivors. I wonder where you might put that one up in your house or. Here's the next one. Lovely sunrise. And it says, take the man or woman who has done this evil deed to your city gate and stone that person to death.

I don't know, that one might sit on the bedside table, perhaps. Or what about the next one? We've got lovely cornfields, the sunlight bursting through the corn. And it says. Oh, I can't read that one too.

I think that's the one that says, however, in the cities of the nations, the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance. Do not leave anything alive that breathes beautiful. Here's another one. Lovely blue mountains. If two men are fighting and the wife of one of them comes to the rescue of her husband from his assailant and she reaches out and seizes him by the private parts.

You shall cut off her hand. Show her no pity. Yes, I think. I think I'd put that one on the toilet. On the toilet door, perhaps.

Here's the final one. Lovely forest scene, beautiful green light shining through. And the verse is, I will heap calamities on them and spend my arrows against them. I will send wasting famine against them, consuming pestilence and deadly plague. Well, there we go.

I don't know if I'm quite in time for 20, 25, but when the calendar comes out, I will let you know and you can purchase your copies. From me directly.

The Bible can be quite hard though, can't it? There's lots of verses we like. There's lots of verses that we would put up on our wall or on our fridge or bedside table that bring us that sense of joy and peace and light and hope. But there's also a lot of others that don't. And some of these verses really do make us wince a little bit.

We find them embarrassing. And when we read them, we think, well, how can I really take the whole Bible if it's got this stuff in it? We these and think, well, actually, is the Bible broken? How do I solve a problem like the Bible? Now, there's two popular solutions to dealing with this kind of problem.

Two ways of looking at or understanding the Bible that help mitigate some of these things. The first one is to think of the Bible more as a conversation. Typically, we think of the Bible as a book that is revealed. God speaking to his people. We'll leave that aside for a moment.

Perhaps it's better to view the Bible as a conversation. People many years ago talking with one another, talking about life, talking about God, sometimes reaching out for God, sometimes in wonderfully inspiring ways that we read today and think, wow, that's wonderful. But nevertheless, simply a conversation that took place a long time ago. Sure, there's things we can learn from that conversation, but the implication is, well, actually now, today we can have a conversation of our own. That was their conversation about God.

Now, now it's our turn to have a conversation. And there might be some things in that conversation that we want to leave out, like some of the verses I've just read. The other way of perhaps thinking about the Bible is like a curve, an arc of history, if you like. And over here, several thousand years ago, we have the stories of the Bible, we have people talking about God and perhaps some of the amazing and wonderful things he's done. But really what we need to do to understand the Bible, we need to follow the curve from then to us.

And of course, in that time, history changes, culture changes, people changes, we need to update the curve. What perhaps was true for them then isn't true for us today, is it? As the curve changes, so we change, and perhaps so maybe God changes. And what we can do is we can look back and say, well, that was interesting for them over there, but it's not true for us today, is it? We can look back and say, don't need to worry about that.

A conversation taking place in history, a curve that brings us to a better point. In the future. Those are two common ways in which people try to address the problem of the Bible. These verses that feel uncomfortable, out of touch. But are those solutions, Christian solutions?

Are they Jesus solution? We're going to have a think about that this morning. And we're in the second part of our little series called Core Convictions. Those are the six kind of core convictions, things that mark out all saints for the kind of church we are. And you can have a look at them.

They're on a board at the back under the bell tower. And the second one is this. We want to be Bible rooted. We obediently submit to God's Word as our supreme authority in all matters of faith and life. Really, that's saying two things.

Firstly, we want to be Bible rooted. We want the Bible to be the foundation for all that we do. And also we obediently submit to the Bible. We want the Bible to be our authority. And you may note as we say, that there's two things.

One is the Bible has a foundation, something below us, something to stand on, but also the Bible has an authority, something above us, a word to submit to. Now, when you hear that, you might think the Bible below the Bible above, that feels quite restrictive, maybe even quite oppressive, quite crushing. Especially when we hear some of those verses I read earlier. We may read those and think, well, it feels a bit of a shaky foundation or a question or dubious authority to live under, perhaps. Now, last week we thought about our first court conviction that we want to be Christ centred.

And so in doing that, we want to make Jesus view of the Bible, our view of the Bible. We want to put Christ's take on the Scriptures as our take on the Scriptures. So what did Jesus think of the Bible? Was it broken to him? Did he wince when he heard these scriptures?

Or for him, were the Scriptures his foundation, his roots? When we hear that phrase Bible rooted, roots carry I think at least two connotations, one of strength and stability and balance. We're rooted. But also they're a picture of the source, where we get life and sustenance from. And the Bible is full of pictures of God's word being that kind of root, that kind of Foundation.

Psalm 1 describes the person who delights in God's law, who delights in God's word, as like a tree planted by waters, implications of strong, deep roots, life flowing into them. Jesus describes the solid foundation on which the wise builder builds as like the one who puts God's word into practise. Or In Matthew, chapter 13, the parable of the Sower, the good soil where the roots can grow is the picture of the one who hears and understands God's Word. You see, Jesus thinks that God's word is our foundation. That is essential, fundamental to building life, the true place to build your life.

And there's lots of things that Jesus says about the Bible, about the Scriptures. In one case, he's having an argument with the Pharisees and he says to them, scripture cannot be set aside. John chapter 10 or other translations say, scripture cannot be broken.

The Scripture is not broken, it's unbreakable. Or he's having another debate. In Matthew 22, he's debating with the Sadducees and they're having this discussion about marriage at the resurrection. And Jesus says to them, you are in error. Why?

Because you do not know the Scriptures. Well, in Matthew 5 he tells us, I have not come to abolish the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them. I've not come to get rid of the Old Testament, I've come to live it out and show you what it really means. But Jesus goes further. Now, not only is the Scripture unbreakable, not only does it correct our errors because it's a reliable authority, but he tells us the Bible itself is Christ centred.

John chapter five. He's thinking about the Scriptures they testify about me. The Scriptures are about me. Or after his resurrection, he's walking with two disciples on the road to Emmaus. And what does he do?

It says, beginning with Moses and the prophets, that shorthand for the Old Testament Scriptures. He explained the Scriptures concerning himself. He was saying to them, if you want to understand the Old Testament, you've got to understand me because they're about me.

When Jesus here is speaking so lovingly and persuasively and with conviction and clarity about the Scriptures, here he's talking about the Old Testament. That's his Bible. And so often that's the bit we find the hardest, isn't it? But Jesus thinks the Scriptures are unbroken authority and Christ sentence. Okay, but how do I approach these hard bits?

Even when I hear that I still find them hard, I still don't always know how to understand them, how to make sense of them. Well, come with me to Matthew chapter four, where we read, where we see how Jesus approaches and uses the Scriptures. He's in the wilderness. He's being tempted and tested by Satan. Satan is coming at him with all sorts of accusations and temptations, getting right to the heart of who he is.

He's questioning his identity.

He wants him to doubt God's goodness and power. And so often these questions of identity and God's goodness are where we really struggle when we read the Scriptures. How can it say that and God really still be good? That's where Satan here is attacking Jesus. But what does Jesus do?

He responds with Scripture three times, verses 4, verses 7 and verses 10. Jesus says it is written. How do I respond to this accusation? How do I fight this temptation? Okay, back to the scripture.

Here's what God's Word says. It is written so often when we hear hard things, when we face temptation. My instinct is to withdraw from the scripture, to back away, because I'm not sure I want to hear what it has to say. But here Jesus leans in, let's listen. What does God say?

It is written. Now, you know, at the start I showed you my wonderful pictures and verses that you can hang up on your fridge sometime. All of those verses, all those really hard verses, the ones that make us wince. I think, oh, I wish it hadn't said that. You know where they all came from?

They all came from one book, the book of Deuteronomy. Do you know where Jesus quotes from three times? It is written all from the book of Deuteronomy.

When we read it, when we see those verses on the slide, we think, gosh, this book is broken, isn't it? But where is it that Jesus goes to remind himself of the trustworthiness of God's words? Where does he go to remind himself of the goodness of his Father? He goes to that book, to Deuteronomy.

Why is it we have such a different view of the Bible to Jesus? That place that we look at and think, that's weird, that's hard. I quite like to tip x out some of these bits. And yet in his darkest moments, facing the test of the wilderness, that's where Jesus goes. See, when I read this, I want to go and read Deuteronomy now.

This book that Jesus went to for life, for hope, to fight temptation. It's the book so awful I shy away from. Oh, that's too hard, too tough. But that's where Jesus goes.

But this is normal, right? Isn't it? All churches are Bible rooted. Why do we need to say it on our boards? Well, the thing is, I think it is true to say all churches have the Bible as their root.

But the thing about roots is they can be long lost roots, can't they? And I think it is true to say all churches have the Bible as their foundation. But it's also true to say foundations can be A nice starting point, but a place that we've long since moved on from. Roots are old, so we'll need to update them, adapt them, rewrite for today. Foundations are nice, but of course we'll need to add my own history, science, archaeology, philosophy, my own traditional experience if I'm really going to make sense of the world.

But is that how Jesus sees it? Does Jesus see the Bible as just a conversation that was happening a long time ago, people reaching out for God?

Well, no. Rather, he sees it as God speaking to his people. And that's why he steps into that conversation with the Sadducees and says, you're in error. Why? Because the Scripture says you're in error.

The Scripture corrects you. The Scripture is an authority that sits above your conversation and is able to say, no, that's not right. Or is the Bible just that curve? Nice historic stories, but it's going to update for us today? Well, no, because Jesus does see the Bible as a curve.

Absolutely. But the curve lands on him. Jesus says all those things in the Old Testament. They land on me. They find their fulfilment and purpose and meaning in me.

Actually, there's all sorts of things in the past that we struggle to understand, we find really difficult. And so we want to say, how do I understand them in the light of Jesus? How do they point me to Jesus? Because the curve lands on him.

Well, maybe the problem isn't with the Bible. Maybe the problem is with me. Maybe it's not the Bible that's broken, but it's me that's broken. And I think we see this most clearly when we come to the second part of our conviction that we want to obediently submit to the Bible. You see, lots of people think the Bible can be a good foundation, but people talk about it as rules for life.

Good foundation. But what about as an authority? You see, to obey is to say that someone else is right, and to submit is to say that someone else is in charge. And that's rather humbling. I'm not sure if I'm honest.

I like that.

And we seem strangely surprised when the Bible disagrees with our culture, when the Bible and culture are odds. Because that's often where it's hard, isn't it, to believe the Bible when the world's saying something else and doing something else. But why are we surprised that the Bible has always challenged society? And so much of the good things about our world today come from the fact the Bible challenged society.

It was the testimony of the Scriptures that brought about things like monogamy, democracy, human rights, abolishing slavery, liberating women. Yet now the Bible is often seen as outdated and regressive. We would rather cancel the Scriptures than let them change ourselves.

And that sadly tends to be why people give up on church. It's not because the Bible itself is broken that it's contradicted by science or archaeological discovery, but it contradicts the way we'd like to live.

You see, sometimes it's really hard to live our lives in submission to God's word, even costly to obey. And we're going to be thinking about that, especially tonight. We're going to be having a speaker from open doors thinking about the persecuted church. It's really costly in some parts of the world to live your life in submission to Jesus. But did you notice how Jesus obediently submits to God's Word?

The devil tempts him with food and his hunger offers him fame and fortune. And Jesus could take it all right, but he says no. He humbly and obediently submits himself to God's good word. You see, to submit to God's Word isn't to be crushed, isn't to be repressed, but is to find true freedom and true life in God's purposes. That's what Jesus found.

So, as we come into a close, what does it actually mean to be Bible rooted, both individually and as a church? Well, I think it might mean all sorts of things, but here's just a few ideas. Firstly, I think it means being open physically, having our Bibles open that we might not hear from Hugh Bourne, but we might hear from God's Word. That's why we read the Scriptures. That's why we try and study them.

That's why in our connect groups we're going to open the Bibles again. Cheque. What did it say? What does that actually mean? But not only open Bibles, but open hearts.

Hearts that are ready to receive God's Word, ready to hear it, to grow from it, to learn from it, to be changed in the power of the Spirit by that word. We want to be open. Secondly, I think it means being humble. To be Bible rooted brings an attitude. It should bring an attitude of humility.

It's an attitude that says I'm willing to be wrong, I'm ready to be changed by God's Word. It means we say I might be wrong about this. So let's go back to the Scriptures. It means we can listen to others and others point of view. Why?

Because it's not my point of view that matters. It's God's point of view that matters. And you know, I don't actually think it's humble to say, as we sometimes do, and for good motives, let's agree to disagree. Because what it means when it says let's agree to disagree, it means let's both be right. Whereas actually what we want to say is what does God say?

Let's not agree to disagree, but let's agree to come back to the scriptures to study them afresh, to open them again, to read them again, to pray over them again. What does the Scriptures say? After all, how did anyone know anything about Jesus without the Scriptures? This is our only foundation. This is the only place we find life and meaning and any test only about Jesus being open, being humble.

And thirdly, we want to have our lives and our scriptures to be interpreted by Jesus. You know, some people will say when we come to the Bible, well that's just your interpretation. Okay, what's Jesus interpretation again? Let's go back to the Scriptures. Let's see what he says.

Let's see how he lives it out. How did he explain it? How did he challenge people on it? How does Jesus live it out? How does he fulfil it?

How does he bring true meaning to it? Just as I close, there is a danger in this because we want to be Bible rooted. But I have to tell you that Bible people are not always Jesus people. Bible people are not always Jesus people. And some of Jesus harshest words are for Bible people.

John chapter five, Jesus said, you study the scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very scriptures that testify about me. Yet you refuse to come to me and have life. There were some people who loved the Bible, at least on the face of it. They loved studying the Scriptures, but they missed the point.

They failed to come to Jesus. Friends, we don't want the Bible to crush or condemn. We want the Bible to lead people to life in Jesus. We want it to draw people to him, that they might find true life in him. The Bible is never meant to be rigid or repressive.

It's supposed to lead us to life in him. But can I also say, if Bible people are not always Jesus people. Jesus people are always Bible people. Jesus people are always Bible people. I often hear people say, I love Jesus, but not the Old Testament.

That's too weird, too hard, too violent. Or I love Jesus, but I wish Paul's letters weren't in the Bible.

When we love Jesus, we learn to love the things that he loves. Jesus was a Bible person. He didn't cut bits out. He loved the Scriptures because they were a foundation, a source of life. Jesus people are always Bible people.

And you know, he knows what we really need. Let me close with that verse. Matthew, chapter 4, verse 4, Jesus answered, It is written, man shall not live by bread alone. But on every word that comes from the mouth of God, Jesus knows that in the Scriptures we're pointed to life like food, like bread. So final thing, if you only take away one thing, here is my plea.

Let's view the Bible, let's view the Scriptures how Jesus viewed the Scriptures. Amen.