Deo Gloria
December 31, 2020
New Year’s Eve Sermon
Pastor Martin Bentz
Text: 1 Peter 1:22-25
Theme: Another Year Passes—God’s Word Still Stands!
- The Word of God is living and active.
- The Word of God gives life.
- The Word of God lasts forever.
If I’ve heard it once, I’ve probably heard it 40 or 50 times: “I can’t wait till this year is over.” What started out as a pretty good year with a roaring economy and plentiful jobs quickly turned into a disaster with a coronavirus pandemic, shut downs, COVID restrictions, no toilet paper, distance learning, mask mandates and Christmas dinner via Zoom. I can’t remember the last time I heard so many people say the same thing: “I can’t wait till this year is over.”
So I don’t know about you, but one thing 2020 has done for me, has impressed on me, is the truth of the words of one of our hymns: “Change and decay in all around I see; O thou who changest not, abide with me!”(CW 588:2) This year with all of the changes we have had to make to practically everything, I’ve really learned to appreciate the constants in my life, the things that don’t change, the things I can count on and rely on day in and day out, things like Jesus and his Word.
Tonight, as we close out 2020 and prepare to usher in another new year, we’re going to take a closer look at this permanent fixture in our lives called God’s Word. As we do, we’re going to take special note of three things, three timeless truths to which we can fasten the rope of our faith for reassurance and stability. Listen for these truths as we read the words of Peter found in 1 Peter 1:22-25.
The first truth we want to look at is that the Word of God is living and active. The Word of God is not a dead word. The words of the Bible are not just a bunch of words on the page. The words recorded on the pages of Scripture are not just a bunch of dull, lifeless, uninspiring and irrelevant verbiage. No, as Peter states in v. 23, the Word of God is living. It’s alive. It’s vibrant. It’s powerful. That’s what the author of the book of Hebrews says about it too:
The word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. (4:12)
Back in the days when these words were written, a double-edged sword was the sharpest instrument around. Today we might say something like sharper than a scalpel or sharper than a laser beam. And the Word of God is just that, sharper than even a laser beam. Try as he might, a doctor armed with a laser beam could never penetrate to the depths of your being. He could never reach your soul. Yet how many times hasn’t it happened that we have been cut to the heart by the Word of God, that the Word of God has broken through all of the walls of denial we had erected and convicted us in our inmost being of our sin? Or how many times hasn’t it happened that the Word of God has penetrated the darkness of our grief and lifted our spirits when even our friends were at a loss for words? Here is evidence. Here is proof that the Word of God is living and active.
Here is more: The Word of God is what God used to create the universe. “Let there be light,” God said, and there was light. “Let there be dry land,” he said, and there was dry land. “Let there be plants and animals,” he said, and there were plants and animals. All God had to do was speak the word and it came to be. Such is the power of God’s living Word.
Because the Word of God is living and active, it always has an effect. We may not be able to see that effect, but it always has an effect. As God says in Isaiah, ch. 55, “My word… will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it”(v. 11). To some the Word of God brings comfort. To some the Word of God brings warning. To some the Word of God gives guidance. To some the Word of God gives encouragement. To some the Word of God brings stinging words of rebuke. To some the Word of God brings the sweet comfort of forgiveness. Such is the effect of God’s Word, for the Word of God is living and active.
Secondly, the Word of God gives life. Of course, the life it gives is not physical life but spiritual life. This is what Jesus is talking about in John, ch. 6, where he says, “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life”(v. 63). Through his Word God imparts spiritual life. It doesn’t come from watching football games on TV. It doesn’t come from drinking lots of “spirits” over the holidays. It comes from the Word of God.
In fact, that is what brought about our rebirth. Listen again to what Peter says in v. 23: “For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring Word of God.” God’s Word is the active ingredient in Baptism. It certainly isn’t the water. God’s Word is what gave us a spiritual birth. God’s Word is what changed our stubborn, unbelieving hearts into hearts that believe and trust in God. God’s Word is what has created faith in our hearts, faith to believe that that baby who was born in Bethlehem is our Lord and Savior. You and I are children of God today, we have real life in our hearts and will have eternal life in heaven some day, because of the Word of God.
And if we want to remain children of God, it’s important that we keep this life-giving Word in our lives. Your faith is not like one of those solar-powered watches that never need a new battery. All you have to do is make sure it gets a little light every so often and you’re good to go. Actually your faith is more like your cell phone. You constantly have to charge it up. It seems like every other day the battery is running low again and you need to charge it up. Our faith is like that. It needs a continual supply of energy. It needs a steady stream of life from God’s life-giving Word in order to remain healthy and strong.
Now I know we all know this. I’m sure we’ve heard it many times before. But I wonder sometimes if we really believe it. I wonder sometimes because I don’t always see a love for God’s Word among us. I wonder sometimes because I see people in our church family who think hearing and reading and studying God’s Word really isn’t that important. I wonder sometimes because I see people who have time for a lot of other things, but yet don’t have time to read and study God’s Word with fellow believers here at church or with their family at home. That concerns me as a pastor. It concerns me because it tells me that Satan’s tactics are working to a certain extent and God’s people are getting sidetracked from the one thing they truly need.
This coming Sunday we’re going to be starting our Bible reading challenge. And I hope many of you are planning to join me in getting into God’s Word on a daily basis, reading one chapter of the Bible every day. But whether you participate in the challenge or not, the one thing I hope you will do is start the New Year off right and make time for God’s life-giving Word in your daily life.
The third timeless truth we want to take note of this evening is that the Word of God lasts forever. The Word of God is even more durable than the Energizer Bunny. The Energizer Bunny may keep going and going and going. But eventually, one day it will run out of power and stop. God’s Word, on the other hand, will just keep on going and going and going and going. It will never stop. This is Peter’s point in vv. 24+25: “For ‘all men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever.’” Even though it may seem to a first-grader that someone who is 80 or 90 years old has been around forever, they haven’t been. People do not live forever. In fact, even today with all of our medical advances most people here in our country do not live to see their 80th birthday. People too are only temporary tenants in this world.
And the same is true of their fame and accomplishments. Even though many hope that such things will immortalize them, most are not remembered. For example, some of us may remember who won the World Series this past fall, but who won the World Series back in 2010? Or who won the Super Bowl back in 2010? Or who won the Oscar for best actor in 2010? Or the Oscar for best actress in 1985? I could guess, but the truth is I don’t know. “All men are like grass and all their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the Word of the Lord stands forever.” Moses is dead and gone, but the Word of God is still here. The prophet Isaiah is dead and gone, but the Word of God is still here. The disciple Peter is dead and gone, but the Word of God is still here. Memorable figures such as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln are dead and gone, but the Word of God is still here. And when you and I are dead and gone, the Word of God will still be here.
What a comfort that is! What a tremendous comfort for you and me! Everything around us may change, including the year in which we live. Even we ourselves may change. But God’s Word does not change. It remains constant. What God’s Word said a thousand years ago it still says today, and will say a thousand years from now. It doesn’t change. People may try to reinterpret the Bible or redefine what it says, but that doesn’t change what it says. Its voice still rings out loud and clear: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth”(Genesis 1:1). “Haven’t you read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female and said, ‘For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh’?”(Mt 19:4+5). “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God”(Romans 3:23). “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord”(Ro 6:23). “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life”(John 3:16). “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die”(John 11:25+26). “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool”(Isaiah 1:18). “Surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age”(Mt 28:20). These are the words and promises of God. What they say today they will say tomorrow and a hundred years from now as well. We can ignore them if we want, but we cannot nullify or eliminate them. The Word of God lasts forever.
Will next year be a better year than 2020? I certainly hope so. And with a couple of vaccines already being distributed and perhaps others on the way, it definitely seems promising; but the reality is we don’t know. We don’t know what the new year will bring, whether things will finally get back to normal or it will just be more of the same. Rather than put your hopes in something so uncertain, I encourage to put your hope in something sure, something reliable and stable, something you can count on no matter what—the changeless Word of God. As Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away”(24:35). Amen.