1 Tim 4:4-6 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer. In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following.
In our prior considerations, we have seen the powerful truth of the value of God’s Word. He has so blessed us with the written testimony of His interaction and relationship with mankind. It all leads to the giving of His Son for our salvation and the glory that is now ours by virtue of our being one in Christ Jesus. The Apostle Paul has very much to say about God’s Word because it is such a vital means of knowing what God has done for us and what our love for Him will bring forth in our lives. The ministry of His Word will work to ground us in the foundational truth of Jesus Christ.  
Today, let us focus on the sustaining and spiritually nourishing power of His Word as it is livingly infused into our lives by the effective and miraculous work of the Holy Spirit. Throughout scripture, it is referred to in terms as spiritual food. It is the means by which our spiritual and even our physical lives are given the nutrition and the energy to grow. I mention the physical because our physical bodies are utterly dependent on our spiritual welfare. If we are malnourished within our spirit, our physical well-being also suffers.
Look at the Children of Israel as they were wandering in the wilderness. The Lord was continually meeting their needs in miraculous manners, as evidenced in even the manna from heaven which was their daily nourishment. Not only did it feed their bodies, but in its very provision, they were in utter reliance upon God as the sole source of their sustenance.
As we read in Deut 8:3 And He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord. While they were looking to God to meet the needs of their physical bodies, their spirits were continually reminded, in humbleness, of the power and the majesty and the supremacy of God. They were a blessed and chosen people in whom God saw the means for His love to be spread across the spectrum of humanity. He chose them and He pulled them out of slavery. He made every provision for their daily lives. Even in their disobedience, as they wandered in the wilderness, God’s love was poured out to them in the provision of the water and of the manna and even of the quails when they cried out for meat. 
All that physical provision was for the purpose of showing them the absolute importance of obeying and cherishing God’s Word. His Word was the force behind their deliverance. His Word was the supply of their every need. His Word was the means by which they were humbled, and His Word was the standard of Holiness by which they were measured.
	Job recognized the value of eating the very Word of God as related in Job 23:12. "I have not departed from the command of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth more than my necessary food. He saw that even though food was necessary, the Words of God were even more vital. His Words were to be treasured and stored up within the soul as the most valuable possession of the heart. Job knew that God’s Word never failed. It was never in error and it never disappointed. He knew that it might not be what we want to hear, but it is always what we need to hear. In that truth, it is to be reverenced and to be obeyed with the absolute faith that, as we do so, God is well pleased in our obedience. It shows that we value His Word even above life itself because the value of His Word is the Lord Jesus Christ. After all, He is life. He is the living Word made flesh, and it is in Him that all the treasuries of God’s riches are abundantly showered upon us.  
	The Psalmist recognized the truth of the depth and the necessity and the wonderfulness of this as we read in Ps 119:103, How sweet are Thy words to my taste! Yes, sweeter than honey to my mouth! God’s Word is infused with all the bounty of God’s Love in Jesus Christ poured out upon us as honey from the honey comb. There is sweet satisfaction in the savoring flavor of His Word. We find that we are refreshed and that we are encouraged and that we are strengthened and given the energy to face every challenge as we are feasting on His Word. Every problem and every issue finds its resolution within the over powering sweetness of the truth of scripture. Just as honey can overcome the sensory abilities of our tongues with its concentrated intensity of sweetness, so does God’s Word overcome our doubts and fears and anxiety with its pungent power of truth and faithfulness.
	The Prophet Jeremiah was tremendously nourished in this truth. Jer 15:16 Thy words were found and I ate them, And Thy words became for me a joy and the delight of my heart; For I have been called by Thy name, O Lord God of hosts. Jeremiah certainly did not have what we would consider an easy life. He was not loved in his own home town, where his neighbors plotted to get rid of him. He was not welcomed by the rulers of Jerusalem and Judah, because he continually prophesied against their sin before God. In their vial retribution, Jeremiah was cast into a deep well to die, but God rescued him from that fate. Jeremiah watched as first the Egyptians and then the Babylonians utterly destroyed his beloved Judah and Jerusalem, just as he had prophesied. Then, he was forcibly carried into Egypt, by his own people, in spite of his cries to not to go that path but, rather, to wait on the Lord. It was there, in Egypt, that many scholars believe that Jeremiah was stoned to death by his fellow Jews. 
In spite of all those hardships, in spite of all that physical and mental abuse, we hear him declare the fact that the Word of God was the joy and delight of His heart. When most would have been bitter and disillusioned, Jeremiah found his solace and comfort and joy and delight in reading and meditating upon and spiritually feasting on the sustenance of God’s Word. He was sustained by the purity and overwhelming sweetness of God’s provision of spiritual nourishment overwhelming all the bitterness of the events within his life. 
Another prophet with a tremendous respect and regard for the Word of God was Ezekiel. He was instructed to eat the scroll of God’s Word in order to prophesy to the nations of God’s intentions and actions with regard to His chosen people. Ezek 2:8 "Now you, son of man, listen to what I am speaking to you; do not be rebellious like that rebellious house. Open your mouth and eat what I am giving you." As well, in Ezek 3:1+2 Then He said to me, "Son of man, eat what you find; eat this scroll, and go, speak to the house of Israel." So I opened my mouth, and He fed me this scroll. 
It is in absolute authority that God’s Word, ingested within His instruction and clarity of purpose, is preached to those in need. The Word not only endues the one who eats of it with the strength and power and fortitude to deliver it, but it serves to nourish those who listen as it is declared by the Omnipotence and Omniscience of the Holy Spirit. Matt 7:28+29 The result was that when Jesus had finished these words, the multitudes were amazed at His teaching; for He was teaching them as one having authority, and not as their scribes. It will proceed forth in the power and the authority of God, because it is His very Word that is proclaimed. As well, our eating of His Word is not just for our sustenance, but for the sustenance of those unto whom it is then delivered. It succeeds in all that He has purposed for it to accomplish. His Word does everything that He desires as we feast upon it and share it with others. 
Christ gives forth this truth in Matt 4:4. But He answered and said, "It is written, 'Man shall not live on bread alone, but on every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'" Our very life is that of living by His Word as it infuses us with the truth and the faithfulness of God’s divine nature in Jesus Christ. 
	The Apostle Peter brings forth the need for all of us to grow in the strength of the Lord. We start as new born babes with the milk of God’s Word and it causes us to grow strong in the Lord and in the development of our spiritual faculties to know more and more of God and His so great Love. 1 Peter 2:1-3 Therefore, putting aside all malice and all guile and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes, long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. 
Another wonderful aspect of the power of God’s Word is that it meets our needs today. It doesn’t promise things that will only take place in some future time. No – His Word proclaims the work of God in our lives this very day. It meets our every needs today, right now, this moment, and everyday of our lives on this earth. At whatever stage of our spiritual development, it meets the needs and it fulfills all that the Lord intends for it to do within those who will but eat of it. Its power and life giving nourishment is for our growth into spiritual maturity day by day, as each hour unfolds in our lives to the glory of God on this earth. 
Sadly, however, as noted by the writer to the Hebrews, some become merely satisfied with the elementary aspects of God’s Word. They do not seek for the Lord to move them on into all His fullness, into the spiritual truth and living relationship that is ours in Him. They do not desire to follow the necessary path of spiritual development with its required processes of spiritual exercise and up building training found in every situation and circumstance. They seem to be forever sucking at the milk of the Word and not feasting on the meat of His scripture for spiritual growth. Heb 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. For everyone who partakes only of milk is not accustomed to the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. But solid food is for the mature, who because of practice have their senses trained to discern good and evil. 
We need to encourage ourselves and each other to strive for the solid nutrition of the substance of God’s Word. We need to strive after our spiritual development into those men and women of God who can digest and absorb the deeper nutrients of His spiritual feeding. Then, we will be enabled to share, with others, the miraculous truth of all the goodness and all the grace and all the mercy and all the kindness of God’s Love. We will then be enabled to discern and understand more and more clearly the sound teaching of His Word. 
	 As we do grow in the Lord, to the potential that His Word will develop within us, we will soon find ourselves considering God’s Word as recorded in Deut 32:1-3 "Give ear, O heavens, and let me speak; And let the earth hear the words of my mouth. "Let my teaching drop as the rain, My speech distill as the dew, As the droplets on the fresh grass And as the showers on the herb. "For I proclaim the name of the Lord; Ascribe greatness to our God! Our hearts will be in absolute union with that of Moses as he proclaimed the indescribable greatness of our God. We will be in utter awe of all that He has accomplished in Jesus Christ and will freely offer up full acclamation of His goodness and greatness to His Glory Alone.
We will be enabled to, more and more, understand the teachings of our Lord and will know that what He said comes to us by Our Heavenly Father. Our hearts will spring up in joy as we read all the words recorded for our instruction. They will more and more solidly establish our faith that Jesus is the very Son of God. We will unwaveringly know Him as the Living Word in Whom our everything rests in the complete and perfect security and faithfulness of Our Lord God Almighty. John 7:16-18 Jesus therefore answered them, and said, "My teaching is not Mine, but His who sent Me. "If any man is willing to do His will, he shall know of the teaching, whether it is of God, or whether I speak from Myself. "He who speaks from himself seeks his own glory; but He who is seeking the glory of the One who sent Him, He is true, and there is no unrighteousness in Him. 
Finally, it is the eating of the Word of God that will maintain our hearts in the perfect will of God. Our lives will reflect that full sense of how much we rely on His Word to sustain us. As we deal with others, we will evidence the full heart of God in the purity of His Love for all men. We will be those overseers of the Word by which it is freely shared, without contradiction, with all the desperate, the hungry, and the starved masses of this realm. 
The Apostle Paul recognizes the importance of maintaining ourselves within the word and gives instructions, in His letter to Titus, as to the manner in which we must be seen in the nourishment and the power of God’s Word. Titus 1:7-9 For the overseer must be above reproach as God's steward, not self-willed, not quick-tempered, not addicted to wine, not pugnacious, not fond of sordid gain, but hospitable, loving what is good, sensible, just, devout, self-controlled, holding fast the faithful word which is in accordance with the teaching, that he may be able both to exhort in sound doctrine and to refute those who contradict. 
	As we continue to consume the Word of God together, in our worship, in our prayer groups, in the teaching of our children, and of one another, let it be done with the reverence and craving for the full nourishment of God’s Word to cultivate His Life in our hearts. His Word is not just another book; it is the book of life, life everlasting. It will face the severest critics in the living power of the resurrected and glorified Lord Jesus Christ. It will stand against all their arguments and intellectual theories and attempted twisting of its precepts and revelations. All that foolishness is completely voided by the Holy Spirit as He makes His Word the very source of our lives on this earth. Feast fully on His Word and know Whom we believe. Complete, absolute, and unshakeable belief in Jesus Christ is eternally established in the spiritual nourishment that is ours by the grace and the mercy and the love of God given in His Word. Our life is the life of His Word made flesh, Jesus Christ - Our Lord, Our Savior, Our Everything. Amen.
For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected, if it is received with gratitude; for it is sanctified by means of the word of God and prayer. In pointing out these things to the brethren, you will be a good servant of Christ Jesus, constantly nourished on the words of the faith and of the sound doctrine which you have been following. Amen

This morning’s benediction is 1 John 1:1-5 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we beheld and our hands handled, concerning the Word of Life —  and the life was manifested, and we have seen and bear witness and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us —  what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, that you also may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. And this is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. Amen