A few years ago they came out with an interesting list, of the books that people most frequently lie about reading, in order to appear well-read!
The top four were George Orwell’s 1984, (42%), Tolstoy’s War and Peace (31%), James Joyce’s Ulysses (25%) and, of all books — the Bible (24%) which is pretty ironic, that people would LIE about having read the Bible! If they HAD really read the Bible all the way through, they would have come across the 9th Commandment, which tells us not to bear false witness!
Well I don’t know how many of us here today have ever read all the way through the Bible, but I hope that by the end of 2022, you will be able to say that you did. It is a big deal – to know that you have read entirely through THE single greatest book in all the world.
As a young man, Bill Tolar was an atheist, and he was very proud of his intellectual ability. But one day he was asked by a friend, since he was so intellectual, if he had ever read through the world’s #1 best-selling book of all time? He asked, what IS the best-selling book of all time? His friend told him it was the Bible. When Bill heard that, he wanted to read it just so he could say, for his own intellectual pride, that he had done it. But as he read the Bible, God’s Spirit began to work in him. He later said I began to realize that if this book was right, my life was wrong. And he ended up giving his life to Jesus as his Savior — and went on to become one of the most amazing professors, at Southwestern Baptist Seminary in Ft. Worth.
God does great things when we get into His word. So I hope you’ll join us January 1st as we begin a year-long journey reading through the Bible together as a church family, “In The Word 2022.” To help us prepare for that, I want us to look at the commitment that Ezra, one of the great men of God in the Old Testament, had to the word of God, which we find in Ezra 7:10:
“For Ezra had set his heart to study the Law of the Lord and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.” (Ezra 7:10)
God used Ezra in a great way, and one of the reasons He could, was because Ezra had developed some habits in his life, in the scriptures.
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shawnethomas 
“Reckoned As Righteous” (Genesis 15:6 sermon)
In the winter of 1738 Charles Wesley was serving as a missionary in America, but he wrote in his journal, he was seeking to convert the Indians, but who would convert HIM? He was earnestly seeking to be right with God, and get an assurance of salvation, but it was eluding him. He just did not feel at peace with God. In late February, Wesley got sick, and Peter Bohler, a Moravian missionary, visited him. He said, ‘Do you hope to be saved?”‘ Wesley said he did. Bohler asked him: “For what reason do you hope to be saved?” Charles Wesley answered, “Because I have used my best endeavours to serve God.” But Bohler simply “shook his head and said no more. I thought him very uncharitable,” Wesley continued, “saying in my heart ‘What! Are not my endeavours a sufficient ground of hope? Would you rob me of my endeavours? I have nothing else to trust to.”’ (John R. Tyson. Assist Me to Proclaim, Kindle 653-662)
Charles Wesley at that time was like many people are today — thinking that he might be saved by his “endeavours” — his good works; the things he could do for God. Maybe you are like him today. Maybe you’ve started off this year trying to be the best person you can be, so that you will find favor with God. If that’s what you’ve been thinking, then our verse for today is good news for you indeed!
One of the great blessings of reading through the Bible together this year is that in the course of the year we will come across all of the greatest verses in the Bible at one point or another — and it will give me the opportunity to preach on many of these great verses this year. Our verse for today has to be considered one of those: Genesis 15:6, “Then he believed in the Lord; and He reckoned it to him as righteousness.”
Genesis 15:6 is one of the Old Testament verses that is most often quoted by the authors of the New Testament (Romans 4:3, 4:20-22, Galatians 3:6, James 2:23). And rightly so, because this verse teaches us some of the most important truths about salvation. If you want to be “saved”: if you want to know that your sins to be forgiven, that you are right with God, and have a home in heaven, you need to understand what this verse is teaching us about being “Reckoned As Righteous.”
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