The Bible, Part 3 // How To Read The Scriptures

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All right, everybody, help me welcome Mary Jean Powers this morning.

Thanks.

That was a setup, wasn't it?

Luke, did you move this backwards because it needs to be backwards?

Okay.

The closer I can get, the better I feel with you guys.

Hope you're okay with that.

I uh thank you for that.

Look, I got three yaps.

Way to go, Luke.

Um you ever feel just insecure when God asks you to do something and you go, huh?

That's how I feel this morning.

So I'm just smart mouth at every crowd, isn't it?

So um I don't, I you know, I think it's because the worship was so sweet, and the message is so practical, and it feels like a disconnect somehow.

So I'm trying to talk myself out of, but it's not a disconnect.

I just need to do what I've been asked.

I need to honor Luke, I need to honor the Lord, I need to honor what God's been doing here the last few weeks and speaking to the lookout and uh bring bring the message that uh I've prepared that I've been asked to bring, and yet at the same time I'm going, oh, let's just talk about Jesus because and then and then it circles back around to but he is the word made flesh, right?

He's the living logos of God on two legs.

He is the he is the revelation of the Father who cares so much that we have substance for our our day-to-day with him.

He cares so much that we have this thing called the holy book.

That he gave us that, that he gives us, he gives us a written form that is unchanging to lay back and depend on.

And what a gift that is.

It's one of the few representations we have, isn't it?

Of something that we can hold exclusively with him.

Exclusively, his word, his word that's the overflow of his heart.

So I think I just talked myself out of my insecurity, and now I'm ready to go.

I'm a I'm a verbal processor, so thanks for humoring me there for a little bit.

So the Bible, um, my favorite thing to talk about, and it does, Luke, it does seem like you have a consistent pattern.

There's a pattern going on here where you ask me to cram 30 hours into 30 minutes, and I'm becoming less appreciative of that request.

I believe in that as time.

Is that faith or presumption, my friend?

Is that faith?

So um uh teaching the word is it's just my favorite thing in the whole world.

And and teaching how to study the word is super important, partly because I'm an I'm an academic, I'm an educator, a teacher, and so I know that if we attempt to learn something but don't know how to learn, we got a big mountain to cover, don't we?

It's just gonna be really hard.

But if we know how to how to learn, or if we're taught how to learn, it's gonna make all the difference in the world.

So uh Luke has asked me to talk about the practicalities of how we approach the word.

What's it, Holy Bible?

What's the next?

What's this sermon called?

Sermon is called, next slide, next slide, how to read the scriptures.

That's what we're talking about.

Problem being, it's a big book.

Yeah?

Lots of words, very thin pages, no pictures.

It's it's a lot to wade through.

66 books, actually.

My brain uh has been helped to know that, or to think this direction.

Not 66 books, which can feel incredibly overwhelming, but more like sections in a library.

Old Testament, for example, is three sections.

There's a history section, a poetry section, and a prophecy section.

17 books in history, five books in poetry, seventeen books in prophecy.

It helps.

It narrows down my poor brain from exploding.

Uh, New Testament is two sections in the library.

It's history and letters.

And letters that you get to read that are written from somebody else to somebody else.

I mean, that's nosy.

That's somebody else's business, and here I am sticking myself in it, going, well, what does that mean?

And how does it apply to me?

I was telling the Hawkmans earlier I saw this meme.

I should have had it on the slide thing.

Saw this meme the other day.

It's this lady with her Bible opened a psalms, and it uh it says, Um, you're so vain, you probably think this psalm was about you.

Yeah, so we gotta learn to be responsible with the holy word of God.

Responsible, and that's why Luke has uh made this sermon request this morning.

One thing we have to keep in mind, practically, spiritually, emotionally, mentally, is that the whole Old Testament points to Jesus.

You wanna say that with me?

The whole Old Testament points to Jesus.

We get to the New Testament, Jesus shows up, and then after he leaves again, the rest of the New Testament points back to Jesus.

Conclusion: the Bible's about Jesus.

Yeah?

And if we lose that, we've lost the whole point.

Jesus is the vision.

Jesus is the point.

So one thing we got to be careful about is that even though the Christian holy book points exclusively to Jesus, the Christian holy book does not replace Jesus.

And that is a tendency in Christianity.

It is a tendency to worship the Father, the Son, and the Holy Scriptures.

God help us.

It's a problem, it's a bigger problem than you might think.

Well, if it's not absolutely word for word in the word, God can't possibly do a new thing, even though the word says he's doing new things.

Kind of a contradiction there.

We just have to be careful that we don't become really that we miss the Holy Spirit.

We worship the Father, the Son, and the Spirit.

We got to be really careful that we don't miss the Holy Spirit.

So basically, there are going to be two points then this morning that we're gonna get, I'm gonna get to in just a second.

The Holy Spirit Spirit is the one who reveals, he's the one who explains, he's the one who spotlights on Jesus in the Word, who spotlights on the Father Heart of God.

He's the one, and for us to approach the word without him is can I just say this as a Bible teacher?

It's foolishness.

So huge, huge important point in a practical way to read the scripture is always invite Holy Spirit.

Always, always engage Holy Spirit, always welcome him.

You know, sometimes my brain doesn't always engage with that.

And so you know what I do?

I put a chair right beside me just to help my brain remember.

I'm not here trying to figure out God on my own.

You ever felt like that?

A little overwhelming, and good luck with that.

Not gonna happen.

This poor little brain cannot compute God, otherwise, he if I could figure him out, he wouldn't be much of a God, would he?

He'd be like me.

And if he's like me, we're screwed.

Seriously, he is so much other than, he is so far beyond.

We need the spirit.

So let's just humble ourselves and exalt it every single time we come to the word.

We need you, Holy Spirit, to reveal and interpret and spotlight and speak, speak the heart of the Father to us, okay?

So every major religion has a holy book.

Did you know that?

Every single major religion has a holy book, and every holy book tells three basics tells who's the God, who the God is, what his nature, his character is like, what that God requires of his followers in both attitude and action, and how that God wants to be worshipped and or served.

Every holy book explains that kind of stuff.

Ours is no different.

Ours tells who our God is.

I appreciated your exhortation this morning, Luke.

Who our God is, what he requires of his followers, who he calls children, in attitude and in action, and how a God wants to be worshipped and served.

So practicality number one, this well, number two, number one is engage the Holy Spirit.

Number two is if these are the only four things that you ever look for every single time you open the Bible, look for these four things, okay?

I want you to do what I do and say what I say after me.

Will you do that?

This means yes, this means no.

Will you do that?

Yeah, good, okay.

So do what I do, say what I say.

The Bible tells me the truth about four things.

Okay, but I just said, do what I do, say what I say, and you all said yes, you do it, and nobody went like this.

I just what's a teacher to do?

We're gonna try this again.

The Bible tells me the truth about four things.

Who God is, who I am, who we are together, and how do I live?

If that's all you ever get out of the Bible, if that's all you ever look for, you will be light years ahead of most Bible openers.

Not that it's a competition, because it's not a competition, but isn't it?

Don't we want to know?

Seriously, don't we want to know who God is?

Isn't he the point?

So ask the question what does this text say about who God is?

It's kind of a no-brainer, isn't it?

You want to know who you are?

Yeah, me too.

I want to know who I am, and Holy Spirit reveals who we are in his presence.

Number three, uh, what uh the Bible tells me the truth about four things.

What was the first one?

Who got his second one?

Third one?

Ah, who we are together, and he's put us in community.

Yeah, really important that we understand that.

And the fourth one, how to live.

Do you just not know sometimes?

How do I even do today?

How in the world?

I please say yes.

You you you don't know, do you?

I don't know either.

How do we do today?

That's how God uses by his spirit, he uses his word to tell you this is how you do today.

Want you to serve, want you to forgive, want you to love, whatever.

But this is how you do today.

So let's do it one more time, but this time do it together.

You ready, everybody together?

The Bible tells me the truth about four things: who God is, who I am, who we are together, and how do I live?

Look for those four things, practically.

Okay, agreed that God is far more beautiful than his own word.

There's no way a book can contain him.

There is no way.

But it's a great starting place, isn't it?

Starts to open us up to see his nature and his character, his heart.

Do you remember that little three-verse story in Luke chapter 6 that says uh it ends with this out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

Luke 6 · chapter mention

It's in Luke 6, 43 to 45.

We won't look there right now.

But it says, a good tree bears good fruit, bad tree bears bad fruit.

So, and it ends with, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

You ever said something and then thought immediately, where'd that come from?

Yeah, right out of our hearts.

That's where it came from.

Yep, right out of our soul.

We talk about what we've been thinking about, we talk about what we feel, we talk about our decisions, it just leaks out our mouth, right?

What I'd like to submit to you this morning is that this is the overflow of God's heart.

You want to know what God thinks?

This is where you're gonna find it.

Want to know what he feels about stuff?

You're gonna find it in here.

You wanna know the choices he makes and how he goes about making those choices?

This is it.

That's where we're gonna find it.

So we owe when we open the word, God opens his mouth.

How often, how often do you get to read a book and hang out with the author at the same time?

Huh?

Huh?

That's a pretty good deal right there.

Well, what do you mean by, well, can you explain this?

Well, that's cool.

Where'd you come up with that idea?

Yeah, that's called prayer.

Talking to God about what he says.

Yeah.

But our tendency is that God says something in his word, we close the Bible, we're done with the Bible part, and then we turn the other direction and say, Yeah, I need some money for uh.

There's no connect.

He's talking to us about love, and we say, I need some money.

He's talking to us about forgiveness, and we say, Hey, could you help my kid?

He's doing.

So he talks to us through his word, and we talk to him about what he just said.

That's called prayer.

Thanks, Luke, for agreeing.

That was cool.

That was very helpful to me.

So we've got this relational God who wants to talk and be.

I'm so glad he speaks.

We've got a God who talks.

What a relief, huh?

And he says, now talk to me about what I'm talking about.

Yeah.

So we're gonna have to take our time.

We're gonna now here's the here's the first premise for the day.

Uh well, a second.

First one was engage the Holy Spirit.

Second premise is this time with time in the word is time with Jesus, not just time about him.

Time in the word is time with Jesus, not just time about him.

Can you say that with me?

Time in the word is time with Jesus, not just time about him.

The the ice, the cake is Jesus.

The icing is you get to learn about him too.

But he's the cake.

Okay?

So we don't come to learn about him, we come to be with him.

Time in the word is time with Jesus.

And that's it, that's gonna take a mental shift.

We're not doing the Christian check off, check off the list thing.

I did the Bible thing for the day, check it off the list, close the book.

I spent my five minutes, whatever.

I'm not gonna remember it, but I did the I did the Christian thing.

No relationship there.

How would that go in a marriage?

How would that go in any friendship?

It's not gonna fly, is it?

No, it's not gonna fly.

So we're gonna get really practical.

We we don't um how do I say this?

I have found, as I travel around the world, all over the place, and meet almost exclusively with the church, that the number one thing people say about the Bible is I don't know how.

I don't know how to study, I don't know how to read.

I just don't know.

So what do we default to?

What's easiest, what's quickest, right?

But if you're gonna really get to know somebody, it's gonna require some study, isn't it?

Seriously, get to know anybody.

I mean, men.

You know, you can live with that woman for for the next 60 years, and she's gonna do something 60 years from now, and you're gonna go, where did that go?

What the heck does it?

What can't can you explain that to me?

You're you're gonna study that woman and study her and study her and study her and not figure it all out.

We can't even figure ourselves out.

So who do you think you are trying to figure?

That was a joke.

Didn't fly.

But but you've got to study, you've got to ask questions, right?

You've gotta you've got to take time and think.

And could you explain that to me again?

And hey, tell me that story again.

And why are you reacting to this?

I I I'm not figuring this out.

I thought I was doing okay, right?

Yeah?

How much more with God?

Who we can't see with our eyes or hear with our ears?

He's within us by his spirit, and we have his word, but how much more with God is it gonna take question asking and time and a whole lot of conversation?

So, question number one: are we willing to give him the time to study?

Are we are we willing to study him?

Study him, study his life, study his past, study his history, listen to his stories.

Because you know as well as I can, as I know, that we can make the Bible say anything we want to, can't we?

Yeah, so we need to do this with him, with him, to learn about him so that we can love him well.

Okay, end of intro.

Ready?

Practicalities?

Good, here we go.

Question number one: how do we engage with the Spirit of God in the text?

We approach the Bible with openness to something fresh and new.

I can't tell you how many times I have heard people say, I've already read this, I already know that story.

I already, not doing that again, already read the Bible, already, mm-mm mm-mm.

So what we're doing is discrediting God's ability to be relevant.

That probably is not nice of us to do that to him.

We're discrediting his ability to be relevant, to be alive.

Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12.

Hebrews 4:12

Ring a bell?

Yeah?

The word of God is living, living, active.

Sounds relevant to me.

Living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword.

It rightly divides between what is soul, what is spirit, and between the joints and the marrow.

In other words, it tells you the difference between is this your body talking, is it your soul talking, or is it your spirit talking?

Yeah?

Because you get confused with that.

I do sometimes.

Was that the three burritos I ate last night, or was it actually the word of the Lord?

Right?

What spirit, what soul, what's body?

And it penetrates, it penetrates.

Man, it's so important.

Um, it penetrates where it judges the thoughts and the attitudes of the heart, which is exactly why we don't come to it sometime.

We don't come to God in the word.

It's gonna judge my thoughts and my attitudes, and I don't want to be convicted of anything, thank you.

I don't want to.

Do you feel that way sometimes?

I'm scared if I open the Bible that he's gonna talk, and I'm scared that he's not gonna talk.

Where does fear come from?

Just saying.

Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight.

Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Well, is he God?

Am I?

Doesn't that kind of answer stuff?

Right there.

We come to him because he is God and he knows what we don't, including my own heart.

So how do we approach the engage the Spirit of God in the text?

We approach with openness to something fresh and new from him.

Next thing, how do we engage with the Spirit of God in the text?

We invite him.

Just invite him.

Time in the word is time with Jesus.

It's not time about him, it's time with him, right?

John chapter 14, verse 26.

John 14:26

The advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I ever said to you.

What a relief.

We have the Holy Spirit who says, Yeah, this is what Jesus is talking about today.

We have the Holy Spirit to remind us that we invite him, ask him every single time.

You open the word, say, Come, Holy Spirit.

And remind me of the stuff that Jesus has already said, and say new stuff too.

I just want to be with you.

I just want to be with you.

Time in the word is time with Jesus.

Let's say that together.

Time in the word is time with Jesus.

Here's another thing we can expect.

2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17.

2 Timothy 3:16

All scripture is God breathed, and it's useful.

All scripture is useful.

Yay, even Leviticus.

All scripture is useful.

For teaching us.

Do you need to know stuff that you don't know now?

Please say yes.

Yes.

So we have the scripture and the spirit, the word and the spirit to teach us stuff we don't know.

All scripture is useful to rebuke.

Is rebuke next or correct?

Rebuke.

Ah, strong word.

A rebuke is you're wrong.

Have you ever opened the word in Holy Spirit convicted you of something and flat out said, sweetheart, you're wrong.

The way you've been thinking there, yeah, wrong.

Go to your room.

Yeah?

Thank you, Holy Spirit.

I had no idea.

I was teaching in Sweden one time, and it was a YWAM school, and I was week, if I remember the story right, I was week eight.

So they had eight weeks of teaching.

And I said, Have you guys been surprised at all?

These are all young adults, by the way.

Have any of you been surprised to find out that uh you were actually wrong in some of your thinking about God or Christianity?

Collectively, one voice, the whole school went, Yes!

We had no idea.

We had no idea we were wrong.

Well, then we need to be rebuked.

This is not serving you well.

Stop it.

Just stop it.

Yeah?

Correction.

Holy Spirit comes and he corrects.

So when we open the word, we can expect to be taught because we don't know stuff.

We can expect to be rebuked because let's we let's own it.

We don't know, we're wrong.

Right?

Right, right, we're wrong.

Right.

Number three, correction.

We can expect to be corrected.

Now, is all of this gonna happen every time we open the word?

No.

No, thank God.

No.

He knows what we need to hear when we need to hear it.

What a relief.

But a correction is a tweak.

It's hey, you are doing great.

Let's just tweak this one little thing.

And then to train us like a coach, to train us.

He uses the word.

The Holy Spirit uses the word to coach us and to train us.

Do this, go there, don't shut up, sit down.

Right?

Right?

You need to be coached.

You need to be fine-tuned.

Me too.

So he gives us the word and the spirit.

What gifts.

Ephesians chapter 1, verse 17 says this.

Ephesians 1:17

We're inviting, this is an invitation to be with Jesus in his word.

Paul teaches us to pray here.

He says, I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the spirit of wisdom.

You need it?

You need perspective, God's point of view, yeah.

And revelation.

Please.

Please.

Why?

Ah.

So you can know him better.

That's why he gives us wisdom.

That's why he reveals stuff to us to say, come here, sweetheart.

Closer.

Let's get closer.

She can know him better.

So we're inviting him to do all these things.

We'll look at one more, Isaiah chapter 11, verse 2.

Isaiah 11:2

This is a prophecy about Jesus, and it says, the Spirit of the Lord will rest on Jesus.

The spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, the spirit of counsel, the spirit of might, the spirit of knowledge, and the spirit of the fear of the Lord.

Man, we open the word, invite Holy Spirit to come be with us and give us all of that stuff as we sit with Jesus to get to know him better.

Merry Christmas.

Does it get any better than that?

I was, it was probably 10 years ago now.

I was teaching in South Africa in Cape Town in a squatters camp.

This is totally irrelevant to this message, by the way.

I was sitting in the squatters camp with these people who lived, had been living there for years and years and years, and there was a drunk lady in the back.

And she had passed out early on in my teaching.

And she kind of came to toward the end.

And somewhere, somewhere along the line, I said that.

I said, Merry Christmas! And she went, and Happy New Year was her entire contribution for the evening.

I just squirreled us away to South Africa there for a second.

So next point.

If we invite him to do that, don't you think the polite thing to do would be to say, okay, now that you've done that for me, I'll submit to what you say.

So how do we engage Scripture?

How do we engage the Holy Spirit?

With a heart of submission.

Now that you've shown me, the answer is yes, sir.

Because I love you.

And I trust you.

Yes, sir.

I'll follow through with this.

But please help me.

Because I don't want to.

True enough?

Yeah?

And he is more than happy to help.

But this is ongoing everyday stuff as we open the word.

Every day invite him, every day time with Jesus, every day openness to something fresh and new.

Every day a submitted heart.

Why?

Because it's a relationship through the word that He reveals, that He reveals Himself.

So my submission is hugely important.

Learning to ask good questions is really hard.

Agreed?

Really good questions?

It's hard.

For some of us it comes naturally, but for most of us, it's a learned skill.

We rather be talking than asking questions and learning from each other.

We'd rather be saying what we know.

Agreed?

Yeah?

Wow.

Nobody wants to admit that one.

Okay.

So the hard thing about asking God questions when we re when he shows us stuff in the Word and we don't understand or we're challenged with something, one of the hard things is to ask questions and then sit there and shut up and listen.

It's hard.

It's hard.

First thing that comes to my mind, anyway, I don't know about yours, is he's not going to answer me.

And then we're kind of scared he will.

Because that'll give us something else to figure out or something else to make a decision on or new information.

What do I do with it?

Right?

But we've got a God who seriously loves questions.

He's not threatened by our questions.

He really loves them.

He's tricky though, because he doesn't always answer straight up.

Jesus was asked 183 questions.

180 of them.

He either told a story or asked a question in response.

Three of them he answered straight up.

Just trying to prepare you a little bit.

But I think it's important to ask questions.

You know why?

As a teacher, I can tell you this.

Until the student has the question, my answer is not going to mean a whole lot.

Why would he give us the answer before we have the question?

See what I mean?

Ask him questions.

Become a question ask with God.

It's really, really important.

And then listen and wait.

So, uh, second thing, what are the common obstacles and traps that we have when reading the scripture?

I would say the first most the probably the biggest obstacle or trap we have is that we don't even invite God to join the process.

That sounds really stupid right now, doesn't it, to say that?

But it's true.

We forget to invite him to come and talk and be and reveal and give us wisdom.

Instead, we default to the Western way of learning, which is I've got to figure this out with my own brain.

I've got to figure God out.

I've got to figure out what this time in Israel's history means, and actually, I don't even care.

And we close the book and walk away.

We can't pronounce half the words in there.

We're just talking about names and places, so we skip over them and we don't.

Bottom line, you guys, we're not great students of Jesus when it comes to the word.

We're not great at it in general.

Would anybody agree?

Or yeah?

And so be.

Jesus said it's the only thing that's gonna set us free anyway.

And it's in the word that we find it.

So to become students of the word with the teacher of the Holy Spirit is pretty cool.

You don't have to wait to have somebody else explain it to you.

The teacher lives inside you.

24-7 on call, ready to help, ready to explain himself, ready to answer questions, ready to be there with you, ready to comfort you if he says you don't need to know yet.

So problem number one is we don't recognize or remember that time in the word is time with Jesus.

Or we don't even invite him to come, we just try to figure it out.

Now, I do have this other thing though.

You know, George Barna, he's so great.

Uh American uh statistician for the evangelical church, and he gives top ten reasons why people don't read the Bible.

I'm gonna blitz through these, okay?

You ready?

Uh just do the argument in your head here or with the person next to you, punch him or top ten reasons why people don't read the Bible.

Number one, I don't know where to start.

Yeah, most people read books from the beginning.

I I don't know, I just but but then there's the chronological issue.

That is a problem.

We'll talk about that in a second.

Number nine, I can't find what I want to in the Bible.

Well, how do you learn to find stuff by being in the number eight, the Bible doesn't confirm what I believe.

Caught onto that one really fast, didn't you?

Yeah, the Bible, yeah.

Anyway, I hear the Bible at church, so why do I need to read it for myself?

You wouldn't believe how many times I've heard that one.

You would not believe.

Here, crunch the numbers.

If five verses per service were read each week, it'd take 120.6 years to hear the whole Bible once.

Just saying.

Number next, what am I?

Six.

The language of the Bible doesn't make sense to me.

The language of anything new doesn't make sense to us, right?

Right?

Yeah.

Uh number five.

The Bible's such a big book, I can never read it all.

Just throwing this out there that Harry Potter book one had 309 pages, book four had 734 pages, and book five had 870.

I read them all.

I don't, I don't know about you.

I just, and all three of you who've read the series laughed.

The number four, the Bible isn't relevant to my life.

What's the missing ingredient, church?

Holy Spirit.

Number three, the Bible is boring.

Raise your hand, everybody in the room, if you have ever thought that.

Absolutely, I certainly have.

Yeah.

Not long ago, I was reading and I actually did this.

It was horrifying.

It was terrifying.

I was reading along out loud because it helps me learn stuff better.

And then I out loud said, I was the only one home.

I was so relieved.

I out loud said, Well, I don't agree with that.

And then I went, Yeah, on the other hand, sir, I do, but I don't get it.

My brain disagrees.

My brain disagrees.

But you're God and I'm not, so I'm open.

Help me out here.

Yep.

I read some stuff, snooze.

It's like, God, why did you put this in here?

You ever thought that?

Yeah?

Why in the world?

Did you stop to ask him?

Thank you.

Did you stop to ask him?

Why is this in your holy book?

Holy Spirit?

Saying anything here?

Connect some dots for me.

Because I'm bored out of my mind right now.

So at least engage my spirit, please.

And you may have to Google a commentary or two to figure out what the heck.

Google.

Where would we be?

I mean, God's gift to mankind right up there with coffee.

It's just, yes, yes.

Be careful, though, with as my as my Mexican uh my translator in Mexico says, he calls it Googlio.

He says, you be careful, Google Marihen, you be careful.

Okay, Jose Luis, I be careful.

Yeah, because it because the internet is not contrary to popular belief.

Always right.

Okay, Bible's boring.

But the Bible has it all.

Danger, passion, jealousy, betrayal, love, honor, war, stories of international intrigue, family conflict, and death threats.

And it's boring.

Number two, reading the Bible isn't a priority in my life.

Okay, finally, we're down to it.

Yeah.

We prioritize what we value.

We don't value what we prioritize.

We prioritize what we value.

Agreed?

Yeah?

We prioritize what we value.

So then that requires a conversation with the Lord, too.

Can you give me a value here?

Because obviously I'm not, I'm, I'm, I, I don't care enough to prioritize this.

I mean, you got 21 days coming up.

Give it a shot.

And number one, I don't have time.

Number one, top reason why people don't read the Bible.

I don't have time.

Again, we prioritize what we value, but um the issue is never about time, right?

It's always about what we choose to get done in the time that we all have, because we all have the same amount of time.

So just some stats to help you.

33 books can be read, books, books, not verses, books.

33 books can be read in less than 30 minutes.

26 of those can be read in less than 15 minutes.

This is not for a fast reader, this is an average reader.

26 of those can be read in less than 15 minutes.

The New Testament, if you read for 30 minutes a day, can be read every three months, the whole thing.

But here's a really fun one that we've actually done.

The whole Bible can be read in 72 hours.

Average readers.

Kind of shoots that excuse in the foot, doesn't it?

Yeah.

So the Bible is read by people who choose to read it.

How's that for a brilliant statement?

Bible reading is also neglected by people who choose to neglect it.

Alright?

How are we doing, Luke?

Doing all right?

Yeah, you're still smiling.

That's a good sign.

Luke, what time do you want me to quit?

Because I'm talking about my favorite subject here.

You gotta give me a time frame, man, to know how fast to go.

Ten more minutes?

You guys okay with that?

Ten more minutes?

No, Rose is not?

Rose, you need to repent.

Oh, okay.

All right.

Question number three: what question should we ask when we approach a passage?

Wow, I can't even ask.

What question should we ask when we approach a question?

Um, you guys, uh, one of our biggest problems in Bible interpretation is we take scripture out of context.

One of our biggest problems with Bible interpretation is that we take scripture out of context.

We see a verse and we really like it and go, ooh, I'm gonna take that one home.

And then we try to hold God to what he said right there in that one verse, and he doesn't own up, so we get disappointed or mad at him.

We get mad at him for not doing something that he never said he'd do to begin with.

Because we have taken the Bible irresponsibly out of context.

Context, context, context is key.

Now, there's a nasty extreme to context, and that is this, and I have actually been told this by a Bible scholar.

She said, brilliant woman, she said, scripture can never mean anything to you that it didn't mean to the original hearer.

And my question was, then what about Holy Spirit?

What about revelation?

What about him alive and active, quickening something on the inside of me, saying, This story, I'm gonna take it and make it relevant for you right now, sweetheart, because you need this.

What about that?

And I mentioned that and she got really mad.

But she's she said, she said, no, that wasn't possible.

So you've heard of all of the W's and the H, right?

Probably, I don't know, scratch your brain back to eighth grade English or something.

Who, what, when, where, why, which, how?

Does that kind of ring a little ding ding ding inside?

Who, what, where, when, why, which, how?

Say it with me.

Who, what, where, when, why, which, how.

We do, I forgot to put which in my notes.

Who, what, where, when, what, yeah, don't read that.

Who, what, where, when, why, which, how.

Go.

Who, what, where, when, why, which, how.

This is what will help us keep it in context and not end up blaming God for stuff he never promised.

Be careful with his heart here.

Be careful with his heart and your own by being responsible in our reading.

So, who?

Who was the author?

Who was the recipient?

Kind of important.

Who?

What?

What was the issue being addressed, right?

That just makes sense.

Wouldn't it be helpful to know what's the issue?

Number three, when was the book written?

What's going on in history?

Listen, Google, Google, Google.

Take you five minutes.

Get a good study Bible.

It won't add much to your time to get these basics.

Uh when?

When was the book written?

Where?

Where was the book written from?

Where was the book written to?

Did you know that two-thirds of the New Testament was either written from or to modern-day Turkey?

Turkey is to the New Testament what Israel is to the Old Testament.

Super important to understand this.

We're not in the Holy Land here, we're in Turkey.

It just helps.

It helps to understand geography, all that kind of stuff.

Who, what, when, where, or why?

Why was the book written?

What's the purpose?

It's usually for some kind of correction or tweaking in somebody's thinking.

Which, ah, and now it gets it gets touchy.

Which literature style is it written in?

Which literature style.

You read poetry differently than you read history, right?

Right?

Yeah.

You read, you pick up a book of quotes, in other words, wise sayings by somebody.

You pick up a book of quotes by somebody.

Don't you read that differently than you read a how-to manual?

Yeah.

It's a different mindset for it.

I remember eighth grade poetry.

I was lost from day one and I was mad.

I was mad because they were grading me on my interpretation of some Yahoo who lived 350 years ago who got all ooey-gooey and wrote something down, and I was supposed to interpret it, and they were gonna grade me on that.

On interpretation.

Poetry is about emotion, it's about personal observation and feeling and stuff.

And so, and so we don't get our theology from somebody's emotion.

Yeah, it's good, but it's hard because I want to take that psalm and make it gospel truth.

All of it, if that's how I feel.

Ah, gotta watch out for that.

So, which literature style?

Was it history?

Was it poetry?

Was it letter?

Was it proverbs, story, doctrine?

What's the literature style?

And then how, lastly, how, how do you want to use this in my life, Lord?

And we submit.

We submit.

So tell you a really quick story.

Seven years ago, seven years ago last month, my mother passed away.

Eight years ago last month, my father passed away.

After they had both gone and I went to their house, the house I grew up in, I went into mom's bedroom, and at the very back of her underwear drawer, weird place, was a stack of old letters, about like that.

And I started flipping through them and noticing the dates in the 40s, 1940s.

And I was not emotionally in a place where I could read those at that time.

I waited, came back home, readjusted to life, went away for three days and took those letters with me.

Three days just for the purpose of reading those letters.

They were letters that my dad wrote to my mom.

My dad was a lifer in the military, so he was stationed during World War II and during the Korean War.

He was stationed overseas.

And part of the a few of the letters were before they were married when he was still trying to win her heart.

And a few of the letters were after, and they were from different countries, different wars, when he was stationed overseas.

And this was a man I never knew.

Because by the time he came back from those wars, he was already medicated for depression for the rest of his life.

And the man I knew, the only man I ever knew, was depressed.

Never talked.

So this man, this was discovery.

The man my mom fell in love with.

I got to know my dad.

Now, granted, my dad from the 40s, but still my dad and part of his life.

I was eavesdropping on their letters, their love letters back and forth.

She kept them all.

When we read a letter from someone else to someone else, let's take it in context.

Let's learn from their relationship and what's going on in their lives right then.

And lastly, ask the question, what are you saying to me, Holy Spirit?

Instead of jumping into application first, I have to ask the question: do we have an idol called application?

I'm opening the Bible to get something from God right now.

What do you want me to do with this?

Instead of to be with and to learn his story and to hang out with him and hear stories about the people that he has influenced for generations.

And then lastly say, what are you saying here?

Relationship first.

Okay, I'm gonna go to the next one.

Um different ways I can better engage with scripture.

Number one, slow down.

Would you rather go this deep with a chapter or with a verse?

You know, go deep.

Slow down your reading.

And I'm just gonna, by the way, if audio Bible is how you learn, if listening is how you learn better than reading, then listen.

Listen, it'll go deeper, it'll be better.

I'm just gonna I'm gonna blast this right through, just say it, call it what it is, and jump right off of it before you throw anything, okay?

Get off your phone.

And get a good study Bible and make it, make that Bible something exclusive to your intimate relationship with the Almighty God.

Everything on that phone is shared.

Oh yeah, and God.

Quit making him an add-on, get off your phone, turn it off, put the freaking thing in your bedroom while you study, get it out of the room and spend time with Jesus in a hard copy.

Seriously, I am not saying this because I'm old.

I know I'm old.

I am saying this because we have discarded one of the very few things that is exclusive in my love relationship with Jesus.

And it's his word.

It's a copy of his word.

I get to own it, and it's in my language, and I can make it my own commentary.

Get off your phone and get a hard copy of the Bible, a good study Bible.

The phone is great for the bathroom.

The phone is great for when a train is going by and you're stuck there for five minutes.

The phone is great for being in the word then, not for study.

Not for study.

You just you just can't go to the same place.

Okay, nobody threw anything.

All right, gonna go past that and past that and past that and past that and um one more point.

I'm skipping over a lot of stuff here.

What do we do with challenging and confusing passages?

Number one, ask Holy Spirit, what does this mean?

Why is it challenging me?

If it's challenging you personally and you find yourself resisting, ask Holy Spirit, why am I resisting?

If it's challenging you personally and you find yourself convicted, repent.

Repent.

So that's number one.

Write down your questions.

What you already know from the word, study other passages, use commentaries, wait, listen, study, study, study.

I will say this last thing.

Deuteronomy 29, 29, which is not on a slide, says this the secret things belong to the Lord.

In other words, God's got secrets.

Some stuff would just make our heads explode if he explained it to us.

So he's having mercy on us.

Some things we don't need to know.

Remember the parenting days?

You don't need to know this yet, sweetheart.

Yeah?

Some things we don't need to know, some things we can't know.

So are you cool with that?

With permissioning God to be God and to not tell us everything?

Here's the rest of that verse.

The secret things belong to the Lord, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever.

There are things of the kingdom of God I can own.

They are mine.

Reveal truths by the Spirit of God through the Word of God, and man, I can take them to the bank.

But there's a lot of stuff I'm not gonna know.

You okay with letting him be God?

Because he's good.

We come to the word to encounter his godness and his goodness by his spirit.

So may we yield give way to him.

Truly prioritize what we say we value.

And the truth will set us free.

That's good news, huh?

So, question: Will you give God's thoughts and his feelings and his choices?

Will you give his heart authority in your life?

Then you have to know what it says.

Second question, how is he asking you to honor his heart by honoring his word?

How is he asking you to honor his heart by honoring his word?

So, Lord, um we confess to you that we, although we prioritize truth and the Bible, we don't, although we say we value it, we don't always prioritize.

And I'm not gonna say we don't always prioritize the Bible.

I'm gonna say we don't always prioritize you and relationship with you and time with you, and the supernatural way that you engage us when we open your word and invite you.

It is supernatural, it's incredible, Lord.

You are, you are so far beyond what our brains can figure out.

So help, help, help us yield, help us change our priorities to align with our Christian values.

Help us to defer to you as being the truth.

Help us to remember to invite Holy Spirit and engage Holy Spirit.

Help us to want to, where we don't want to be men and women of the word, will you give us the want to?

We give you permission to change our want-to.

Will you give us the want-to- because there's truth to be found there?

There's freedom to be found there, but most of all, there's intimacy and relationship to be found there.

So, Lord, help.

Help us become lovers of your heart, the overflow of your heart.

To submit our thinking to your thinking, to submit our feelings to your feelings, to submit our choices to your choices.

Help us.

You're the only one who can, really.

But as we worship this morning, it became very clear.

We really love you.

We really like you.

And we really want to know you.

And this is, by your spirit, the primary way you have given us to know the truth about who you are and who I am and who we are together and how to live as people who bring your kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.

So may this church, may your church fall head over heels in love with the overflow of your heart, with your word.

May you this church have an insatiable desire to hear from you in your word.

May this church engage you, Holy Spirit, every single time they open the word.

And thank you, God.

You're a God who speaks.

You are not silent.

In fact, you talk a lot.

May we have ears to hear.

In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son.

In the name of the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

We both forgot to mention this one, especially.

Okay.

Go for it.

Yeah.

Real quick.

I've got some stuff back there.

Here's the deal with our organization.

We know that people don't know how to study the word.

And so we've done some resources where while you're studying, you learn how to study according to your own learning style.

They work.

I'm telling you, they work.

So this one especially, after being a student of the word all my life, I took the best of the best study methods I have ever discovered, ever, for all learning styles, and put them into a method book.

So that one's back there, and then some topical studies, as well as some uh some other books that I'll explain.

I'll just be back there and explain them to you.

But if you don't know how to study and you want to learn creative ways to study and ways to engage Holy Spirit every time, these books will help you with that.

You learn how to study while you're studying.

Okay?

That was quick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So her table, the book table is in the lobby.

When you go, pick up a bunch of her books, different studies and topics.

You will be blessed by everything.

Can you guys uh thank Mary Jean for bringing such a brilliant word?

I love how my voice is like an octave deeper right now.

Hey, let's stand together.

That's what happens after you lead worship.

Um, we'll stand together.

A few things.

Listen, before we head out, we're gonna have a ministry team forward, um, people with badges on the front and right side, we're gonna even on the walls.

If you see somebody with a badge, these are people you that that are here to pray with you.

If if you're here today and you have tried to read the Bible, but you want to be introduced to the God of the Bible, you want to be introduced to Jesus Himself.

I want you to not leave that room.

You need to come forward and receive Jesus into your heart.

I believe it.

That is an invitation for us here today.

Second thing is this do what Mary Jean said.

Okay?

Don't just be hearers, but be doers.

That's actually how we transform.

We can't transform any other way.

So this week, spend time in the word because spending time in the word is spending time with who?

Jesus.

Spending time in the word is spending time with Jesus.

Do what she said.

And if you are ready for a reset in your relationship with the word, if you have found your mind going a lot of different directions on a lot of different days, you need to join this fast that we are starting next Sunday.

Renew your mind.

It's a 21-day fast.

We're doing together.

This is gonna be a great time to reestablish your rhythms in the word of God, okay?

Again, sign up online at the lookout.church slash connect.

You'll see a link there for the fast.

Be a part, it's gonna be fantastic.

As you leave today, if you're a guest with us and you want to uh learn more about the church, in the back, we're gonna have a sign that says connect with us.

And you can go find uh just go uh hang out at the sign that says connect with us.

We'll take you to the connect hub.

You'll meet a pastor and learn more about the church.

We would love to get to know you.

And uh finally, if you have kids, you can go run and get them uh after the service here.

Thank the teachers, okay?

When you go down there, don't just get your kids.

Thank the teachers by name.

Tell them we appre how much you appreciate them and value them, and you can bring your kids back up.

Guys, it's been a beautiful morning.

We love you.

Have a happy Labor Day weekend.

Go in the peace and strength of the kingdom of God.

Blessings.