Three Ways to Focus Our Bible Reading

If you don't know me, my name is Devin Warfield, and I serve

as the pastor of children and Families here at Bethesda. And it's a privilege

this morning to be able to preach God's word to you, if you'll turn

in your Bibles to Proverbs twenty two. Each time I get to preach,

I enjoy the privilege. And this morning we get to learn from Proverbs.

And I've never preached from Proverbs before, so each time I preach, I

do like to. I mean sometimes I like to find something new that I

haven't preached from. It's good experience, and it challenges me a little bit.

I have to study what's the background of this book, what is who

is the writer? And why did he write to his people? And Proverbs.

I had someone say it was one of their favorite books this morning,

and so I hope that if you haven't read Proverbs lately, that this morning

encourages you to read more of this book. The Book of Proverbs was mostly

written by King Solomon, with possibly two or three other writers, and Proverbs

comes from the scripture. The type of scripture the genre called wisdom literature.

It's different from historical narrative like Kings and Genesis and Matthew. And it's different

from the law type of genre like Leviticus, and it's different from the letters

like Romans and Ephesians and Corinthians. It's more wisdom literature. It's written to

give God's people wisdom. And so today we're going to see how Proverbs gives

us wisdom in our Bible reading. We're about two weeks into the new year,

into twenty twenty four, and often people will start a new Bible reading

plan at the beginning of the year. I know, I tried to.

It's actually the plan that I did last year. And you know, it's

not that I made a resolution, but I said, you know, all

the days that I missed last year, I'm gonna try to make up for

this year by restarting the same plan, and maybe this year I'll be able

to complete all the days, though I'm already behind. But if you don't

have a Bible reading plan, it's not too late to start. There are

many Bible reading plans that you can find online. There's Bible apps that show

you those those plans. One that Jonathan recommended to me a few years ago

and I've used for many years is the the Chain Bible Reading Plan. D.

A. Carson has a book for the Love of God that I think

he mentioned last year at the New Year, so I'm going to continue going

through that. It has four chapters of scripture from four different books each day.

And if you complete the whole Bible reading plan, you go through the

Old Testament once and you go through the New Testament twice in one year.

So it is a lot of reading, but I try to This year,

I'm trying to read all four passages. Usually I've just focused on the first

two. This year, I'm going to try to do all four and so

I'll read two chapters in the morning and then two chapters in the evening,

and that breaks it up really well. And my goal is to keep going

through the Bible. But there are many other plans out there. There's chronological

plans. You can read through the Bible in the way that we in the

order that we think they were written, or you can read through them in

the order of timeline, right, so from the earliest record to the oldest

record. You can read through them thematically. You could even take a month

reading plan. So you know, I'm going to do it this month and

then after that we'll see, right. But many times when I would sit

down to read my Bible from my plan, I would get distracted. And

that's really what today's message is about. It's about when you sit down to

read your Bible, you may get distracted, and even you're reading your Bible

and it feels like it's just another task that's being completed, Like you're reading

is flat maybe or dull. Right, you get finished with your reading and

you just realize you just finished your reading. It wasn't a specific truth or

a impactful statement that came from the Lord that you have to take away.

You just you finished your reading for the day. And honestly, I felt

myself feeling that way several times throughout the year, and actually in most of

my Christian life, I've felt that way. I feel like Christian life sometimes

is like a roller coaster, right, where you have highs and you have

lows, just like life is. And it's sad that I felt that way

in my Bible reading, right, And so I wanted to talk today about

basically three ways to focus our Bible reading from Proverbs twenty two. In times

when reading scripture is hard and seems lifeless, I want you to quickly get

back to seeing God's word as life giving. So what I want you to

see today is that we must focus on the wisdom of God's word so that

our trust is found in him. Let's stand together, and let's read Proverbs

twenty two, verses seventeen through twenty one. Incline your ear and hear the

words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge. For it

will be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are

ready on your lips, that your trust may be in the Lord. I

have made them known to you today. Even to you have I not written

for you thirty sayings of counsel and knowledge to make you know what is right

and true, that you may give a true answer to those who sent you.

Let's pray, Father God, as we study your word today. I

pray that you would open our eyes that we might behold wonderful things out of

your law. Lord, we pray that you would impact not only our minds

to help us understand this passage, but Father, touch our hearts, that

we might be convicted of our sin, convicted of our distraction, of the

many ways that this world calls our attention. Father, I pray that you

would speak to us and open our eyes, Father, to help us see

your glory. How much you've given us wisdom in your word. Lead us

today by your holy spirit. Father helped me not to speak anything but your

truth. Father, Use me as the preacher of your word, to deliver

your message to your people today. In Jesus name, we pray amen.

So this section of Proverbs is written by an unknown wise man. It's not

one of those that is attributed to Solomon. Other sections we know Solomon did

write, but we see here there's no description of who wrote this except four

in verse seventeen, it says, incline your ear and hear the words of

the wise. So these are the words of the wise we are reading today.

But these words are like a father's instructions to his son in the faith,

maybe a parent who wants his child to be wise and self controlled.

So Verses seventeen through twenty one of this chapter Chapter twenty two are actually an

introduction or a prelude to thirty sayings that go after it, and they span

from from verse twenty two through chapter four. Sorry chapter twenty four, verse

twenty two. So scholars have shown that there are thirty sections or thirty thirty

sections of sayings through the next come a chapter and a half, if you

will. So this is the introduction to that section. We're going to study

this because the father is telling the son, pay attention to what's come,

pay attention to the wise sayings, the word of the wise. And this

is why. So right from the beginning, I think we see three commands

in the scripture and verse seventeen it says, incline your ear and hear the

words of the wise, and apply your heart to my knowledge. We see

immediately those three commands from the father to the son. Incline here and apply.

The Father tells the son, these are what you should do in order

to hear my wise words. And there are two body parts used to obey

these commands. We have the ear and we have the heart. The wise

father says. The first thing you have to do is to hear my wisdom.

Put your ear close to these wise sayings. In order to start gaining

wisdom, we have to put words within us. We have to seek out

that wisdom. We have to even read the words of God so that the

wisdom of God will be in us. Right, I think our first priority

then is to be in the word of God. In our personal time,

in our time at church, we are engaged with what God has to say

to us. I think it happens in many different ways. It's not only

in our personal time with the Lord daily reading his word, but it's also

when we are here at church we're gathered right. It's not just something we

check off our list to come on Sunday, because that's what we've always done.

You are here this morning to hear from your God, the wise man

says, engage your ears to hear the words. Is that not part of

our problem? Sometimes we struggle to even make time for our reading of God's

word or listening to it. There are other many loud voices in this world

that call our attention. There are so many activities that vie for our time,

our attention. For me, it's a list of things that I have

to do. I'm a list person, so there's a list of things,

maybe if not on paper, in my mind, of all these things that

I have to get done. I wake up and I think I've got to

do this, this, this and this, and so when I wake up

and I sit at my table to read God's word, all of those light

bulbs are going off, saying, oh, you got to get this done,

you got to get this done, you got to get this done.

And so it distracts me. And so often, I won't say often,

sometimes I let those thoughts stay in my mind and I don't take them captive

in the moment. And so I'm like, oh, I have to create

a schedule for I just actually realize this when I was sitting right there during

the worship time, right, even like during worship at church, these thoughts

are in are distracting us, right, And so what I did immediately when

I was sitting there were standing there worshiping, I thought, oh, I

haven't made a schedule for the Bee Kid's Growth Group assistant yet, so there

might not have been somebody up there today, right, So I'm like,

oh my gosh, what did I do? And so immediately I pull out

my phone, I type in make schedule, and I put it back in.

And that has been my solution to free my mind from those distractive thoughts.

I write it down so I don't forget it. I'm not going to

do it now, but then it's out of my mind now, and now

I can re engage and I can focus on hearing what God has to say

to me now, and so I've made that a habit during my Bible reading

as well. I will keep Usually it's not my phone at that point because

it's a distraction too, but maybe a little sticky notepad next to me and

I'm reading. I'm reading, Oh, something pops into my mind. I

write it down and then I can forget about it, right, because if

not, I'll forget about all the things that I think of during my Bible

study time, and I will never get anything of those done. So sometimes

when we read the Bible and we hear a passage priests on Sunday, we're

present and we get the job done, but we haven't engaged our hearts because

the first and second commands in this passage are about hearing, and the third

command is not about hearing. It's applying. It's applying our heart to the

knowledge of the wise. So we not only have to hear them and read

them, we have to apply our hearts. We have to engage our hearts

in what's being taught to us, what truth is being revealed to us from

God's word. We apply our hearts so that the word of God can have

it to affect on our souls. God's word is not like anything else we

read. Paul says in Two Timothy three sixteen through seventeen that it's breathed out

by God, and it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,

and for training in righteousness. And so do we treat God's word that way

when we are we are engaging with it, that it has a supernatural power,

the spiritual power, to engage our hearts, to correct our hearts,

to train us for righteousness. The author of Hebrews adds another thing. It

says, the word of God is living and active, sharper than a two

edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints

and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. So

that's the word of God that we're engaging with, This alive and active word

of God that penetrates our hearts if we apply it to our hearts, and

it does this purify effect of saying, this desire, this motive, this

intention in your heart is not of the Lord, it is of your flesh.

It highlights for us where our souls are applying our hearts while we read

the Word of God, which is active in living, plays a crucial role

in purifying us, revealing why we do what we do. So the first

way to focus our Bible reading this morning is to focus on God's word.

To focus on God's word. And you say, Devin, that's a given.

You're telling me how to focus my Bible reading. And you say,

focus on the Bible reading. I know, I get it, but hear

me out. I read a lot, right, and I'm in seminary right

now, hopefully not for much longer. But if you've ever been reading,

it could be even the news, right if you're not a reader, or

surely you read the news or something like that, but your mind is trying

to read, and you read a whole we'll say a chapter, or you

read or maybe a page, or you read a whole screen. If you're

on your phone, right and you get to the end and you realize,

I don't really know what I just read. That happens to me. It

happens to me whether I'm reading a novel that's just for fun. It happens

to me when I'm reading a book from seminary. It happens to me when

I'm reading the news because my mind is not engaged and I'm not focused on

God's word. My mind is focused elsewhere. And so I know my experience

from Nikki getting our family ready in the morning. Moms, you have a

lot to think about in the morning, and you might have that list,

or you might struggle to calm your mind down to read your word and be

present with the Lord. And so my first, my first encouragement to you

or challenge to you, based on proverbs, is to focus on God's Word.

And I hope that serves as a reminder to you daily as you spend

time in His word, you're there, You're reading, and you're thinking,

I have to pack lunches, I have to make breakfast, I have to

drive the kids of school and not be late. I hope you can say,

no, I'm supposed to focus on God's word. He will help me

get everything else together. And if not, it's they're going to be late

again. It's okay. You're going to spend time with the Lord purifying your

soul, and that is so much more valuable. One of the reasons it's

hard for me to focus, never mind, I must skip that part.

When you spend time with the Lord, what are your distractions? Maybe it's

not this list of things to do, maybe your brain works differently, but

what are your distracts? I think a big distraction could be our sin.

If there is unconfessed, unrepented sin in our life that can really hinder our

communion with God, our intimacy with God and how we are praying to him.

I mean, I don't know about you, but when I've offended somebody,

I kind of want to tiptoe around them and don't really want to be

around them until things are are settled. Right. So the same is with

God when I've disappointed him again for this sin that I've confessed before, but

I can't seem to break free of it. Seems like there's that wall or

that distance in that relationship between me and my God. And so maybe it's

that sin that creates that hindrance to say, I don't deserve to talk to

him, he doesn't want to talk to me, and so maybe it's a

sin in our lives that we need to deal with. I'm not sure what

that distraction is for you, but focus on God's word. It will bring

you truth to realize that when I confess my sin, I repent of my

sin. He is faithful and just to forgive us of our sin and cleanse

us from all unrighteousness. Man, let that truth of God's word apply to

your heart and say, I'm forgiven of that sin even again. And God

wants to commune with me no matter what sin I have committed, because His

love is steadfast and faithful and unending. In verse eighteen, he tells us

why to keep our mind focused, why to continue reading, Why to open

our ears and apply it to our heart? He says, for it will

be pleasant if you keep them within you, if all of them are ready

on your lips. So the wise man says that we will benefit. There

will be benefit to us if we hear his word, we apply our heart

to we will have wise words within us, even unto our lips. And

so what's interesting here is that there's there are two more body parts that aren't

obvious in the English translation. It says in verse eighteen, it will be

pleasant. There's the benefit to us, then to keep them within you.

That within you in the Hebrew is an idiom or a. It's an idiom

that means it actually comes from the word beten, which is belly. So

you have within you is belly. You have the words of the Wyse being

in your belly and then eventually on your lips. Right. It's interesting this

word in the Hebrew, in the King James version, is translated belly thirty

times, it's translated womb thirty one times, it's translated body eight times,

and it's translated within two times. And so I'm not a Bible translator,

so I can't tell you why the ESV decided to translate it within you instead

of within your belly. But this word means belly, right, and your

belly's within you, so it's not completely out of the realm of possibility.

But I just think it's interesting that the the the belly and Hebrew culture was

the seat or the source of passion and the and the and the and the

the source of being, the central being. They used it almost like their

heart, like from the bottom of my heart. So that's like the deepest

part within you. And so we have God's word. When we hear that

goes in our ear, it applies to our heart. We guard it in

our belly, and then it comes back out our lips when it's time to

share it with somebody. David says, the rules of the Lord that warn

against, that warn and guide us, are sweeter also than honey, than

drippings of the honeycomb. And this wise man says, it will be pleasant

if you keep these words within you, it will be pleasant, it will

be delightful, it will be sweet. So we see this process that it

enters in our ears, applies to our heart, guarded in our belly,

and then it comes back out our mouths Psalm one nineteen eleven says I have

stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

So we see even from the Psalmist, that the word is guarded in our

heart. And then if it's if it's producing evidence or producing help in our

lives to prevent us from sin, it's coming back out somewhere right. And

so we guard God's word and our hearts and our belly so that in the

time of need it comes back out to teach us. It comes out of

our mouth. It helps us not to sin. And later in verse twenty

one, we're gonna see how it's a witness to others who come and ask

us. Storing God's word and your heart and your soul arms us for battle.

When temptation to sin comes, the truth of God's word is kept within

us in our beings, so that we're tempted with the love of money,

with the lust of the eyes, with jealousy, or with gossip. We

have God's word hidden within us to teach us, to remind us of what

God's word says. It'll be pleasant to us so we can focus on God's

word daily. What else does God's word do you for us? Look at

verse nineteen. It gives a purpose for guarding his word. It says that

your trust may be in the Lord. So these sayings do something to our

relationship with God. They foster trust in Him. They create a trusting relationship

with the covenant keeping God. The wise man teaching the son has given these

sayings to him so that he would trust in the Lord, that it would

be established and strengthened. And we can even like switch the verses around a

little bit to seek more clearly the intentions. It could be. I have

made them known to you today, even to you that your trust may be

in the Lord. So we see the Father is revealing these wide words to

the son so that his trust in the Lord would grow, so that his

trust in the Lord would be strengthened. We say, come thou fount a

few minutes ago, and that that song came to mind as I was preparing

this message, because you and I we struggle to keep our focus on the

Lord all the time, every day, and so that that those words,

it says, prone to wonder, Lord, I feel it prone to leave

the God I love. Here's my heart, Lord, take and seal it.

Seal it for thy courts above. We have that temptation to to leave

the Lord and to forsake him, and to rely on our own strength.

But we see that reading God's word creates more trust in him. It knits

our hearts together with him, so that we're more reliant upon him. So

that when we're tempted to wander, that that that temptation to wander, the

songwriter says, Lord, I feel it pro to leave the God I love.

Take hope in the wise Man of Proverbs, that the reading of God's

word, the investing, the hearing of God's word leads us to trust in

him, to deepen our trust in him. It's so easy to put our

trust in other things in this world. Maybe your trust is found in your

job and your wealth. Maybe it's in your family who will never leave you,

who are always provided for you. Maybe it's in your ability to keep

a good schedule. Maybe it's your trust and your health that you have good

health for now. It's so easy to find our trust in so many different

things. But the word of God, the wisdom of God, is that

our trust should be in the Lord, and his word leads us to do

that. When your Bible reading seems fruit and flat, like there's nothing coming

into your life, focus on your growing in trust of the Lord. You

spend time in his word so that your trust grows stronger. Apply your heart

to his knowledge, and grow in your trust in the Lord. So what's

the second way to focus our Bible reading? We are focusing our trust in

God. The last section, verses twenty and twenty one help us to see

how God's word prepares us for action. The wise Man says, have I

not written for you thirty sayings of counsel and knowledge to make you know what

is right and true, that you may give a true answer to those who

sent you. The wise Man urges him again to pay attention to what comes

next, the thirty sayings of wisdom, which are from verse twenty two through

chapter twenty four twenty two. So reading these sayings, the son is going

to learn what is right and what is true, leading to him making right

decisions and glorifying the Lord and honoring him with his life. But the wise

man anticipates when someone in his life will ask him about his hope in the

Lord. Ask him, what's different about you? I admire something in you?

What do I need to know? The Wisdom of Proverbs tells us that

God's word teaches us so that we have something to say. We have an

answer to those who sent people. We have an answer to the one who

comes to us and ask what is this hope within you? What is right

and wrong? What do you think about this issue or this topic. It

edifies us, so we know the truth and we can share that truth with

others. We are called to give an account of what the Lord has done

in our life, and we see that time and time again with Paul.

He shares his testimony so that the Lord would be glorified by what he's done

in his life. Proverb says, our trust is in the Lord. We

hear the wise sayings of the Lord, our hearts are filled with knowledge.

And truth, so we know right and wrong, so that we can share

with those who need to hear. Prepares us for missions, for evangelism,

for telling the person at on the street of the Hope of Jesus. When

we read, we should read as a means of filling ourselves with truth,

so that when the moment presents itself, we can share truth with those that

God's brought to us. Now in this passage here, I think verse nine

nineteen is the main point. Verse nineteen is the main point. That your

trust may be in the Lord. I have made them know to you today,

even to you. And so as we read God's word and we grow

in our knowledge of truth and wisdom, our heart should be led to put

more trust in the Lord. We should rely on the Lord more and more

daily. But as you know, we're going to fail. We're going to

fail. Just like I said in twenty twenty three, I didn't read my

Bible like I should have, like I wanted to. I failed, right.

But our God is a God of love and faithfulness that when we fail,

we have someone who has never failed. We have a say, behavior

who has died for us, who has been perfect in our place, so

that when we fail. All we have to do is trust Him to be

perfect for us to achieve that redemption, that salvation for us when we fail.

Our God, Jesus has embodied that wisdom of God that makes our righteousness

come to reality. One Corinthians one thirty says, it is because of him

that you are in Christ, Jesus, who has become for us wisdom from

God that is our righteousness, holiness, and redemption. Jesus was given as

a sacrifice and as our savior to be our wisdom. God's wisdom leads us

to find our trust in Jesus. So even though we can incline our ear

and hear the words of the wise, we can try our best to apply

our hearts. Church, we are going to fail in that endeavor time and

time again. And where will we go when we fail? We will rely

on God's ultimate wisdom revealed to us in the flesh, in Jesus Christ,

the righteous one. In him is found our ultimate wisdom, that our trust

would be in him. All of God's word, even the wisdom of Proverbs,

leads us to see that Jesus is God's ultimate wisdom, that he is

the one in whom we trust for our daily Bible reading. We trust in

Him to get rid of distractions in our lives. We trust in Him that

we would be saved though we fail our God over and over. So as

I close this morning, I still want to encourage you to incline your ear

to hear and to apply your heart to knowledge. But in those times when

you have not been perfect, when you're still distracted in your mind and there's

something between you and the Lord, it seems like there's not this life giving

moment when you're reading his word. Fall yourself before Jesus on his unending mercy

and grace, that he might open your eyes and give you pleasures. Because

reading his word is pleasant, it's delightful, it's sweet. Let Jesus open

your eyes to hear his words and his wisdom to you. Let's pray this

morning, Father God, we thank you for your word. We thank you

Father, that you have revealed your word and your wisdom to us. Father,

that we might know you better, that you might lead us to trust

in you each day, establish our foundation on you. Lord Father, I

pray in the name of Jesus that you would lead us to find our trusts

in you. Are hope in you. Daily Father, when we depend on

our own wisdom, Lord, I pray that you would help us to see

that it's futile, it's worthless. Open our eyes, open our ears to

hear the words of the wise, and lead us to our wise God and

his savior, Jesus Christ first pained and all to fish.