After the Message | Special Edition | The Word of God

Thank you for joining us for After the Message.

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You know, the internet just isn't complete when after the message isn't on.

So we had to bring an After the Message back for a special edition of After the Message.

And Pastor Keith, I know you're pumped about this.

I'm very pumped.

But I think the internet's more pumped about it.

They have to be.

We just are giving the people what they want.

That's right.

If you have stumbled along upon this, you are listening to the Celebration Orlando podcast, or you're watching the Celebration Church Orlando YouTube page.

And this is a special edition of a segment we like to call After the Message.

Hey, can I can I say something?

Sure, go ahead.

So I realized that these this format of discussion has become very popular.

I'm not going to say that we did it first, but I can say look at the records.

Right.

We did it first.

Okay, go ahead.

For sure.

We did it first.

It was Joe Rogan and then it was after the message.

So 1000%.

Yeah, this is just a continuation of uh the previous Sunday sermon here at Celebration Church Orlando.

And uh we are currently at the time of this recording in a annual season of 21 days of prayer and fasting.

And I was going through the archives of my mind, and it doesn't go back that far.

So um When did this all start?

Because it does the 21 Days does seem like a theme throughout specifically the non-denominational uh churches.

How did this start?

Do you do you know any of the background and context behind that?

I think it's um there's a couple of things I think that are are working together.

One, so first and foremost, like the beginning of the year, people always have goals and aspirations, and so they begin to kind of incorporate God into that.

So I think it I can't put a date on it, but the church kind of said, okay, like let's get on that wave of like incorporating a time of fasting and prayer as a way for people to kind of integrate God into their lives because that's just kind of what people do.

So I think there was a very practical side of like just acknowledging the season of life that people are in and using it as a reboot and just kind of like bringing spirituality into it.

So there's that part of it.

The the the physical part of it with the 21 days is that, as I've heard it said, um, that it takes 21 days to break habits.

So once you kind of get into that 21 day, it allows you to establish new rhythms.

So I think that there's a part that's connected to it.

But then also scripturally, um, there's people often refer to it as the Daniel fast.

So fasting, you know, we have a teaching on this, so I won't go into a lot of details, but fasting is simply putting boundaries, abstaining so that you can engage God more.

Um, so so Daniel went through a period of time where he had turned down his plate because he was trying to get uh a revelation from God, and that went on for 21 days.

And so I think the connection between the title 21 days of fasting and prayer, the Daniel fast kind of all merged together, and then it became like a cultural phenom within the Christian world.

So, like for us, God's grace is with us.

We could do a 21-day fast, we could do a 14-day fast, we could do a seven-day fast.

It's just for us establishing rhythms of like putting God first.

And so for me, it's just a matter of let's use this up as an opportunity to slow down.

We'll follow the rhythms of 21 days.

There's great Bible reading plans that kind of fit that mold.

If we need to break some habits, it fits the mold of that.

So for me, it's just let's just use the momentum of culture to work for us instead of working against us.

Yeah, and I think what is important about this is it can also develop a new uh lifestyle or a new rhythm for you throughout the year as well.

You know, it may not be 21 days, but I know that you talk to a lot of people in our congregation about some certain rhythms that you have just throughout the year when it when it comes to fasting.

And, you know, we're gonna talk about the sermon here in a second, but I think that it is important because it is such a lost discipline within our culture.

Can you kind of speak a little bit to uh over the years how it's how it's benefited you and what what fasting has really meant for you personally and maybe how someone could take this 21 days and start to apply it maybe more in their walk and grow a little bit more in their walk with God?

Yeah, so for me, I you know I I share stories about my my spiritual upbringing, and and for me, I don't look at my spiritual upbringing as like this thing that was overly legalistic or harmful to me.

So it was very like, hey, the Bible says this, this is what you do.

So in our current context, we would call that legalism to a certain extent.

However, there were certain disciplines and routines and rhythms that you certainly did establish, and you kind of like did these things unto God.

Now I think none of those things are bad.

I think it's it's the it's the judgment if you don't, it's the it's the judgment if you fall short.

So I think that's where legalism comes in.

But discipline is not something that's legalistic in and of itself.

So I came up in a church where it was very much like a rhythms and how we engage God, and honoring God was a really big component of it.

And so it was like, how do you honor God in every area of your life?

So we took the principle, I guess, of honoring God with our finances because you can measure that.

It's clear in scripture, but then at that church, they took it and said, Okay, so how do you honor God with your time?

Well, then it means you need to be tithing your time every day in the presence of God.

So two hours and 40 minutes at least you're spending because honor is a is a metric now.

So you can measure it in different ways.

So we began to do that in every area of our lives.

Like, how can I honor God in this?

How can I measure it in a way that's showing that I'm putting God first?

And so that's kind of the discipline that we had.

And though, so that was kind of the rhythm that we had.

And so for me, um, it was a it was a challenge, but it was a joy because for me, it's like I'm just getting more of God.

I'm I'm reading the Bible more, I'm praying more, I'm in God's presence more.

And what I found in my life is that every time I've gone through a season of fasting and praying, that there was always like a breakthrough.

There was always like either a revelation, there was always an answer prayer, there was always something that seemingly moved us forward.

So it just became a routine.

So when we transitioned from that church and we moved, and then we ended up moving to Jacksonville, getting involved in um the non-denominational context, like we're like, okay, like great, we love this.

This is grace, God's love, but we still want to make sure that we keep these disciplines in place, but now apply grace to it.

We're winning because now we're engaging God in a systematic way, but we also are extending grace and not being judgmental or critical.

So it was a beautiful combination.

So for me, um, the way that I like to incorporate fasting for me personally is I like to fast the first three days of every month.

And so the first three days of every month is a time where it's just an opportunity for me to pause.

Sometimes I'm fasting from food, sometimes I'm fasting from social media, maybe from some TV shows.

It it varies, it's not always just one thing.

But the first three days of every month is an opportunity for me to intentionally slow down, to reflect on the previous month, and then to also forecast for the upcoming month.

And that's just always helped me.

It's like cleansing the palate.

So it's just one of the things that I have worked into my rhythms, and I have some months, depending on what's going on, that I may be traveling on the second day, so it might be a little bit harder, but it's some one of those things that it's like every time I've done it, I've never regretted it.

So that's just kind of how I've made it a part of my everyday rhythm, and uh, I'm gonna keep it going.

Yeah.

You mentioned judgment and how that could be such a difficult hurdle for a lot of people to get past, uh, especially if they're trying to kind of rekindle their uh devotion to God.

Um so you know, this past Sunday we we we were talking about the Bible and how important it is to being devoted to God because it it's literally the God-breathed, God-inspired His word, right?

And it's such a I think we take for granted, you know, because it's it's on our phone.

It's you know, I have three at home, right?

And then there's there's so many people maybe who who don't have as as easy access to it.

But for for a place in the world that does have the the ease of access to it, you you read off some stats on Sunday that were a little bit alarming.

Can you share that?

Uh those stats again, do you remember those?

I do.

So it was um we look at um I use Pew researching, and that's uh that's something that I subscribe to, and they do a lot of great data that's that's that's verifiable, that's trustworthy.

Um and so they do a lot of things in the church space as well.

And so one of the stats that they did is Bible engagement um in America.

So this is the context of America.

So I know we have people that may listen to other spots, so but in America, um, 50% of people that say that they're Christians engage the Bible once or twice a year.

And this is like outside of a Sunday.

This is like, hey, I'm at home, I I I intentionally am engaging the Bible once or twice a year.

Thirty-four percent don't engage the Bible at all.

I'm a Christian, but I don't read the Bible at all, and the only time I engage the God words, the word of God is when I go to church.

So And someone reads it for me, maybe someone reads it for me.

So like I hear it, I'm in around it, and of course, like if we get into the stats of how often people come to church, then you begin to quickly see that it used to be once every three weeks, now it's like once every six weeks, and it's so again we have uh a biblical literacy issue, and then you have 16% that says that I engage the Bible every day, but I just say regularly because you know some days you may miss it, but nonetheless, they say they engage it regularly.

So for me, that's very eye-opening.

Um, and and so the past I would say year and a half, I've I've had an opportunity to spend time around a lot of people that are Christians, that are lovely people, that love God, that love people, um, but they have varying views on the Bible, they have varying views on the church.

And and so for me, these are not meant to be stats that are vilifying anyone.

I never want to do that.

I'm just presenting the information and saying, okay, so we have a gap.

But then when I look at that, and kind of like I mentioned on Sunday, and we see um just where our culture is, in a sense of like people who are Christian but we don't engage the Bible, people who are in Christian, but we're disconnected from community.

You're like, how do these two things coexist?

Oh, it's because we we're we're distant from the word of God, which kind of helps us to navigate through it.

So to me, it's like correlation but also causation.

It um you know, it it is alarming, but also you pointed to perhaps some reasoning behind it, and you mentioned how it can be used as a weapon or how people unfortunately have been hurt by God's words.

And I think we need to draw a distinction between being challenged, um, being pushed, being even uh disciplined, because the word of God itself says that you know God's discipline is a good thing.

So I think we have to draw that distinction from this doesn't feel great to this is actually beating me up.

And so you started off by saying the word of God is life-giving.

And so if anything is taking away life from you, then it's probably man's use of the word of God and not the word of God itself.

Correct.

Can you how does someone identify that?

I guess like how does someone know, like, okay, maybe I'm maybe I'm in a bad relationship, I guess.

Yeah, I think I think for me, so all these things are connected.

So in and of themselves, they are weighty.

I think the most the best thing a person can do is that you are in community because it gives you an opportunity to discern God's voice in community.

When you look at the early church, when you look at um the Old Testament, you'll see that they always discern God's word through community.

It was never like a singular person that just had it all figured out.

Of course, we're you know, Moses was on, but once it kind of began became a measure of collective worship, God told Moses to establish elders, and he has all these people around him.

They go up to the mountain, they worship, and now they become these people that are able to measure God's voice in community.

So I think whenever we have someone that is engaging God's word, they hear something that may be corrective, that may be providing some discipline, and it feels like, man, like this doesn't feel good.

So by definition, in my own mind, I'm being beat up, so I'm gonna now remove myself from anything dealing with God's word.

But I think the thing that keeps us from doing that is community.

You discern it in community, you're able to process it with other people.

And I think we have to make sure we process it with people with different perspectives.

I think we live in a world now where we kind of have echo chambers where the people who have been challenged in scripture will basically partner up with other people who've been challenged in scripture, and then they're all upset that they've been challenged in scripture, and then they begin to challenge scripture, and then they become they create a doctrine that allows them to move away from scripture.

But I think when you're in a healthy community that's dynamic and diverse, and people that are loving you enough to tell you the truth, then you have an opportunity for God's word to confront us because Jesus does do that, but it also gives us an opportunity to make sure that when he does confront us, it's always to make us better.

One of the stories that I like to look at is looking at Jesus when He uh when they bring the woman who's caught in the act of adultery.

Beautiful story, and they're waiting for Jesus to react.

Basically, beat this woman up.

She's caught in the act, it's a very clear sin.

And so a lot of times you can tell where someone leans at theologically, depending on which side of the story they focus on.

So you can either have the side where uh Jesus says, like, hey, where are your accusers?

They aren't any.

Okay, cool, then I don't accuse you anywhere.

Stop there.

But the reality is after he says that, he tells her, okay, now go your way and stop sinning.

So I think holistically, what we have to understand is that when Jesus confronts us, he wants to make sure that he challenges us.

That's always to make us better.

But absolutely, there are things that he puts into our lives, and he says, But hey, but knock this off because this is not good for you.

And and there may come a time when you may get caught up out here, and I'm not out here to cover you.

And and they may, they actually may follow through on what they feel that they're supposed to do.

Same thing with um the man at the pool of Bethesda.

Jesus heals him, and and the guys in the temple, and and Jesus sees him as like, hey man, stop sinning so something worse doesn't happen to you.

Like so, Jesus is very graceful and he meets us where we are and he extends his hand and he wants to make sure that we're valued, we're seen, and we're loved.

That's the grace that's extended.

But the truth is there's some behaviors that he does want us to adjust.

And so I think we have to make sure it's in community we can make sure that we're not seeing, well, when when the Bible says this, then it makes me feel uncomfortable.

That means that man's weaponizing it, and now I'm gonna disconnect from it.

It's no, let's discern this in community.

Is this something that's really meant to tear you down, or is it something that's meant to challenge you, prune you, so that you can grow into what God ultimately is calling you to be?

Yeah, and you even gave the illustration about your granddaughters and how you're trying to teach them to be example for their younger brother because what they can do right now may hurt him.

Absolutely.

And so we also have to look at Jesus has our best interest in mind, and our best interest is to conform to be more like his image and not what we think we should be, and our represent because we're just making ourselves look like God instead of us wanting to look like God.

Um, and so I think that that was a powerful illustration um as well.

You mentioned community and the importance of discerning the word of God in community, and that can be tricky, right?

Because it has caused entire church splits because of you know uh variations in interpretation of the Bible.

There's an there's obviously different religions or uh different denominations based off of interpretations of scripture, right?

So I hear you say, okay, we need to we need to do this in community, we need to read the Bible in community, but there is a dark side to that as well because it's caused pain.

I think what the what the church is looking for, and even me specifically, is what is the healthy way to do that?

Like, how do I go about saying, I think you're wrong in this area?

How do we stay friends?

You know, like how do we still go to the same church, so to speak?

How do we still how do we still break bread with one another?

Does that make sense?

Makes perfect sense.

I I think we're we're at a place now where we have lost the art of agreeing to disagree and and that being okay.

Like we know it used to be a moment where, yeah, we don't agree, and that's okay, let's keep moving, and we figure it all out.

But I think where we've gotten to now and just culture and culture has bled into our faith, and it's all messy now, is that we we no longer have the the beauty of having conversations and iron sharpening iron.

Like we love to quote that scripture.

We love to quote it.

I love to quote it.

Iron sharpens iron, like it's great, but what that means is that there's friction.

That means that there's opposition, that means that there's differences, and that's okay.

And through that, we'll sharpen one another.

I think what's really helped me through the years is is basically getting out of my comfort zone.

So I think what has broadened my understanding of God, that what's brought in my understanding of people, that's extended grace, that's challenged me more than anything, is being around different types of people.

Uh I was spiritually raised up in a holiness, super uh Pentecostal, you know, spirit of God moving environment.

And as far as I was concerned, that was the only way God moved.

Like that was the way.

If if you didn't do these things, then I don't even believe that God is real in your church.

I don't even know if God's real in your heart.

And so then you begin to kind of get anchored in, and what you'll find is that you're, first of all, you're loyal to the thing that saves you.

So the thing that had an impact on you becomes the thing.

It's not, it's not a way, it's the way.

This is the way that God moves, this is the way that God does things, this is the way.

And so you become very loyal to that.

So then that loyalty turns into um a preference, which turns into a tradition, and the tradition turns into a doctrine.

And now you begin to create scriptures to to elevate the thing that has changed you.

And the truth is it very well may have.

But God also moves amongst other people.

And so when I started to travel, um, not just in the US and moving from being in the um north to moving down south and beginning to see God move in non-denominational spaces and seeing people who love God and He's doing incredible things in their lives, but when I began to travel um overseas, and I began to see the different expressions and things that we often get caught up on and things that we're so we're so focused on that in other contexts, these are non-issues.

And so that began to challenge me a little bit.

But when I went to Israel and I was talking with uh a young man who was um Jewish but Christian, and we were talking, and he would like every time we would talk, he would pose questions, and he would pose like questions that like challenge.

And at first I'm like, bro, I thought we were on the same side.

Like, what are we doing?

And then I realized like that's just like that's just the way that they communicate, like it's a part of the way that they interact with one another.

There was never this idea of 100% agreement on anything.

So I learned very quickly that the way that the rabbis would talk was that they would ask questions and they would offer a different point of view and they would challenge you and enter, and you're well, I never thought of it that way.

Well, no, I feel this way.

Well, I feel this way, and at the end of it's like, all right, cool, let's go get something to eat.

Like it was never meant to be this thing.

And so I think for us here in the West, um, in a world that loves to draw lines and keeps people compartmentalized and all those things, I think we need to grow back into getting into the mindset of the people of the Bible where it was okay to have differences, and I think there's a big difference between arguing over the essentials and non-essentials.

And there's a lot of non-essentials.

And when I say non-essentials, I mean these are things that are valuable, these are things that are important, but they're not like salvation.

It's like on a line.

Like, do we believe that Jesus is Lord?

Let's start there.

Do we believe in these core tenets of of what it means to be a follower of Christ?

Like for me, it comes back to the book of Acts.

Like, what does it mean to be a Christian?

We got Gentiles coming in.

Like, hey man, here's here's there's a lot going on.

Here's what we know that that the Bible says, confess with your mouth, believe in your heart that Jesus came and that he rose from the dead.

That's a part of salvation.

What does discipline and discipleship look like?

Because there's different cultures, there's different expressions, there's different viewpoints.

Hey, here's what we want to do: abstain from meat that's been offered to idols, stay away from um blood, because that's just not going to be good for you.

Again, quality of life.

Um, uh flee from sexual immorality.

Like they give you these boundaries, and it's like, and the rest of it, we're just gonna figure it out.

And so then Paul goes out and he begins to write letters to kind of help reinforce these things, depending on the cultural context and what their struggle was.

So they're not debating about anything else.

We are, they're not debating about the gifts of the spirit, we are like it's so you begin to recognize that that we've made idols of things that God told us not to make a big deal of.

If your expression is to do these things, man, go for it.

If these things don't draw away from Jesus, then go for it.

But we begin to be people that become experts in things that no one cares about.

Yeah, it's something I'd I've definitely struggled with and still wrestle with a lot, gotten a little bit of freedom in it, praise God.

But uh just wanting to be right, you know, just wanting to just wanting to know, okay, what does God say about this?

And what does the Bible say?

And which side is the right side?

And perhaps the point is that we don't we're not gonna know everything perfectly, and um that just makes God so small, in my opinion.

It also makes God really small whenever we do think that we.

Have the trademark on whatever theological stance is out there.

You know, we we had a guest on the podcast last year or the year before, and he was just talking about a theologian that he really looked up to, and he said the thing that blew my mind was one time this theologian said, I gotta be okay with the fact that 80% of my theology is wrong.

And this is a this is a world scholar.

This is someone who's renowned for their theology, and so I think that takes some real humility to be able to say, yeah, there are some stakes in the ground, but you know, it's holding down the tenant, and that's about it.

Like there's there's not a whole lot that that we can be a hundred and fifty percent sure on.

And and the wrestling is part of it's part of the walk, right?

It's part of the journey.

It's it's to wrestle with God, it's to wrestle with his word, because otherwise, when we become disengaged, we see what happens.

And so, in order to stay engaged in the scriptures, we need to wrestle with them a little bit.

And I think, and so to so to add to that, I don't want to get stuck here because I know you may have other things you want to hit on, but I was thinking about this this morning of exactly what you're saying, of how we view scripture and and how literally the more and more that I start to study scholars, so this is going beyond my lived experiences.

Because what ends up happening is my lived experiences, they leave an impression on me.

And then I'm trying to find ways to qualify or understand what I did experience.

I end up at a church that either helps to shape that or provides language for what I have experienced, and that experience becomes connected to scripture and it builds a doctrine, it builds a belief system.

Um, and then unfortunately, it can often cause me to stand against things that are not quite like that.

But what I've been thinking about more recently as I look at scholars and people who've been studying the Bible longer than I've been alive, and I see like they're not hung up on these things.

Like, and I'm and I've been noticing more, I have some profound academic commentaries and passages of scripture that I'll go to to look at these scholars and these these thought experts on these topics, they'll often present three different positions on a single passage.

Hey, some view it this way, and you could view it this way, or you could view it this way, and then move on to the next one.

I'm like, Okay, but what do you think?

Which one is it?

But you'll find that when you're trying to rightly divide the word of truth, that it is virtually impossible because there's so many nuances that are there.

There's there's context.

You know, I'm real big on context, context determines meaning, but there's context, there's culture, and there's all these other things.

And so the fact of the matter is, and this is going to like challenge some people, we we pick and choose where we bring culture with us and where we don't.

So I look at when we interpret the Bible, I almost look at it like debates on sports.

Like we're we're we're talking about different athletes, we're talking about different teams, and it's like depending on who's talking, they're talking from the framework of what they value more than something else.

So nothing probably presents that more than the infamous Jordan LeBron debate.

Right.

I'm a fan of both.

Like for me, I don't know either of these guys.

I enjoy both of them.

So to me, there is not an issue.

But you'll find that for the person that values rings, that's what they'll talk about.

For a person that values longevity, that's like, whatever you what do you value?

And that's what you begin to make an altar to.

The same thing happens when we interpret the Bible.

It becomes this thing.

So for me, and I've been thinking about this a lot, the people in the Bible, Nate, are messy.

Like, there's there's only one person that made it through all of Scripture perfect, and that's Jesus.

So what I've been thinking about more recently is how we look to their writings, we look at all the different things in their lives, but we very rarely acknowledge that they were still flawed human beings.

And so to think that as their writing that they were perfect, I think would be completely misleading.

Like, let's not forget that Paul had to confront Peter because he still had racist behavior after the Holy Spirit came.

And yet Peter still wrote two books and influenced the Gospel of Mark.

Now, I'm not saying that that bled itself in, but what I'm saying is the Bible is so beautiful that it reveals the flaws of the writers, and we have to consider some of that.

Paul told a man who escaped slavery, go back to your master.

So we pick and choose, like, hey, culturally, we would never do that.

We would never say that now.

So we're choosing to move on from that.

But other passages, no, no, we can carry that with us.

We're picking and choosing what's important.

And that's a I think that's one of the hardest, the most difficult things, I guess, to to try and balance, right?

Or to try the tension would probably be a better word, is how to apply, because the your second point of the message was the Bible does not expire.

Yeah, and so we've seen the we've seen the polarizing camps on that.

Yeah, for sure.

So we've seen okay, Levitical law is still Levitical law.

Right.

Uh and and and that's really difficult.

And I even think for someone who's who's even well versed in scripture, you still have to think through those questions.

Okay, how does this how is this applicable to the to the 21st century church?

What was it?

And you mentioned it earlier, context is huge, right?

But maybe for someone who is beginning to read the Bible for the first time, maybe someone who's going back like, okay, God, I'm giving this another chance, you know, first first of the year, we're talking about starting a Bible reading plan, we're gonna read the the entire Bible in three weeks, you know.

Yeah, let's get into it, yeah.

So what's your what's your biggest encouragement to them and on how to how to do their best to look at scripture for what it was then and for what it means and for how it shapes and empowers us today?

I I would say, um, great question.

I would say you have to consider the whole story.

And I think that what where we often fall short is that we're dissecting the Bible, and it's good to dissect verses and words and all these things, like what's the tone and is it a noun?

Is it like what's this like all that?

I I agree with all that stuff, but it all has to be measured in the context of the whole story.

And so a lot of times when we engage scripture, we're looking at it one verse at a time, one chapter at a time.

We'll see something, we'll say something, and okay, this is what the Bible says, and we'll extract it and we'll create a principle from it, we'll create a doctrine from it, a belief from it, cool.

But then when we don't consider the whole story and recognizing that as I'm reading the Old Testament and realizing that from Genesis 1 up to Genesis 11, this is God working with all of humanity and trying to bring them to a place where he can be the God to all.

They blow it.

So then he's like, okay, so by Genesis 12, I'm just gonna focus on one group of people, and I'm gonna, I'm gonna, through them, I'm gonna do some incredible things, and through them, they'll bring the whole rest of humanity back.

So that's where Abraham gets called, and eventually the Israelites, and it creates the movement we have.

So when you're looking at the life of Abraham and his family, there's still other life going on.

There's all a lot of a lot of other chaos that's going on, other nations and other things, but God's zeroing in on their story specifically.

So at any given moment, if we stop and pause and look at a single story with Joseph, like I was just reading this today, man, in our Bible reading plan.

Like I was looking at Joseph and I was like, man, like we all like I'd preached about Joseph several times.

I love Joseph.

Like I really have grown to like appreciate his narrative.

But then I was like reading about how Joseph was responsible for setting up the slavery system in Egypt.

So when the famine came the second time, and people are, he basically convinced the people to sell their land so they could become slaves in Egypt, which then ended up causing his family to end up in bondage as well.

I've literally never preached on that.

I've never talked about it.

But he created the slavery system that eventually ended up sweeping his family up.

So, first and foremost, if I focus on that, that's a terrible thing.

But when I back up and recognize God's hand over that family so that it can ultimately bring forth the Messiah, what I begin to recognize is how God can work with people, that we can be resilient, that we can endure, that we can make mistakes, and yet God can still lead us through it.

You got to look at the whole story.

But if I stop and look at any one point, I can create a doctrine that's not contextually accurate, or I can completely miss the messiness that people often do create.

So both can be true at the same time.

So for me, just consider the whole story.

And the whole story is Jesus.

We have to consider that everything is leading to Jesus and ultimately from Jesus.

And so that's the way that I approach it now.

Now I've heard scholars say that it's not good to go back and look at the Old Testament and like search for Jesus.

And I get what they're saying.

I understand the point where you can highlight and force Jesus into scenarios.

It's kind of like, what does that got to do with anything?

But Jesus does say, and this is what he's speaking about the law, he says, like, hey, I come in the volume of the book.

Like the entire Bible is written of me.

So I do believe that while I may not be able to find the Jesus juke in one verse, the narrative overall is all pointing to Jesus.

So I think that's the best way for me to help someone who's reading through it and they're trying to get their best to understand it, is like stick through the whole story.

It's like you wouldn't want to watch, like, let's say, for instance, I'm trying to think of an appropriate movie reference that won't get me in trouble.

Okay, that has multiple movies connected to it.

Megan's always like, you can't reference that movie.

Um Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings.

Okay, yeah, let's go to Lord of the Rings.

Um, so you have Lord of the Rings.

If you if you were to go and look at all, I'm talking about the hobbits, all the variations, all of that type of stuff.

If you were just to kind of jump into the middle of it, you may enjoy the film, but you won't have full context.

You have the Return of the King, man.

We gotta, we gotta get to that.

But then like, what is why is that such a big deal?

So you have to kind of see all of it and how it all happens to really appreciate the story.

So my biggest thing is look at it with the whole story in mind.

It may be some parts that are challenging, there may be some parts that are messy, but even in that, it's showing God's redemptive plan, even through the messy parts.

The big thing that I think is important for us to walk away with is that I was looking at this as I was preparing for the message on Sunday, and I look at some of those passages that we quote that help us to feel encouraged.

They were often given in the most messy moments after the people messed up, after they were weak, after they fell.

So I think when we look at scripture, we have to consider what was the context that led to God needing to even say that.

And we often beat people up because they fall short, but it's in falling short that God shows up and shows his strength.

So that's not a license to sin.

What I'm saying is we have to stop beating people up if they fall short.

We have to contextualize scripture, look at the whole story, and hopefully it'll help us to recognize that at the end of the day, we all need Jesus.

Amen.

You when you say the whole story, it immediately brings to mind the Bible project, which is an incredible resource that's available to everyone for free.

And as you mentioned too, Celebration Orlando is doing the read the Bible in a year through the Bible project.

And just a disclaimer there, if that sounds intimidating for 358 days or whatever reading the Bible, you know, if it bleeds over into 2024, that's okay.

That's fine.

Read the Bible.

Yes.

Uh I come back to uh and in digression.

So, what are some other resources?

Because again, being where we live and the availability that we have, it's intimidating because just a Google search or any sort of even if you were to walk into a library, if we remember what those are, I mean, it's just it's intimidating, you know.

And for me starting out, I was so hungry, like I want to know, I want to learn, I want to learn.

And it can get to a point where it's just discouraging and you you don't even know where to turn.

So what do you what do you recommend as far as extra biblical resources for people to be able to learn more of the context, to be able to learn more of the genres that you even spoke about on Sunday, because the Bible has many different genres and we have to know what we're reading.

So, what are maybe one or two things that you would say, hey, start here?

Yeah, and then remember that this is a lifelong process.

And so you can continue to graduate on to the next thing.

Yeah, I I think so.

My answer is gonna be hopefully helpful.

Okay.

Um, the so I think that it won't be linear because I think it's gonna be a little bit of everything.

I often say one of the things that helped me the most when I was on my spiritual journey, and I mean I'm talking about I'm I'm hungry for it.

Like, I much like you're like I was getting after it.

The thing that helped me the most was coming to church.

I know that that seems like such a either no-brainer or it may seem like, oh, you don't need it, but for me, just coming to church, and it wasn't just about hearing a message, because I think sometimes we just reduce things down to like, okay, what there's other ways for me to get messages.

It was about being in the presence of God amongst other people.

And so even though there were things I didn't understand, being in his presence and literally being in his presence with other people taught me how to worship before I even understood fully what worship was.

So I think being in the presence of God with other people is one of the most important things you can do because that helps with so much.

Um, a study Bible.

Um, and what a study Bible does is it provides you with details, footnotes, just definitions of certain things.

Now that will lend itself over to what kind of study Bible, and that creates a whole different kind of conversation.

But I will say that there is an assessment that you can take online.

I wish I could quote it off the top of my head, but there's an assessment that you can take online that you can determine what is your learning style.

When you take that assessment, it'll break down whether you are an auditory learner, whether you're a tactile learner, whether I think there's a couple other options there.

But ultimately, it tells you, like, hey, this is how you are better at consuming information.

And so there are literally translations of the Bible that are written with that in mind.

So if you are a person who is like more of a visual type person, one, you can watch like Bible project videos, but then like passages or translations of the Bible that use very vivid descriptions are going to be what's best for you.

So that's where you're gonna get the message translation or the voice translation.

Now, I wouldn't use those translations to do like a deep dive into a word because what they're doing is they're basically taking the concepts and writing it in a way that you would often see a script writer would write it.

But if you're talking about how to engage the Bible, it's just reading it in a translation that you can relate to and allowing that to be the way that you move through it.

But then when it comes time to like do a deeper dive, then there are some specific translations that I think are better for you because it's more word-for-word translations instead of thought for thought.

So um, so NLT is a great translation that I like to use, specifically if I'm preaching or reading a large passage of scripture, because it's it's kind of old enough that it still kind of holds a little bit of like the format of some of the word for word, but it it's also modern enough that it flows in the way that people understand it.

So just take an assessment.

What's my best um style?

And I'm pretty sure at this point you can Google what's the best Bible translation for whatever, and it'll probably produce it.

I used to have it back in the day, but I can't remember it.

So finding a translation that works well for you, coming to church, um, being connected to community.

Um, I I there's a couple of books, man, that have that I have come across um that have really helped me.

Um, and this helps with context.

So, you know, there's a uh book called Reading the Bible Backwards, okay.

Um, and that's written.

Um, oh gosh, Richard, I forgot his name.

I'm sorry, I'm stumbling on it.

But but he does a phenomenal job.

Scott McKnight has a version of that book as well.

Another book um series is called Um Reading the Bible with Rabbi Jesus, walking in the dust of Rabbi Jesus, and sitting at the feet of Rabbi Jesus.

These are three books that are incredible with contextualizing um Jesus and the Jewishness of culture.

Because what you'll find is that sometimes we're spending a lot of time arguing and debating about a phrase that Jesus may have said, and we don't even realize that that might have been a Jewish idiom that for his audience they understood what he meant.

Right.

And we've turned it into a doctrinal debate, and it's like that's literally not even what it meant.

So I think with context, reading literature that helps you to understand the culture of the people that it was written to.

So one of the things I like to say is that the Bible is for us, but it wasn't to us.

That's really important.

For us, but not to us.

It was written to a very specific group of people at a time period that was understood with certain nuances.

That's why when we read it with our modern eyes, we see things and it kind of upsets us.

And I get it, there's some things that are in there that are brutal, and we would never apply it.

This again, culture and context.

But reading the Bible in its natural context, understanding the audience, like here's the thing we have to understand that even when they talked about Jesus coming back, this is in New Testament writers, there's not a single New Testament writer that didn't think that Jesus was coming back in their lifetime.

That's inclusive of Paul, that's inclusive of all of them.

They all thought that Jesus was coming.

So they didn't even consider thousands of years later the church would still be what it is.

So when they're writing these letters, they're writing them to specific groups of people.

They're writing about very specific issues.

So we have the benefit of coming back and looking at it, evaluating it, unpacking it.

But I imagine if if heaven has a sense of humor, which I suspect it does, but I don't know if it works this way, they're looking down and seeing us have these doctrinal debates, and it's like, that's not even what I meant by that.

So for me, I like to look at it this way.

Let's imagine, hypothetically, sports goes away.

Like for whatever reason, sports goes away.

And so a thousand years later, somebody comes across these relics and archives called newspapers.

And they open up the newspaper and they go to the section and they get their scholars to interpret the language, and they come across this section that says the Tampa Bay Buccaneers defeated the Philadelphia Eagles.

They have no context of what sports are.

Right.

They have no context of what that means.

So all they can do is read into whatever your modern interpretation is to what a Buccaneer is versus what an eagle is.

Why were they fighting in the first place?

Let's get into all what was their technique.

Oh, we see here that they use a 4-3 defense.

So I guess 4-3 defense is the only like we end up getting into all these details, and it's like it was a sport.

Yeah.

And that's not even what they meant by it.

And yes, they use a 4-3, but you can also use a 3-4.

Like, so I think sometimes that's how it is with us in the Bible.

We get so fixated on certain things, and it's like, I believe that they're like, that's not even what we meant.

Yeah.

You've missed it.

Well, at least they would know that there's truth in reading that article.

So I set myself up for that.

I did.

I set myself up for that.

Yes, that's fair.

Before we before we close here, I I want to talk about the very important yet very at times difficult thing to do, which is applying the word of God to my life.

Yeah.

You know, your last point being the Bible gives us direction, right?

Uh from Sunday.

What's the best what's the best way to go about that?

Because they're again interpretation and uh depending on your stage of life, and all these, all of these things, right?

And I think for me, one thing that I realized was when I started to rethink things, like, man, I don't even know if I really believe that, or I've had shifts in the perspective of scripture just because of knowledge and and life experience and communion with the Holy Spirit, you know.

Um but for someone who's like, okay, I really want to take this seriously.

How do how do I walk this thing out?

I'm reading the Bible, it says this.

How do I apply it to my life in a way that honors God?

Yeah.

Well, it's it's a journey, and I think that's the thing.

We it hasn't gotten easier in the instant gratification era that we're in.

So I think it's always progressively as we I say this all the time, as we look at the life we live, the world we live in, the conveniences that we have, it's hard to not expect that in our in our spiritual journey with God.

So it becomes this immediate thing.

But I think one, it's understanding that it's a journey.

I think two, there's you know, the principle in scripture about meditating.

So what meditating is, it's it's a literal process that's not just thinking, but what meditating was, it was it was digesting God's word, it was thinking on it, it was so basically when you look at the original word, it's literally uh the process of digestion.

And so what the digestion process was, and what they would do is like there's a passage that speaks about we meditate on the word God, a word of God, um, similar to the way that um that a cow does.

So you're like, okay, like what does that mean?

But what that means is that you're chewing on it.

So they're saying that meditation should be this chewing process that we're just processing through it.

And then as we swallow it, and this is this is just kind of the way that their digestive system works, they they bring it down, they bring it back up, process it some more, they bring it down, bring it back up.

So when scripture talks about meditating on God's word like that, it means like it's not like, okay, I heard these three points, cool, let me do these three things, okay.

I'm cool, master that check the box.

It's it's literally chewing on it, processing through it.

And I think one of the prayers that I see in Psalms that I love so much is like, like, Lord, evaluate me, like like process my mind and my heart.

Help me to see areas where I need to apply this to my life.

So I think sometimes we're so quick to want to apply things to our lives that we've identified, but we don't slow enough to ask God to reveal to us the areas of our lives that we need to have it applied to.

Because again, we we determine what we need.

I think I still look at us as still being very um in the Garden of Eden and very much uh fig leaf people.

I I I recognize that there's some things that are missing in my life, and I'm going to go and cover them up myself.

Right.

Instead of letting the Holy Spirit come, letting the presence of God come and say, those fig leaves aren't going to cut it.

That's not durable enough.

You're gonna be in some environments that they're gonna come off.

I got you covered.

So I For me, meditation is a requiring the Holy Spirit or asking the Holy Spirit to come in and reveal some things to us.

And then I think once he reveals some things to us, then it becomes a process.

So okay, so how do I begin to walk this out and fellowship with God?

I think one of the things that is challenging for us is when we begin to look at things that for me, and this probably is a little bit of my counseling training coming in.

But I've been thinking a lot about asking myself why.

Whenever I see something, whenever I hear something, and I'm not always the best at this, but whenever I am confronted with something and I have a reaction to it, I may feel vindicated.

I can always build a narrative on why it was justified.

But one of the things I've been doing more recently is just been pausing and saying, why?

Why does that bother me so much?

What is that indicating about me?

What is this, what, why why do I feel this way?

Is it is it me?

Is there something there that I don't realize is there?

And this is just triggering it because it's reminding me of an unsettled thing.

Like, what is this?

Well, I think the same thing with scripture when we're engaging God's word, it's just asking God, can you reveal to me areas of my life that I just that I'm that I'm missing?

Or God, can you just reveal to me how can I apply this to my life?

And just doing a deep dive with it, and bro, you you invite the Holy Spirit in.

He's gonna move in.

He'll go to work.

He'll go to work and he'll start showing things to you, and you'll start being like, dang it, I wasn't even trying to go in that room.

I I was trying to give you access to the living room.

I didn't know it was gonna go into these spaces, but when you do that, that's where application, and then honestly, going back to what I said earlier, walking it out with others.

Yeah, just just being in community with other people, walking out with others, letting people know what you're walking through, and then somehow together we all are strengthened.

I think it's in isolation, is where we end up getting tripped up.

Yeah.

It is important to note because you know, we can ingest say, you know, you watch out, Holy Spirit, you know, you're gonna but God is love, right?

Yes, he's gentle, he's kind, he, you know, love keeps no record of wrong.

Like all of these, like the Holy Spirit is a good thing to have in real life.

Absolutely.

It's the best thing to have in real life.

And so let's not um.

Yeah, we're not trying to scare you off for sure.

I don't want to pray that person.

No, look, this is he's gentle.

The thing about you know, the presence of God is that that Jesus helps us to understand that behold, I stand at the door and knock.

I'm I'm not gonna just kick in the doors, I'm not gonna do these things like I I love you enough that I want to be invited.

I want to be this a journey with all of us.

And again, Jesus is perfect theology.

Like He He is God manifested in flesh.

So when when do we see Jesus frustrated the most?

Typically it's with the disciples that should know better or with the legalistic people, but all of us are on this journey and he's patient and he's with us.

And there's times that he may challenge us, like, hey man, you still haven't figured this out yet after all this time.

Here, let me show you.

It's no point, even when Peter got out the boat and Lord save me.

And he's like, bro, like you've been with me all this time.

But he didn't say, like, so I'm gonna leave you out here.

Yeah, he extended his hand, pulled him back in, and then continued to work with him.

So I think if we recognize the Lord through that lens, it changes the way that we approach him.

For sure.

You know, another really great resource for all of you who are listening, or for all of you who are watching, is we have on our equip channel at Celebration.

Well, I guess it's a playlist on our celebration YouTube, a how to study your Bible video.

Yeah.

And uh, I believe someone in this room filmed that a little bit ago.

It's a profound guy, man.

I think he's you know one of my favorites.

Um, it's you know, I'll I'll say this, man.

It's there's tons of resources.

I love the Bible project.

Um, I share some things that have helped me through the years.

I probably need to reshoot it because some other things have kind of worked its way into my my spiritual workflow at this point.

But it's one of those things that Nate, I've been walking with God for well over two decades at this point, and I still am blown away at how much I don't know.

Correct.

How much I still come across passages of scripture, and I'm like, I've never seen this.

Wow, I never thought of it that way.

Because for me, it's a lot less about what can I get out of this thing.

It's more so like I'm my prayers now are like, Lord, just remove the barriers that didn't allow me to see things that were right in front of me the whole time.

But because of my doctrinal position or because of all these things, I couldn't even see what you were trying to do.

I just want to take God off the box so I can revisit old passages and have a completely different perspective because now I'm doing my best to revisit things that I used to engage in, but with a limited filter of my preferences or whatever the case may be.

So, do we have boundaries in our understanding?

Certainly.

Is there a method to the way we interpret scripture?

1000%.

But now that I understand different literary styles and understand that each literary style legitimately has its own interpretation techniques and the ways that we need to read it.

Like, we don't read psalms the same way that we read historical narrative, like you have to look at it that way.

Otherwise, we're taking psalms and creating doctrine out of it, and it's like, those are poetry.

That's not even what that was meant to be.

But it doesn't mean it can't help us, it doesn't mean it's not principles that reinforce thought, but we just gotta be careful with that.

Yeah.

Uh any any final words before we conclude our episode here uh regarding the word of God?

Um just keep reading.

Um, I think that's the that's my biggest thing.

Like it's it's changed my life.

I've seen it change people's lives.

It's it's literally the core tenet and the filter for everything, and none of us are perfect, and I know it can be overwhelming, and there's so many voices out there, and I didn't have the the privilege or the burden of non-stop content.

So for me, I had to learn to sit with God.

Like we let me say this.

We we have the privilege now that we can watch TV shows, and depending on what your TV watching proclivities are, that they may drop the entire season in one day.

Friday, Netflix drops this thing, I can binge watch it all weekend, it's amazing.

And and that's that's great.

But for me, I I didn't have that.

So for me, my spiritual upbringing was I come to church, I read my Bible, I may go to the Bible study, and then I come back to church.

And it was just this the diligence of sitting with things, sitting with the unknown, waiting to get with my pastor and ask a question.

Nowadays, we have so much information out there that we're engaging it all, not realizing that it's confusing us, it may be scattering us a little bit, it may not fit our season of life.

So I would just say slow down, find a rhythm that works for you.

As Paul says, man, you have many, you have so many different voices, you have so many teachers, but you don't you don't have many leaders.

Like you have too many things that are in your life.

Just slow down a little bit, engage that stuff if you want to, but just begin to minimize the voices.

And I but I promise you, if you find a a diligent path, you're gonna grow exponentially.

Just just slow down.

And if you don't have a you don't have a community around you, you don't have a a church, a place to call home, we'd love to have you.

Yes, Sundays, Orlando Museum of Art.

9 and 10 30.

9 and 10 30 a.m.

Yes, or feel free, obviously, to you know, follow us on Instagram.

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Like and subscribe.

You never know when we're gonna pop up with the special edition.

Yes, and you wouldn't even know.

You wouldn't even know.

So this is this is exclusive.

That's right.

Absolutely.

Patrick Keith, thanks so much.

Appreciate your time.

And for the rest of you guys, stay tuned because who knows?

We could be back next week.

Thank you for joining us for after the message.

To learn more about Celebration Church here in Orlando, you can follow us on social media under the handle at CelebrationOral or visit our website at celebrationormel.org.