Nov 25, 2018 - Reading the Bible

there was a woman on her way to church one Sunday morning and in her particular circumstances, she had to drive to church from the suburbs into the downtown area or her church was And she was driving that Sunday morning. She was thinking through some of the memories she had from her her time in that church. In fact, she had grown up in that particular church and she could remember with great fondness. Sometimes when she was a little girl and her and her family would get up on a sunny Sunday morning and walk to church through the neighborhood under the trees and and I arrive at church. And so those were some of her are some of her precious memories from childhood remembered what it was like when as a teenager her parents moved out to the suburbs and and then they they spent Sunday mornings in the minivan driving to church through the through the streets and different kinds of conditions and we all know what happens with families and minivans in and how Sunday mornings are usually the worst. And and she was thinking about those memories and and she was thinking about the friends that she had friends that had that that we had been with her since her at her earliest memories there at the church and some of them had had grown up together in that church and we're in that church. Now some all the way along some having come back. She could remember her wedding service in that building and all of these thoughts were flooding her mind as she drove to church that morning and I'm not particular Sunday morning. She had been asked to pray publicly. She was a mature member in the church now involved in leadership and she had been asked to to give a public prayer that morning and so as as she stood to pray all of these memories were coming into her mind. And she began to pray and she was thanking God for all of his many blessings. She was thanking God for the good homes that they had for the Memories in the church for the friendships for their freedoms for their their many many blessings that she remembered and I she was praying she began to say I am so thankful that that that we here in this church are not like like other people who are hungry and homeless because of the blessings that God has given us. And that she was saying those very words outside the church. There was a another person a man who was going through his Sunday morning ritual. And he pushed his shopping cart to the Lee side of the church away from the Winter Wind and he he tucked himself in behind a staircase where he was even more protected from the wind in and put his shopping card in the way. So don't want to bother him there. And there beside the church. He listen to the Oregon as that was the part of the sound of the service that came through the walls tried to snuggle up to the bricks that maybe some worms from inside the church would come out through them.

And as he was there beside the church, he cried out. Oh God have mercy on me a sinner.

And that morning is God look down. He heard the prayer of the man outside by the stairs. The ignore the prayer of the woman inside the church building because as Jesus tells the story he answered and Luke chapter 18 verse 14 with these words. Those who exalt themselves will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

powerful message on humility now I could give you another message on humility. It goes like this. This morning. I'm going to teach you five steps to becoming a humble person.

The first step is ask for feedback from other people and I would illustrate that with the story of Moses and his father-in-law Jethro as Jethro advised him on how to better manage the multitude of people in the desert. The second step is confront your prejudices and I could illustrate that with the story of Peter as he had the vision of the sheet coming down. And God was teaching that he was prejudiced towards gentile people and he shouldn't be The third step my fingers are struggling with that one. The third step is start with questions and I can illustrate that with Jesus because many times when people came with to him with a question he answered with a question.

The fourth step is really listen. Do you want to be a humble person? Listen, I could illustrate that with the the story of the confrontation between Peter and Paul over how much of the law should be obeyed by Gentile Christian.

The fifth step is accept setbacks beautifully illustrated by the story of King David. He was anointed king and then for many years he wandered in and tried to escape from Saul's murder Squad in the desert before he finally actually became king. And the six steps to becoming humble is discover. And that's illustrated by Joe who who thought he was a humble man until God took everything away from him and he still thought he was a humble man and then God show job his great power and majesty and Jobe realized. But he had been humbled and he was not humble before.

I'll return to those stories in the second half of my message, but I want to do a little bit review or or just reminding you where we're at here. God reveals himself In his word, it's not by accident. It's not just some strange thing of history. But it's God's chosen way of all the different ways that God can reveal himself. He chose a written word. I believe 100% on purpose as the best possible way to reveal himself. No, this is not unique to God. I mean the written word part maybe is what the idea that that you need God to reveal himself to you if you are going to know him. That's not unique to God. That's true of every relationship you have. You all know people and you probably use this phrase cuz it's a common phrase. That woman is like a closed book. You've heard that right? Maybe you said it. We know people they've been around, you know their name you interact with them. Sometimes you perhaps even touch them. But you don't know them. They just don't reveal anything about themselves and their interactions with you. They're closed book. If you're going to know them they have to open up and reveal something. You can you can have have someone who who your your partner your wife or your husband tells you all about this person at work and everyday is like they did you can't believe what they did today and all about them, but you don't want even though, you know all that information about that person. You don't know them. Because they have not revealed themselves to you. Your wife knows them your husband knows them but you don't, you know a lot about them, but you don't know them. So it's not unique to God, we can only know God in as much as he reveals himself to us and he chose to reveal himself in a very particular way. writing text a book

Last Sunday, we we considered what type of book this is. And I suggest you that. It's a book of love letters. It's a book of of different ways in which God. Expresses his love towards us.

This Sunday is the is the last Sunday before the Advent season the Christmas season. I'm going to move off of this why I read the Bible series for the Christmas season and pick it up again afterwards. And as I said last Sunday and I'm going to challenge you again today starting on the second Sunday in January. I'm going to start in Genesis and I'm going to go through every book of the Bible now that'll probably take 2 or 3 years because we're going to stop for communion Sunday. We're going to stop for Sunday. We're going to do Easter themes in between and other things as they come up, but just generally speaking in the Sundays in between the special stuff. I'm going to be picking book after book and we're going to look not in the details of the book, but but I'm going to try to answer the question for you. How is God revealing his love to you in this book? My challenge to you is that you would read the whole Bible along with me as I go through. So I hope you'll do that. But I want to give you a few pointers and and I I noticed this morning that there's a number of visitors here and you're going to think we'll white. Why am I even here to listen to this? Cuz I'm I'm just talking about what our plans are for the future in our our church family here, but but I will give you this. Are sermons are put up on our website. And so if you choose this morning after you hear what I have to say that yeah, I want to go through the whole Bible. That way. You can do it with us. Even if you're not here, but you can of course do it even without listening to my sermons and that might be even better for you. So so just take the challenge on as I give it in the in the new year. Would you read the Bible? Would you make that commitment this morning? Let me give you some pointers one of the things if you're going to start in January and read Through the Bible with me, it's it's not a Bible in a year at like I said, it's probably going to take us 2 to 3 years don't know I haven't got it all sorted out yet, but I would suggest you a good idea is to go buy a new Bible in a translation. You've never read. The reason is of course because when you when you're used to the speech patterns or the writing patterns of a particular translation, it's easy to just read the whole, you know. Chapters and completely forget what you read the minute later. But if you kind of Jar yourself with a new translation a different pattern of writing than you're used to it, it can really help you to engage in the material especially in those places like the gospel is that you may be heard the story many times so I can be really helpful to start with a new Bible in and kind of have this is this is my read through the Bible Bible and a new translation can be very helpful for that. Another idea is to listen to it. In fact this morning. I brought an audio Bible that I'm going to leave in the library here and CDs, although none of us usually use CDs anymore. Most of us use computer-generated or or MIDI files in and all that kind of stuff. But that's very another way to do it the little picture below the bookshelf up. There is the the picture for the my Bible app, which is available on your phones and tablets which which I use quite a bit and the my Bible app will read it to you the whole Bible. And so if you put your phone in your pocket put your headphones on and then vacuum the living room you can get through your Bible reading just by by doing the dishes and preparing supper. So that would be a good way to do it or on your car on the way to work. Are you can you can do it that way listening is is an effective way to 10 gauge. You'll you'll notice things in God's word. When you listen to it differently than you noticed them when you read it yourself. Someone else's voice makes a difference.

You might decide to read it with another person to just grab somebody from our church or not our church. And so, you know, what we're going to do this. We're going to keep each other accountable to keep up with it. We're going to do it together and I'm going to be producing discussion sheets with each sermon and you could take those as just a personal devotional guide. You could take those and say we're going to meet once a week want me and another person we're going to go through those another way you could choose to do it as you could choose in your discipleship group to the follow along and in this series and do that with your group or you might choose to start a group invite a bunch of people to your home once a week and say once a week we're going to take out this discussion guide. We're going to discuss Genesis the first week Exodus the next and we're going to do that together. That would be another way to do it. Of course. another thing I would suggest to you is to

figure out a way to make it a pattern. So that it has a place in your day instead of something. You just try to fit in somewhere. So one way that that can be quite effective for this is take a particular chair facing away from your living room or maybe out a window and say that's the spot. Put a table and a lighting and say when I sit down in that chair looking out the window, I'm going to read the scriptures. I'm going to I'm going to get through the Bible on that chair. And if you if you make that a pattern the same time the same place the same chair it becomes just like brushing your teeth. Just something you just do every day and and it becomes much easier if you set that kind of pattern into your life. So those are just some suggestions very very practical ideas to help you get through through this commitment. After we do some other things here in our service. I'm going to pick up an and try to answer that question. Why? Why would we do this? Why not? Just listen to someone talk about the Bible on Sunday mornings? Why read it yourself? So we'll address that question in more detail in a few minutes. You are the king of kings and I will adore you.

We do that as we sing, but I want to Invite you into a way of doing this that that goes far beyond Sunday mornings. I want to try to answer this question again. Why would you read the Bible?

Last week we looked at the fact that this is the way that God chooses to reveal himself. So if you want to know God you need to engage in the thing that he gave you that he gave us to reveal himself to us in the text. This morning. I want to look at one aspect of this text because it's not just any form God's word God's revelation to us comes in a particular form a particular kind of book. Now when we talk about reading the Bible or if you if you were to go to the Christian bookstore on to Amazon and and wanted to get something that would teach you how to read the Bible. There's various books out there about how to read the Bible and almost all of them. Will Begin by telling you that the Bible is and sorry I missed the end of a kind of book that's made up of different kinds of literature. And so we talk about poetry which is in the Psalms primarily as well as other places. We talked about wisdom literature, which is the the Proverbs and Ecclesiastes in and parts of the profit. We talked about the law which is the bulk of the first part of the New Testament Leviticus and Deuteronomy and numbers we talked about the profits which is the last part of the of the Old Testament and we talked about apocalypse which is parts of Daniel and particularly Revelation and then there's gospels in and there's all in so we can get the impression that there there's this big big library of different kinds of literature and we we need to dive in and and I just bring that up today cuz I'm not going to explain that because some of you are sitting there and thinking but I don't even know how to spell literature. Let alone get into all these different things and I and I just want to tell you this morning. It doesn't matter. Because all of these things all of these different kinds of things that are talked about in these kind of books. We look at this book. We find one thing. story It's all stories. And even when we look at something like say the Poetry or the Poetry this doesn't come at us like random lines of verse it comes out Us in story many of the Psalms have ahead and above them that connect them to a story and that teaches us that we need to read the stories and then put the songs into the stories to understand where they come out of if we're going to read them correctly. We have to read them as part of a story and all of the individual stories that the hundreds of stories in this book. Come together into one big story.

And unless you read it. You don't know what? God chose to reveal himself in written text. But not just any written tax he chose to reveal himself in a story book. I have Unger's Bible dictionary here. And if God wanted to reveal himself as theology he would have inspired this book. And none of you would ever read it. None of you would know him. Now this is a valuable book in the more and more you get into this book the more and more you're going to use this book, but you don't have to start here. You don't even have to know this exists in order to get into this. God didn't choose the ology. He didn't choose that that form of writing. He chose the form of writing that is stories as the way to reveal himself to us. And if we want to know him we need to engage in the stories. narrative It's all about narrative now. I want to give you. 2 Reasons

03 I guess I didn't number them on my page. But when I look at it here, I guess there's three but let me let me first illustrate with my own experience the effect that stories can have it going to be a I'm not going to tell you this whole testimony but just a little bit couple of years ago. I decided for the first time to listen Through the Bible. And as I said that when we do it different ways, we sometimes notice different things. That's why I was listening through the Bible and I was doing it first thing in the mornings when I came to the study here in the church and I'll put it on my my Bible app and and and honestly often did other things while it was playing and didn't hear it all but but I listen to it and I was listening to the early part in Genesis and there was a story there about how the first man was put to sleep and he was wounded in his side and out of that side came the woman How did which came all of mankind well, that's a weird story can't even understand what that means. But it just goes by quick and you go on. Later on. months later on when I was in the prophets I heard on as the Bible was being read to me by my computer that The suffering servant the prophesied Messiah out of his wounds we would be healed.

And then later on in the gospels. I heard that the soldiers put a spear into the side between the ribs of Jesus the second Adam. And out of that wound comes our healing and we we remember that every communion Sunday when we when we eat the bread and remember that he was wounded for our transgressions.

And then I got to Revelations where I read that out of the healing from Jesus Christ comes the bride of Christ II Eve.

And now I could tell you about how that that that moment when that all came together. How would how it's affected my life because it changed me know that now that's just some odd facts for you, but God changed me through those stories. I didn't never seen that if I didn't read the individual stories as they made up the one big story.

God spoke to me. God revealed himself to me in a new way that changed my life not because of this book. Know if you look up the right reference in this book. I'm sure you get all of that information. That's not new theology that's been around for ages.

God gave us stories not theology. Three reasons the first one. I'm not going to talk about. I'm just going to mention but I think it's absolutely important. Stories are accessible to everyone.

Everyone can engage in stories even the baby we can here in the back who can't speak English words yet will sit on your lap and listen to a story.

Stories are accessible to everyone. That means that if God reveals himself through stories, every person is capable of knowing him. Whether or not you can spell literature.

It doesn't matter stories are accessible. So never think of yourself as all. Yeah the pastor in those theologians in the ones have gone to Bible College. They know God, but I'm kind of stuck here. Pick it up. And read it. It's just stories. You can handle that.

the second reason and I want to focus on this and the and the other one quite a bit here this morning is is one that's fascinating for me because I like reading new discoveries in science and stuff like that, and this is something that that we've known forever, but science is another area where signs is now proving what we already know new from God's word, and the the idea is pretty simple stories change you This is not a scientific fact stories change you they change your brain. Let me illustrate. If I tell you 5 steps to becoming humble. And we put electrodes on to your brain so we could measure where there was activity inside your head. What they would find what we would find is that the language processing centers of your brain are active as you listen to the five steps to becoming humble. Tell me. Can you tell me the five steps to becoming humble?

I invented them I couldn't even tell you them right now. Did you notice that I said five steps but I gave you six. Okay, I figured you'd notice that you know, why you not remember that because when you noticed it, you started to create a story in your mind about how you were going to tell a joke about your pastor.

You can remember the story, but you can't remember the 6 points.

Who can tell me the story about the Pharisee in the Republican? on humility

every one of you can tell that story. You remember it? When I told you the five sorry six points. A very small portion of your brain was active when I told you the story Science Now shows us that as you heard my words the language processing centers in your brain became active as I told the story The the emotional processing parts of your brain started to light up and synapses was going on there and it was getting it was getting hot in there. And as your emotional processing centers were activated and I talked about the the woman driving even though your hands didn't move the parts of your brain that you use when you drive a car became just as active as they are when you drive a car.

And as I talked about her standing up to pray even though you didn't stand out the parts of your brain that cause you to stand up or just as active is if you had actually stand up stood up and when all of those things are going up going on in your brain and all the different parts of your brain are lit up.

Your brain sends a signal and your body starts to release dopamine into your bloodstream. Now your whole body feels good cuz that's what dopamine does in your system. And that dopamine Sears that story Into the memory centers of your brain cuz your brain is programmed by God to want to feel good.

And that's what memories are stored.

And now with more sensitive brain instrument science can show us that when that happens. Your brain physically biologically is different after you heard the story than before. the renewing of your mind your brain changes new Pathways that make new thoughts and new behaviors possible are created in your brain. When you listen to stories one story just causes a tiny almost in unmeasurable effect that mean it's not that big a deal but many stories over many years repeat it again, and again create solid pathways. the change your mind Now we knew when gods were told us by the renewing of your mind that we would be changed.

Now we know the science it actually happens and that is a challenging fact to us because we all like stories. We watch movies we read books. We go to that stupid reality TV show that has the same plot every single episode and we watch it again. Why? Because God designed our brains for stories. But the question is which stories are causing changes inside your head.

Are they creating Pathways that lead to Holiness or are they creating Pathways that lead to sin? Because stories do create Pathways in your brain.

I do God designed your brain before he wrote This Book.

It's not an accident. That he wrote a book of stories.

He designed it that way. It's all on purpose. Why would you read it? Because it changes, you know in the beginning. I showed that little video about the about the inspiration. And remember the two lenses one is the you know, you get the two different. The human aspect of God's word and then the Holy Spirit aspect of God's word not going to repeat the video, but when we when we look at not the production of God's word, but the way in which we receive it I just told you the human aspect that's biological but there's a whole other part of it. That is I think more important still and to get up that I want to open God's word for just a minute and read several verses to you. I hope your you've heard these before. Isaiah 55 1011 the rain and the snow come down from heaven and stay on the ground to water the Earth. They caused the grain to grow producing seed for the farmer and bread for the hungry. It is the same with my word. I send it out and it always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to and it will prosper everywhere. I send it.

see if active gods were 1st Corinthians, 1 verse 18 19 and 20 the message of the Cross is foolishness to those who are headed for Destruction. But we who are being saved know it is the very power of God as the scripture says I will destroy the wisdom of the of the wise and discard the intelligence of the intelligent. So where does this leave the philosophers and Scholars and the world's brilliant Debaters. God has made the wisdom of this world world. Look foolish.

Jeremiah 23:29 does not my word burn like fire says the Lord is it not like a mighty Hammer that smashes a rock two piece.

And Hebrews 4 verse 12 and 13 for the word of God is alive and Powerful it is sharper than the sharpest two edged sword cutting between Soul and Spirit between joint and Marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God. Everything is naked and exposed before his eyes and he is the one to whom we are accountable.

God's word is rain and snow that nourishes. Our soul God's word is the power of God to those who have the Holy Spirit but it is foolishness to those who do not. It's like a fire now. There's one thing we know about fire. Have you watched on the news, California this winter? fire changes things God's word is a hammer. You don't use a hammer when you want to create something use a hammer when you want to change something drastically beat it apart.

God's word Hebrews tells us is alive and Powerful.

So well, there is an effect when we read these stories in our brains. There's a much greater much stronger much more powerful effect in our soul. That's the other side of what we mean when we say that this book is inspired. We mean it was inspired When It Was Written just as the video described. I'm not going to redescribed that for you. And so that means it is the word of God. It's not the word of men though. It is written by men and according to their character and their styles. God breathed through them as they wrote. But it is also inspired when we read it and other words the holy spirit is involved in the process. in your soul when you read this book The Holy Spirit Alive in you alive in his word makes his word as Hebrews says alive and active. So well biologically reading the stories can change your brain. Spiritually reading the stories can change your heart.

It's not just pretend it's not just an idea it changes your heart.

Why would you read it?

God's word does not say that when you read the book that men wrote about the book your heart will be changed.

He says when you read the book. When you read the stories your heart will be changed. It doesn't even say when you understand what they mean and can teach them to someone else you will be changed. It says when you read them you will be changed.

It's not by accident that God reveals himself in stories.

It's because it's his method. A revealing himself to you. And when you stand in the presence of God, is he reveals himself to you? You will not be the same afterwards.

So you might wander as you walk through the shopping center this Christmas pushing your shopping cart. Why doesn't God's holy spirit just come down here. His word says I would be changed. Going along come on. I'm ready. Thunderbolt, I don't care just change me. I know that Dusty shelf in your house flies the book. But he has told you is the way in which he will change.

So pick it up. And read it.

I'm confident. You won't be the same afterwards.

You will come to know God. And to know God is to become holy.

Starting January. Let's do it.