K4: Studying Scripture to Know God
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· 8 viewsThis week we learn about the first of four targets we try to hit in disciplemaking relationships.
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
In 1907, George Freeth brought surfing to Southern California
A man named Henry Huntington (Huntington Beach) employed him
Did expositions for hundreds to bring tourists to his new piers
Some years later, Duke Kahamamoku followed his footsteps
By 1912, he was surfing for huge crowds
He won gold in Olympic swimming in 1912, 1920, and silver in 1924
He began starring in Hollywood films
As he continued to surf, it became less of a show, and more of a pastime
When cars were invented, it was easier to get boards to the beach
In the 1950’s, California surf culture grew with help from Hollywood
Books and movies about “Gidget,” a fictitious female surfer became popular
The Beach Boys rock n’ roll sound kept momentum in the mainstream
Today, it’s hard to imagine Santa Monica, San Diego, Malibu or Santa Cruz without surfers
Surfing is a California way of life!
And I know this! I grew up in California!
You can’t grow up in California without surfing!
Everyone surfs!
Well, except for me.
I have never tried surfing
How can you grow up in California and never surf?!
Let me come back to that… First:
Discipleship Formula
Discipleship Formula
(TW+K4)xD3
(TW+K4)xD3
TW is TIME WITH
K is KAVANAH
4 things are
STUDY SCRIPTURE TO KNOW GOD
PRAYERFULNESS
LOVING EXTRAVAGANTLY
ALL LIFE IS WORSHIP (C323 Living)
AKA - Scripture, Prayer, Love, Worship
D3 is MULTIPLICATION
2 weeks ago we talked about TW
You can’t disciple someone without spending time
It’s intentional time to growth together
Why? That’s how Jesus did it...
Relationships are not a component of discipleship...
Discipleship IS relationships
You have friendships, and you have personal growth in relationship with God
Discipleship is when those come together
You can have friendships
You talk about football, cooking, video games, whatever
That’s not discipleship
You have personal growth with God
You read alone, you pray alone, you fast alone, whatever
That’s not discipleship either
Discipleship is when friendship and intentional growth come together
K4 are the four intentional things we do
Scripture, prayer, love and worship
Today, we’re discussing “Studying Scripture to Know God
YouVersion: K4: Studying Scripture to Know God
Bouncing around
Let me tell you about the Bible:
Demand requires a Bible to be printed every 3 seconds
Second most printed book all time: “Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung”
820 million copies
Bible? Over 6 billion copies and counting...
How far down the best sellers list to tie Bible?
All the religious texts: Qu’ran, Book of Mormon, Dianetics...
Then work down the most famous works of all time
A Tale of Two Cities, Harry Potter, Guiness Book… all the ones with 100 million+ sales
But keep going
DaVinci Code, Charlotte’s Web, Webster’s Dict., Betty Crocker Cookbook… 50 million+
Still not enough
Peter Rabbit, Diary of Anne Frank, Alcoholics Anonymous Big Book, all with 25 million+
Take the top 150 best selling books of all time, with all editions, including annual copies...
You STILL can’t pass the number of Bibles that have been printed!
If I talk about...
The blind leading the blind
The writing on the wall
Escaped by the skin of your teeth
A drop in the bucket
All sayings from Scripture!
Bible is the most shoplifted book in the world
Praise God...
90% of the population has a version of the Bible available in a language they understand
There is an endless river of books relating to Scripture:
Bible dictionaries, commentaries, textbooks, concordances, lexicons...
Books on church leadership, theology, history, apologetics...
Devotions, hymnals, trivia and Bible studies...
When it comes to Scripture there is no competition, parallel or improvement!
The most amazing book of all time
Aliens visiting us for the first time couldn’t possibly summarize our planet without including the Christian Bible
It is just too significant
And yet… remember when I said I grew up in California and never surfed?
How much stranger is it, that people grow up here, and never take the time to look at this book?
Clearly the most influential piece of writing ever, and it is dismissed without even looking
Let’s go to another level!
Some people go to church their whole life! And never bother to open the Scriptures...
A.W. Tozer: “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us.”
Question: is Scripture not the most important factor in defining what we think about God?
It is!
In Matthew 22, the Sadducees challenge Jesus
If a woman’s husband dies, and she marries his brother, who will she be married to?
Can’t figure it out, must not be a resurrection!
Jesus suggests that they could know things better… How?
Matthew 22:29 (ESV)
29 But Jesus answered them, “You are wrong, because you know neither the Scriptures nor the power of God.
If you want to know about God
If you want to know what He wants
If you want to know what we need
If you want to know what to do
You look to Scripture!
But it’s archaic, it’s just a bunch of fairy tales, you can find truth in other places...
Isaiah 40:8 (ESV)
8 The grass withers, the flower fades,
but the word of our God will stand forever.
Mankind becomes archaic, cultures become archaic...
But Scripture does not
It is the one constant that pulls the swerving trailer of society back in line
2 Timothy 3:16 (ESV)
16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
Even the old stuff!
4 For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.
Matthew 24:35 (ESV)
35 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
What am I saying here?
Scripture is the most important factor in what we think about God
Scripture is the most important factor in what we think about God
God does communicate in other ways
Prayer, Holy Spirit, morality is written on our hearts...
There may even be a place for prophecy and new revelation in the future
But I will tell you this: None of those things supercede Scripture
D.L. Moody: “I never saw a useful Christian who was not a student of the Bible.”
Scripture tells us the Word of God is inspired by God, and it is truth
So if the Bible says, “Don’t commit adultery, it’s a sin.”
And you come in someday saying, “I’m going to leave my spouse because my secretary is my soul mate… It’s alright, God told me it’s okay!”
So, what are the things the Bible communicates to us?
1. Scripture reveals who God is
1. Scripture reveals who God is
Scripture does more that just tell us things about God
It also shows us who he is
Let me see if I can show you what I mean:
The Bible says, “God loves people...”
That’s information - clear and accurate
Let’s look and see how Scripture says it though:
John 10:11 (ESV)
11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
You begin to gain a sense for who Jesus is with that
You understand the type of care He has
He’s an overseeing, guiding, loving protector, willing to set Himself aside
He can be trusted, He has our best interest at heart, we find assurance and safety
I know my wife - I am a student of her
She has the gift of discernment, she is a very talented home designer, she’s an external processor and loves chihuahuas!
If you ask her a hard question about morality, she will answer confidently and rightly, or she will be honest with her limitations. She will likely be blunt, but she will be kind and compassionate.
How do I know that? It’s not because I know information about her...
She is 5’4”, wears a size 7, graduated from Chino HS...
It’s because I know her character, I know her
Rather than just giving information on God, Scripture paints beautiful pictures
So many verses beautifully describe to us who God is
No slides, just listen:
5 This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.
4 Behold, God is my helper;
the Lord is the upholder of my life.
11 “Who is like you, O Lord, among the gods?
Who is like you, majestic in holiness,
awesome in glorious deeds, doing wonders?
28 Have you not known? Have you not heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary;
his understanding is unsearchable.
When you learn who God is, you carry that with you
It’s not just information about God you know
It’s knowing Him through His word
2. Scripture reveals God’s actions
2. Scripture reveals God’s actions
This is an easy one
Scripture has an interesting record of God’s relationship with humanity
From a birds eye view...
God created mankind, we sinned
He made a people, then a Temple, then a kingdom, then salvation, then the church...
Then there’s the tribulation, millennial kingdom, new heaven and earth...
But rather than say it like I just did, God wrote more than 31,000 verses for us
He took a period of 1,600 years and used about 40 different authors
Avg. 1 author every 40 years to tell His story
1 Inasmuch as many have undertaken to compile a narrative of the things that have been accomplished among us, 2 just as those who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the word have delivered them to us, 3 it seemed good to me also, having followed all things closely for some time past, to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, 4 that you may have certainty concerning the things you have been taught.
Bottom line, God wants us to know what He did, and what He will do
We are still living that same story - we’re just waiting until we fulfill the last part of it
Billy Graham: “If you are ignorant of God’s Word, you will always be ignorant of God’s will.”
If you want to know who God is and what He does, go to Scripture
We know the Bible tell su about God, but the it also tells us about us!
3. Scripture reveals who we are
3. Scripture reveals who we are
Playing in an indy band in the early 2000’s, I loved a band called “The Used”
At the beginning of a song called take it away, there’s a vintage, scratchy old man voice
He says, “Life's greatest questions have always been: Who am I? Where did I come from? Why am I here? Where am I going? You are about to see and hear one of the most significant messages given to us from God.”
Then there’s a record needle and gun cocking, it fires and the song starts
God does answer all of those questions in varying ways
Romans 9 - We are His vessels - some for honor some for dishonor
Genesis 1 - He made us to reflect His image in creation
Ephesians 2 - We are His workmanship
Genesis 2 - God brought Adam up from the dust
Psalm 139 - He formed our inwards parts and knitted us together
John 1, Romans 8, Galatians 3, 1 Peter 2 - Some of us have become children of God
Isaiah 43 - We exist to worship God
2 Corinthians 2 - We are His ambassadors
Ephesians 5, We are His bride
Genesis 1, Isaiah 11, We will be rulers with Him
Ultimately that can all be summed up this way
God made us to serve His purpose for us
Many of us try to find or make our own purpose
Whether thats our careers, our accolades, our children...
Each of those things will leave you empty
You will eventually retire, your kids will grow up, your statue in front of your school will be replaced
It is what you do for the sake of the gospel that will stand forever
And so it’s okay to pursue those other things...
But work hard - as to the Lord
Raise your children well - to be Godly people
And store up treasures for yourself -in heaven
Finally:
4. Scripture teaches us how to live
4. Scripture teaches us how to live
This is really where that knowledge thing becomes a problem again
Too often we know what Scripture says...
But we should be living what Scripture says
Theodore Roosevelt: “No educated man can afford to be ignorant of the Bible.”
And that’s the problem
We set the Bible aside to favor our own thoughts
Sometimes we open Scripture and find something we do not like
So we either ignore it and move on
Find a way to explain it away
Or we give up on it
Sometimes, we give up on it without even looking at all!
You know - the Bible is so old it doesn’t fit our culture
The Bible has so many contradictions
It was written by man and is a bunch of fairy tales
People that say those things often have a common flaw
They don’t actually look at and study Scripture!
The truth is, as I said before:
1 Peter 1:24–25 (ESV)
24 for
“All flesh is like grass
and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers,
and the flower falls,
25 but the word of the Lord remains forever.”
And this word is the good news that was preached to you.
Here is Peter quoting Isaiah 40
Scripture isn’t just a suggestion for you
A set of feel-good quips to write in calligraphy on a canvas in your kitchen
As for this house, we will serve the Lord...
As you’re screaming at each other in the kitchen...
God gave us His Word because He plans on it changing you
Refining you, making yo more like the person He designed you to be from the get-go
Someone made in His image
Someone who knows and understands how to love, how to serve, and how to be holy
Closing
Closing
I want to close with a challenge
When I was a little boy, we ate at Burger King
Inside was a man sitting by himself
Even at 8 years old, it made me sad
Why would he want to sit alone?
I wanted to go sit with him - I didn’t, but I wanted to
In hindsight, he might have been on break or flew in on business...
At the time, I couldn’t understand why anyone would eat alone
Let’s imagine for a second, the word of God is our daily bread
The thing that nourishes us more than regular bread - Matthew 4:4
Here’s the question:
What are your spiritual dining habits?
Are you anorexic and not eating at all?
Starving yourself daily...
Is it just fast food for you?
I’ll let someone else do the work, I’ll just eat a little bit of the stuff that tastes good
Ignoring the stuff that’s good for you?
Are you eating enough, but eating alone?
Sad person eating in front of the TV...
Or are you feasting together with friends regularly, the way Jesus did!
Allowing yourself deep, rich nutrition
Laughing, commenting, enjoying the delicious bounty that God has given
Of course, every meal is different...
But in this community of believers
I pray that we eat well together as we disciple each other
Think about your Scriptural diet this week, and eat well my friends!
Communion
Communion
Speaking of the Word of God, did you know Jesus if referred to as the Word?
He also calls Himself the bread of life
One who offers the ability to never thirst again
He revealed how this works to us by dying on a Roman cross...