While You're Reading

what i think we feel in this room when we sing that song together is a body of believers agreeing with the words of that song if anybody could say anything about the love of christ we can if anybody could say anything about the miraculous working power of christ in a life we can and i know that song is old to some of us it's been around a long time i think i've heard it sung and sang it hundreds thousands of times in this church and and i love it but it's more than just the song for us the song just encapsulates our experience with jesus that we've experienced him in very real ways this isn't fiction this isn't make-believe this isn't just me trying to say some nice things about my religion or my preferences about spirituality this is about an experience that we have had with jesus that we can sing about using any song really but that song seems to capture if anybody knows we know i love that i love that i love that i'm gonna i feel led of the lord tonight in preparation i feel to teach tonight um but what i mean by teach is is not what i used to mean whenever i was younger that a teacher was just a bad preacher well he's just a teacher bless his heart you know that's not what i mean by that i mean in the sense that paul talks about in ephesians i i feel to to try to serve in the office of a teacher for the equipping and edifying of the saints for the work of the ministry i find it funny that in that passage paul doesn't call what i'm about to do ministry but the effects of what will take place in your life he does call ministry and so i want to talk to you sort of along those lines of of knowing jesus of knowing christ and i'm going to read a passage here at the beginning and i'll let you be seated and we'll get right into it but i love that we have flowed in the spirit already and i think god's going to continue to move this is paul in philippians 3 starting in verse 7. it says but whatever word gains to me i now consider loss for the sake of christ what is more i consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing christ jesus my lord for whose sake i have lost all things i consider them garbage that i may gain christ and be found in him not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but that which is through faith in christ the righteousness that comes from god on the basis of faith i want this is where it all hinges i want to know christ i want to know christ and i love this version because it gives you a little hyphen and he says yes just a little emphatic addition there i want to know christ yes to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings becoming like him in his death and so somehow attaining to the resurrection from the dead now that i have not that i've already obtained all of this paul says or have already arrived at my goal but i press on to take hold of that for which christ jesus took hold of me brothers and sisters i do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it but one thing i do forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead i press on toward the goal to win the prize for which god has called me heavenward in christ jesus father thank you for this moment in time that we have to share with you and fellow believers thank you for it thank you for your word that it challenges us that it teaches us and it instructs us lord i pray right now that your presence would be here that it would be here to challenge and teach to help us to learn and to grow in your word to grow closer to you god i pray that you would anoint this congregation i pray that you would anoint me your word is already anointed god i pray that we would just flow in it and that you would teach us lead us and draw us closer to you lord in the name of jesus we pray and everybody said amen you can go ahead and be seated

here we have a really interesting uh passage of scripture from paul in philippians and and i have heard probably 65 million different sermons preached from this one passage because it is so heavy it is so thick there's a lot there that paul is talking about but what i want to focus in on is in that in that verse 10 of chapter 3 where he simply says i want to know christ that is his highest motivation that is his highest achievement that is what everything else that he says in this passage hangs on that paul has this extreme desire to simply know christ and in fact when he compares his previous life before christ with his life now where he knows christ he says i consider it really garbage he had a pretty good life before he was highly esteemed in his community he probably had a pretty decent amount of funds he had resources he had all this stuff and now he's sitting in prison and he says i would rather be here in prison and know christ than out of prison free with abundance and be separate from him and it's from this principle it's from this desire it's it's from this drive of paul that i want to teach on tonight that we want to we should want to know christ that should be our highest desire before anything else that we could do in life before any other achievement that we could arrive at our first priority and really our sole priority at the end of the day should simply be to know christ

now we can know christ a lot of different ways and and i believe that we know christ here please don't misunderstand me what i'm what i'm trying to portray tonight i believe that we know him and i believe there are a lot of ways to know we can know christ through prayer through fasting through fellowship with other believers church attendance all those things and many other that's not an exhaustive list but the one that i want to talk about tonight the way that we can know christ is through his word through scripture for me i don't really know how many pages the bible is i'm sure it differs based on the print size and and uh the type of bible and maybe the translation there's fewer or less words based on how they wanted to translate that i don't know but god has given us an awful lot of content to knowing by and so for me and i know that i'm biased because i am a bible teacher i've made my life about it but i believe the bible is one of the best ways that we can know god the problem is it's oftentimes the way that requires more effort because we have to read and study and pour time into it that's just me i know that's my opinion but i want to talk to us tonight about that knowing god through reading his scripture

there's a an interesting fact about my life growing up with my father my dad has always had hobbies he was a hobby sort of guy but he had certain kind of hobbies he he was a tinkerer does anybody know what that means he liked tinkering with things and and he had these certain characteristics that i noticed whenever he was in a hobby and really they were in his work as well through his career and that is that he was very meticulous he was very particular he was very specific he was obsessed with the detail he took his time he wanted it to be right he wanted it to be perfect he wanted it to look as pristine as possible this was a characteristic that i noticed in my dad but what i what i am reflecting on is that my dad never sat me down one day and said peter i want to tell you a little bit about myself i'm a very meticulous man i have an eye for the details i care about the smallest things in my hobbies he never sat me down and told me those things he he never wrote me a letter and detailed it out in word that he was this way that this was a characteristic of his but he did show me through his actions i may have never heard him say those things about himself but i saw those characteristics in my dad i understood who he was i understood that if i needed something specific made if i needed something very particular made i could go to my dad and say dad can you do this he does that less for me now because you can only ask him to do things for you so many times he's got a lot of kids and so but if i needed something particular i would go to him and he would take care of the details he's very meticulous i saw this in him i didn't need anybody to tell me i didn't need him to tell me i just knew i perceived it and what i learned from this story is that much of what i say about my father much of the observations that i have made about my father the same could be said of the bible the bible is a story of god acting in the world and sometimes we don't always have a specific text for who god is we have plenty of them and thankfully so we have those but other times we can read the bible as a whole and see how god behaves see how he acts see how he treats the world see how he treats his sons and daughters see how he treats unbelievers see how he treats all these different things and we can learn of god the same way i learned of my dad simply by observing the way that god acts in the world

and there are many different angles that we could take this we could go throughout the bible and observe all the big things god does god is a big god i need a few hours can i have it i didn't think so i think i actually heard a no that's fantastic no okay but one angle i got a yes from pastors so i mean i maybe i get one hour we'll balance them out but there are many different angles we we could talk about the bible but if the bible is anything if it is about anything the bible is about redemption it's about redemption and more precisely the bible is the story of god redeeming the world how awesome is that all of the complexity of the bible boiled down into one sentence the bible is the story of god redeeming the world amen that's awesome to me that makes it so simple for me to understand the bible if i read the bible and i get something weird out of it that doesn't line up with the story of god redeeming the world i can check my interpretation just on that one sentence i love it and traditionally when we're trying to talk about god who god is you know we're like god is a redeemer well i've got to go get my six proof texts to say that god is a redeemer and if anybody knows me well enough you know that i love proof texts the avm team knows that i love proof text i'll have 65 scriptures in a sermon because there's so much to learn and so and that's fine that's great i love proof text i'm all forum and we traditionally do that but it is just as accurate maybe possibly more so to say that if we just look at the overarching story of the bible we get a clearer picture of god than if we just have five or six proof text let me try to help us a little bit this can help us make sense of some difficult books what do you do with leviticus what do you do don't boil a a goat in its mother's milk like what do i do with that exactly but whenever i read that book in context with this lens that the bible is the story of god redeeming the world i've read before i've read in exodus where god speaks to the pharaoh he says let my people go into the wilderness so that they could worship me so that they could be in relationship with me now that i know that when i read leviticus you know what i see this is god instructing his people how to worship him this is god redeeming a people out of egypt and giving them a better way to live a more righteous way to walk a better way to conduct yourselves with one another between yourself and god as well that's what i see in leviticus so whenever i read through all those difficult passages and i'm like god i'm not exactly sure what this has to do with i can fall back on that general understanding that the bible is the story of god redeeming the world and leviticus is just one piece of that grand and amazing story can help us in jeremiah sometimes we read jeremiah who's ever heard this sort of label for jeremiah he's the weeping prophet has anybody ever heard that why why do they call him that because he's crying all the time he's like god why do you keep destroying everyone why do you keep judging israel why is there no food why is there a famine why is there no rain why is the enemy coming and taking us captive why god why i can't even cry anymore i'm so dehydrated from my tears i don't know what to do and i'm reading this and i'm like god i've been told this is your love story to humanity this is a bad chapter this isn't getting your point across very well is it i ask god and so if we grab just little pieces of jeremiah and we don't read the whole book we miss out with you you know what jeremiah is about please return to me i will heal your backslidings yes you have sinned yes there's judgment and jeremiah talks a whole lot about it but every time a judgment is poured out god is saying listen please come back i'll restore you again i'll redeem you again i'll buy you back again i'll keep doing this again and again and again and so whenever i read jeremiah do you know what that book tells me about god he is a god that no matter how many times he has to go back to that auction block and buy us back from our sins he'll do it because i've read the whole story i've read the whole overarching narrative of the bible and i know what it is about yes there's some dark passages yes there's some difficult passages to work through yes there's some dim and bleak situations but in the hole in the main god is redeeming the world and just in jeremiah he's trying to redeem israel and is just yet another chapter in the amazing narrative of god's redeeming of the world no matter what book you tell me try me after service i will always show you how it points back to god redeeming the world try me lamentations i got you it's about god redeeming the world

paul as he's reviewing scripture from genesis all the way to his time it's the story of god redeeming the world and and paul is reviewing this in romans 9 through 11 he's he's looking at how god has redeemed israel and now he's redeemed the gentiles and he's grafted them into the family of god he's looking at the artwork that is the story of god redeeming the world and at the very end of chapter 11 it's almost as if he can't help but he erupts into praise in chapter 11 starting in 33 he says oh the depth of the riches of the wisdom and knowledge of god how unsearchable are his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out who has known the mind of the lord or who has been his counselor who has ever given to god that god should repay them for from him and through him and for him are all things to him be glory forever amen do you understand this praise didn't happen just out of nowhere this praise happened as paul looked at the overarching story of god redeeming the world and he sees the complexity of it he sees all the downs he sees all of the mountaintop experiences he sees all the people in the lineage of jesus that don't quite belong there he sees all the mistakes of the forefathers he sees the mistakes of even david the man who is after his own heart but through all of those problems he also sees god redeeming them from those mistakes and bringing in the gentiles and out of this complexity out of this beauty of the story paul erupts he says all the depths and the riches of the wisdom of god how unsearchable what human mind could have crafted such a story what human intellect could have handled such an intricate and detailed path for the world to walk and for paul the answer is simple not one how unsearchable are his judgments

so i'm here to remind us now that i've got the preaching out of the way let me get to my notes i want to remind us of some things while we're reading the bible i assume that everybody in here reads the bible i'm not here to tell you to read your bible i assume that you already are so that's why my title is please it's not please read it's while you're reading while you're reading remember that what you're looking at is god at work we need to ask some important questions while we're reading some of the introductory questions could be as simple as what does this book or this passage or this section of the bible tell me about god that's pretty simple we read this passage we read read a scripture we get done we're done we check the box on the bread chart and then we ask the question what have i just been told about god how do i know him better now than i did before i read this passage what is god doing here in this part of the story what is he doing here that tells me about his character tells me about his very nature tells me about his relationship with the world with me with the cosmos with the future what is god doing here that informs me on those areas

and general rules still apply when you're reading the bible it helps to read in context amen thank you it helps to read in context i i liken it to somebody walking up on a conversation that they have not been a part of and they're like man skittles are amazing and while that might be true in and of itself there's probably such a surrounding story around that conversation that would help us better understand what exactly is going on so general rule still applies some helpful things that i have learned is when you read a section so you read a chapter or a few chapters read your passage read the whole chapter read chapters before and after and if you can if the book is small enough and time allows it read the whole book jude is easy right what is it like 28 verses second and third john post-it note theology yeah real small books book of james maybe it's only five chapters if we're getting adventurous maybe the gospel of mark at 16 chapters maybe romans at 16 chapters maybe maybe hebrews definitely not isaiah if you've got a saturday free you can read isaiah all the way through if you do it's a really cool experience read isaiah all the way through so these are general rules that apply to getting everything that we can to know god better through reading his word

there are some helpful guards that i sort of insist on because when we read judges you've got fathers and offering up their daughters as a victory sacrifice and when we read that we're like does god agree with no he doesn't he doesn't agree with that and so some of the helpful guards to make sure we're not reading certain things in is to ask the question of a passage is this a descriptive passage or is it a prescriptive passage here's what i mean by that if it's descriptive it's just telling you what happened in history this man made a bad choice and the bible includes those bad choices that's a testimony to who god is right there that the bad choices remain but he redeems him the man made a bad choice or is it prescriptive is this passage telling us what it means to live right it is prescribing right behavior we have to ask that question in the case of judges descriptive if you read through judges there's a trope that happens over and over again there was no king in israel so every man did what he thought was right in his own eyes that book is not a positive book about israel so we have to read it as such and finally we can ask how does this fit in the larger picture of who god is we can get a picture from jeremiah of who god is we can get a picture from isaiah and ezekiel we can get a picture from the gospels we can get a picture from revelation but our job is really not done until we put all of that together and get a composite image of who god is and when we do that oh my goodness when we put it all together and we have to take a step back to see the grandeur of it it does something to you as you try to learn who god is

so while you're reading know that you're reading that god is at work while you're reading know that god is trying to communicate with you he's trying to tell you about himself he god wants you to know him so when you read read to know when you read read to know preachers can be at fault sometimes we'll read to get a sermon we're like man that'll preach and we're not really concerned about any of the context we're like it sounded good in english we're going with it you know and we'll let it fly but so we can fault there but when we read our priority should be even as preachers is not to create a sermon it's not to have a good lesson it's not to have something cool to say at parties to make yourself sound smart when we read the bible we are reading to know god that is our primary function that is our primary goal when i pick up the bible every morning i pick it up because i say god i want to know you more today than i did yesterday so whenever i pick up his word i pray god teach me who you are psalm 86 11 says teach me your way lord that i may rely on your faithfulness give me an undivided heart one translation says make my life about one preoccupation that i'm not worried about everything else as much as i am worried about knowing you god that i may fear your name and so when you pray before you read pray and ask god to show you who he is psalm 119 33-35 teach me lord the way of your decrees that i may follow it to the end give me understanding so that i may keep your law and obey it with all of my heart direct me in the path of your commands for there i find delight i find delight in the word of the lord so when you're reading know that god is trying to communicate with you and while you're reading this is my last one i'm wrapping up

while you're reading understand that you are being invited to worship you are being invited to worship i'm going to give a personal testimony and i do apologize for that i know that's not always the best thing to do but i i have i have studied uh the bible i have made it my my life's work and and i understand that that that is not everybody's saying that's that's not what i'm trying to say but there were times whenever i had to do some intense study piles of books you could ask my wife the office is um well it's not pretty so i have piles of books and i'm doing some intense studying it's very mental it's very intellectual it's very difficult it's very tough i'm reading greek and hebrew and and this is not to toot my own horn i'm trying to paint a picture here we're we're doing all this intellectual stuff all right and then i come to a moment of illumination because of all that study because of all that work and what went from this me pouring over books me trying to understand god's word better when i finally got it finally clicked it went from that to this there was no other response that was appropriate whenever i found something in the word of god that challenged my very view of god it it magnified what i thought about god it made god if this was even possible bigger in my imagination i i had an epiphany moment with paul when he says oh the depth and the riches and the wisdom of the knowledge of god these are moments that happen when we study scripture and god reveals a little bit more of who he is these are songs that have been sung throughout scripture in revelation 4 11 when it says you are worthy our lord and god receive glory and honor and power because you created all things they acknowledged god as the creator they saw that characteristic in him they saw that power in them and so they resulted to praise the only appropriate language when we discover who god is and they go on in revelation 5 and they sang a new song and they said you are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals because you were slain and with your blood you purchased for god persons from every tribe in language and people and nation and you have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our god as they will reign and they will reign on the earth after seeing the story of god redeeming the world from every tribe every people every nation all of the complexity all of the different cultural cultural differences that god has to deal with that god has to communicate in somehow he does that and somehow he calls everybody in the world no matter how different we are from each other he calls them all to the cross and calls them all to the throne of god and at that i can't comprehend in my human mind i don't understand how it all works we have we have systems we have plans to do all that we've got our flags up but i don't understand how god does all that but he does and so i erupt in praise with the angels and the throner of god saying lord only you are worthy of this praise only you are capable of this praise but please remember i we have reached that moment of praise we have reached that moment of epiphany only and only after we have studied god through his word and we have seen him at work in the world i i wish i could communicate this better and i hope you're you're getting me i hope you're understanding what i'm trying to say tonight i'm so amazed with god i'm so amazed with god i read his works that he's done throughout history throughout time both within and and outside of the bible they're too difficult for me to understand i i i can't wrap my mind around them so i see that and i worship and then i begin to read his word and i see all the connections i see all of the wonderful tapestry that is woven together all throughout the bible and i'm saying how does a god over thousands of years over multiples upon multiples of authors put this wonderful book together and it all makes sense and it all testifies to the goodness of this one god how exactly does that all happen i i don't understand it but whenever i see it just a glimpse of it i have no other option but to descend praise and glory up to the one who it belongs to music can come we'll give them hope thank you

i know that i have said this before and and i've heard it said so this is not a condemnation i think you know my spirit i do i trust that i have said and i've heard others say that well i don't have time to spend in the word like that i don't have time to read all the books i don't have time uh to commit you know i read in the morning i do my my daily devotion and that's fine but beyond that i can't really do the intense stuff i don't have time and i want to respect people's schedules i'm not pretending to know anybody's schedule there are people sitting in this room that are far busier than i and have been far busier than i for many decades longer than i have been alive but if we don't have time for this what else is worth spending our time on i aligned with paul so much in philippians god has saved me out of so many things he has redeemed my family some of you know my family story but i physically shouldn't be here if god didn't intervene i god saved me i was baptized in his name he filled me with the spirit i experienced peace in times of depression i experienced joy when i should have been mourning i experienced life when all other indications around me said i should have been living in death god had laid hold of me like paul says god had grabbed hold of my life and given me experiences that i didn't quite understand i don't understand all of the depths and the treasure that lies in being spirit-filled i i won't pretend to understand what it means to have the king of glory living inside of my finite flesh i won't pretend to understand that i've experienced some things but i don't have it all figured out so with paul i have to say tonight i'm striving to lay hold of him because he's already laid hold of me it was god that taught me what true love was it was his word that instructed me on what grace felt and looked like it was his presence that taught me peace and joy when i had none and because of that my deepest desire my main motivation is i want to know i want to know you god i want to know you god

let's all stand in his presence i believe he's here i've had a few more things to say but i i think god is ready to move even now i know i'm speaking to people who have experienced god and miraculous ways ways that don't make sense to people that have not experienced god we can share our stories some time of god providing for us of god making ways and those who have not experienced that will even sometimes doubt our stories because they sound so amazing they sound so unbelievable and they'll ask the question could that even really happen to a human being god has been that good and i simply feel his call tonight to align our hearts and our attitudes and our spirits with that of his servant paul god you've laid hold of me so the very least i can do in fact it's more than that what i need to do god is to attempt with everything that i have to lay hold of you i'm going to begin to pray a prayer that is my personal prayer and my hope is that as i pray that our spirits will be in alignment and you'll be you'll begin to pray the same prayer that i'm praying and you'll begin to respond to god in your own way god i pray right now i pray that you would open my mind as i read your word i pray that you would till up the ground of my heart as i study your book god i pray lord that as i read it would never be because i have to or because i must because it's another check that i have to put in a box or i pray that i would read because you have you have saved me and changed my life and because of that i want to know you with everything that is inside of me god i want to know you i want to be close to you jesus i i want to know what makes you happy i want to know what pleases you i want to know what you find important i want to know how you see the world i want to know how you see me i want to know how you think i should treat others i i want i want to know what you have planned for my life i i want to know all of these things jesus and i know that if i read your word i can find them god i pray that you would just make me aware of those things yes come on i know it's wednesday night but i feel the call of the lord he's asking right now just for a response maybe we need to make some commitments maybe we need to repent and say god i have made it about ritual i've made it just about reading in the morning but god i want to change that i want to be so committed to your word i i want to read to know you i want to read to be close to you not just because i have to god but because i have no other choice i want to god i want to yes i want to i want to i want to know you i want to know you lord yes but i pray over everybody in this place whether they're present physically or listening i pray god that the next time they open up your word i pray that your presence would be so real to them that you would step into that room and they would almost audibly hear your voice coming from the pages of your scripture lord pray god that they would be drawn to you that they would learn of you and learn you they will get close to you jesus spend the time get close to you it's what we want jesus it's what we want

one more passage of scripture and then i'll i'll let you go turn it over to our fearless leader deuteronomy 6 we know this well verse 4 we almost could quote it hero israel the lord our god is one lord then it goes on so you should love the lord your god with all your heart with all your soul with all your strength these commandments the word these commandments that i give you today are to be on your hearts you should impress them or teach them to your children you should talk about them when you sit at home when you walk along the road when you lie down and when you get up he goes as far to say and this was a jewish practice they're called phylacteries but he says you should tie them as symbols on your hands it was a box that contained the shema the portion of the very verse we're reading buying them on your hands and bind them on your foreheads write them on the door frames of your houses and on your gates in other words infect every part of your life with the words the commands of god every chance you get put it in there somewhere and align our life with paul jesus i just want to know you i just want to know you father thank you for this time thank you for your word thank you god that we can know you what a privilege what a humbling honor god that we can't even know you even more so jesus that you're beckoning us that you're calling us to know you god the king of glory wants us to know him thank you for that jesus i pray god that you would seal this in our hearts you consecrate our minds and our spirits to know you the study of your word jesus we commit ourselves to you in the name of jesus