Tomorrow at First Love.... 9:00 and 11:00 YOUR WORD I HAVE HIDDEN IN MY HEART PASTOR PETE CROPSEY / FIRST LOVE CHURCH 1/26/14 I talk a lot about the importance of reading the word. Psalm 119:9 How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word. I quoted this scripture from Paul last Sunday when I seas talking about having those three aspects of character to be successful in this Christian life. They were, the heart of a child, the mind of a scholar and the hide of a rhinoceros. 2 Timothy 2:15 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. The King James translates this word diligent from the Greek word, Spoúdason as study. Study to show yourself approved, and it means to be especially conscientious in discharging an obligation, be zealous/eager, take pains, make every effort. So be especially conscientious in what? In rightly dividing the word of truth. We have been talking for quite some time now about the healing that God wants to do in this church and I believe in the body of Christ universally. He wants to take us to a level of fullness that we have not been able to reach because of hurt, fear, resentment, misled lifestyle and just plain inability to really believe we are eligible to be the recipients of such a magnificent grace. He wants to take us to a place of fullness and He wants to do it through equipping as well as healing. I know He wants us to seek Him for healing but I also know He wants us to seek Him for fulness. So many of us so many times have settled for being so much less than full. We go through life running on empty, sometimes on fumes, and we feel as if we don’t have the resources to fill up the tank. Often when we do attempt to fill up the tank we buy an inferior fuel from a disreputable source and so we can’t run properly. We are limping around, slow out of the hole, with no real top speed or cruising comfort. What God has been doing here and in us these last almost three years now is showing us that we are holding the debit card with the huge account balance. We can pull in to that super brightly lit, glitzy, hand car wash with a fill up, armor all your tires and put the pina colada air freshener on your sun visor gas station and pull into the full service aisle. See we don’t have to go to the dirty little bargain station that sells the bad gas. When Jesus began to preach at the start of His ministry He walked into the synagogue on the Sabbath and this went down. Luke 4:16-21 So He came to Nazareth, where He had been brought up. And as His custom was, He went into the synagogue on the Sabbath day, and stood up to read. 17 And He was handed the book of the prophet Isaiah. And when He had opened the book, He found the place where it was written: 18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; 19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord. 20 Then He closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant and sat down. And the eyes of all who were in the synagogue were fixed on Him. 21 And He began to say to them, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. So as I said, I think what we have been talking about as we have been seeking God for healing is fullness. He is about making the poor rich in faith and in hope, He is about taking broken hearts and filling them with unspeakable joy, He is about setting us free from whatever it is that binds us, He is about proclaiming that now is the time for His glory to shine through our lives. You see he said, Today this Scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. Today it is alive, today it is real, today it is active. This is what I have been hoping to teach you. People have come to me and said things like, “I am having a hard time getting from the cheapo gas station to the fancy gas station and the debit card with the huge balance, how do I do it?” I asked, “Are you praying?” “Yes I pray all the time.” “Are you reading your Bible?” “Well actually, no I am not.” Romans 10:17 So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God. When we pray we are speaking to God but how does He speak back? Our faith is increased as we hear from Him and hearing from Him mainly comes from His Word. You can’t get by on a Sunday sermon and a Wednesday night Bible Study. But what you need to understand is that this isn’t just a normal book to the saved person. It is a supernatural book. It is carried on the breath of God to the heart and mind of His children straight from the very bowels of heaven. Today’s message is titled, “Your Word I Have Hidden In My Heart That I might Not Sin Against You.” It is from Psalm 119. Those two words, “Your Word,” appear thirty five times in Psalm 119 and when I give you a Bible Study plan later in the message I would really suggest that in the Psalms portion of that plan you start with Psalm 119 then go back to Psalm 1. You absolutely cannot know the magnificence of God and His great love for you unless you are reading the letter He wrote to you. If we want this fullness and all of the healing and blessing that He wants to give then we absolutely must read the Word every day. Whenever Dawn and I counsel someone who is in trouble we ask frequently, “Have you been reading the Word?” Guess what the answer almost always is? Exactly! If we are to be mature in the Lord we must get His whole counsel and this includes the more doctrinally or culturally or even historically oriented passages of scripture. You see for us to be mature as Christians and trust me when I tell you that the more mature we become the more God will do with us, but for us to be mature we have to study the Word in its entire scope. That is why even though it is unpopular with the more experientially oriented teachers and churches going line by line verse by verse through the scriptures is the surest way to get the whole counsel of God. I want to explain to you what systematic Bible study is. It has three parts. Observation, what it says. Interpretation, what it means. Application, what it does. In the observation portion you read the passage and determine who is saying it, who he is saying it to, what is he saying? Is it meant for encouragement, is it prophetic, is it a corrective or disciplinary type of passage? Is it a doctrinal statement or is it a cultural suggestion? You need to have a handle on the whole book as to have the context and you need to know a little about the writer as well as the people he was writing to. Sometimes getting a Bible Commentary is very helpful and I recommend the Believer’s Bible Commentary by William McDonald. It is a single volume work that is very good. If you are serious about this and you need help getting one then see me and I will help you. We have Bibles free for the asking as well. In the interpretation portion of the study we must determine using all that we observed what the passage means. What was God saying to the writer and what did He want to say to the readers and most importantly how does it fit with God’s plan of redemption through the sacrifice of His Son? In Hebrews the writer says that Jesus had said of Himself, Hebrews 10:7 Then I said, Behold, I have come — In the volume of the book it is written of Me — To do Your will, O God. So no matter how removed a passage may first appear Jesus is in there somewhere. The thing is that in Bible study we cannot ever lose sight of the goal and that is to glorify God in Christ. So when you have carefully observed, seen all that you can see, and you have prayerfully interpreted, discerned all that it could mean. You come at last to the application portion. Application, what does it do? Because of Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart. And 2 Timothy 3:16-17 All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. So because of these verses and others like them we know that while these words were written a long time ago under different cultural paradigms they were also written for us and fit perfectly into the lives we are living in this time and place. Or actually to cause us to fit our lives perfectly into what the Word of God says in spite of the circumstances of this time and place. As I said a little while ago. What you need to understand is that this isn’t just a normal book to the saved person. It is a supernatural book. It is carried on the breath of God to the heart and mind of His children straight from the very bowels of heaven. So we ask after we have observed and interpreted, “So what does it do?” “How does it change my world.” Then when that has been determined we change our lives to fit what has been revealed. Those are the basics of systematic Bible study and subsequently sermon preparation. I hope and pray that what I have said about the Bible study process opens you up to new places in your personal time in the Word. When Paul says in; 2 Timothy 2:15-16 Be diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. When he says this he says this because we so desperately need to be equipped to walk out the Lord’s plan in our lives but we also need to be able to easily separate the true from the false. False teaching has always been one of Satan’s favorite tactics to divide the church away from God. Genesis chapter 3. Genesis 3:1-5 Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said to the woman, Has God indeed said, You shall not eat of every tree of the garden? 2 And the woman said to the serpent, We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; 3 but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die. 4 Then the serpent said to the woman, You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. Changing what God has said in order to get people to do something that they want them to do. Jude warns against false teachers like this. Jude 3-4 Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints. He goes on to describe them; 4 For certain men have crept in unnoticed, who long ago were marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ. You see right here Jude addresses the importance of having a solid grip on the Word of God. He is exhorting us to contend earnestly for the faith. Look you can’t contend for something if you can’t define it. He says it was once for all delivered all the Saints. The apostles had it hand delivered by the Lord. Hebrews 1:1-2 God, who at various times and in various ways spoke in time past to the fathers by the prophets, 2 has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds. The early church had it delivered to them through the apostle’s personal contact with the Lord and their letters and later the gospels which they used in concert with the Old Testament scriptures to understand the will of God. We have the entire canon of scripture perfectly preserved to guide us as the Holy Spirit breathes understanding into our hearts and our minds. So here’s the study plan and you need to write this down. When you set aside your time to read and pray whether it is in the morning or whatever start by thanking the Lord for His Word and asking Him to open the eyes of your understanding and to speak to you. Open your Bible to the Proverbs. There are thirty one of them. Go to the one for the day you start which hopefully will be Proverbs 27 because tomorrow is the 27th. Say a little prayer as you prepare to move on. Then go to Psalm 119. This is a very long Psalm so you might want to read it in chapter size chunks. When you are done with Psalm 119 go to Psalm 1 and start there. Psalm 1 speaks directly to the benefit of Bible Study. Psalm 1 Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the path of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law he meditates day and night. 3 He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper. 4 The ungodly are not so, but are like the chaff which the wind drives away. 5 Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. 6 For the Lord knows the way of the righteous, but the way of the ungodly shall perish. Pray again. Read Genesis chapter 1. Pray and then read Matthew chapter 1. Just keep going and in about a year you will have read through the entire Bible. A Proverb a Psalm an Old Testament chapter and na New Testament chapter. I throw in a circular reading of Paul’s letters for myself as well. Just reading through them over and over one chapter at a time. I have read through the entire Bible using this method I don’t know how many times. If you really want to see change worked by God radically transforming your life this is how you do it. I have had people tell me that I shouldn’t go too deep. I shouldn’t go deeper than people’s ability to understand. Is the Holy Spirit not able to raise the level of understanding in this house? If the Lord is so longing to heal us and to bring us to that place of fullness then isn’t he able to raise the level of our understanding to new heights? Isaiah 59:1 Behold, the Lords hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; Nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. Philippians 4:13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He doesn’t want the scriptures to be dumbed down, He wants to heighten the level of understanding. John 16:12-13I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13 However, when He, the Spirit of truth, has come, He will guide you into all truth.” Let’s pray.
Posted on: Sat, 25 Jan 2014 15:49:24 +0000
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