Nothing to say, yet
Transcription
The speaker emphasizes the importance of going beyond a superficial reading of the Bible and understanding its deeper meaning. They talk about the need to disconnect from worldly distractions and connect with God through spiritual discipline. They discuss the discipline of Bible study and highlight the significance of the Scriptures as the inspired and authoritative Word of God. The speaker marvels at the preservation and accuracy of the Bible throughout history. They emphasize that the Bible is the foundation of their church's beliefs and values, as well as for other denominations. You can't just read the Bible on a surface level and fully understand it. We can't begin to read it and filter it through the lens of our current culture. You've got to go deeper than that. You have to understand what God is really saying. You've got to be willing to roll up your sleeves and really, really dig in. Because look, there are mysteries and there are truths in here that will only be discovered when you give yourself to this Word. Welcome to Elevate from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message and welcome to Elevate. We have been in a sermon series over the last couple of weeks here called Airplane Mode. Everybody say Airplane Mode. No matter what kind of phone that you have, somewhere on one of your setting screens is the button Airplane Mode. We all have this and we know that when we push that button, it's going to disconnect us. It's going to disconnect us from texts, from emails, from social media. In fact, we should all just hit Airplane Mode right now so you're not distracted while the Word of God is going forth. But we know that on an airplane, we hit that mode so our phones don't interfere with the navigation system, but we don't have to use that mode only when we're on an airplane. I promise you, your phone's not going to explode if you're not on an airplane and you hit that button. Sometimes we just need to disconnect. Amen? But we also need an airplane mode for our lives. We need to learn how to disconnect just from the world, from all the things that stress us out, from all the frustrations, from all of the... I mean, I'll tell you what, if I pay attention too much to politics and what's going on around the world, I walk around depressed. You need to disconnect sometimes. And the airplane mode that we have in our lives that helps us to disconnect from the world and then connect with the source of our strength, with the source of our joy, with the source of our salvation, we call that spiritual discipline. So this series is about the disciplines of discipleship. And if you'll notice, the word disciple is in the word discipline, right? Because you cannot be a disciple without being disciplined in your life. You cannot. And so discipline... well, let me read this scripture to you really quick. It says this, in 1 Corinthians 9, 24, it says, Don't you realize that in a race everybody runs, but only one person gets the prize, so run to win. All athletes are disciplined in their training. They do it to win a prize that will fade away, but we do it for an eternal prize. So I run with purpose in every step. I'm not just shadowboxing. I discipline my body like an athlete, training it to do what it should. Otherwise, I fear that after preaching to others, I myself might be disqualified. Discipline, while it may sound like a negative word, really is not. Discipline simply means this, to train oneself to do something in a controlled and habitual way. How many of you know that your habits will define who you are? What you do every day will shape the person that you are. If you exercise every day, you'll probably like that shape. If you binge drink every day, that's going to shape you as well. And so developing good habits in our lives is of utmost importance in our walk with Christ. And just like anything in our life, the habits that you develop intentionally will allow you to reap a major benefit down the line. How many of you know that bad habits, you can pick them up like that? They're the easy habits. Having five donuts for breakfast, that's an easy habit to pick up. Not showering and brushing your teeth, that's easy to pick up. Not doing the dishes, not scrubbing the toilet, those are easy habits to pick up. It's the good habits, the ones that we want that are going to transform who we are and make us the person that we so desire to be that are very, very intentional in our lives. And your growth in Christ is that way. It is an intentional thing. You're not just going to grow without being intentional about your growth in Christ. Our mission statement for our church is this. It's to build a community of fully devoted, authentic followers of Jesus Christ. In a word, we are committed to being and making disciples. The word disciple, we said already, right? It's the root word of discipline. We cannot be disciples of Christ without disciplining ourselves to follow Him. It's an intentional thing. You cannot grow in Christ by simply saying a prayer and coming to church once a week. It's a good thing. Come to church. You need to be here, but just being here is not going to cause you to grow in Christ. There are disciplines that you must embrace in your life in order to grow in Him and become more like Him. Look what it says in Galatians 6, verse 7. Do not be deceived. God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. Whoever sows to please their flesh, from the flesh will reap destruction. Whoever sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life. Grow weary in doing good, for at the proper time we'll reap a harvest if we do not give up. Reaping what we sow, it's a universal principle. Even those that are not believers understand the universal concept of reaping what you sow. You get out of something what you're willing to put into it. So listen to me, if you want spiritual results in your life, you must do spiritual things. If you want spiritual results in your life, you must do spiritual things. And so the purpose of spiritual disciplines is simply this, to become closer to Jesus and become more like Him. In a word, transformation. The closer we get to Christ, the deeper we go in Him, the more we are transformed to be like Him. That's why we're doing this. That's why we're doing this series. So we started with the discipline of prayer and fasting. Today, we're going to look at the discipline of Bible study. What it means to get into your Word and really get into your Word. As believers, there's no more important aspect of our Christian walk than knowing the Word of God. Now some might argue with me and say, No, the most important aspect is worship. Or maybe some of you would say, No, the most important aspect is prayer. And some of you might say, No, that's not even what it is. The most important aspect is taking care of the poor and the widows. And I would contend this, that none of us would know to do any of those things if it wasn't for the Word of God. It all starts here. This is the foundation. This is where it begins. This book is an absolute marvel. Look what it says in 2 Timothy 3, beginning in verse 16. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. It is breathed out. This word is theonoustos. Theos meaning God. Pneumo meaning breath in the Greek. Can we just stop for a second and marvel at that? That the Bible is not just a bunch of stories or a bunch of writings and sayings. It is literally the inspired Word of the living God that was breathed out by His Spirit to the writers. This book is something we ought to be paying attention to. So what was it that God breathed out? Well, this Bible consisting of the complete canon of Scripture includes 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament. In the Old Testament you have 5 books of law. You have 12 books of history. You have 5 books of poetry. You have 5 major prophets. You have 12 minor prophets. In the New Testament you have 4 Gospels. You have a history book. You have 14 of Paul's letters to the church. You have 7 letters written by someone other than Paul, but written to the church. And you have one apocalyptic book called Revelation that foretells what is to happen at the end. This book was written by more than 40 people over a period of 1600 years. And most of the people that wrote this Bible did not walk the earth at the same time, so there was no way that they could collaborate to make sure their messages lined up. Yet, the Bible is one continuous flowing story that has zero contradictions. This is a unique book. There is no other book that is like the Bible. In fact, the versions that we have today have been pieced together from over 5,000 individual manuscripts that contain only a tiny margin of difference between them. No other ancient literary work has been preserved with such accuracy. Nor has any other manuscript been found that exists so close to the original date of authorship. And if you study literature at all, you know that a manuscript of a literary work, the closer that manuscript was written to the original authorship, the more accurate it is. There is no other ancient literary work where the manuscripts exist that are so close to the original time of authoring that book. There is no doubt that God has supernaturally preserved these words for the last several thousand years so that today, in 2024, we have the uncompromised, inspired, authoritative Word of God. That's just amazing. And so let me just say this, the foundational tenet of this fellowship, the very statement made about the beliefs and values of the assemblies of God and of our church is this, the very first foundational principle that the Scriptures, both the Old and New Testaments, are verbally inspired of God and are the revelation of God to man, the infallible authoritative rule of faith and conduct. In fact, the Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Lutherans, the United Pentecostal Church, as well as others, they all list as foundational beliefs, either one or two, that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and is the infallible authoritative rule of faith and conduct. The Bible is God's revelation to us. His words, His instructions, His encouragement, His promises, His prophecies, His story. It's this book right here. Do you want to hear from God? Read this book. Do you want to know what God wants from you? Read this book. Do you want to know peace and joy in your life? Read this book. Do you want to understand what it is that you say you believe? Read this book. Look what it says in Romans chapter 12, beginning in verse 2, it says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is the good and acceptable and perfect. This scripture tells us, do not be conformed to the world. What world is Paul referring to when he says that? Is he referring to the ancient world? When he says, do not be conformed to the world, is he referring to the natural forces that exist in the world? No. This word, world, is a Greek word, aion, which means age. Do not be conformed to this age. That means this, that when you read scripture, although it was written thousands of years ago, you get to read it through the present tense. It's speaking to you, for today, in the present tense, do not be conformed to this age. To the thoughts and the patterns and the philosophies and the systems of the age in which you live. And as long as there is sin in the world, and as long as Satan is the prince of the air, the majority of the age in which we live, whether you lived a hundred years ago or you live a hundred years from now, it will be a reflection of the evil desires and sinful nature of humanity. But we are not to conform to that. You know, in this age, in this present culture that we're living in, the battle right now seems to be a battle over truth. What is true? And the problem that we're having is that truth is continually being redefined. However, by definition, if something is true, then it must be true for all people, at all times, in all places. That's what truth, the very definition of truth is. You know, 2 plus 2 is always going to equal 4. Just because somebody really, really feels and really believes that 2 plus 2 equals 5, and just because they get a petition signed of a hundred thousand signatures to declare that 2 plus 2 equals 5, it does not mean that it's true. But today, everybody wants to live by their own truth. It's like a sliding scale. Well, you have your truth, and I have my truth. And so, people are setting their own moral guidelines. They set their own standards for living. They decide what is good and what is evil. You know, the very, very thing that Satan tempted Eve in the garden with, to say, your eyes will be opened and you will know good from evil. Listen, it's not for us to distinguish between good and evil. That's God's job. He decides what's good, He decides what's evil. And He's given us a standard so that we can know what He has decided. And that is the Word of God. This book, right here, this is the standard. You cannot have your own truth. This comes from the Creator of all of this. And the Creator gets to set the rules. And so, you cannot have your own standard of morality and call it truth. You cannot have your own standard of conduct and moral living and call it truth. Because anything that deviates from this Word, right here, is not true. It's following something that is untrue. Now, math and quantum physics may not be outlined in this book. But good and evil, right and wrong, truth and lies, that is all in here. This is the standard for truth. So don't you think that it deserves some real scrutiny? Don't you think that it deserves some time devoted to understanding what God is really saying to us? Some devotion, not just to the parts that we like and understand. Oh, I love those promises, God. I'll take all the promises, but everything else, Lord, I'll just... No, I think it deserves some devotion to the parts that we both like and that we understand, but also to the parts that are challenging and counter-cultural. Because this Word, this Bible is becoming more and more counter-cultural as the days and weeks and months and years march on. So let's go back to this verse in Romans. It says, Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. We are instructed to be transformed by the renewal of our minds. What does that mean? It means that God's Word is not meant to change the way you feel about something. It's meant to change the way you think about something. Let me repeat that, because we live in a world where we are driven by how we feel. The Word of God, the words of God, the authoritative Word of God is not meant to change how you feel about something. It's given to us to change the way we think about something. So why is the world increasingly rejecting this Word? It's because they don't like the way it makes them feel. What do you mean there's a moral standard that God has set for me to live by? You mean I'm not the master of my own destiny? Of my own life? In a word, nope. And if anyone is expecting that they would come to church or that they read a short devotional in the morning, that that is going to sufficiently transform you, you're going to be frustrated. And if you think that the purpose of following this book is to get good feelings and be happy all the time, you will be frustrated, because it's not meant to transform your feelings. It's meant to transform your mind. It's how you think that transforms you. It's what you think about God, about morality, about the world, about right and wrong and good and evil. It's about how you think about relationships and interactions with people and suffering and hardship and blessing. The Word of God will transform the way that you think about these things. That's why it's so important that we're careful about what we consume, because it will transform the way we think. It'll change the way we think, and therefore it will transform us. Look at Proverbs 23, verse 7 says, For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. What wisdom! You are what you think. And anything you fill your mind with will absolutely change the way that you think. Politics, fantasy, pornography, news, entertainment, whatever you feed your mind will change the way that you think. But the Bible calls us, in Romans 12, chapter 2, it calls us to renew our minds. That means in order to renew our minds, we're going to have to train our minds to think according to the Word of God. We're going to have to train it by filling it with the words of God. What greater thing to feed our minds than the very words of God? Even Jesus said it, man cannot live on bread alone, but on the very word that proceed from the mouth of God. These are the very words that proceed from the mouth of God. Don't ever say, I don't hear from God. Don't ever utter those words, because it's not true. If you're saying it, it means you've never read the words within this book. God speaks to you every time that you read this book. Many believers find themselves frustrated, and they struggle to continue in their faith because they hear the sermons on Sunday, and they listen to the worship songs, and they talk to people who seem to find such joy and peace and contentment and fulfillment in their walk with God, but yet their own reality is that trusting God and remaining in faith is very, very difficult for them. Why is that? Oftentimes, people are trying to hold two worldviews together within their mind. See, they know what faith in God ought to look like. They see others, they hear the words from the pulpit, they listen to the words of the song, they know what it should look like, they know what faith in God and the relationship with God should provide them in their life, but what hasn't changed is their thinking. So they still think the way that the world thinks. How does the world think? What's convenient for me? What's best for me? What feels good? What's right for me? And it's never going to work if you are trying to hold those two worldviews together in your mind. Your mind's not meant to hold that. That's why Jesus said, listen, you're either going to serve God or you're going to serve money, but you can't serve both. Right? Your affections, your motivations are not meant to be split in that way. It'll cause a schizophrenia. So what it ends up doing in our lives is we say, I know what it ought to look like, I know how it should be, but yet I still think like the rest of the world, and so I can't seem to get this, but I certainly don't want this, and I don't know what to do about it, and we get frustrated in our faith. But the only way to truly follow Christ and remain in Him is to get this Word in here. To get it to change the way that we think. It comes in here, yes, it'll go to your heart, yes, as you continue to think and your thinking is transformed, yes, it will ultimately affect the way you feel about things, but you can't get the car before the horse and look for the feeling. Unfortunately, that's what churches have done. That's what church seems to be nowadays. Let me just come and get my fix. I want to feel good. You all know I don't preach many feel-good sermons, because all that does is make you just go away, just, oh, I'm happy in the Lord, and nothing changes. I preach sermons that will inspire you to change. I love what Ms. Carolyn, where are you Ms. Carolyn? There you are. Ms. Carolyn always says, if you don't step on toes, people aren't going to move. Someone steps on your toes, you're going to move. It's not meant to make us feel good, it's meant to change the way we think, and we talk about remaining in the Word and studying the Word. It's not just a cursory reading of the Word. It's about really, really studying what's in here. Bible study, it's a discipline. It's a discipline of discipleship. Not just to read it, not just to know the surface story in the Bible, but to really, really study it. So what does the word study mean? It means this, a detailed investigation and analysis of a subject or a situation. Study, Bible study. Study means a detailed investigation and analysis of a subject or situation. This is a core discipline of being a fully devoted follower of Jesus Christ. Not just that we would read the Bible, but that we would engage in a detailed investigation and analysis of it. Why? Because there is 2,000 years at least separating you from the culture and the mindset of the authors and the people that the author initially intended to read the book. There's 2,000 years separating you from that. And so you can't just read the Bible just on a surface level and fully understand it. We can't begin to read it and filter it through the lens of our current culture. You've got to go deeper than that. You have to understand what God is really saying. You've got to be willing to roll up your sleeves and really, really dig in because listen, there are mysteries and there are truths in here that will only be discovered when you give yourself to this Word. I love what it says in Proverbs. King Solomon says, It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but to search out a matter. Oh, that's the glory of kings. He's hidden stuff for us. And He loves it. It's like He's playing hide and seek with us. He's having fun. It's like, I'm going to hide wonderful truths and mysteries in this Word. Now you go find them. And that's the way your whole life you can just marvel at how wonderful I am. He's put all this stuff in here to discover it, search it out, study it. I love this story in the book of Acts, and we'll wrap up here in just a second. But Paul and Silas had gone to Thessalonica, and I believe I preached about this several months ago in our story series. But they had gone to Thessalonica, and as they always did, they went to the Jewish synagogue, and there in Thessalonica, they just didn't want to have anything about what Paul and Silas were preaching about, and they kicked them out of their town, and it was a terrible thing. So they go to a nearby town, and it says this in Acts 17. It says, The brothers immediately sent Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue, as they always did. Now these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the Word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. I love it. They received this message of Paul and Silas, the Gospel. They received it with great eagerness. As Paul preached, they were on the edge of their seat, listening to the Word of God. It excited them. It motivated them. It inspired them. Right? That happens in churches. The Word of God is preached. The Gospel is presented to you. Jesus Christ died for your sins. You are no longer going to be an object of wrath because of your sins. Jesus Christ took the punishment, paid it for you, right? And because of that, His blood washes you clean, and you get to live forever in eternity with Him. He's done all the work for you. It's a free gift. Just believe in Him. We hear the Gospel, and we're like, Yes! Give me more of that! Give me more of that! But look at what the Bereans did. They were so excited about the Gospel that they went home, and they opened up the Bible, the Scriptures, to see for themselves, because they wanted to make sure that what they were hearing was true. And they studied it, and they searched it, and they dove into those Scriptures, and they read the prophecies, and they heard what Isaiah said, and they heard what Ezekiel said, and they read what Moses told them, and they read the Psalms of David, and the prophecies that he made, and because of it, because they studied it, they said, Aha! It's all in here because of it. They believed. There is no substitute for studying the Word of God for yourself. Listen, I encourage you, fact check me. Do it! Get into your Bible after I preach a message. Write down these Scriptures that I read to you. Write them down and make sure that I'm interpreting them correctly. Do some study on those things and fact check me. And if I'm wrong, don't call me. No, don't call me! Let me know! We're all students of the Word. We're all growing. Listening to sermons and podcasts online is not studying. Reading a passage of Scripture is not studying. Listening to me explain the Scriptures to you is not studying. Only reading books about the Bible is not studying. Studying the Word is you personally digging into this Word. Asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to you what it says. Meditating on what you've read. Employing resources to help you understand what you are reading 2,000 years after it was written. Can I give you a real simple way to start learning how to study the Bible? Because I'm preaching this, some of you are like, all I ever do is read it. I don't know how to study the Bible. Can I give you just a real simple way, just to start? It's just a personal way, a personal way of interacting with the Word. Maybe you've never done this before, but we call it the SOAP method, S-O-A-P. It stands for Scripture, Observation, Application, and Prayer. The first, the S, Scripture. Go ahead, pick a passage of Scripture, read it. Maybe you're going in order throughout the Bible. Whatever it is, just take a passage or a whole chapter of Scripture and just read it. Maybe read it three, four, five times, get it in you. The next part is observation. What's it saying? What's the context of this? Let me read a little bit before this passage, and maybe a little bit after to make sure I really understand the context. Who is this person writing to? Who is the first person that read this, that this was intended for, right? When I read this, what stands out as being the major thought, the major point of communication of this Word? You've just got to stop there. Read the passage and then stop, and observe it. Because I promise you, the more that you look, and the more that you read, and the more that you understand context, and the more that you contemplate and think about what's being written, the more questions you're going to have, and the more it's going to make you dive into it just a little bit more. Observe that. Stop at a passage and observe it. Maybe even for a whole week, or for a whole month, the same passage. But just get in there. The third thing, so we have Scripture, we have observation, then we have application. Application is, well, how does this affect me? Right? Because sometimes you're reading parts of Scripture and it's talking about how you sacrifice an animal. You're like, well, that certainly does not apply to me. But how does it apply to me? Right? This is the moment for you to ask the Holy Spirit, how can I apply this Scripture to me? How do I apply it to my life? Again, write those things down. These are things that I can take from this Scripture and I can employ them in my life and in my walk with the Lord today, right now. Then the fourth thing is pray. We have Scripture, we have observation, we have application, and then we have prayer. Just pray and say, Holy Spirit, help me to apply this Scripture. Keep giving me deeper and deeper insight to what this is saying. This is a real simple way to study Scripture, but if you've never done that, I promise you it's going to transform your life. Just to give yourself to it. Just stop and really ask yourself, what is it saying? Let me give you another great tool, and I promise you this. Write this down. If you've got notes out, if you've got a note app on your phone or something, you can write this down. If you're serious about studying the Word of God and you want to take a step, and you want to say, you know what, I want to be a serious student of the Word of God. This sermon is speaking to me and I want to get these words, I want to change the way that I think. And you can ask any pastor in this city or in this country, they probably all go to this website. It's called BibleHub.com. BibleHub.com, let me tell you, listen, there is no... I'm not afraid to share with you the resources that I use to study out Scripture. This is a huge one. Because in there you get commentaries about the passage of Scripture that you've read, others that have studied and are now sharing with you what they've learned. You get word studies in Greek for the New Testament and Hebrew for the Old Testament. You get to see what these words actually meant in the original language that they were written. You get Bible dictionaries, right? You get historical context and facts that will help you to put the Scripture that you've read into the bigger picture. You even can pull up sermons that were written by other people about the subject that you're studying in the Word of God. It's a fantastic one-stop shop kind of a website. And I encourage you to write this down and employ it in your Bible study as you seek out the Scripture, you seek out the Word of God. Learn why it was written, who it was written for, the context in which it was written. Get a full understanding. It's what I'm saying is just seek to understand this Word. Fall in love with it. Let it transform you. Give yourself to it. Let it change the way you think. I'm going to close with this psalm, chapter 19. This is David speaking. He says this, The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandments of the Lord are pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold. Sweeter also than honey and dripping of the honeycomb. Moreover by them is your servant warned, and keeping them there is great reward. God bless you.
