The Habit of Learning the Bible

January 15th 2023

Series: Habits of A Healthy Christian

Sermon Title: The Habit of Learning the Bible

Topic: HABITS are actions that are ingrained, and that have become natural because of continued repetition. They are the things we do without thinking but accomplish with skill and precision. This is a message on developing the habit of learning the Bible. What the Bible is and how to best engage it in our lives. Also, on the importance of how to study it.

Key Passages: 2 Timothy 3:16-17, 2 Peter 1:20-21, Hebrews 4:12, Romans 1:16, Psalm 119:160, John 17:17, Judges 17:6

Sermon Blurb: Is the Bible REALLY unlike any other book in history? And if so, what place should it have in our lives? In this message, we will discover the unique characteristics of God’s Word and learn how we can engage with it on a deeper level.

Sermon:

Personal Moment – Start the message with something personal to help FC get to know you.

Hello Family Church!

Welcome back to our series we are calling Habits of a Healthy Christian.

For those of you who are newer to Family Church, we spend EVERY January talking about the things HEALTHY followers of Jesus do.

Because it is our goal for everyone at Family Church to be a healthy followers of Jesus.

Our hope is that you will walk away from church every week this month with some additional things you can put into practice in 2023 to become a healthier follower of Jesus.

PAUSE

And the reason we are calling these things “HABITS” and not “disciplines” is for a couple of reasons;

First, we often think of discipline as a bad thing, so we wanted to rid our thoughts of any negative reactions to all this.

Secondly, habits are by definition a better way to think about these spiritual tools that we are discussing.

PAUSE

SO... What is a habit?

We’ll ask this question every week......

Write this down:

HABITS are actions that are ingrained, and that have become natural because of continued repetition. HABITS are the things we do without thinking but accomplish with skill and precision.

Repeat

So, here is our Acronym for the series.

It’s an acronym for the word HABITS…and it shows us, in order, the topics we’re going to be discussing over these weeks.

On the screen AND in notes

H – Holy Fasting

A – Abundant Prayer

B – Bible Learning

I – Intentional Generosity (Investing Generously)

T – Transformative Community

S – Sacrificial Serving

Hopefully, this will help us to remember more easily what we’re going to be learning in this series.

PAUSE

Now, the message today is on developing the habit of Bible Learning.

What is the Bible?

Why should we make a habit of reading it?

And how do we study the Bible and apply it to our lives?

PAUSE

My hope is that by the end of this message we will all treat our Bibles with more reverence and that we will ALL leave hungry to study God’s Word.

I know there are people here who have never opened a Bible; and if that is you today, I AM SO GLAD YOU ARE HERE!

I also realize that many of us in the room have been in our church our whole lives but really do NOT know much about the Bible.

And, while we aren’t going to get into the history and authenticity of the Bible...we are going to look at what makes this book unique and unlike any other book in human history!

PAUSE

To get started, I want to read a passage from Acts 2 because it describes how the first church made reading and learning the Bible a habit, as well.

Acts 2:41-42 “41 Those who accepted his message were baptized, and about three thousand were added to their number that day. And they devoted themselves to the apostle’s teaching ...”

Stop right there...

Who is the “they” mentioned in verse 42???

“They” is the 3,000+ who were just added to the Church in verse 41.

“THEY” is NOT talking about the Church Leaders only...

“THEY” refers to all believers in Jesus!!!!

Even new believers devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching!

And a logical question is, “what is the apostle’s teaching?”

The Apostle’s teaching was simply what they learned from Jesus after doing life with Jesus for three years.

The disciples were the men who followed Jesus while He was on earth.

And people came to learn from them….what they learned from Jesus!

And all that teaching is recorded in our Bibles and is called the New Testament.

It’s our modern-day Bibles.

PAUSE

So, we see one of the habits of the early church was that they were devoted to reading and learning this Book!

Or let me put it this way, The Bible was a major priority in the life of the Early Christian Church!

PAUSE

So, how about you this morning?

Are you devoted to spending time in this Book?

Is it a priority in your life?

Have you made reading and learning The Bible a habit?

If so, I know that your life has been enriched by it!

If not, it’s our hope that you will be encouraged to start this week!

PAUSE

Who wants to go deeper?

What makes the Bible unique and unlike any other book?

If you’re taking notes, write this down

1. The Bible is inspired by God!

Repeat

2 Timothy 3:16-17 says, “All Scripture is God Breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness. So that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.”

That passage starts by saying….. the Bible, ALL Scripture, is what church?

God breathed!

What does that mean????

It means the WHOLE Bible was spoken by God!!!

God exhaled these words.

God was the One who dictated the words we have in this Book!

That’s why we often refer to the Bible as the “Word of God” or “God’s Word”.

PAUSE

Now, I know what some of you are thinking…….

Ummmmm. God did NOT write the Bible.

People wrote the Bible.

So what do you mean God wrote it?

I thought it was just the Mormons that say things came down from angels on these golden tablets….

And all those are GREAT questions!!!

What we see clearly is that YES….people wrote the Bible…

BUT it was God working through people to communicate His message...

The Apostle Peter said it this way,

2 Peter 1:20-21 “Above all, you must understand that no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had it’s origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”

Do you see it church?

God was working through the authors of the Bible to make sure that they wrote down exactly what He wanted them to say.

God worked through their distinct and unique personalities, backgrounds, educations, and experiences...inspiring them to write down God’s Divine Truth.

Isn’t that awesome!?!

PAUSE

Consider this question: Who is your hero in life?

Whom would you love to have lunch with just to glean as much wisdom or knowledge as you could?

Here’s the reality...the God of the Universe.

The One who created you in your mother’s womb.

The One who knew you before the beginning of time...

The One who knows what you need before you do.

The One who loves you with more than you can imagine!

That One….Our God…..has written a Book for you...for me...for the whole world!!!

And He did this, so that we might hear His message of Great News...

...So that we might choose to follow Him

...So that we might enjoy life eternal with Him

...and that we might join Him in redeeming a lost and dying world all around us.

Church, THIS book is inspired by God...and in it He has a message for you!

This should really excite us to spend time in it!

PAUSE

Not only that, but... write this down……

2. The Bible is powerful!

Since the Bible is the very Word of God, it is a Book of unmatched power!

Hebrews 4:12“The Word of God is ALIVE and ACTIVE. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.”

What an amazing word picture to consider that this Book we hold in our hands is ALIVE...it’s ACTIVE...it’s DYNAMIC!

It’s sharp enough to speak into the very thoughts and attitudes of our hearts!

It’s so true that when we read it, it reads us!

In Romans 1:16, the Apostle Paul describes the supernatural power of the Good News when he says,

Romans 1:16, “For I am not ashamed of the Gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes...”

If you are a believer here today...

If you’ve been spiritually Born Again...

You know the reality of what Paul is saying here.

Your testimony is that you were once dead in your sins, but when you heard and believed the Good News of salvation through the finished work of Jesus Christ on the Cross, your life was forever changed!!!!!

Your sins were forgiven!

You were given the gift of the Holy Spirit!!

You were made a new creation in Christ!

Can I get an…..Amen!?!

PAUSE

You know it is funny how often people are in church before and the Bible is being taught and you start thinking….. “Who told Pastor Adam or Pastor Keith about my junk!!!

HOW do they know what is going on in MY life!

They seem to be talking right to me!”

Here’s the reality...no one told them anything.

God’s Word is alive and active, and He is speaking to you!

The Holy Spirit is speaking through them to you!

Just like God did with people to write the Bible!

PAUSE

Or maybe you were reading the Bible on your own and God spoke to you directly about something that was going on in your life!

He met you and His Word brought you comfort, peace, wisdom, understanding, counsel, or correction!

That’s the power of His Word!

God is speaking and His Words are life changing...the question is, “Are we listening?”

Do you make it a priority to read your Bible and listen?

To come to church and listen hard?

To try and hear from God…..

Lastly...

3. The Bible is the Truth!

Now, there are many other unique characteristics of the Bible that we could talk about today... but, I want to highlight the fact that God’s Word is TRUE!

Psalm 119:160 “All Your words are true; all Your righteous laws are eternal.”

Jesus, in

John 17:17 “Father, sanctify them by the truth; Your Word is Truth.”

Now, why is it important for us to spend time considering that the Bible is a book of 100% Truth?

Because while 50-60 years ago, many Americans would have agreed that this book was true, we now live in a very different culture, right?

Our society now celebrates Relativism!

What’s relativism, you might ask?

Relativism is defined as:

Relativism: the doctrine that knowledge, truth and morality exist in relation to culture, society or historical context and ARE NOT absolute.

Did you catch that?

It’s the idea that there is NO authority, NO absolute truth, which ironically is an absolute statement.

Now, relativism is expressed in the terms we often hear in our culture today such as, “You do YOU”,

or “You need to live out YOUR truth”

or something as innocent sounding as “Just follow YOUR heart”.

PAUSE

Now, you may be thinking, “What’s the big deal? Is it really a problem if a society veers away from absolute truth and embraces relativism?”

Well, apart from the blatant evil we see going on in our own culture today……

All we have to do is go back to a people in the Bible who did the very same thing and see how things turned out...

Like in:

In the book of Judges, approximately 100 years after Moses gave the law of God….

The people grew tired of living a God-governed life.

They didn’t want to follow God’s rules but rather do their own thing.

As a result, the people rolled from one crisis to another.

External enemies and dangers constantly oppressed them and internal strife constantly arose.

Among them:

We see starvation (Judges 6:6),

Child sacrifice (Judges 11),

Rape (Judges 19),

Idolatry and crooked religious leaders (Judges 17),

Even civil war (Judges 20).

All of this was going on while the people lived under constant threat of surrounding nations.

BUT WHY??????

Well, the book of Judges answers that as well.

Judges 17:6, “Everyone did what was right in their own eyes.”

Did you hear that church?

Does that kind of sound like what our culture champions today…..

In other words, everyone left the protective covering that came from obedience to God’s commands.

Everyone INSTEAD of following God’s direction.

Everyone INSTEAD chose their own direction in life….

And the result was destruction.

The result was the demise of their culture.

The destruction of their church.

The downfall of their country and people.

ALL because they said, “you do you” and “I will do me” and things will go better….

It is went TERRIBLE!!!!!

Because that was not how God designed life to work…..

PAUSE

There is a better way.

While dysfunction will always be the result of a life (or a nation) that disregards God’s Word in exchange for a “self-governed” life.

It’s also true that blessing, goodness, and peace are the result of living under the truth of God’s Word!

The Bible is True!

The Bible is not just a statement of religious superiority.

The Bible is a plea for mankind to humble ourselves,

To repent of our sinful self-focus,

To submit ourselves to the God who knows us best and who knows what’s best for us!

The answers for all this and more are found in the Bible!

PAUSE

So you might be thinking, “Great! So, how can I better learn the Bible? And, how can I help others interact with God’s Word for themselves?”

Well, today we are going to try and teach you a method to do that.

Everyone grab the Discovery Guide that was on your seat and open to page 8.

We are going to go through a simple Bible Study tool called Discovery Bible Study...

Now, this is a Bible Study tool that you can use for your own time in the Word, or for your family or small group time in the Word, or especially with someone who doesn’t yet know Jesus but may be open to the Bible.

God is using this Bible Study tool all over the world to help equip disciples of Jesus to make more disciples of Jesus.

The key is that God’s Word goes forth, not only in here, but in our homes and communities, as well!

(Coach people through the Discovery Bible Study questions. Talk through why each or important and ask for people to shout out answers to each one.)

Let me give you your life application today…..

Life Application: Make a commitment today to read your Bible MORE than you have in the past. Commit to doing a Discovery Bible Study with someone else this week!

Pray…..

OFFERING....