In Habit: Scribe not Scribble

3:33 - Welcome - Real Quick - over the next few weeks bring in non-perishable food items if you would like to support those with food insecurity in our neighborhoods. If you want to be a part of the pantry team - talk to Tracy to get connected to the incredible team.

IN HABIT - SERIES Graphic

Man, I don’t know about you but the older I get the harder it becomes to remember things. Is it seven to you? I know some of you are way younger than I am. There are some teenagers in the room, here’s the reality though I know you forget stuff all the time. Why cause I have one of you living in my home.

I thought maybe that would get better as I got older. Cause I know I used to forget stuff all the time when I was younger. Maybe there was a sweet spot of like 15 years when you just remembered everything that came through your mind. But I bet I’m not even remembering that right.

But all is not lost. There is a way. There is a way to hold onto the stuff we read…the stuff we learn…the stuff we want to hold onto. I don’t mean everything verbatum, but there is a way to hold onto the things you want to hold onto…You just have to look like this…

Jerome Scribe Image

You know - now that I think about it, I wonder if this isn’t how my kids see me when I am sitting at the kitchen table every morning with the beanie my mom made me, and my sweats…sheesh I feel old now…

Actually this is the image that came to my mind when I was preparing for this message. This very classic, iconic image of Jerome translating the Bible. The iconic school and candle are on the table. Did you note that the school was there to be a significant reminder for many Christian monks of the mortality of humanity, for it to be at the forefront of their mind to maintain a posture of humility.

Coming before the Lord in humility not arrogance. The candle symbolize, the fragility, and the sacred nature of life. As the flame would burn and flicker, it was giving light while it lasted. And as we are the light of the world, we get to be a light as long as we last in the world, hence, the candle in the skul.

And just for those in the room, that might be curious about who in the world is Jerome. No he’s not a biblical character. He’s not a person that you see within the pages of scripture. He was a monk from the 4th Century. He was a hero of the faith, and a master of the Hebrew and Greek languages. This iconic image depcits Jerome going back to the ancient manuscripts in the Hebrew and Greek languages and creating a Latin bible in the common Latin language of the people. The ”Latin Vulgate”

So why did this image of Jerome come to mind and where are we headed today?

IN HABIT - SERIES Graphic

Over the last two weeks we have been looking at Habits - or how to get IN Habit of inhabiting the presence of God - through some tangible and practical ways. Week 1 - it was being a HABITUDE OF GRATITUDE - starting and ending each day with gratitude. I am hopeful this has been a blessing for you the last two weeks.

We are not sticking her head in the sand, nor are we ignoring the cultural moment that we live in right now. We are looking for ways to be the church. To love people. To bring hope. To be a light on this hill. Those are just cliché sayings that is who we believe we’re supposed to be. And everything we do we want to point people to Jesus. And we don’t do that well if we don’t start an end every day with gratitude. Gratitude for the opportunity to step in the hard places in the hard spaces and do the work God has called us to do.

SO PRAISE GOD for real opportunities to make real impact in our sphere of influence - Regardless if we agree with each others spheres - we agree 100% on the cause of Christ!

Last week I asked you to find the right CUE in your life and develop the ROUTINE of Eating God’s Word - YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT

HABITUDE OF GRATITUDE #EatTheWord

You want to: Wake up in His Presence and Walk at His Pace - Those Habits will help immensely!

This is where the importance of recollection comes in - the importance of collecting what we know, see, experience and apply it to our current situation. - Your Day to Day - My Day to Day. What habit do we build to give us the best chance to recall correctly the info we need from God’s Word for our Daily lives - to walk out Practical Biblical Wisdom.

Be a SCRIBE not a Scribbler

Throughout scripture, there are a handful of reminders of the importance of writing down gods work. Sometimes it’s a command to write down God’s word. To a prophet, or to a specific person for a specific reason. Like -

Exodus 17:14 (CSB) The Lord then said to Moses, “Write this down on a scroll as a reminder and recite it to Joshua: I will completely blot out the memory of Amalek under heaven.”

OR

Habakkuk 2:2 (CSB) The Lord answered me: Write down this vision; clearly inscribe it on tablets so one may easily read it.

AND More General - Still for a specific purpose…

Deuteronomy 6:6–9 (CSB) These words that I am giving you today are to be in your heart. Repeat them to your children. Talk about them when you sit in your house and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Bind them as a sign on your hand and let them be a symbol on your forehead. Write them on the doorposts of your house and on your city gates.

Moses is delivering the statutes and ordinances - explaining the details of how you live a life of faith in God - and the over arching message to BIG PICTURE

Deuteronomy 6:4–5 (CSB) “Listen, Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength.

This is the heart of it. The reason to write it down is to remember to recall it to talk about it to continue to live into it. There’s a multiplication because There’s duplication. The habit of writing down the words, the statute, the ordinances, the way to live, for God, was key to remembering in living for God.

I think the principal that we’re gonna talk about today or explain, is really exposed in the Command in Deuteronomy 17.

Deuteronomy 17:18–19 (CSB) When he is seated on his royal throne, he is to write a copy of this instruction for himself on a scroll in the presence of the Levitical priests. It is to remain with him, and he is to read from it all the days of his life, so that he may learn to fear the Lord his God, to observe all the words of this instruction, and to do these statutes.

This is a really interesting Command. It’s Moses already making the connection that there will be a king of Israel. Which is fascinating in and of itself. But if you also take what was just said about reciting it to Joshua, it’s not that crazy. It’s not that wild. He needs to pass on to Joshua the same thing that needs to be passed on to the future generations of the people of God.

And as part of the training of anybody who is going to oversee God’s people, they had better digest. Not just in just God’s word. They have to know God’s heart. They have to know God’s posture. They have to know deep within themselves, who God is and how he loves his creation.

It’s a have to! It’s not a nice thing to do or a maybe it’s a have to!

You already know that I absolutely love God’s word. Do you already know that I am a nerd when it comes to it. You already know that I like to connect the dots between reality in the hero now, the brain science of today and the intersection of God’s explanation. Its so crazy -

Science is the discovery of God’s design

This is so cool. Because there have been countless studies on how adults learn and retain information. Why because we all want to learn and retain information. Wyatt different studies about it. Well think about it the more you learn the more you retain the Mora company can make off your learning and your retention because it drives you to more action

Learning + Retention = ROI ROI = production or efficiently doing what was retained

Turns out, God knew what he was doing. He know what he was doing when he was reminding us to write these things down where we can see them and be really regularly reminded of them.

If you want a deeper dive into the brain science of it. Look up “generative learning”

Generative Learning - gathering, processing, selecting, organizing, putting it in your own words. Generative learning is the by product of takings notes. When we record what we are learning by hand or on our devices we are engaging at a deeper level than we would without taking notes. - Thats true for you and true for me.

Actually, the stack here is the notes that I took over the first couple years. It might actually be several years. I didn’t look at the dates. And to be honest half of them don’t have the dates on it because it’s just a little snapshot of what was in the handout that day. But these are the notes that I took while doing what you are doing right now. While I listened to my pastor I took notes…

Why? To better recall what I was being offered.

So if you want to have it I was going to help you retain there are three things that brain science and God’s word both agree on when it comes to your retention. My retention. Which will shape our attention. And if you remember attention awareness shapes attention attention shapes experience.

Writing Increase Retention

Record it in a way you can remember. Write it out. I just did a sermon. This isn’t so I can look out and see all of you. Looking down at a tablet or a piece of paper and taking notes. No I’m not talking about taking notes in the sermon. If you choose to do that, that’s great. I’m talking about the last input that we had the last habit that we had which was devouring God’s word eating God’s word. When you take notes while you eat God’s word, you are putting it in your own words

You are recording it in a way that honors what God said, and it helps you remember it. Which increases retention.

Reviewing Increases Retention -

But for adult learners to really grab onto what they’re learning, there is a period of review. To go back to it. Like in the moment at the time you wrote it. You go back to see how you learned it, to see how you put it in your own words. To check and verify that what you wrote is accurate to what God said. Not to rewrite the Bible. But maybe to put it in your words so you can catch it.

What I do, is, I write down a verse that grabs a hold of my attention. I will write it down in my journal. And then I will write about that. Wiite grabbed my attention. Why it moved me. Or what I noticed about it or what I feel it means. Or if I want to study a deeper. Or I don’t fill in the blank. But I write the word and I try to write it as it’s written in the Scriptures. At least the translation that I’m using, and then I put it in my own words.

Revisiting Increases Retention

- Plenty of studies indicate that if we go back to what we wrote what we Sceiford through what we distill down to the thing that would grab a hold of us. If we go back to it 2 to 3 weeks later, we have a higher likelihood of retaining it long-term. There’s a whole bunch of science that goes in it.

I’m not gonna teach all that. This isn’t a Ted talk. What I’m trying to do is point you to the intersection of the way we learned and what God said!

Here’s the reality

Retention Shapes Awareness and Awareness Shapes Reality

In other words, our lives - our reality is shaped by the wisdom we recall from God’s Word. I don’t know about you, but that is how I want to live my life - from a place of active faith through active recollection of God’s will and desire for my life. I want to get IN Habit of inhabiting God’s presence by being a Scribe.

Why? I don’t want to go back to where I came from because I forgot where God rescued me from…

To go back to the text. The kings dropped the ball. Like big time! Like almost immediately!. The whole point of them, writing all of the statutes in the ordinances of God was to be able to pass it on to the people. And to live in a way that is worthy of their calling.

Let me just give you the Top things the King Must and Must Not do tout of DT 17:14-20

MUST NOT: 1. Must Not Acquire Many Horses for Himself 2. Must Not Acquire Many Wives for Himself 3. Must Not Acquire Large Amounts of Silver & Gold 4. Must Not Lead The People Back to Egypt 5. Must Not Think he is better than the rest of God’s People

MUST: 1. Write the Instructions of God’s Word 2. Read the Instructions of God’s Word 3. Revisit the Instructions of God’s Word 4. Recite the Instructions of God’s Word 5. LIVE IT OUT

God is pretty clear about what a king supposed to look like for the people of God. So, how did they do??

1 Kings 10:26–28 (CSB) Solomon accumulated 1,400 chariots and 12,000 horsemen and stationed them in the chariot cities and with the king in Jerusalem. The king made silver as common in Jerusalem as stones, and he made cedar as abundant as sycamore in the Judean foothills. Solomon’s horses were imported from Egypt and Kue. The king’s traders bought them from Kue at the going price.

How’s he doing so far? Scale 1 to bad real bad.

But Solomon wrote a lot of wisdom, yes - All Wisdom is God’s wisdom - but Solomon missed it -

God set His people free from Egypt and Solomon as wise as He was forgot God’s Word - He did every one of the MUST NOTS - He even sent God’s people back to Egypt to get horses!!

Is it because he didn’t write it down, he didn’t revisit God’s Word? I can’t make that claim. I can say that the pattern of Kings over Isreal certainly didn’t include them recording God’s Word under the supervision of the Levitical Priest. They lost the book for generations!

I gotta believe if they would have read God’s Word, wrote it, reviewed it, revisited it - they wouldn’t have gone to “Egypt”

Here’s the deal, you are not meant to go back to Egypt either. Egypt represents oppression, sin, death, pain, suffering, abuse, death, and all of the things that go against God’s design for God’s people. That’s what Egypt represents to God’s people. It also represents VICTORY - God’s Victory over all of that in your life and in mine.

Through Jesus’ life, death and ressurection - we have been set free from Egypt. Jesus says you have been set free from the control and consequence of sin. It no longer (Sin) gets to tell you how to live your life - God’s Word inspired and illuminated by the Holy Spirit has authority in your life - not your sin.

Don’t go back to Egypt - whatever your Egypt is you are not meant to go back. I don’t have to list a litany of things for you to connect the dots of your personal experience with the Egypt Jesus rescued you from. You know it. - You don’t have to go back - And these habits will help you keep going forward and not backward.

Don’t Go back…remember what God has done in your life, Recall God’s Word in your life - Retain His Word for your life - and Stay out of Egypt!

How? Start with Gratitude - Eat the Word - BE A SCRIBE

In HABIT - Be A Scribe

Some lifeway surveys and research - its self-reported so take it for what its worth to you - reports those who incorporate a regular jounraling routine with the habit of reading scripture have a deeper connection with God’s Word and meaningful spiritual growth. 81% reported deeper growth!

So what’s a scribe? Well according to our favorite online dictionary

Scribe: a member of a learned class in ancient Israel through New Testament times studying the Scriptures and serving as copyists, editors, teachers, and jurists

Some of you were just reminded you have jury duty coming up…ha.

Scribe studies the text, copies it, edits it, teaches it, holds accountability for it.

See the connection? How do we learn -

Write / Review / Revisit

To which you are saying - Alright PC - too many things to do in this series. I am already starting my day with gratitude, I’m developing a habit of reading God’s Word every day - NOT MISSING TWO IN A ROW - but now you want me to write.

Its a compounding habit - you are simply including this into the routine - the HABIT LOOP

CUE - ROUTINE - REWARD

Its not three tasks it can all be built into one routine!

Let the CUE to become a Scribe be baked into another routine. Grabbing your bible for your daily time - grab the journal - we have some for you. Walkign in on Sunday to Basecamp Bible Study at 9 - bring your journal - Walking in to service and listening to the sermon - bring your journal. Going into your prayer closet - bring your journal.

Reflecting on the goodness of God - Habitutde of Gratitude - Bring your journal.

If you want to see your faith grow - be a scribe! Review your prayers, record the answers…I could go on and on.

What to inhabit the presence of God - Get In the Habit of being a SCRIBE…Let’s pray.