What's In It For Me: Read Your Bible.

Intro

When I was little, my grandma would take me to church. This particular church had a lot of different rituals. There were certain things you did, signs you made, wafers you ate, a time to kneel, a time to stand, a time to sing, a time be silent, a time to speak, a time to listen, a time to stare out the window, a time to trace the design in the carpet with your mind..... etc etc etc.

However, after church was awesome. We would go to this other building next door and our friends would be there. And in great fashion there were small powdered doughnuts and red kool-aid.

Now, I’ll be honest. With the exception of one sentence, I can’t remember anything that was beneficial. But I would go for 2 reasons. One, I liked my grandma enough that I wanted to make her happy. Two, and probably the real reason, I like to play with my friends and eat doughnuts and drink kool-aid.

Explanation

Now, before someone gets mad at me, let me say this really is the way people think. They might not say it that way out loud for fear that they might be judged for being too selfish, but people really don’t want to do things unless there might be some benefit to doing the thing.

I don’t have a very big living room. If I stand up off my couch and take two steps I can turn the tv on, and adjust the volume. However, that is not enjoyable to me. What I prefer is to stay seated on the couch, reach over to my ottoman pick up one of my three remotes and change the channel, or the volume, or turn the tv on or off. You know what that is..... POWER. Getting up off the couch, taking two steps to push a button, you know what that is… WORK. I will search for that remote for an hour to obtain power but I almost refuse to push the buttons on the TV. Occasionally I can find a substitute for the remote conundrum… I tell my kids to push the button on the TV.. you know what that is?… POWER… or revenge for what my father put me through when I was little.

Here’s the point, We are willing to do work if we can see benefit, but if we don’t, it’s difficult to get and stay motivated. As a preacher I get the amazing privilege of sitting up here and helping us behave correctly and have the right attitude. However, sometimes that comes off wrong. I’m sure sometimes a person might come and leave feeling judged. Or maybe they feel like they are being asked to do one more thing that doesn’t seem all that important.

Well today I want to tell you simply… Read your Bible. Live it. Breathe it. It is the most important thing in your life even if you feel like it isn’t or have lost the passion to read it.

We have some revival meetings coming up and when I start studying the Bible to determine what precipitates a revival I find that it oftne finds its roots in a person or people crying out to God. They start meditating on His words, they start praying, they deliberately work to live a life pleasing to Him. So as the revival approaches I want su to begin doing those things. But before I do, I want to answer a quick question - both for our sake, and the sake of those who do not know the Lord.

Propositional Statement

Today I want to answer, “What’s in it for me?”

One

Two

Three

Conclusion