Setting Your Heart on His Word

What do you want to see God do through you? Do you ever give it much thought?

In fact, last week’s message might have been that for you.

I am not talking about

I know it can be hard enough to think through how you are going to make it through the day, so you might not feel like you have a lot of room to even think about the future, but I want you to take just a moment and think about the possibilities.

Do you want to be the best husband and dad you can be? Do you want God to use you to develop something that will change the world? Do you want to honor God by showing Jesus as a wife or mom?

We talked about how God uses his word to get us back on track, and you may have left here wanting to dive in and study it.

If you are under the age of 30, think about it: what could God do with your degree or your career? Do you want him to help you to do your job to the best of your ability, while loving your friends and pointing people to him?

Do you want to serve him in the church, helping others discover who he is and grow in their love for him?

I don’t know exactly what you want to see God do, but I can guarantee this: you cannot honor God to the fullest without setting your heart on his word.

If you were with us last week, you know we talked about how God uses his word to get us back on track.

However, last week, we didn’t really get a chance to talk about how to go about that.

As we read through the Bible, we see that God shows us where we are wrong, shows us what we need to do, and constantly reminds us that he is the one powerful enough to accomplish it all.

There are times wh

This week, we are getting a chance to right that wrong. I hope that in this message, you will find some practical helps on how to get into God’s Word in a deeper way.

This morning, we want to drive that message home even further as we look at a brief comment on Ezra’s life.

We are finally getting to the main character of the book, although as you will see, the emphasis isn’t on Ezra as much as it is on his God.

Whenever Ezra says what he did, he makes sure he gives God the credit instead of bragging about himself.

We are going to pick up in this morning, and we are primarily going to focus on verse 10.

We jump at least 50 years between chapters 6-7, and we see that things still aren’t like they should be. Putting it together with other events in the Bible, this is several years after the events of the book of Esther take place.

Ezra has been an official in the court of King Artexerxes, and now, God is sending him back to Jerusalem.

In 7:1-5, he lists off his genealogy, which would demonstrate that he was a descendant of Aaron and had the right to serve as a priest.

That is important because he is continuing the work that Jeshua and Zerubbabel began, and his emphasis is on teaching the remnant in Jerusalem how to obey God’s law.

He is going to be setting the sacrificial system in order and teaching the people to obey God.

He is an expert in God’s law, and his role is incredibly important in getting God’s people moving in the right direction, so how in the world did he become a man God could use in that way?

His role is incredibly important in getting God’s people moving in the right direction, so how in the world did he become a man God could use in that way?

We find the answer in verse 10, but I want to start reading in verse 8 for context.

Next week, we will look at the trip to Jerusalem with a little more detail, but for today, I want you to see how God prepared Ezra for the task.

For today, though, I want you to see what God had been doing in Ezra’s life to prepare him for what was to come.

As we do, I want you to set in your heart that you will devote yourself to learning, doing, and sharing God’s Word.

Before we even get into the practical, you and I need to realize something: these three steps weren’t negotiable for Ezra.

If he were alive today and in the business world, some would call these his core values or his foundational principles.

This was central to who he was, not just something that he thought he might take up.

You may not be called to teach God’s law to his people in the same way Ezra did, but God is calling you to join him in the world. Will you start this morning by making the same commitment he did, making these three steps core to who you are?

Let’s look at those three together. If you and I are going to accomplish what God desires to accomplish through us, then we must...

1) Study God’s Word.

If he were alive today and in the business world, some would call these his core values or his foundational principles.

This was central to who he was, not just something that he thought he might take up.

You may not be called to teach God’s law to his people in the same way Ezra did, but God is calling you to join him in the world. Will you start this morning by making the same commitment he did, making these three steps core to who you are?

We hinted at this last week, but you cannot escape the fact that to walk with God, you have to know his word!

Before Ezra could do any of the things God had called him to do, he had to first study God’s Word.

He had to know God’s law inside and out.

That brings up the question: how? How do you study God’s Word?

Let’s get incredibly practical for a minute.

When I look across this room, I see people who are just getting started learning who Jesus is and how to follow him, all the way up to people who could teach advanced courses on theology because of how familiar they are with what the Bible says.

If you are one of those who has a regularly established pattern of studying God’s word, fantastic! Keep up the great work.

Let me talk for a minute to those of us in the room who may not be there yet.

How do you get started really studying God’s Word?

We live in the greatest time in the history of the world in many ways, because as an individual living in America in 2019, you have more access to the Word of God than anyone in history.

How many of you have a smartphone? Here is a great way to buy back some time off Facebook and do something worthwhile with it.

Let me suggest two different apps for you:

YouVersion Bible App - Has a ton of different versions as well as targeted devotional plans and reading plans through passages of Scripture.

Read Scripture - This app takes you through the Bible, cover to cover, but does so in chunks. There are helpful videos to guide you along the way as well as readings from Psalms to give you some more devotional content while you are working through some of the history. You can do daily readings or you can progress at your own pace.

Those two are great apps to get you started on your study.

I have used plans in YouVersion from time to time, and they are a great tool.

However, as you are reading, I would encourage you to take it a step further.

Reading the text is great, but you will learn more if you spend some time with it, asking questions and looking at it in greater depth.

You should have had an insert in your bulletin this morning that will help with that.

This a tool developed by The Village Church in the Dallas Metro area in Texas.

As you look over it, much of it is straightforward.

There is no one perfect way to study your Bible, but this is a pretty good one.

It walks you through a step-by-step process to dive into a passage and see what truth is there. I have actually used it the last few days, and it has really enriched my time in God’s Word.

You may not get through every question or section every day, but it gives you a template if you don’t know where to start.

One of the great parts about this tool is you can use it with pretty much any of the other study plans we mentioned before.

This tool will help you get even more out of these passages than you would have before.

I will

Stick it in your Bible, grab a notebook, and get to studying.

I am also going to give you one more tip: I know I have just finished telling you about two awesome apps, but let me encourage you to use a paper Bible when possible.

This may be a preference thing, but a physical Bible is better for studying than a digital one. You can see more of what is going on around the verses you are looking at, you can write in it, and you won’t be as distracted to check Twitter while you are studying.

If you aren’t sure where to start and are new to reading the Bible on your own, I would start with the Gospel of John or any of the books in the New Testament that end with “-ians”. Those are some of the easiest to read and understand, especially the book of Philippians.

You might also add in a chapter of Proverbs and a chapter of Psalms every day.

That was a lot of information, but let’s bring it back to Ezra: If you are going to see God work in and through you as he can, then you have to know what his word says. There is no way around it, and there is no hack or shortcut.

Are you willing to devote your heart to studying his word?

Great! That is a great launching off point, but it isn’t the end goal.

You see, we are not honoring God and seeing him work in ways only he can if we are just learning facts.

Our study has to go beyond learning and into action.

That’s why our heart must be devoted not only to studying the Bible, but also...

2) Do what it says.

2) Do what it says.

Don’t miss this point because it is so simple.

Here is a question you need to wrestle with: what are you going to do when you read and study God’s Word and find out you are doing something wrong?

For a lot of us, it makes us feel bad.

As we said last week, we don’t like being told we are wrong, so we get up in the morning and read our Bible.

When we see who we are, we don’t like it so we get upset for a minute.

We tell God we’re sorry, that we will try to do better, and then we get up and pack our lunch for work that day.

Unfortunately, more often than we would like to admit, that’s where it stops: we feel bad for a bit, and then we move on.

Ezra wasn’t like that, which is why God was able to use him.

He didn’t just listen to what God said, feel bad, and then move on. Instead, he listened and had already determined in his heart that he would do whatever God said to do.

Unfortunately, too many of us are like the man that James speaks of in his letter:

James 1:22–25 CSB

But be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like someone looking at his own face in a mirror. For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of person he was. But the one who looks intently into the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer who works—this person will be blessed in what he does.

James 1:

I can honestly empathize with the man in James’ example.

Have you ever done this? You go to wash your hands, and you look up in the mirror to find a stain on your shirt, only to immediately forget about it when you walk out the door?

You don’t remember until you are looking in the mirror again, and you haven’t done anything about it?

It’s one thing when that’s a stain on our clothes, but it is another when it is a stain on our heart.

Listen, guys, when we look into God’s word and find out there is something we need to do differently, we are complete fools to forget about it when we walk away.

The God of the universe speaks to us through this book as his Spirit uses what he has said in it to convict us of sin and challenge us to live godly lives.

How dare we get distracted and not obey?

God is speaking to you! He is warning you, or he is calling you to know him in a greater way as you obey him. How can you and I possibly ignore that?

But we do it all the time! We look into the law, we may even be in a Bible study of some kind, and we learn the Bible inside and out, yet we still don’t obey.

How can we expect to be used by God if we won’t listen to him?

Is there anything this morning that God has told you to do in his word, and you aren’t doing it?

Is there an attitude you need to surrender to him? Something you need to stop doing? Something you are supposed to do?

You see, Ezra devoted his heart not only to study it, but to do it!

As we will see in the next few chapters, Ezra stepped out in faith in big ways. He dealt with really difficult sin issues, leading people to repent and turn from what they were doing, because he was devoted to study it and to do it.

Are you?

If you’re not there yet, would you ask God to give you a heart to take his word seriously?

By the way, now is a great time to remind you: you and I are not saved by perfectly keeping God’s word.

In fact, when you look in the mirror of the Bible, you see that we are all filthy and cannot do what God has called us to do.

That’s why, in his infinite grace, God sent Jesus to die on the cross, be buried, and rise from the dead.

Now, he takes our sin and in its place, he gives us his righteousness.

That means that those who are saved today are covered with the righteousness of Christ, having been taken out of sin and put into his family, so now we are righteous in his sight.

Our obedience isn’t to gain our salvation; it is because we have been saved.

Now, we want to live our lives, learning how to honor God more and more for the sacrifice he made and giving him the glory he deserves from our lives.

That then leads us to the final part of how God prepared Ezra and what we have to set in our our hearts.

Not only do we need to study God’s word and do what it says, we must also..

3) Help others do the same.

Ezra was devoted to help others come to know God like he did.

You may be looking at all that we have talked about and say, “That’s all well and good for pastors and Sunday School teachers, but what about me?”

Hear me clearly: every believer has a responsibility to help others know God and honor him.

Our culture says that religion is supposed to be private, and that you aren’t supposed to try to force your religious beliefs on someone else.

We don’t want to try to force or coerce anyone, so we may overreact and think we don’t need to talk to anyone about Jesus and help them grow in him.

Let me give you some quick passages that push back on that.

Are you a parent? It’s your job to teach your kids about God:

deut 6:6-7

Deuteronomy 6:6–7 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.

You are called to teach your kids God’s word and help them to obey him.

Are you a Christian? Then you are called to encourage one another to walk more closely with Jesus:

Hebrews 10:24–25 CSB

And let us watch out for one another to provoke love and good works, not neglecting to gather together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging each other, and all the more as you see the day approaching.

After addressing an issue that had some people upset at the church of Thessalonica, Paul told the church:

1 Thessalonians 4:18 CSB

Therefore encourage one another with these words.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 CSB

give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

“these words” are recorded for us as Scripture!

You and I are called to encourage one another with what God has said, which will strengthen the church to become all God calls her to be.

We can’t accomplish honor God the way we must if we don’t do what he says.

We can’t do what he says if we don’t know what he says.

So, if we are going to be all he calls us to be, for his name and his glory, we have to set our hearts to know his word.