The Power of Re: REngage-Bible

Title Slide - If you recall the 2 messages we discussed before I went away last week for some rest and family time....we discussed this God phenomena of Revival - where there are times and places where we see God’s outpouring of the Holy Spirit in a special and powerful way....and we also discussed personal renewal and we recognized that often, a time of Revival is often preceded by a time or season of individual spiritual renewal....

...and I also confessed to you that I had not plan to bring u those two messages....in fact My design for the balance of the summer had been to bring you this series of messages that as you will see are going to be closely aligned to some of the themes we touched on during the two messages we discussed around revival....I’ve had today’s message anded the four that will follow it prepared for quite some time....but I felt a very strong calling from the Lord to pause and speak on Revival first....and so that’s what we did....

Charles Finney - “A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.”

“A revival is nothing else than a new beginning of obedience to God.”

I felt that we needed to be obedient in that....

I felt that we needed to be obedient in that....

....and so for the next 5 weeks, including this morning, what I’d like us to focus on is a drilling down into some practical aspects of our personal spiritual renewal

I’ve titled this series of messages, The Power of RE...

So what do I mean by RE ?

Slide - re- WORD ORIGIN. a prefix, occurring originally in Latin, used with the meaning “again” or “again and again” to indicate repetition,

Eg. REstart-race, REposition-something that gets moved, Revitalize-family vacation

If we use this theme of RE and apply it to areas that we know we should be addressing during a season of personal spiritual renewal, then:

Slide - Bible - REngage

Pray - REframe

Spirituality - REveal

Purpose - REvisualize

Fear - REsist

Expand briefly on each...

Bible - REngage - for some of us it might be time ...this morning

Pray - REframe - for some of us...assess and reframe our conversation

Spirituality - REveal - mystery - western church - Africa

Purpose - REvisualize - Golf visualizing is important, so for life

Fear - REsist - Anxiety and fear are all to real for too many of us - there is a way to resist...

Slide - Bible - REngage

So that’s where we are going for the balance of the summer - to look at these key areas or our own personal spiritual renewal......

Now, In any discussion of revival or growth through spritual renewal, the Word of God needs to play a central part in our desire to grow....

We have talked a great deal about that this year together - Back in June when we started our month of focusing on mission we said any missional initiative needs to have at it’s core - a focus on scripture....we agreed that the same is true with a Church or Community experiencing revival and a couple weeks ago we said the same of our own personal spiritual revival....

So let me ask you something: do you ever feel like you truly want to know God but don’t really know how? Or feel like you might need to refocus or refresh your relationship with Jesus.... Getting to know God can seem so complicated sometimes but it doesn’t have to be. Man - Woman, we are not an independent entity, the Bible calls us vessels. Vessels are designed to be filled with something. We were designed to fill ourselves with God but we sometimes stray from that design..... Sin is essentially when we fill our lives with something other than God. What we put into our lives effects what we get out of them. We were designed to be filled with God. So then it is important for us to learn how to do that.

How do we fill ourselves with God?

If we want to fill our lives with God we need to invest ourselves in to making that a priority in our lives - essentially, that’s the basis of our discussion for the next few weeks....these key aspects of a Christian life that we should invest our lives in.

Our lives need more God and less us. When we follow Him, act like He acts, and obey His commands, we open the door for Him to fill our lives that we may become vessels of God. If we want to know God we have to be filled with Him and that takes more than one day a week. We cannot be filled with God simply by attending church on Sunday morning and doing nothing else. If the only dose of Him we get is on Sunday mornings then we cannot hope to be filled with Him.

Consider your eating habits. Some people prefer to eat a few big meals a day while others are ‘snackers’ and will eat a little bit all throughout the day. Most people however, are not comfortable eating once or twice a week. Physically you probably wouldn’t starve to death if you ate once or twice a week but you would be able to really accomplish anything because you wouldn’t have the energy for it. The same is true in our Spiritual lives. When we are content being Spiritual fed once or twice a week we may not die but we are not healthy. By investing in our relationship with God, we enable ourselves to be filled with God by taking in the nature God.

In order to know God we need to know his WORD.

So here’s what I want to do this morning - and this will be a little different than some of the other messages I’ve brought to you - I hope and have prayed that you might find this series to be very practical, to give you some simple but essential ways to invest in your relationship with God....

One of the most important ways to know God comes from investing ourselves in the training manual that He gave us in His word. Bible study is perhaps most important Spiritual discipline. Honestly if we truly want to know God where better to start than with the love letter He wrote us. The Bible is one of the key elements we must have to fill ourselves with God so that we may become His vessels.

The Research

Slide - The phrase “bible study how to” receives 538,541 unique monthly searches on YouTube in America – according to KeywordTool.io

The phrase “bible study how to” receives 60,500 unique monthly searches on Google in America – according to KeywordTool.io

More than half of all American adults (58%) wish they read the Bible more often

Slide- The Barna group did a survey on Bible study and its results weren’t very encouraging in this area:

Only 18% of born again Christians claim to read the Bible every day. That is less than 1 out of 5.

23%, almost 1 in every 4 Christians admits to never reading the word of God. This is a serious problem.

Effectively what these statistics tell us is that only 18% of born again Christian are even close to a healthy relationship with Christ and are getting their daily bread.

We know Christianity is not about a religion or rules but a relationship. This is not say that these people who aren’t reading their Bibles cannot be saved or that they don’t have a relationship with God but the Bible is God’s primary way of communicating with us. What this shows us is that one of primary ways we can get to know God so that we can be filled with Him is being pretty commonly neglected.

Slide - some results from a Bible knowledge test published by the Vancouver Sun.

Here are some of the answers given by people who said they knew the Bible.

1. Noah’s wife was Joan of Ark.

2. The seventh commandment is “Thou shalt not admit

adultery.”

3. The epistles were wives of the apostles.

4. A Christian should have only one wife. This is

called monotony.

5. Lot’s wife was a pillar of salt by day and a ball

of fire by night.

(In an article entitled “Bible Study at an All Time High” taken from Ann Landers column. It was first printed in the Vancouver Sun. My source was http://www.7t.net/BusinessMatters/trans/991004-trans-bible_ignorance.html accessed 4-28-05.)

In all seriousness folks....Every month, more than half a million Americans search in YouTube “bible study how to”

The Bible is the most widely distributed and best-selling book of all time. - But it can be confounding.

But it can be confounding.

The translations. The language. The history. The context. The contradictions.

Slide - “Such is the depth of the Christian Scriptures, that even if I were attempting to study them and nothing else from early boyhood to decrepit old age, with the utmost leisure, the most unwearied zeal, and talents greater than I have, I would be still daily making progress in discovering their treasures.”

Augustine of Hippo

The study of God’s word is one of the most important parts of any personal spiritual renewal. We must know the truth. If we don’t, we can’t live it.

Slide - The Apostle Paul knew this -

We need to study the word of God but sometimes we misunderstand what that really means. We must develop a good habit of Biblical intake in our lives. We won’t see the word of God coming out of our lives unless we are faithful to put it in.

Let me give you an example...

Then Judas went away and hanged himself. : “Go and do likewise.” And - “What you are about to do, do quickly,”

That is all Scripture. Some of it is from the mouth of Jesus Himself. Is that what Scripture is saying? Should we go out and hang ourselves? No. That is terrible. To understand Scripture you must understand Context. That example is obvious in its error any time we take Scripture out of context it poses this same danger. ...This example is a little silly but any time we take Scripture out of context it can do just as much damage as if we told someone the Bible says they should go hang themselves. If we do not understand the truth we are in danger of doing the wrong thing and believing it to be right. When we ignore context we make Scripture all about us and we change the word of God to fit with our lives rather than changing our lives to fit with the word of God. In order to get the truth of the word of God we have to understand what it is really saying and to do this we need context.

Remember the stats I told you earlier - most people today, would not know how preposterous that statement is...

The reason the Bible was canonized is that it is God’s inspired word for everyone and it is just as relevant and important today as it was 2000 years ago. What I am saying is in order for us to understand what God is saying to us now we need to have an awareness of what He was saying to His original audience and we need to read His words in the context that they were written. ....now here’s a bit of reassurance - Remember we have the Spirit of God in us that will help guide us to the truth when we allow him to....

In many ways reading the Bible is a lot like reading a journal. You see these statements and emotions being expressed but in order to truly understand them you need to know what was going on when they were written. If you just flip open to some random page you feel lead to you may take what you see out of context. If you start at the beginning you learn the history that leads up to what you read so that you can understand the events. This is what we need to do with Scripture. What events lead up this point? What is going on at the time this was written? We need to fill in the gaps understanding Scripture as a whole and reading it in context.

OK, so let’s get practical - open your bulletin - have a look at the 3 step method I’ve noted there - if you have a method, that’s great....if you don’t...

Slide - Step 1: Observation—What does the passage say?

Step 2: Interpretation—What does the passage mean?

Step 3: Application—What am I going to do about what the passage says and means?

Step 1: Observation

We’re going to look at this 3 step method, then we’re going to do a simple exercise together that I’ve found to be very helpful to my time in the scriptures through the years....

Slide - Step 1: Observation is the first and most important step in how to study the Bible. As you read the Bible text, you need to look carefully at what is said, and how it is said.

Observation is the first and most important step in how to study the Bible. As you read the Bible text, you need to look carefully at what is said, and how it is said.

Look for:

● Terms, not words. Words can have many meanings, but terms are words used in a specific way in a specific context. (For instance, the word trunk could apply to a tree, a car, or a storage box. However, when you read, “That tree has a very large trunk,” you know exactly what the word means, which makes it a term.)

● Structure. If you look at your Bible, you will see that the text has units called paragraphs (indented or marked ¶). A paragraph is a complete unit of thought. You can discover the content of the author’s message by noting and understanding each paragraph unit.

● Emphasis. The amount of space or the number of chapters or verses devoted to a specific topic will reveal the importance of that topic (for example, note the emphasis of and ).

● Repetition. This is another way an author demonstrates that something is important. One reading of , where the author uses the word “love” nine times in only 13 verses, communicates to us that love is the focal point of these 13 verses.

● Relationships between ideas. Pay close attention, for example, to certain relationships that appear in the text:

—Cause-and-effect: “Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things” ().

—Ifs and thens: “If My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land” ().

—Questions and answers: “Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty” ().

● Comparisons and contrasts. For example, “You have heard that it was said…but I say to you…” ().

● Literary form. The Bible is literature, and the three main types of literature in the Bible are discourse (the epistles), prose (Old Testament history), and poetry (the Psalms). Considering the type of literature makes a great deal of difference when you read and interpret the Scriptures.

● Atmosphere. The author had a particular reason or burden for writing each passage, chapter, and book. Be sure you notice the mood or tone or urgency of the writing.

After you have considered these things, you then are ready to ask the “Wh” questions

Who? What? Where? When?

Who are the people in this passage? What is happening in this passage? Where is this story taking place? When in time (of day, of the year, in history) is it?

Asking these four “Wh” questions can help you notice terms and identify Context. The answers will also enable you to use your imagination to recreate the scene you’re reading about. - we’re gonna practice that in a short while....

As you answer the “Wh” questions and imagine the event, you’ll probably come up with some questions of your own.

Asking those additional questions for understanding will help to build a bridge between observation (the first step) and interpretation (the second step) of the Bible study process.

Slide - Step 2: Interpretation

Interpretation is discovering the meaning of a passage, the author’s main thought or idea. Answering the questions that arise during observation will help you in the process of interpretation. Five clues (called “the five C’s”) can help you determine the author’s main point(s):

● Context. You can answer 75 percent of your questions about a passage when you read the text. Reading the text involves looking at the near context (the verse immediately before and after) as well as the far context (the paragraph or the chapter that precedes and/or follows the passage you’re studying).

● Cross-references. Let Scripture interpret Scripture. That is, let other passages in the Bible shed light on the passage you are looking at. At the same time, be careful not to assume that the same word or phrase in two different passages means the same thing.

● Culture. The Bible was written long ago, so when we interpret it, we need to understand it from the writers’ cultural context.

● Conclusion. Having answered your questions for understanding by means of context, cross-reference, and culture, you can make a preliminary statement of the passage’s meaning. Remember that if your passage consists of more than one paragraph, the author may be presenting more than one thought or idea.

● Consultation. Reading books known as commentaries, which are written by Bible scholars, can help you interpret Scripture.

Step 3: Application

Application is why we study the Bible. We want our lives to change; we want to be obedient to God and to grow more like Jesus Christ. After we have observed a passage and interpreted or understood it to the best of our ability, we must then apply its truth to our own life.

You’ll want to ask the following questions of every passage of Scripture you study:

● How does the truth revealed here affect my relationship with God?

● How does this truth affect my relationship with others?

● How does this truth affect me?

● How does this truth affect my response to the enemy, Satan?

The application step is not completed by simply answering these questions; the key is putting into practice what God has taught you in your study.

Article - 3 Simple Steps for Studying the Bible. Bible Study tools.com

Related Bible Vs.

:105Matthew 4:4Hebrews 4:12

Slide - “The more you read the Bible, and the more you meditate upon it, the more you will be astonished with it. He who is but a casual reader of the Bible, does not know the height, the depth, the length, and breadth of the mighty meanings contained in its pages.”

Charles Spurgeon

(NLT): 4 But Jesus told him, “No! The Scriptures say,

‘People do not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.’”

Jesus is quoting

(NLT): Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.

If our Lord knew the scriptures well enough to recall them and apply them at the right time and place, surely that should be evidence enough for us to do likewise...

How many of you would be familiar with the term “Lectio Devina” - Latin for Devine Reading

Lectio Devina is simply a way of reading scripture that has been practiced for hundreds of years....The roots of scriptural reflection and interpretation go back to Origen in the 3rd century, after whom Ambrose taught them to Augustine of Hippo.[7][8] The monastic practice of Lectio Divina was first established in the 6th century by Benedict of Nursia and was then formalized as a four-step process by the Carthusian monk Guigo II during the 12th century.

Slide - lectio divina is broken down into the following steps named in Latin:

Lectio (reading),

Meditatio (meditation),

Oratio (prayer),and

Contemplatio (contemplation).

Then, as a result of the encounter with God in Scripture, we are also called to Actio(action).

and so before I do any study of the scriptures, I start with this very simple process - so let’s give it a try....

Slide -

16 All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right.

First Step is lectio - Reading - let’s read this together....

Second Step - I’m going to give you 30 sec - you may want to spend longer - does a particular word or phrase or thought pop out at you....if so, spend a moment thinking on that - I’d encourage you to write that down....I’ll read it slowly again and give you some time....

Oratio - again - I’m going to give you another 30 sec. to take that phrase or word - and pray over that - just simply asking God - what is it that you want me to take from this.....30 Sec.

Contemplatio - Through contemplation we come to an understanding of the parts of our lives that need to be transformed by God’s grace. We humble ourselves and open our lives up to his transformative power. This step comes with the willingness to change, an openness and trust in God, and the decision to follow God’s will rather than our own. With this decision comes a fear of losing what we find comfortable and safe. At the same time we feel the excitement of a call to heroic adventure and a hopeful future of living the life we are meant to live. At this step in the lectio divina process, we ask ourselves: What conversion of the mind, heart, and life is the Lord asking of me? …another 30 sec.

OK - that’s great - I would really encourage you to spend some time in this process - it’s right there in your bulletin to take home with you....

Friends - this is really important - we need to continue to be in His word and apply it to our lives every day!! - But it’s not ok for me to encourage you in this way and then not to equip you with some tools - so that’s what this morning has been about - in fact, that’s what the balance of the summer is going to be about - practical ways to look at these things:

Slide - Bible - REngage

Pray - REframe

Spirituality - REveal

Purpose - REvisualize

Fear - REsist

…so we can understand and participate in the great things God has in store for our lives - Let’s go to him and pray about that....