Sermon Tone Analysis

Good morning, Gateway!

Scripture

Prayer

Intro -

We are in week 4 of our year of Biblical Exploration.

We are walking through the story of the Bible as a church community throughout the year, January Thru December.

Why are we doing this?

We are followers of Jesus and we want to have the same relationship with the Bible as Jesus.

He was obsessed with this book.

The goal of this year is to read this book and grow in love for him and each other.

This is a layered experience…we’re hearing from God’s word on Sunday mornings.

If you do the mat, there are 52 weeks in a year and 66 books in the Bible.

So we’re not going to go thru every book or every verse, but we are going to touch down on major themes.

Our first sermon series we’re in now is “Why does the Bible Matter?”

Then we’ll be walking through a 6 week series on the Story of God (Creation, Fall, Israel, Jesus, Church), and then a couple messages on God’s anger in OT…then the Wisdom Literature, Prophets, Jesus, how we live in light of Jesus.

We’ll be walking along in the biblical story without necessarily going book by book, does that make sense?

We’ll be discussing these topics together in Community Groups.

Sharing time together over a meal and having honest dialogue about the Bible.

And we will read the Bible for ourselves.

Not just hear me talk about it, not just hear others talk about it, but to read Scripture for yourself.

Consider reading the Bible through the year, it’s not the only way to read the Bible, but it’s a helpful way to hear the story.

The goal this year is not to get more Bible into our life…but to get more of our life into the Bible.

This world is bigger than our day to day lives.

We don’t make the Bible relevant for today because we don’t have to fit the Bible into our story, we need to fit our story into the Bible.

This is the grand narrative that all the world fits into.

God will not love us more if we spend 15 more minutes a day reading our Bible.

But, God’s love will become more real to us as we see our whole lives as a part of a God-soaked world, like Jesus did.

Two weeks ago as we started our series we said there are some problems with reading the Bible.

We’re busy, distracted by mountains of content on our phones.

The Bible is a translation of ancient texts.

It’s bloody.

It makes exclusive truth claims, and claims to have authority.

But if there are so many problems with it, why keep reading?

Because as followers of Jesus, we want to have the same relationship with this book that he had.

And Jesus was obsessed with this book.

He was a full blown Bible nerd.

Two weeks ago we talked about how the Bible can be like a bizarre kitchen tool…you go, “Wow, that’s amazing, I think.

But what is it?”

Or the Bible is like a weird uncle.

You’re supposed to love him, he gives you good gifts, but when he starts talking you’re like, “I don’t really know what you’re saying.

I’m going to go now.”

But because we are followers of Jesus, we want to know what the Bible is and what it is for.

And so as we read 2 Timothy 3:14-17, we came up with a working definition of the Bible.

Anybody remember it?

The Bible is a library of texts - both divine and human - with a unified story that leads to knowing Jesus & growing in Jesus.

And we went through each of these segments.

The Bible is a library of texts - Bible is just from a greek word that means “Books.”

The Bible is a translation of many ancient scrolls, written by people over 1,000 years.

It is both divine and human.

All Scripture is God breathed Paul says, or “Inspired” literally expired from God. AND, written by humans with real personalities, and God was able to get exactly what he wanted in the original manuscripts without overpowering who they were as people.

It is a unified story that leads to Jesus.

John Stott said the Bible is a handbook for salvation.

Jesus saw it that way.

Leviticus, Obadiah, Proverbs, Song of Solomon…they all make us wise for salvation through faith in Messiah Jesus.

And it’s for growing in Jesus.

It teaches us how to trust Jesus and through the Holy Spirit’s power become people of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.

To be truly human.

Last week we said knowing the origins of the Bible is key to knowing what it is and what it is for.

We read the first two instances in the Bible of the writing of the Bible, and where were they?

Exodus!

They showed us that the Bible is a story about how God saves his people, and it is a covenant guiding them to be priests, how to be truly human and showcase God to the world.

Or, as we say at Gateway Chapel, to be a faithful presence and witness of Jesus.

I will unashamedly say I am the guy who reads the instruction manual.

The cliche American man is the guy who says, “I got this” but I am definitely someone who says, “I don’t got this.”

Is it humanly possible to assemble IKEA furniture without the manual?

There are 1,000 pieces are 1,000 ways to incorrectly make a clothes dresser.

You consult the manual to let it tell you how to go about making it.

Just because we have something, doesn’t mean we know how to use it.

The same thing goes for the Bible.

Handing someone a Bible and saying, “Read it” can be like giving someone IKEA furniture without an allen wrench and saying, “Make it.”

Or handing a 5-year old the keys to my Hyundai Elantra and saying, “Drive it.”

In Luke 10, Jesus was asked a tricky Bible question by a lawyer, and Jesus’ response was, “What is written?

How do you read it?”

I think he asks us the same question today.

How do you read?

What if how we read the Bible is just as important as if we read the Bible?

And if that’s the case, much like an IKEA furniture piece tells me how to put it together, how does the Bible itself say we should read the Bible?

I need your help this week.

Easel is back!

We are going to fly.

I’m really excited, but there’s going to be a lot.

We’re going to look at the first four times the Bible talks about reading the Bible.

What do these instances tell us about how the Bible wants us to approach it?

And how does that lead us to Jesus?

And how might be consider reading the Bible as a result?

Pray

When is the first time in the Bible we see someone reading the Bible?

Exodus!

Chapter 24.

If you were here last week, we spent time in chapter 24.

What’s going on?

God has saved his people from slavery in Egypt.

Moses parted the Red Sea, led them away from Pharoah’s army.

Then they went through the wilderness and came to Mt. Sinai.

God now takes his saved people and says I want to be in covenant relationship with you.

So he talks with Moses, and gives them the 10 commandments.

And Moses wrote down these covenant laws.

This was our second instance of the writing of the Bible.

And then in verse 7...

So here we have the first instance of the reading of the Bible.