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PROP: As we apply the practical teaching of the Bible, we learn to trust Jesus and our faith in him grows.
Good evening church!
It’s so good to be back with you…after an exciting, event filled adventure to Nationwide Youth Round Up in Colorado!
We’ll give you a few more exciting details about the trip at the end.
While up on the mountain, I was able to pull together my notes for part two of our sermon series, 5 Things God Uses to Grow Your Faith.
Before we dive in, let’s do a quick review of last Saturday.
The very first thing you need to do if you want your faith to grow is this: you need to make space for God in your life.
God wants to grow your faith, however, many of us have such full, busy, and distracted lives we aren’t paying attention to all of the ways God wants to grow our faith.
So we need to make space.
That’s why we cut back on our busyness and attend worship service every week.
It’s why we make space every year and take students to NYR.
It’s why we cut back on or cut off social media and other distractions.
It’s why we sometimes need to end relationships so that we are creating space in our lives for God to provide the resources to help us grow.
So now that we have created space in our lives for God, he wants to fill it with tools to help our faith grow.
Starting today and for the next four Sundays, we are going to look at five specific things God uses to grow our faith in the space we have created for him.
Today we are going to talk about practical teaching.
You are probably thinking, “Practical Teaching, what does that have to do with growing faith.”
Simply taking in information, may not grow your faith.
However, if you take practical instruction from God and apply it to your life, your trust in God will grow.
One of the TV shows my family likes to watch is called, Running Wild with Bear Grylls and I just saw that a new season is about to start in the coming weeks.
If you don’t know who Bear Grylls is, he is was formerly in the British special forces, then turned into an adventurer…and he was probably made famous in our country with his show, Man vs. Wild.
In this particular show, Bear invites a celebrity to join him for 3 days in the wilderness.
He usually does something intense, typically climbing or rebelling, to help them face their fears.
For example, in one of the episodes he had ex basketball player Shaq, repel down a very steep cliff.
It’s fascinating watching these celebrities face their fears and do these extreme things, but one of the reasons why is because they trust Bear.
They put their lives into his hands because they have faith in him.
Why do they trust him?
Because he gives them practical teaching.
For example, when has Shaq repel down the cliff, he walks him through the process, instructs him about what is going to happen, and the whole time he is very encouraging.
The practical teaching of Bear Grylls builds trust and helps grow the faith of the participant.
The same thing can be said about you and your faith in Jesus.
For your faith to grow, you need trust, and for their to be trust you need practical teaching.
So, where is our source for practical teaching?
Most of you know this answer, the Bible.
The Bible is not a book, it’s actually a library of books collected and put together for us to understand God’s story and our role in it.
But, it’s even more then that!
It is our source of truth, of wisdom, and instruction.
If you have any questions about how the Bible was put together or why we know we can trust the Bible, I would love to talk with you about that.
Talk to me after the service and I’ll connect you with some resources to begin to understand how the Bible is put together and how to begin to read it.
If you have a Bible or device, find 2 Timothy 3. If you are using the YouVersion Bible app, go to your menu, look for Events.
All the Scriptures and Sermon Notes will be there along with a great Bible reading plan for the week.
This letter is written by the apostle Paul to one of the men he discipled, Timothy, who is now leading and pastoring a church.
Listen to this important words.
Keep in mind, there is no NT.
That was being written, but had not been collected.
Paul is referencing the OT.
Here is what he writes.
Two key phrases to pay attention here.
Useful for teaching.
What we have in the Bible is useful for teaching, instruction.
While there maybe a lot of other good books out there, smart people, or successful people…at the end of the day we fall back on the teaching provided to us from the Bible as our teaching source.
Look at the last phrase, “thoroughly equipped for every good work”.
To have practical teaching from the Bible provides you with what you need to handle every good work.
It prepares you to take on life.
And when you are prepared to take on life, you build trust and as you build trust, your faith…grows.
Having a source of trustworthy teaching and instruction is so helpful, this is especially true for the culture in which we live.
While at NYR, Chad Ragsdale used this illustration that I think is helpful here.
Close your eyes.
Imagine you are in the middle of a vast ocean, all by yourself on a raft.
What emotions would you have?
Anxiety?
Fear?
Hopelessness?
That is exactly what our culture calls freedom.
Do whatever you want.
Be whatever you feel.
Live how you want.
This is why the younger generations are experiencing unprecedented levels of anxiety, fear, depression and hopelessness.
Humans were not created to live un-tethered lives.
True freedom is found by grounding our lives on truth and wisdom.
Friends, we have so much to offer our culture…but we have to continue to build our lives on the truths of Scripture…and that brings true freedom.
Listen, for your faith to grow, you need to develop trust with Jesus.
For trust with Jesus to happen you need to hear practical teaching about what he said.
Does this make sense?
Practical teaching develops trust and trust is what helps grow our faith.
There is one important aspect of practical teaching that we often overlook, but Jesus doesn’t!
If you have a Bible or a device, turn in them to Matthew chapter seven.
It’s the last section of The Sermon on the Mount, probably some of the most practical teaching in the Bible.
In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus covers topics like anger, lust and greed.
He teaches on how to prayer, and how to live as his followers in this world.
At the very end of this sermon he tells a story that should grab your attention.
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.”
~ Mt 7:24
I’m just curious.
Anyone here consider yourself wise?
A lot of us here would probably consider the all the foolish things we have done and say definitely that we are not wise.
But, according to Jesus we can change that!
Jesus says that is we take his practical teaching and what?
Puts them into practice.
So, practical teaching means you understand it, however you still have to put that teaching into practice.
Don’t miss this point: going to church or Bible study does not make your wise.
Reading the Bible isn’t what grows your faith.
It’s putting the words into practice.
Jesus says that every time we take the practical teaching he provides, and apply to our lives we are crafting our lives into a house that is drilled down into the rock.
It has a strong, powerful foundation.
So pay attention, when we make space in our lives for practical teaching, apply it to our lives, it builds trust, which in turn helps our faith grow.
Why is this such a big deal?
Listen to what Jesus says next.
Verse 25.
25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock.
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