Focus: Bible
Study
Function: To
get people excited about Bible study
Form: GOK
Intro:
The Scriptures are
alive! They are a part of our living faith! As we embrace God they
become more real to us. As we embrace them, God becomes more real to
us.
The Scriptures came
alive to me for the first time when I was assigned the task, as an
8th grade student of teaching the second graders for a
summer. We studied the story of David and all of a sudden it become
much more than a boy with 5 stones and a who whirled one round and
round and round and round and the giant came tumbling down.
In the bible stories,
we picture ourselves facing giants, bears, lions, mad kings, old
prophets and etc. We picture ourselves, with faith in God and utter
reliance on Him, doing our own version of Kingdom of God work.
I fell away from
Christ, briefly, during my Junior and Senior year of High School. And
when I came back, I was obsessed with understanding all the mysteries
of the prophecies in Revelation, Matthew 24, Ezekiel, 1st
and 2nd Peter and Daniel.
God's Word compelled me
to come back to Him. It was exciting doing that study and realizing
that in one way or another, I could predict the future. Not that I
had any special psychic ability, but I had the plan written out right
there in front of me.
It was fascinating. In
the early 80's. Gorbachev was President in Russia, and at that time,
instead of either Iran or Iraq, the current “enemy” of
the US, or Germany, the enemy of the US when my dad heard biblical
prophecy explained and Hitler was the antichrist since the Jewish
people were tattooed on their wrists (close enough to the back of the
hand, isn't it?), we were sure that it was Russia and Gorbachev. I
mean, John saw the Antichrist and he had what looked like a fatal
wound on his head, but he was alive. And didn't Gorbachev's birthmark
on his head look nasty? Could that be what John was describing?
And it turned out that
Hitler wasn't the Antichrist, and Gorbachev wasn't the Antichrist
after all. But still all that study got me into God's word, and that
is good.
Because,
in those studies, I also read to “turn the other cheek” to
“bless those who curse us.” Right after the passage in Matthew 24
where Jesus describes the destruction of the temple, and days so hard
that it would be much easier not to have small children, I read how
God expects us, in Matthew 25, to always be ready for his coming. He
expects us to be busy working for His kingdom NOW and he describes it
by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, setting captives free.
And I bring all that up
to describe what happens to us when we get into God's Word. Because
initially, I was thinking only of the Kingdom to Come and the end of
the ages.
But through that study,
I learned something incredibly important about God's Kingdom. God's
Kingdom is already here. It is both present and future. Just as
prayer places us right at the spot where the thin veil between heaven
and earth begins to part, God's word describes His kingdom both here,
and the kingdom to come.
Heaven and earth are
right there together in Christian worship and prayer. Present and
future are right there in Christian worship, prayer and Bible study.
There was nothing wrong
with studying the future, as long as we don't forget that God's plan
for the future depends on what we are doing right here, right now, in
the present.
Without any mockery or
satire, I have to confess to you a real dilemma that I had when
thinking about circumstances that might lead to a future revelation
of the Antichrist.
I asked myself, why
were told to fear ATM cards, which could lead to a cashless society
and pave the way for the Mark of the Beast as the only way to buy and
sell? Or, the UN because it appears that a one world government is
something the Antichrist will create? And I kept wondering, but if it
brings about the end times, and the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy,
why are we fighting it?
And again, I am not
trying to mock this but I want to set the stage for what this
morning's biblical texts are all about.
The Bible, which we
heard last week that we can trust, is the story of God's love for
Humanity. It is the Story that we find ourselves in.
So look again at our
passage from Deuteronomy: Let me read if from “The Message”
There is a progression
here. It starts with loving God. You know, when I began to love God
and accept the fact that God is God and I am not, it made a huge
difference in the way I approached scripture.
I rebelled my faith a
few years.
When I came back to
God, I was still pretty critical until someone said to me: “Phil,
don't read scripture to judge God or what is said. Instead, embrace
scripture and ask God to speak to you.”
I was transformed. What
Karen spoke of last week about how the Holy Spirit does a miraculous
thing in us when we embrace scripture was proven to me to be true by
my own experience as well.
And then Moses speaks
to us of how, in the love of God, we use His scriptures to draw us
close to Him. Moses gives us a “live, eat, and breathe it”
command.
Write it on your hands,
bind it to your foreheads, staple it to your door posts. Talk about
it when you are eating, working and spending time with your families.
Get it inside of you and get it inside your children.
So, love God. And learn
to love Him by getting to know His word and then, tell its story.
The command, to keep
the faith alive, is to remember its story, its stories.
He commands them to
keep on repeating the story. He warns them, you will get fat and
sassy, you will inherit homes, vineyards, crops and luxury, and you
will be tempted to think that you did all by yourself. So remember
the story, repeat the story. That way, you will know that it is God
who has blessed your lives.
This book is the story
of God's love.
And it is true. I
believe it. I believe the miracles, I believe that these men and
women accomplished great things with simple acts of faith. I believe
that the red sea parted, 10 plagues afflicted the Egyptians, Abraham
had Isaac at 99 years old, the world was destroyed by a flood, the
sun stood still for a day and most importantly, that Jesus rose from
the dead.
But I also know it is
true because of the many mistakes and sins that the principle
characters, even the heroes of the faith, committed. The story
doesn't shrink back as if it was some sort of propaganda writing. It
tells it all. And in all those stories, it tells of the wonderful
grace of God.
I believe its
prophecies. Sometimes, as I mentioned, it predicted the future and it
was spot on. Other prophets were change agents who spoke out against
the religious culture of their day and they promised them God's
discipline of they refused to obey and care for the poor.
It is not just an
ancient story of ancient people with stories that were exaggerated
into miracles by superstitious ancients. Sure, some of it is symbolic
and its interpretation is literal, it even tells us that at times.
But all in all, it is
the story of God's creation, mankind's fall, God's passion to get
people to love one another again, God's punishment for those who
refused and finally, after all attempts were made to get people to do
it on their own, it is God's story of God coming to earth, suffering
abuse and shame, dying in our place and putting to rest the
punishment for our failures by raising from the dead.
And then, in the book
of Acts, the story continues as to how this story got told, retold
and retold again until it became the largest faith on the face of the
planet.
That is another
miraculous story. The story of how 12 to 120 men and women who lived
in a country that was no more important than modern day, Haiti, or
Mexico or Iran compared to the world's powers. And how this small
group of people had no political clout among this nation with no
clout, how they changed the entire world.
All of it was proof
that History is HIS story, His story of His redemption.
And Moses tells them,
you are charged with this story, because hanging on to this story
will keep us from forgetting that we are here now to continue to tell
the story.
From the beginning to
the end, it is God's story of His care for humanity. And we are here
to tell it some more.
When we became
Christians, we got a new last name, and therefore this story has now
become our story.
The Bible is the story
of the gospel and telling it is our task.
How do we do that? Well
first, we have to know it.
I suggest that we learn
it not to master it, but to involve ourselves in its story as well.
I heard many great
sermons about the importance of “quiet time.”
And today, it wouldn't
be a day for me without my morning meditation in scripture. I read
the Bible through at least once a year, every year. I just finished
the story of Genesis, and am now reading the story of the Exodus. It
is pretty amazing stuff.
But I was surprised to
learn, as I grew in my faith, that quiet time wasn't just for
evangelicals. St. Benedict and other ancient writers write
extensively of Lectio Divina, Divine reading. From the Carmelite
Nun website: ...describes
a way of reading the Scriptures whereby we gradually let go of our
own agenda and open ourselves to what God wants to say to us.
Divine reading included
the practice of reading the story from scripture and then picturing
oneself as the major participant in that story and feeling, seeing
how the Holy Spirit did its work in the life of that person. It
becomes alive and, it is fun!
Stop a minute. In your
bulletin is a sheet for you to participate with. Take a moment to do
this exercise. Be quick about it, but let it happen.
The story brings it to
reality.
That is what preaching
is. Preachers have sought to understand what the scriptures were
saying in their original concept and to convey to their hearers what
it might mean in our modern context.
So, here is the Bible.
We trust it. Now, let us be careful how we use it.
Because the Bible is
God's story of His love for us.
A pastor friend of
mine, he pastors the largest Church of the Brethren posted this on
his facebook wall last week. Apparently, he was stuck with the
profound nature of this quote. He wrote a quote from Eugene Peterson,
that man who paraphrased the Bible version, The Message. He said:
The biblical way is not...a moral code...[dictating] 'Live up to this'...[it's a holy story, beckoning] 'Live into this'" - Eugene Peterson
We use the Scripture,
we treat it as holy, we love it and adore it because it is a story
beckoning us to live into God's way of life.
It was never intended
for us to use as a way of judging another believer. God is the one
who convicts people of sin, not us.
It was never intended
for us to justify ourselves as better than someone else. It was given
for us to live into God's family.
Hearing God's voice in
scripture isn't simply a matter of precise, technical expertise. It
is a matter of love. Because we are in this love relationship with
God, as Father, brother, friend and in the sense that God is neither
male or female, a nurturer, -a mother image, because God calls
Himself, in scripture: El Shaddai the literal translation is God, the
many breasted one.
In that love
relationship with God, where God intends to bridge the gap between
heaven and earth, in Christian worship, prayer and study our hopes
and fears are closely bound to Him.
We love Him and trust
Him. And then, we hear God's voice. We hear God's voice as we read.
And because we are brothers and sisters together, we hear God's voice
as we read and study it together. Our understanding always needs
testing by reference to other believers.
That is common sense,
Listening to God's voice in scripture does not put us in a position
of having infallible, or perfect, opinions. No. It puts us where
Jesus put himself. We are placed in possession of a calling. A
life-long calling. God's word changes us.
Since God speaks to us
in scripture, He speaks in order to communicate tasks, the same kinds
of tasks that Jesus did during His three years of ministry on earth.
Does that mean we too
will do all those miracles? Not necessarily. But we will indeed be
the agents, with pretty clear commands, to bring about the changes
that the heavenly Kingdom, the one we pray for in the Lord's prayer:
“Your kingdom Come, Your will be done...”
So, the story doesn't
place us “in the know” over other people. The story places in
partnership with God, doing the works of Jesus among a world that
needs to be put back to right. Remember Jesus, He looked at His city
and He wept over it, wishing that it could be healed.
When we are transformed
by God's word, we join the story.0
In God's word, we find
ourselves in partnership with Him.
And that story isn't
about being able to quote chapter and verse, but it is about relating
with others the story of God's redemption.
Let these stories fill
your minds, it will change the way you react to trials.
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