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Good morning. Welcome to Hillandale. We are continuing a sermon series that we began last week. Which as I shared last week is designed to kind of put a pebble in your shoe and what I mean by a pebble in your shoe is to impart to us a kind of truth. That's not annoying or Troublesome, but it's something that comes back to our mind on a regular basis like that Pebble in your shoe so that we can ponder it we can reflect on it and we can kind of Let It Grow deeper in our life and bear fruit the last week. We talked a little bit about the character of God God is the original person. He is our loving uncreated Creator that's his character and his compassionate unfailing love toward us has been made known through the self-sacrifice of Christ who was God in person. That's the overarching theme of scripture. The men are doing God's character and his love Express toward us and an honor of Laura who is our resident along with Cindy grammar Nazi. Is that the right word to say? No, she always helps me with my grammar. I read this this week and I thought that's a good illustration. The indicative precedes the imperative meaning that the statement of fact God's revelation of himself as good and loving and caring for us that precede the imperative that cause us to love him and follow him. He has made his goodness known the Cross of Christ Christ sacrifice as God in the flesh is this permanent display of God's disposition toward us. It's one of love and self-sacrifice on our behalf in order to bridge the gap of our on Holiness so that we can be reconciled to him. So the indicative precyse the imperative the facts of the Gospel precede our response of Faith love and obedience, and that's what we talked about last week. Don't want to go a little deeper in that and then transition with a really practical Point toward the end. But one thing that's interesting the Hebrew words for love and hate are understood by the Hebrews as establishing and keeping covenants or not establishing and keeping Covenant. You don't think of the words love and hate as emotional words. And so it's it's about cinnamon or cinnamon tality or your emotions. You love someone or you love something or you hate something and that's almost the full definition that immediately comes to our mind but in the Hebrew culture when scripture in the Old Testament and when calls using Hebrew thinking when he quotes in the New Testament the words for love and hate we're understood as keeping Covenant establishing Covenant or not keeping Covenant or not establishing Covenant. Now, you might read Romans 9 in a new light where God talks about loving and hating those in the history of Israel when you understand what he might be talkin about if Paul is quoting is the idea of a staff. Kitchen cabinet for not establishing Covenant, but for us that way we can understand that. In our mind today, our love relationship with God is understood in the context of Covenant. We know that we understand that we celebrate it every week. We think of Jesus words in Matthew 27. He says when he got that the bread together and the wine. He said this is the blood of the New Covenant my blood poured out for you. This is my body of the New Covenant broken for you. And so all through the Old Testament and all through the New Testament. The main metaphor for our relationship with God is one of Covenant now share that because it builds on what we talked about last week that to understand what God has done for us and to respond in faith to God to love him as the greatest commandment says love the Lord your God with all your heart soul mind strength is to obey him. Those are not separate things. We can't say while I'm a Christian. I'm a disciple because I believe and then leave it at that belief and faith and love includes obedience. They're not Inseparable and one way to understand that is to understand that our relationship of God is always talked about in Context of a covenant and we understand that today our marriage vows today. We understand obedience to our marriage vows keeping our wedding vows as an act of love. Don't we? We understand that concept. If you love me. You will honor our wedding vows. You will keep that Covenant that we made together. You could not say to your spouse spouses. Just try this. You could not say. Oh, I love you. I believe everything that we said that day. We got married and I love you. I'm just not going to keep the bounce house that going to go over. You don't love me then. And that's a legitimate point. They're integrated there organic. They go together. That's the way scripture talks about responding to the Great ACT of God in Christ on the cross that we are called to love him to place our faith in him to trust him and that includes obedience it all goes together. And so Jesus says in John 14:15, if you love me keep my commands and it has that Spirit of one spouse thing to another You've already courted me. You've won my affection you've proven yourself. I've said yes, we are married. And then we ask each other to honor the wedding vows to keep those wedding vows. Now that doesn't mean that the relationships is the relationship is absent of Grace does it a good marriage is full of grace. We don't always keep 100% of our wedding valves. None of us have a few cherished your spouse every moment of every day of your marriage or there are times when you have not cherished him or her We are not perfect. And so even our weddings are our marriages are full of grace, but the understood Direction and which were walking is one of honoring obeng keeping those mouth. And that's the nature of our relationship was God. So what are his commands or are vowels? The scriptures loving and obeying God grows out of our understanding and submission to the scriptures. Now that just sounds so familiar. So Sunday school if it's almost like when we say God sacrificed himself in order to bridge the gap between us and him we've heard it so much that we don't let the impact hit us, but we need to understand we have a way to grow and our relationship with God. We have a way to grow in our obedience to God. Sometimes we long Lord. I want to be a more faithful disciple God. I want to see greater things happened in my life. I want to lead others to know you floored. I want to do great things for Mission. Sometimes we long for these things to happen in our life and we act as if it's some sort of mystery why one person gets tapped and blessed and their Ministry drive and another person doesn't But it's as plain as what's written on that screen the scriptures loving and obeying God grows with our understanding and submission to the scriptures. That is essential. If you want your marriage to thrive, then you honor the vows of your marriage and you don't so, how can I find out I've got to find another way to make my marriage so I think it would counter so it will look if you're not if we start there that's the foundation. There's no trick no trick no secrets. No other thing to do. It is all about starting with that foundational reality that you're honoring that relationship that commitment to one another and the first and fundamental place in which we honor God Is by obeying him

they go together. We can't really say like I said, we can't say to a spouse. I love you. I'm just not going to keep the vows. We can't say to God all I love you and I want salvation and I thank you very much. But I'm simply not going to keep the house. I'm not going to obey you they go together in the way. We understand what God wants of us is going into scripture. And so the challenge for us is to be students of the word. Look at what Paul says about scripture in Timothy. He says 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 it teaches us to do what is right, and then he continues God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. Now think about the obvious of what that passage is saying scriptures focus is to prepare us to prepare the reader to obey God.

Now again, you might be single Robert you're saying nothing new, but I believe that subtly we shift off that plane and simple truth that the way in which we grow in our love of God is to understanding and obedience to the scripture and sometimes we slip away from that fundamental truth right there that scriptures focus is to prepare the reader to obey God. That's the fundamental value of scripture when we bring it in to our own life. So we seek to understand scripture with the primary goal of the ultimate goal of notifying our beliefs and doctrines not Here's the ways in which we slip off of the purpose of scripture. And therefore we lose the power scripture. Now. Look I'm not saying getting our doctrines and our beliefs tightly understood and defined in a row isn't good. It is good. But when that becomes our primary and our ultimate use of the scriptures were just studying them so that we can codify it all worked out the understanding every T crossed every eye. It's when we do that. We are advocating the power of scripture to transform Our Lives because we are over the text in that regard. It is simply a textbook for us to lay out in the lessons from and no more. We are not in submission to the word of God as a power in our life. Now those things will happen as a result of being a student of the word, but if those become our primary and our ultimate purpose for interacting with scripture, we rob ourselves of the transformation that God wants to work in our life. An argument we ever go to scripture for that purpose. Is it amazing that those vs. State clearly that all scripture is inspired? And what is it? What's it for its for the reader for us to be corrected to be told what is true and right to be told what is wrong so that we can be prepared to do the good works to obey God. And how many times do we go in the scripture? And I'm I'm at the top of this list folks cuz printer get paid to do this. How many times did we go into scripture and immediately were thinking okay. What do other people need to know about this passage? This will preach baby my brother-in-law needs to hear this, you know immediately think of other people now listen, it is valuable and good to go into scripture and It Come Away with truce that you share. Don't mishear me, but when that becomes my primary or my ultimate purpose for going in the scripture, you know, I'm on Facebook yesterday and it's one person posted something. There's a first year somewhere Post-it, baby.

We sometimes we go in the scripture with the ultimate purpose of trying to win some sort of argument. Now again, it will bear fruit in your life. As you are a good student of the word. You will know the word better. They'll be time to which you have the right verse response and say actually this is the way to think about that with the right Spirit as 1st Peter says, but if we make that the ultimate person purpose, I think we're giving up what scripture says is designed to do which is for the reader to be studying it in order for them to be prepared to obey God. Sometimes we look at scripture to get an emotional lift. Now this is a really dangerous point for me cuz I could preach 20 minutes on this alone because we live in a culture in North America, especially within Christianity. We're the devotional life has been put on an idol and the idea that my relationship with God is essentially measured by Daley doing something and reading my scripture Each Day scripture reading becomes not this discipline in order to achieve understanding in order to obey and steady becomes this ritual in order to check off and say I'm good. I'm good at forgot to do see how we run doing everything. I preach last Sunday and what I said at the beginning of this tournament for turning it into a relationship where I do these things and I'm good with God. I've made my way to him and so we took scripture and weave it into tiny little pieces out of context and we've created hundreds and hundreds of devotional books that teach us how to misunderstand scripture on a regular basis. It is horrible because when the power scripture is in the truth of scripture the power of God to transform your life, cuz when we let go false police and take hold of true believes. It is not the words. It is not the words on the page incantation if I can just get the words of reading everyday. My life will be changed that. Is bologna to put it as kindly as possible. We get the seat until we go down this path and I don't I don't know. I looked at some of the devotionals that are popular and sale and everybody reads and I went through them and found so many things that were just wrong wrong and it just broke my heart because I thought no wonder we can be in the church for decades and read scripture for decades and not see our habits our lives or characters transformed because we slip into this habit of reading just for the sake of a little emotional lift at my daily devotion instead of looking in the scripture to say wait a minute. What does this say? What's the right understanding of this passage? And how do I obey it instead? All these devotionals will just cleverly twist scripture so that before you know what you're reading your horoscope. And so this day God is just on my side no matter what I'm doing. Well, I don't know maybe you're doing something in which God in your life in that day might be to unravel every bit of it you realize that sometimes the work of God in your life might be things that you would immediately and first off interpret as bad news. But God might work in your life in such a way that you need your bank account drained overnight because of what you're doing with your money. And the God who knows that you've given him your heart might just orchestrate Challenge and hardship in your life because he knows what you said deepest of all is that you want him? And so just like a parent that might come over to Child and say we're just have to take that away from me for a while. Because you're doing something with that that is not intended to do and it's not good for you. Took took but we put the culture of the devotional world is just I'm the center and it's all about me just now again, don't miss hear me. Do we read scripture times and have an emotional lift. Absolutely and that is a good and wonderful thing do we read scripture times that it seems to connect directly to what we're worried about are praying about that there that we can absolutely and it's a wonderful thing. My problem is when that becomes the primary and ultimate approach to scripture because then we say things like what I just don't read my Bible cuz I never get anything out of it. We guess what the authority is in that scenario. I'm the authority and my emotions. And so if I don't get something out of it, I'm not going to bother to mess with it. So the adversary has so many ways in which he can kind of insert himself and get us off Target. So while it seems so simple to say studying and understanding the scriptures in order to obey them is the way we grow in a relationship with God and maybe we haven't maybe we've been deceived and some of our routines are ones that don't give us a connection with God's word in such a way that our hearts and Lasher transform because we're not coming to it submitted as a student before teacher willing to let it correct our existing beliefs are doctrines. Sometimes I've had professors who just wedged passages into certain meetings because the denomination has certain beliefs You're a banana Bible study where somebody just treated the word of God that way they had a preconceived notion. This is what this is the biblical view about this subject and then the scriptures your reading kind of says the opposite instead of saying will it be humble and submit let it let the scripture be the teacher and figure out the best way to understand this instead. They say not enough. Let's just in a whack this off and get a hammer and Hammer the street under the wish of it and just write we can make it support what we've always believed and sometimes we can slip into that sort of thinking so the danger misunderstanding is it like off understanding correctly is the most important thing ever and not some sort of academic danger. The danger of misunderstanding is that the scripture is no longer authoritative in our life. But we come to it with her own preconceived ideas or own standards. If I don't get an emotional the hair done stand-up on the back of my neck and my reading of scripture this morning that I must have not heard from the Lord if we're not careful. We become the Masters instead of the students. And so the challenge is to do the straightforward teaching of that passage and Timothy do understand that all scripture is inspired and useful to correct. The teachers asked the reader to prepare us to obey God. So we seek to understand scripture with the primary ultimate goal of personally obeying God would that transform? Anybody's time in the word of God.

If if when you went to the word of God you said okay, there's lots of good things. I may have an emotional Surge and again, don't mishear me that can be awesome. That can be awesome. So I am not, you know a downer on having a time and where we just take all that was just all I love that. You know that just resonated with me. Absolutely. But your primary goal. Your ultimate goal is to say I want to be before the word and understand it so that I can obey it personally and that's the work that God will do in our lives to change who we are. So that after one year on the word of God. We are significantly different than we were at the beginning of that year because we've come to it as a student to a teacher.

So read the Bible. Yes memorize verses yes research and study the Bible. Yes, as matter fact. I may be researching and studying. The Bible is the foundation because you don't want to memorize a verse that you don't fully understand and sometimes we do that we memorize it and a context that a devotional gave it to us and we forever think will this verse is about this and then you go back later in life. And you read the Fuller context and you're like, that's not what that means it all and I've been holding on to this truth, you know in a way that's that's really not fair him. How many people have ever sing the necklace that talks about? I will I will not leave your people be my people. The Lord will be between Solace giving in marriage relationships and it has nothing to do with marriage when you read the original context now, can you find in Scripture that commitment to be committed to one another and marriage? Absolutely? But if you use that particular verse you run the risk of later going back in discovering all this is talking nothing about that and then you might second-guess a lot of stuff that you have assumed the challenges to be a good student from the beginning at every point until maybe the foundation to memorizing the Bible to memorizing scripture and her reading the Bible is to make sure you are a student of the Bible and often that means researching that means studying that means doing work reading your footnotes in the Bible that you have carefully looking up cross references and look spending time getting a little deeper in the understanding and stay but what if I don't check my box every day this week and I haven't read the right amount. We say it with me like any parent of a small child. Let it go. Let it go if we sing that like that song Let It Go one of the best gift you might give to yourself is letting go of a sense of I got to do this every day in order to be right with God. I did not sound strange to say but in the context of this sermon, do you understand what I'm saying? Maybe maybe Mondays versus that you read are so impactful but difficult to understand that you study those versus every day that week. So there by Friday or Saturday. You've read every cross reference. You found a couple of commentaries. You've looked it up in your life. I understand what Paul is saying God is not going to say well, I'm sorry Laura because you missed the daily readings in your devotional for Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. If you get no credit for working extra on Mondays reading in order to understand a property, that's not the agenda. The agenda is looking to the scripture study the scriptures in order to understand them in order to obey them and if we're not confident about our understanding we won't be bold about our obedience until the challenges to be people who study the Bible and yes memorize and yes, read it on a regular basis.

I'm going back to the worship team to come forward as well as we close. Now. I want to begin a series that we will come to after this sermon and and just start talking in the next few Sundays about the nuts and bolts of going into scripture and studying scripture and being submitted to scripture and being a student of scripture. But as we close I just want to share that the two strongest images throughout scripture that God uses to talk about his relationship with you and I especially in the context of the word of God, is that of a student and a teacher So you understand that what God wants to do is come alongside us and help us understand. What is true ending and what is right and understand what's wrong in our lives and embrace. What is true? And what is right and get rid of what is wrong in order that we might be prepared to be christ-like to do the good works to obey God the way he's designed from the beginning. It's it's all that has it that God's characteristic compassion and unfailing love and goodness. He is always seeking our best interest. So when we say to love God is to obey God and to obey God is to be a student of the word who reads and understands and obey the word. It's all in the context of God as a loving teacher instructing us seeking the best in our life the other image throughout scripture. Is that a father and son? And again, it communicates the same thing trust your heavenly father. When he calls us to be students of the word in a new and deeper way or no way that stays with a pathogen says a mile bang this and if not, how do I obey it? Maybe you didn't stay with the passage for a month. You might save a password for longer and say I need to obey this before I move on. You might have to get somebody else in your life. You might have to call her friends. They look the lord has laid a scripture in my life on my heart. And I know I'm not obeying it and I have lied to myself for 3 weeks now pretending that I'm going to bed and I'm struggling. So I need a brother in Christ or sister in Christ. I need someone to hold me accountable to be not only student who understands but a student who obeys the word of God and let's that fruit be born in our life. That's God's Hearts Desire like a teacher to a student like a father to a child to equip us so that we can do the things that we so long to do so that we can be wonderful spouses in a marriages and wonderful parents and wonderful employees so that we can boldly share our faith with those who don't know the Lord so that we know how to pray for someone in need so that we're not afraid to get involved in a messy relationship because we're confident that God has our back and we can step right into something in the name of the Lord and minister to another and serve them so that we can trust God in missions and take risk so we can trust God with our finances. He wants to use the word of God and our understanding of the word of God that really to equip us to change us to grow into greater and greater disciples. What's brain?

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