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Grace-based biblical teaching and sermons with Pastor Jason White. Messages that focus on Life in Christ and practical application as New Covenant believers.
Over the last few weeks we have been talking about spiritual disciplines, and in the opening message, we talked a lot about how many of us have approached them as a checklist. They were just things to check off of a list. Things that were our duty to do as Christians.
Well, my guess is that if you operated with a checklist mentality that at the very top of the list was reading your Bible.
I mean, it’s the top thing that we are told to do as Christians. You need to read your Bible everyday.
Get up early in the morning and have a quiet time with God.
At least just read something. Open it up and read anything. It’s important.
Read one chapter a day of one book of the Bible.
Or read the entire New Testament.
But if you really want to be a good Christian, get on a reading plan and read through the entire Bible every single year.
And so for a lot of us, reading our Bible has just become this duty. This thing we are supposed to do if we want to be a good Christian.
But that is not a good reason to read the Bible. We don’t read the Bible because it is our duty. We don’t read the Bible because it is part of a religious task to be completed each day.
But again that is the way many of us have approached it.
Here are some other ways in which we wrongly approach reading the Bible.
1. Rules
We thumb through the Bible looking for all of the rules we are supposed to follow. We approach it as if it is nothing more than a book of rules.
We want to know what we are supposed to do and what we are not supposed to do, so we read it to figure those things out and try our best to live how God wants us to live.
2. For more knowledge
Now certainly as you read your Bible, you are going to gain more knowledge, but that is not the primary reason that we read our Bible.
Yet that is what many people do. They read so that they can impress everyone with how much they know about the Bible. All of these little bits and pieces of information that they can share… and LOVE to do so when they are sitting in a room, filled with people whom they can share that info.
3. Inspiration
Some people just read the Bible to find some kind of thought to brighten their day before they go out into the real world. The bible is a dispenser of inspiration and good vibes.
Or maybe it’s to find some inspiration for something they are trying to accomplish. They are trying to get a college scholarship in whatever sport they are playing or to run a marathon or to get more sales in their business…move up the corporate ladder… become an influencer…whatever.
So, they find inspirational quotes that they can recite to motivate them to keep going when things get tough.
In other words, the Bible is there to give them the inspiration to accomplish all of their goals in life.
But none of these are good reasons to read the Bible.
The Bible is not a book of rules.
It’s not just to read for more knowledge.
It’s not a book of inspiration to become successful in life.
And it’s not a religious duty.
Okay, so what is the reason we read our Bible? What is the right way to approach this book?
Well, Jesus actually tells us in John 5
In John 5, we are told that Jesus was in Jerusalem and came across the pool of Bethesda which many believed had healing properties. And while Jesus was there, he met a guy who had been an invalid for 38 years. And Jesus asks him, “Do you want to get well?”
And the guy said, “I don’t have anyone to help me into the water when it is stirred and someone gets in ahead of me.”
So then we are told that Jesus looks at him and says, “Get up! Pick up your mat and walk.”
And the guy did. Jesus healed a guy who had been an invalid for 38 years.
The only problem is that Jesus had done this on the Sabbath, which was a day of rest.
So, when the religious leaders saw this guy carrying his mat, which was considered work on a day of rest, they confronted him…and when he told them that this guy named Jesus healed him and told him to get up, pick up your mat, and walk, they became livid that Jesus would do such a thing on the Sabbath.
I mean, how dare He help someone on the Sabbath. But again, the religious leaders were very upset and approached Jesus about it, and Jesus begins to respond to their accusations. Well, in one of His responses to them, we actually see the right way to approach the Bible. John 5:39-40
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
So, what is Jesus saying here about reading the Bible? He’s saying that the main reason to search the Scriptures is to KNOW Him! The Bible leads us to Jesus.
We come to God’s Word for a revelation of Jesus Christ and to know Him.
Not to know about Him, but to know Him.
To know Jesus intimately and through relationship. This is what we read the Bible for.
But that is not what these religious leaders were doing. They missed it, just like many of us miss it today.
Jesus says that they studied the Scriptures diligently. And they did. The major focus of a rabbi’s work was to study the Torah.
But Jesus says that they were studying it for the wrong reasons. First, He says you study “because you think that in them you have eternal life.”
They thought that the more they studied and learned about the Law, the more life they would have. They would earn eternal life.
We even have those thoughts written out by a Jewish sage and scholar in the first century named Hillel. He said this:
“The more study of the Law, the more life…if he has gained for himself the words of the Law he has gained for himself life in the world to come.” (‘Ab. 2:7)
So they were studying for more knowledge and as a religious duty to earn something from God which we said earlier were wrong approaches to reading the Bible.
Let’s also think about this. What was the reason that Jesus and the religious leaders were having this entire conversation in John 5? Because He had healed someone on the Sabbath. Because Jesus had broken one of the rules according to their interpretation of it.
So not only did they approach the Bible for more knowledge and out of religious duty, but they also approached it as a book of rules.
But Jesus says that all of what is in the Scriptures points to Himself. It’s not about reading it as a religious duty, gaining more knowledge, or as a rule book…
NO, we read to know Jesus. To allow God to reveal Himself to us through Jesus and to come to know Him personally!
Here’s the way that A.W. Tozer puts it:
The Bible is not an end in itself, but a means to bring men to an intimate and satisfying knowledge of God, that they may enter into Him, that they may delight in His Presence, may taste and know the inner sweetness of the very God Himself in the core and center of their hearts. (A. W. Tozer)
That’s it!
NOT AN END IN ITSELF…
As we’ve been saying, spiritual disciplines are not an end in and of themselves. They are a means to allow us to experience a deeper, more intimate relationship with Jesus.
THAT WE MAY DELIGHT IN HIS PRESENCE…
You may remember that the first couple of weeks we focused on the RHYTHM OF AWARENESS, developing an acute awareness that Jesus is always with us and speaking to us through His personality…
Well, even though we focused a lot on how He is present with us and looking for what He is saying to us through other people, situations/circumstances that we are in, we know that there is no more direct way that Jesus speaks to us than through Scripture.
We learn from 2 Timothy 3:16, that…16 All Scripture is God-breathed…
These are the very words of God. God, the Holy Spirit inspired each writer to put these words down and so as we read Scripture God is communicating to us.
One pastor put it this way…
Want to hear God speak? Read your Bible. Want to hear God speak audibly? Read your Bible out loud! — Justin Peters
So, that’s the approach we take. We read to hear from God. To allow Him to speak to us. To reveal Himself to us through Jesus as the Word of Life.
And as we do, we delight in His presence. (back to AW Tozer quote)
We TASTE AND KNOW THE INNNER SWEETNESS OF GOD HIMSELF AT THE CORE
***We come to experience the intimacy we have with Jesus as we get into a rhythm of reading Scripture.
And really, not just reading Scripture, but getting into a RHYTHM OF MEDITATING ON SCRIPTURE
Eugene Peterson, in one of his books, talks about how the Hebrew word, “Hagah” is a word that is often translated “meditate”, and how our Hebrew ancestors used it to refer to the kind of writing that deals with our souls.
But he also shows how that same word, “hagah,” is translated as “growl” in Isaiah 31:4, which says…
“As a lion or a young lion growls over his prey…” (Isaiah 31:4)
So Peterson makes the point that if this same word that refers to meditation is also translated in this way, that meditation is far too tame of a word for what is being signified.
Specifically, he goes on to say…
Reading is an immense gift, but only if the words are assimilated, taken into the soul - eaten, chewed, gnawed, received in unhurried delight. (Eugene Peterson, Eat This Book)
Here’s an image to consider (and one that Peterson even shares in his book)… think of a dog who has been given a bone with some meat on it.
What does he do? He will go off by himself and will chew it, gnaw it, turn it over, lick it, and just enjoy it with sweet, unhurried delight.
That is the way that we are invited to read Scripture. To get into this rhythm of meditating on it with unhurried delight.
I mean Psalm 34:18 even says to “Taste and see that the LORD is good!”
And so that is what I want to invite you into today. Meditating on Scripture in unhurried delight. In the same way that a dog slowly and persistently licks, chews, and gnaws on a bone.
My wife, Natalie, will tell you that this has been one of the rhythms that has blessed her the most over the past year or so.
She took one of our closets and turned it into her own little quiet place where she opens up the Scriptures and reads slowly and prayerfully in unhurried delight.
She’ll stop and think about it.
She’ll imagine herself back in that time.
She’ll look for what it is saying about Jesus and who she is in Christ, and then she’ll journal about it…
And finally, she’ll go into her day also with this rhythm of awareness we’ve been talking about and see Him confirm things and reinforce things that He is saying to her about Himself and her life.
It’s nowhere even close to being a religious duty or something to check off of a list.
She’s not looking for rules to follow or for an inspirational quote.
She’s not studying for more knowledge.
She’s developing a rhythm of looking for Jesus. Why? Because as Jesus said in John 5:39
39 You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life.
So today, I invite you to start getting into a RHYTHM OF MEDITATING ON SCRIPTURE.
And this is not just carving out a time to slowly read and listen for Jesus’ voice…
It’s an invitation to get into a rhythm of meditating on it throughout the day.
For example, one of the people at our discussion table a few Wednesday nights back was talking about how she’s taken truths she’s learned through Scripture about the character and personality of Jesus as well as Scriptures about her identity in Christ, and put them on her phone so that she can read them and remind herself of them and meditate on them…
Which just means to focus on them. Internalize them. Bring them into whatever situation/circumstance you are in during that moment of life.
I mean, Paul tells us in Romans 12 to renew our minds to the truth.
So let’s be about doing that.
Let’s begin to develop this rhythm of slowly meditating on Scripture as we read it and spend time with Him…
And let’s get into this rhythm of renewing our minds to that truth throughout out day by memorizing it or putting it on our phones and reading it often or whatever that looks like for you.