Jeffrey Heine: If you would open your Bibles to Deuteronomy chapter 5, sorry, chapter 6, Deuteronomy 6. And we'll begin reading in verse 4. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1. You shall love the lord your god with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart.
You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorpost of your house and on your gates. Pray with me. Lord, we want to hear from you tonight. Your words are life, and we need life.
So God, I do pray that simple prayer that my words would fall to the ground and blow away and your words would remain, and they would change us. We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. The Bible is the all time number one best seller. No other book even comes close.
I was looking and just in my study, I have about 15 different Bibles there. So, I'm keeping it up there as the number one bestseller. To do a little homework for this message, I just looked through the different types of Bibles out there for you in case you're interested. So let me just read through a few. There's the Spirit filled Bible, the Life and the Spirit Bible.
There's the Defenders Study Bible, the Survival Kit Bible, the Action Bible, the Adventure Bible, the One Minute Bible, which is just kind of sad. There's there's actually over 50 different types of 1 minute Bibles. There's this is not to be distinguished from the, 1 minute Bible. There's the Busy Life Bible, also the Busy Dad Bible, the Busy Mom Bible. Sorry, singles, there is not a Busy Singles or Busy Young Married's Bible.
If, if you happen to be the father of a girl, it's jackpot when it comes to Bibles. There is the Ballerina Bible, the Precious Princess Bible, the, God's Word for Girls Bible, the Girls Life Application Study Bible, the Joyce Meyer Everyday Life Bible Amplified version, the, Charles Stanley Life Principles Bible, the We're Wild About Horses Bible, Archaeology Bible. This is a new one, just came out. The Voice Bible, The Fire Bible, The Names of God Bible, The Serendipity Bible Bible, of course, the Veggie Tales Bible, the Abundant Life Bible, the Women of Faith Bible. Actually, if you are a woman, I mean, you you have a lot of Bibles for you.
There is the Bible basically for every man, woman, child, dad, husband, wife, study Bible you can imagine is out there. If you go to christianbookdistributors.com, you'll find over 57 100 different types of Bibles. 57 100 different types. Now I looked up just how many different makes and models there are of cars being sold in America today, and there is less than 450. Yet when it comes to Bibles, over 5,700.
So you should be able to choose a Bible. The problem isn't that Bibles are not out there. It's actually getting them off the shelf and reading them. I'm often asked by people to recommend to them a good book. And I always say, have you tried the Bible?
Have you tried the Bible? And they'll say, well, of course. And I say, and I say, I mean, do you really, I mean, read the Bible? And most people will confess, well, they kind of use the Bible as a supplement to maybe another book they're really reading for their spiritual nourishment. And I've noticed that many people who maybe they struggle with their worship, the first place they'll go is they'll try to find a book on worship and then maybe supplement it with their Bible or if they're struggling with prayer, they'll go find a book on prayer.
You've got to read this book on prayer and then maybe they'll supplement that with a little bit of the Bible. After all, you have to have some proof text for these books But when it actually comes to diligently studying the Bible, I I think this is a discipline that many people fall short on. People came to Jesus all of the time, and they would ask him questions. And over and over again, Jesus would respond by saying, have you not read? Have you not read the scriptures?
And so, when someone came to Jesus and asked him about the Sabbath in Matthew chapter 12, He said, have you not read what King David did? When Jesus was asked about divorce and remarriage in Matthew 19, He responded by saying, Have you not read that God created them male and female? When Jesus was asked about worship, He responded in Matthew 21 by saying, Have you never read, out of the mouths of infants and nursing babes, you have prepared praise for yourself? When Jesus was asked about the issue of the resurrection, also in Matthew 21, he responded by saying, did you not read that the stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone? When a lawyer asked Jesus about eternal life, he responded by saying, what is written in the law?
Tell me, how does it read to you? And so, over and over again, Jesus responded to people by asking simply, Have you not read? He's always pointing people to scripture. Now the interesting thing about this is, the people who he's dialoguing with usually were the scribes and the Pharisees. People who who knew scripture.
And He's asking them, have you not read? And and what He's saying is not, have your have your eyes ever come across this? It's, do you read in order to know god? Is that your goal in this? And not just what god has done, not what just what God has said, but do you read to hear what God is now saying to us?
Present tense. There's a big difference between the 2. If you grew up in church, yet now you find yourself struggling to read the Bible. It's probably because when you open up your Bible and your eyes go across certain verses, you think, man, I've read this. Man, I know this.
I know what this means. And you just get bored. And what's happening is you're reading what God said, but not what God is saying. Present tense, speaking to you. Let me tell you a bizarre story.
And when I mean bizarre, I mean it's out there. I hope this, this communicates. Years ago when I was doing college ministry, I was walking to my office and there, there was a man standing outside, very unusual looking man. As I got closer, I realized that he was a Native American Indian. And as I was walking up, and he said, are you Joel Brooks?
And I said, I am. And he said, I have a word from the Lord for you. I thought, great. Great. I I I was at a point in my life where I had, at the time, been dealing with a bunch of, crazy charismatics.
I consider myself charismatic, but these were crazy charismatics. They were on power trips or prophesying left and right, and none of it was true. And and so here comes this man to say that, and I was really kind of rude to him. And he said, Joel, you are highly favored from the Lord. And I said, we're all highly favored from the Lord.
He goes, you are highly favored from the Lord. And I have a word from the Lord for you. And, he said he was on a plane, flying here to Birmingham, and God said, you need to talk to a person named Joel Brooks when you get off the plane. So he got off the plane and he went to the person. He saw and said, Are you Joel Brooks?
And the guy said, No, but I know him. And, he goes, Well, will you take me to him? And so he he drove him to to my office where he was waiting outside. And he is telling me this, and he says, I believe that the Lord sent me here for this one purpose, and it is to give you this message. And so he's trying to communicate this to me, and I'm I'm just I'm still just kind of chip on my shoulder, and I stopped him.
I said, oh, okay. His name was Reggie Rabbit, by the way, and that kind of also threw me off. As Reggie Rabbott is trying to give me this word from the Lord, and I stop him and say, before you do anything, I just want to pray. And I say, Lord, if anything this man says is not true, may it come on him as a double curse. Amen.
And I said, alright, give me what you got. And so he spoke to me these these words, a word of warning of something that was coming my way and how the Lord was raising me up for a specific purpose for this here in in the city of Birmingham. And then he left, and I was never really nice to him. So I go back to my old boss who is, who does not believe in the gift of prophecy And this story. And as I'm sharing this with him, he gets very serious.
And, what do you think about that? Because I think you should listen to every word that man said. It's like, what, why? And he said, because Reggie Rabbott is the keynote speaker for Briarwood Presbyterian Missions Conference. He just spoke at Briarwood High School to the entire assembly.
He's good friends with Frank Barker, works in the PCA church. Got a great reputation. You should listen to everything he has to say. He doesn't do this lightly. And I was like, I was so rude to this man.
And I I just started thinking, alright. So, so god sent a man from, I think it was North Dakota to get on a plane, to fly here, to to find a Joel Brooks, to to give him this word, of of encouragement, to tell him that the lord has raised me up for this very particular task here. And and the reason I am telling you this, and I mean this in all truth, I I think probably people here long for a story like that. You want God to speak to you in that way. But in all honesty, I get more from reading scripture and having the spirit of God illuminate one little word or sentence than from that.
Yeah. I mean, yes, that was a, that was a cool experience. It was neat, and I could see how the, the man's words came true. No double curse coming his way. But the times that I have labored over scripture, and God's spirit is just breathe into this this one.
This is, do you see me here? There is nothing like that. As far as changing my heart and leading me into worship. I think, truly, you taste and you see that the lord is good. And so, I want to I want to share that with you that there is such power in his written word that when the spirit of God opens that up, it is transformative in a way that you just wouldn't expect.
Well, let's look at Deuteronomy again. Let's look at verses 45. This is called the Great Shema. It's what the Jewish people pray every day. Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is 1.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children. You shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise, you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.
Now, god could have just said, hey, remember these words. It's a lot shorter, to the point. Remember these words. But he lays out exactly how you're supposed to read and how you're supposed to remember these words. He says that you you need to put these words in your heart.
You need to talk about them constantly. You need to, you know, when you're laying down, when you're getting up, when you're walking, you need to always be talking about these things. It pretty much covers all of your life, lying down, walking, sitting, talking. But still, God's not done. He says, if you really want to put these words in your heart, you need to bind them as a sign on your hand.
You need to put them ever before your eyes. And then he goes on to say, And then you need to write them on your gates and on your doorposts, so that every time you leave your home, every time you come home, you're reminded of these words. And if this isn't enough, he says the exact same thing in Deuteronomy chapter 11. He later says pretty much the same thing in Joshua chapter 1. He's pounding these things home.
And so, you you get the idea, at least I hope you get the idea that this is just a little important to God. Now, what I'm going to say here is going to sound a little heavy handed, and I realize this. But I don't want to back down from this. When you read through Deuteronomy 6 here, does this describe the centrality of scripture in your life? Or does it describe something else in your life?
Is there anything else in your life that you talk about when you're sitting, standing, walking, driving? Is there anything else that you immediately check when you get up from bed or right before you go to sleep? Is there anything else that is a constant sign on your hand or is ever before your eyes? Is there anything else that you immediately read upon leaving your home or upon coming home? Is there anything else?
And I think the answer to that question is yes. Likely yes. And whether this is a chronic desire to always be checking your email, your Facebook, your phone, whatever it is. I think that so many of us fall short of putting God's word ever before us. We don't crave for his word like we crave for, you know, a friend like or something like that.
We don't crave it. And let me tell you what, the effects of this are devastating. Absolutely devastating in ways that are hard to even comprehend because we are so submersed in this culture. We begin to forget centrality and the supremacy of God in all things. Remember, in Deuteronomy 5 and in chapter 11 in Joshua 1, God is reminding a people who are about to go into a pagan culture.
He's like, you got to remember this. You got to read this. It's always gotta be in front of you because you're about to be put in another culture in which it's not. And you're going to forget that what's supposed to define you is not this culture. What is supposed to define you is the word of God, that you're my people.
That's who you are. And in order to do that, you have to put it ever before you because the culture is going to put everything else before you. And this is how this can play out, maybe a good way. I go to visit the Harpers. I just saw the Harpers here.
I go to visit you on the hospital after Eloese is born, and it's a great time. It's a time of rejoicing. It is, it's a really fun time. But it became it becomes so much richer, deeper, and it becomes an act of worship in the centrality of God when you, when I, when I remind myself of Psalm 139. I say, Lord, when I look at Eloese, you have formed her inward parts.
You have knitted her together in her mother's womb, and she is fearfully and wonderfully made. And when that scripture is there, what is a just an ordinary joyful moment now becomes worship. When you see the centrality of God in there. Or something that happens often, I see my 3 little girls and I see them all in pretty new dresses. And how can that not put a smile on your face?
You're like, your heart is beautiful. And and that's great. That's that's that should put a smile on anybody's face, whether you're a Christian or not. But it becomes worship to me when I reminded of James, like, father, every good and perfect gift comes from you. What a gift.
So good. Thank you, father of lights. And when I look outside our kitchen window, we have this bird feeder that's there. And so all the time we have these birds coming and it's just fun. It's cool seeing all these little different birds coming and going.
It's just an ordinary moment that can become a worshipful moment. When I think of Matthew 626, and I hear Jesus saying, look at the birds of the air. Look at them. They neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
And when I think of that, it becomes a time of worship. Okay. Now, all three of those those scenarios I just played out, in in American culture can be celebrated and joyful, but not worship. The word of God ever before us transforms those ordinary moments into a place where we see God is supreme, God is central, that from him, through him, and to him are all things, and it becomes worship. That's what the word of God does.
And we begin when we when we read the words all throughout the day, we begin to hear God presently speaking to us, not in the past, but in the present. This is what being filled with the Spirit looks like. In the Bible, being filled with the Spirit and being filled with God's word are synonymous terms. Okay? Being filled with the spirit, being filled with God's word are synonymous terms.
And this is why when we went through the study of Acts, I hope you notice that almost every time in Acts people were filled with the Spirit, they're quoting scripture left and right. In Acts 2, you know, Pentecost happens, they're filled with the Spirit, and they go out and Peter quotes Joel 2, Psalm 16, Psalm 110. Acts 4, just before they're filled with the Spirit, they go out and they're praying Psalm chapter 2. And I love Stephen, I mean, good grief. He gets up there and it says he's a man filled, full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and he walks through almost the entire Old Testament.
He quotes from Genesis, Exodus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, Psalms, Isaiah, and Amos, quotes from them. The man who is filled with the Spirit is filled with His Word. So, if you want us, if you want to live a spirit filled life, you have to to fill yourself with a word filled life. You see this, look in your, bullets in your worship guide there. You can see this when you compare Ephesians 5 and Colossians 3 side by side.
Ephesians 5 talks about being filled with the spirit. Be filled with the spirit, addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to the God, the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Colossians talks about let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. So let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing songs and hymns and spiritual songs, also with thankfulness in your hearts. I mean, these verses are almost identical with with the exception being one's talking about being filled with the spirit and the other is talking about letting the word of Christ dwell in you richly.
It's the same thing. This is what happens when you're filled with the spirit or you let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. And so if you wanna know the presence of god in your life, prayerfully know his word. Now, let me get practical. Turn to Psalm 119.
Even though we're about to get practical, I'm still gonna walk through scripture. Psalm 119. We'll begin reading in verse 28. All of Psalm 119 is about reading the word. My soul melts away for sorrow, strengthen me according to your word.
Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me your law. I have chosen the way of faithfulness. I set your rules before me. I cling to your testimonies, oh Lord. Let me not be put to shame.
I will run-in the way of Your commandments when You enlarge my heart. Just kind of walk through this. In a verse 28, my soul melts away for sorrows, strengthen me according to your word. We need to come to a place where we say, God, we need to be strengthened. We're failing.
My strength is failing. This is very similar to, verse 25 when it says, my soul clings to the dust. Give me life according to your word. And so, that's the starting place is I need life. I need to be strengthened.
And how do we get that? Give me your word. There's the desire. Verse 29. Put false ways far from me and graciously teach me Your law.
So after we come to an understanding that we need the Word of God in our life, now what we're going to do is we're going to start praying that we can remove away distractions. Remove false things. Remove time killers in our life that keep us from the word. And so we go through, we look at our daily life, what are things that are just killing my time? What are things that I chronically go to?
And I love it here. Notice that the psalmist doesn't say, he gets rid of them. Says, God, you do it. Because he realizes he's in bondage to these things. These things have him enslaved.
He's like, God, put these you, put these things away from me because I don't have the strength to do it. Change my desires graciously. Out of your grace, remove these things and begin to teach me. Then, we come to verse 30. I have chosen the way of faithfulness, and I set your rules before me.
So God, now, once, once these chronic distractions are gone, I put your word in front of me. I now have time to study, Time to hear from you. So, up to this point here, summary. God, I need you. I need life.
I'm clinging to dust. It comes through your word. So, I need that, okay? God, now put away all my distractions. I'm going to clear out some of my calendar.
I'm going to set aside a certain time and now, when that happens, now, I'm going to put your Bible in front of me. I'm going to set it in front of me and I'm going to study. I'm going to read and you're going to teach me. In verse 31 says, I cling to your testimonies, oh Lord. Let me not be put to shame.
Man, I love that phrase. I cling to your testimonies. That just means you treasure this time in this word. You're, you're clinging to it as if your life depended on it. You're treasuring this.
Then you get this odd phrase. Let me not be put to shame. Years ago when I was studying this passage for the first time, I was like, man, that's just, that's kind of out of left field. Let me not be put to shame. What, what is the psalmist here talking about?
And let me give another embarrassing illustration. I might get the point across. Many years ago, many, many years ago, I was in an exhibition basketball game in Atlanta, Cobb County Civic Center, and, I entered a slam dunk contest. I for 3 years in high school, I was obsessed with vertical leap. I wore the, the weighted vest.
I had the platform shoes. That's like all I did was I wanted to jump through the roof. And so, and and so I'm I'm at this little exhibition game there and there was a slam dunk contest at halftime and I entered my name and full confession here, I, I just thought people will be somewhat impressed because I'm 6 feet and I'm white. I really, I thought that, that they will be impressed that I can dunk. Well, they hand the ball to the first person.
He was about 6 foot 6. He, I I this is so vivid and it's always in slow motion in my mind. The person jumps and he does a 2 handed windmill and dunks it with such authority. It's unbelievable. And the entire place erupts.
They're going insane. And so then the ref gets the ball and he gives it to me. And I'm standing at midcourt and I look and I can still see the backboard is moving from he had dunked it so hard and my life was flashing before my eyes. And I was thinking, even my best dunk stink compared to this. I'm going to just nail the front of the rim.
I'm going to fall on my back. I've got nothing. And so I was, I was just kind of dribbling, and then I stopped and I handed the ball to the ref and I went and I sat back down. I did nothing. People began to boo me.
They were just booing. People were throwing things on the field, laughing so hard. And let me tell you, what I felt was shame. That's what I felt. Total shame.
I mean, I was just so embarrassed. I was like, oh my gosh. And this is why I felt such shame. It's like, all of my effort, all of my practice, all of my hard work, all of that, and I was nothing more than a joke when it came to this. A joke.
And I think that's the kind of shame that the psalmist is talking here. It's like, it's such a honest, honest cry. It's like, Lord, there's a lot of other things I could be doing. There's a lot of fun things over here. There's a lot of fun things over here.
You know, I'm gonna take time. I'm gonna humble myself. I'm gonna dig into the word. I'm I'm putting all of my eggs in this basket for my joy and for my happiness. Don't let me be put to shame, is it?
If after all of this work, all of this effort, people just look at me like, what a joke. Is there really not going to be joy in this? Am I really not going to be satisfied with this? That's what, that's what the psalmist is talking about. Such an honest cry here.
Lord, will you really meet me here when I do this? Then we come to verse 32. I will run-in the way of your commandments when you enlarge my heart. Man, I love that verse so, so much there. So the results of you putting aside distractions, praying the Lord gives you the desire and the ability to put away those distractions, putting the word before you, studying it as if your life depended upon it is this.
God enlargens your heart and he sets you running. Don't you love that? Your your heart becomes free. That's what the word literally means, liberty. Your heart becomes free, it, and now, it becomes so much larger they could take in more joy, more love, more worship, and it just sets you off running.
Some of, some of the laws that you read before that you just, you couldn't obey and you couldn't do, now, now you're given liberty, that you're given grace, now you're running in them. That's what happens. Now, is reading the Bible a discipline? Yes, but it's one that enlarges your hearts. I found this absolutely stunning, but you know, when Paul wrote Romans, which I still don't understand all of it, the audience he was writing to was largely uneducated gentile slaves.
I mean, it's the most complicated book in the Bible. It's got all through the it talks about all the Jewish scriptures and stuff in there, and he's writing to uneducated Gentile slaves and you know what? He expects them to get it because they are pouring themselves over scripture. And so, take time, read, don't give up. One of my favorite quotes comes from Martin Luther, and he wrote this down one time.
He says, I'm wrestling with Paul today. I love that. I'm wrestling with him. And he goes, and I will win. And I will win.
And what he means is like, I don't understand this now. So we're just, I'm just kind of hitting, I'm chewing, I'm wrestling, and I'm not gonna let go. I'm, I'm, I'm gonna keep going after this until God reveals himself to me. And some of us need to wrestle with the word. I pray, my prayer for us is Philippians, that our passion would grow in more and more knowledge and depth of insight.
That we would become a passionate people because we have seen God through his word. Pray with me. God, for those of us in here who were in bondage to some things, I asked that through your spirit, you'd free us. For those of us here who don't know we're in bondage to things, I pray that you would reveal that to us and you would free us. God, may our culture not be what defines us, but may your word define us so that every moment, every moment can become an act of worship so that we see that from you and through you and to you are all things.
We pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.