Vivi Diaz: This is the Sandals Church Podcast, a place for real people with real struggles learning to follow Jesus. Wherever you are right now, driving, working, or trying to make it through the day, we are really glad you're here. Let's get into today's message.
Claude Hickman: You know, I imagine we've all had a moment where we knew if if I don't prepare for what's coming up, I'm gonna miss out. And I'm maybe I'm gonna miss out on one of the greatest joys of my life, maybe something life changing. And I'm always reminded when I think of this of a friend of mine, Brian. It's a kid I discipled back when he was a college student. I actually ran into Brian this last weekend in Birmingham.
I was MCing a BMX event. He drove down for us to hang out. And we always laugh about when he was a freshman and he came to me and he said, Claude, I want you to help me. I wanna ask a girl out on a date. And I was like, okay, I'll I'll try to help you.
But I remember Brian as a freshman, he grew up as a missionary kid in Russia. He's a skinny, you know, kind of pale engineer, kind of nerdy. Was like, you're not ready, but I will help because I don't want you building a girlfriend, you know, so like, will help you with this. And he said, well, I wanna ask you how this girl Ivy, who's in my wife's Bible study. I was like, oh my gosh, are you kidding?
She is kind, you know, Christian, like Godly and she looks like, what's that Princess Jasmine, you know, from Aladdin? Like she looked like Princess Jasmine. I was like, I don't think you got a shot, but we're gonna do best. Well, I'll prepare you. And then she said, yes, which surprised me and Brian.
Now And we got a worse problem. I'm like, you are not ready for this. Like this is too quick. He's like, said, where are you gonna take her? Downtown at this restaurant.
Have you been downtown? No. Have you been to the restaurant? No. Have you driven in America?
No. I was like, do you have a car? He's like, no. I'm like, okay, first step, borrow a car, not mine, but borrow a car and then we're gonna need to study like the map of downtown because there's one way streets and you know, once princess Jasmine gets in the car with you, I know how guys are, your brain is just turns to and so we're gonna need to kind of study the map. And he's like, okay, I'll get a piece of paper, we'll draw it.
I was like, no, no, we're not. We're not drawing a map. This isn't a pirate treasure. We're gonna look at Google maps. I was like, Brian, have you ever heard of Google maps?
Somebody has driven down all these roads before you. Somebody has driven down every alley, every one way street, every dead end and they've left us a better map than you can come up with. But we're gonna study it because Brian, listen, your life, the life you want is in this map. And I got to do their wedding a few years later and I told that story of their wedding and I said, you know what engineers find a way to do the impossible. And that's what Brian did praise the Lord.
But listen, here's why I tell you that story because God wrote a book and this book is a map. It's a map to the life that you and I want. It's a map to everything that you really want. And it's crazy to me. It's kind of stupid to me that the world would say to you, draw your own map.
That's ridiculous. I don't wanna make my own mistakes. I wanna learn from others, right? Like I don't want to be the first one down this road when other people, wise people have been there before me. And by the way, you know, you can't fix your life with the map that broke it.
You need a new one. You need this one. And when Nehemiah brought God's people back, rebuilt the wall, knew that they were safe. Now we turn to a moment in that story where he says, what do they need? What do God's people need most right now?
And they need a new map. They had lost God's word. They had lost his wisdom. And that's when in the story of Nehemiah, he brings in the character we're looking at Ezra. And Ezra has his own book and the book of Ezra is kind of an autobiography biography.
It's weird because the first half of it, if you'll read it, you'll notice he talks in third person. Ezra did this, Ezra did this. But the second half of it, I start to notice things where then he says, but I gathered the people and I read from the book. And one of the last verses we get as he talks about what drove all this is Ezra speaking about himself in Ezra seven ten. Why did he do this?
Why was he such a great leader and cause all this change? It's because he resolved something in his heart. And Ezra seven ten says this, for Ezra, who else would know what Ezra said in his heart except for Ezra? So he's letting you know this is what I resolved to do in my life. Ezra had set in his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statues and rules in Israel.
He resolved. Just like we learned last week, man, there's something powerful about when men and women resolve. Maybe for you it's like Jordan Peterson, 12 rules for life, those are resolutions. If you're my age, you think of Stephen Covey, the seven habits, highly effective people. I always think of a famous 19 year old Christian who sat down and wrote 70 resolutions.
His name's Jonathan Edwards, and they're amazing. But something powerful happens when men and women resolve and set their heart to godly things. In fact, I think God doesn't do some things in history until there's a man and woman who resolves to see it done. And man, can I say this? I believe that when we resolve things for God, we get a special power from God to do them.
Can I say that again? When you make resolutions for God, you get a special power from God to do it. And so this week I wanna talk, I wanna challenge us in resolution number one as a church. And it's this, to be a lifelong learner of God's wisdom and his word. Would you make a resolution to become a lifelong learner of God's word?
Because if you don't, guess what? You're gonna make the wrong turns. You're gonna hit the dead ends and some of are gonna drive off a cliff. We need this map. God left us a map, a book.
So I'm gonna give you three tools that in my life, these have been the most helpful things in learning and being a lifelong learner of God's word. Can I do that really quick? The first one is this, you're gonna love this. Read through all of the Bible. Commit to read through all of the Bible.
Now there weren't so many amens just now and that, okay? If you're a new Christian, you're like, what's the big deal? You know, I'm trying to do that maybe. If you're an older Christian, bet you felt a little convicted, didn't you? Because I think many of us have read a lot of the Bible.
We've read some of our favorite parts over and over. But there's something about reading all of God's word, all of it. I wanna make better decisions. I don't know about you, Psalms one nineteen says this, the word of the Lord, the word is a lamp and a guide to my feet, a light for my path. You know, the Bible has 800 stories of men and women just like you and me.
And it's what I love about the Bible is it's real. It doesn't hide their mistakes. It doesn't hide where they went wrong. It shares that wisdom with you so you don't have to make those same mistakes. And all of the Bible is relevant.
I know there's parts we're tempted to skip and we think are boring, but men listen, every word of God to us is relevant. Second Timothy three sixteen says this, all scripture, how much of it? All scripture is breathed out by God. And listen, it's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting. If you're a parent, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
And speaking of parenting, I didn't feel equipped for that. I talked about that earlier this year. I was like, man, I was not ready, but I realized knowing the Bible helped me know how to parent young kids because I could connect the Bible to their life. I could connect God's truth and wisdom to real scenarios in their life. And what's great is the Bible's like the Daffy Duck version of every story.
And you know, there's something awesome about listening when people fail. And young people, mean, even me, I learn from people's mistakes. And the Bible is, man, it's a highlight reel of not just victories, but wisdom for us. You have to resolve this on your own though. Let me say this, no church and no preaching style can do that for you.
You know, we spent how long in Matthew? Like a year and a half in one book. So I don't care what church you try to switch to or what preaching style you like, no church can do this for you. You have to resolve. I am gonna be a person that reads all 66 books of God's word.
And that might sound like overwhelming to you, but I would say, man, you just have to start. I got two boys and men, boys sit on the couch, like your kids and we want them to touch grass. And so we are just like, we'll spend money, anything. We bought weights, we bought bikes, we did swim lessons. I mean anything to get them to go outside.
But I get it though because as soon as we open our door here in Riverside, it's like the nuclear bomb scene from Terminator two, right? Yeah, So I get it. So one day we're sitting around our living room and they're all in their screens, know, and all of a sudden my son, Aiden, he pops up, he puts his screen down, he pops up off the couch and he walks over and puts on his shoes. And it was like looking back, it was like an act of rebellion. He didn't say a word.
Puts on his, he's got on jeans, vans, he opens the door, he takes a big drink of water and he opens the door. Remember Terminator two, right? He opens the door. He goes out and he starts running. And so me and little brother, we'd run to the window.
We're like, what in the world is going on? And we're watching him like two laps, three laps. He runs four laps around our neighborhood, comes back in. He's like, you know, those twelve minutes, you know, twelve minute mile. He's like tomorrow I'm gonna try to do it 11.
You know, and he did. He ran it every day in his jeans. Okay, every day. Now he's running 10 miles. Like right this morning, right now, he's running 10 miles.
And you know, I say, what got into you? You know, like what got into your brain? He's like, man, just, this was earlier series like, man, this summer, I just wanted to be in shape. Wanted a preferable future for myself. And something happened in his brain and he just got started.
He still wears jeans sometimes, but Proverbs four:seven says this, maybe this is encouraging to you. The beginning of wisdom is this, just get wisdom. Just get started somewhere. Though it costs you all you have, get understanding. Do you know, you can read the entire Bible in a year if you just read thirty minutes, three times a week.
Do you know that's all it takes? Thirty minutes, three times a week, you'd finish in a year. Now let me be honest with you, I've never read the Bible in a year. I'm the worst at the one year Bible reading plans. I hate mainly because I don't like being told what to do, all right?
But I've never finished the Bible in a year. But what I've done that has helped me, and I was reminded that literally this morning, I went to my shelf and I pulled off a Bible and I said, this is all, when I was in college, these are all the proverbs and I categorized them into categories. And I kept going, I read through the whole Bible. Then another one I pulled off and it's all the commands of the Bible. And it took me a couple of years, all the commands of the Bible.
Then I pulled off another one. And it's all the time God cares about the nations, the internationals, all peoples, every tribe, the world took me three highlighters to get through that Bible. Then I did one about five, six years ago, real with self God and others, three colors, three things. And you know, I realized, man, it's been so good to have something driving me to read through the entire scripture and look through and and find a specific thing. Also decided at one point I was gonna read the whole Bible because at some point I realized like, you know, we're gonna run into some of these people.
I don't if you ever thought about that. Heaven's a long time. You know what I'm saying? Like, eventually you're gonna walk up and there's gonna be three guys there and they're like, Adam, oh my gosh, what were you thinking? Peter, you know?
I feel like me and you, Peter, like we're bros. And then the guy's gonna turn around and I'm He's like, I'm Obadiah. Cool. He's gonna go, you didn't read it, did you? I'm like, no, man.
It's like it was one chapter. That's all. It's just one chapter. Nobody knows who he is. I treat my Bible sometimes the way I viewed going to the gym.
You know, some people love going to the gym. Some of you love going to the gym a little too much, right? But man, sometimes when you first start doing stuff like that, it's like a delight. You know, you see results immediately. You're like, dude, this is awesome.
And then it moves. Maybe you've been a Christian for a while. Maybe when you first became a Christian man, reading the Bible is a delight and you saw immediate results. You're like, this is amazing. But I think for many of us, it moves from delight to duty.
We're reading, but it feels like we're checking the boxes. We're doing our duty, we're journaling. And I think for, I would guess for many in our church, this is kind of where you're at. That we need to recommit, restart our love for God's Word. You know what drove me to the gym?
It wasn't delight. It wasn't duty. It's because I turned 50 and I had pain. And I was like, man, is this fixable? You know, and I've realized in my spiritual life, there are times I went from delight to duty to what I would call desperation.
Because I was experiencing the pain of being a dad and feeling like a failure as a dad. I was experiencing the pain of feeling like a failure as a husband, failure as a leader. And there's gonna be seasons where you may go to the Bible out of desperation. And then I started working out, you know what? At first my body made crunching sounds like it wasn't easy.
Sound like broken glass somewhere over here, you know? But man, what's crazy is over time the body's fixable. Can I tell you something else? Man, anger is fixable. Lust is fixable.
Not perfection, but it's fixable. Fear is fixable if you resolve to study God's word. Now let me ask you this, how many guys own a smartphone? Anyone own a smartphone? Okay, If you have it, you probably have it with you or you at least know where it is right now.
Like I'm always highly aware of where my phone is. I think that's probably because I'm addicted to it. I don't know if that's one of the signs. I've realized that even when I get out of my car to get gas, I will like leave the door open. You know, I don't know why my phone's in there.
I don't know what scenario I think is gonna happen where the door, you know, the wind blows the door shut, I'm locked out and all of a sudden I die, you know, like, but that phone is everything. And I'm a little, it's probably PTSD because a long time ago I was lost in the woods and I didn't have my phone. I went camping with a bunch of my friends. It was like 500 acres of forest and I got lost from them and I had no smartphone, no iPhone. So dude, I didn't have GPS.
I couldn't call them. I couldn't call 911. I couldn't text. I didn't have find my friends, maps, a compass, a flashlight. I couldn't email Bear Grylls and ask how to survive.
You know what saying? I couldn't even post about it and complain about it, right? Do you feel the anxiousness that I was feeling right there? Good, because it was 1993 and the iPhone wouldn't be existed, know, and exist for fifteen years. That's how we all felt back then, okay?
That's why your parents felt all the time. That's why every time we go somewhere we ask, is there gonna be a bathroom and where are we gonna park? Because it was like the wild West. Second Peter says this, by his divine power, God has given you everything you need. Everything you need is not in that smartphone.
It's in this book. But let me tell you this, God's wisdom is a tool that's only helpful if you have it with you when you need it. Let me say that again. God's wisdom is a tool. It's only helpful if you have it with you when you need it.
And there's only one way to have God's word with you all the time and it's to memorize it. It's one of the best habits that I started as a Christian. I don't know any mature Christian who doesn't have many scriptures memorized hidden away in their heart. So resolution kind of number two under this, I want us to commit to this, to stockpile God's wisdom by memorizing scripture. Why do I say stockpile?
Because man, I want you to be like a prepper. You know, it's about to bug in for the winter, like stockpile God's wisdom, hide it away in your heart. Deuteronomy 11 says this, fix these words of mine in your hearts and your minds, not in your desk, not in your phone, fix them in your hearts and in your minds, memorize them. Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads, teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit down at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up, write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates, your life, three sixty degrees of your life have God's word there and in your heart. You know what?
When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, He didn't have time to pull up His My Bible app, His Sandals Church app. He quotes scripture from memory. All actually from Deuteronomy, just like it says, it's probably because His parents obeyed Deuteronomy 11 and taught him to hide God's word in his heart. Solomon teaches his son. Proverbs three says this, My child never forget these things I've taught you, store my commands in your heart.
If you do this, you will live many years and your life will be satisfying. You want a long and satisfying life? Okay, if you raise your left hand and if you want a long and satisfying life, I want you to raise your left hand, just leave it right here. Okay, you want a long and satisfying life. Now, if memorize scripture, raise your right hand too.
Okay, if you don't have your right hand up, I want you to reach over your left hand. Now I just want you to put it down, okay? That's what Proverbs is saying. You want a long and satisfying life, man hide God's word in your heart. And I know man, you guys are like, I can't do that, man.
Listen, you have so many useless facts and baseball stats and I mean addresses and people's names and phone numbers. I mean I could quote almost all the dumb and dumber. Why is that in my brain? I don't know. I know songs, I know the words of songs I don't even like.
Like songs that I hate that get stuck in my head. Like if you can do that, you can memorize scripture. John Piper says this, we memorize scripture the way an ant gathers food in the summer, knowing it's valuable and it will be needed in the winter. You need it. You need a stockpile it.
If there's a sin that's defeating you, man memorize scripture around that sin. David said this, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. You want one to start with? Job 30 one:one, I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a woman. It's a good one to start with.
If you struggle with fear, Psalms 56, when I am afraid, I will trust in you in God whose word I praise. Begin to stockpile God's word in your heart. Memorizing does that, it allows me to take it with me, but it also makes me slow down. And there's something really powerful that happens when we slow down and think about the words that God has spoken to us. Every word, why is it there?
Then the Bible, it begins to speak. It's living and active and it begins to speak back to us. We're in a season right now, my wife and I, where our oldest just graduated from high school. Any empty nesters in here? We got a little taste of being an empty nester this year because literally a week after he walked the stage of high school, he packed up and we sent him to this discipleship project where he kind of moved out and moved in for seven weeks, he was gone.
And so there's a lot of transition going on. I realized, man, mom and dad handle this whole thing very differently. Okay. You know, dad, you know, when the kids move out, dad's, I'm like relieved. You know, I'm like, we did it.
We finished. You know, we got to the finish line. You know, he's like his decisions are on him now. Like he's independent. Mom handles it totally different.
She was sad, but I also realized there was a lot of doubt. Like, did we do enough? Like, did we prepare him to walk with God in this world? And it was right during that week that he was moving out that I was at a retreat and we were asked to meditate and spend time on Ecclesiastes three. And the very first verse says this, there is a time for everything under the heavens, time to live, a time to die, and a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted.
And for some reason that phrase stuck out to me, a time to plant and a time to uproot what is planted. And God began to speak. This whole summer, man, we've been repopulating succulents around our house is the only thing we can keep alive. Amen. And it's like free money and we're cheap.
So we're populating succulents. And God spoke to me that moment and said, you know what? What if uproot doesn't mean death? It means multiplication. And God said, man, you have planted your son in God's word.
You've planted him in this church. You've planted him in godly community. And now we're uprooting him. He's not dying. He's going to a bigger pot.
He's going to better soil where he can multiply, where he can touch other people's lives in the world. And I texted my wife and when I did not have words for her, God had words for us. When we slowed down. You go, man, how do I hear from Jesus like that? Like I wanna hear from God like that.
Christians call this meditating, meditating on God's word. So number three, the best habits I've started is memorizing scripture and then slowing down and meditating on every word. This is what Joshua one:eight says, This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that's written in it. Then you will be prosperous and you will have success. I memorized it in a different version.
I don't know what that says, but sorry. You know, the world is the really the opposite of this, isn't it? The world, you know, I've realized my brain has almost been untrained to meditate on things. I don't like to sit in emotions very long, swipe. I don't like to sit in your emotions very long.
Right? I mean have you you tried to just sit and listen to somebody lately? How much do you wanna go, okay, let's let's swipe past this. I mean, I guess it's funny, but not if it's you. Not if it's your story.
I mean, are you missing? What are we missing by having our brain trained to swipe so quickly through things? We're missing God's voice. So I have to force meditation into my time in the Bible. And I use a tool called the inductive Bible study method.
And it's actually very simple. I just read through a passage and look for seven things, which means I'm gonna read it maybe seven to 10 times. And I just read through and I look for descriptions of God or man. I look for repetitions, man. I love counting things and adding up and how many times in the book of John, does he talk about believe 98 times in the book of John.
I look for contrast between God and us or other things, comparisons, commands, warnings, promises. Men, what if you began reading through the Bible and just looking for all the promises of the Bible? Imagine having that on your shelf to go to. Imagine what God would say to you as you slow down and meditate through, look for those things. Psalms one, two and three says this, But the righteous delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night.
They're here again, like trees planted among the riverbank bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all they do. You hear that theme? They prosper, they're secure, they're nourished, they flourish. This is the map to the life that you want.
And most of all, this is a map, to God's son who kept these commands when we couldn't. It leads us to him. It leads us to him. And when we find him, we not just find someone who saves, we find somebody who speaks. I memorized this verse in college, John fourteen twenty one, whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me.
And he who loves me will be loved by my father and I will love him. But listen to this last part, I will love him and I will disclose myself. I will show myself to him. Jesus wants to not just save you, he wants to speak to you. You can experience a miracle when you open this book.
When you open this book, it is a portal to the voice of God in your life. It's a miracle. It's a miracle he communicated with us at all. But to have a book of His words. It's not everything He wants to say, but it's all we need.
When Rebecca and I were first dating, we went two separate ways one summer. She was at a discipleship project in Florida and I was 6,000 miles away in Ukraine. I could have might as well been on Mars. It was like 1997. We didn't have email.
We didn't have any way to talk for ten weeks and I was dying. You know, she's in Florida, she's with all these fraternity and sorority guys. I picture it's like a Calvin Klein commercial, you know, going on there. I'm in Ukraine eating borscht with Vladimir, you know, and I'm like, She's gonna forget about me. Like, I've got to find a way to talk to her.
And so literally, like there is one portal in the train station downtown, like Kharkov, Ukraine. And I go there and I'm like, man, for me to get ahold of her, there's like four miracles that got to happen. And so I spent a mucho amount of money. I'm not even gonna tell you how much money to buy ten minutes for this call to America. And so four miracles got to happen.
The first is the phone has to work because it's Russia, you know, basically Ukraine. So And I call the hotel that she's at in Florida, rings 40 times. I'm like, no. Finally, desk person picks it up. I'm like, I'm calling from Russia.
Can you transfer me to this number 425? So she transferred me. That's miracle number two. Then it rings 20 times. I'm like, no.
And then it picks up. It's like, this is Ashley. That's still miracle number three, but not who I was going for. I'm like, Ashley, this is Claude. I'm calling from Russia.
I didn't want to explain the difference between Russia and Ukraine right then to an American, you know. I'm like, can you get Rebecca? She's like, oh yeah, let me go. And then thud. And I'm just waiting, right?
I'm like, you know, and Vladimir is like, this is stupid idea. You know, he's there with me. And then I hear a commotion and I hear the phone get picked up. This is Julie. I'm like, Julie, I'm calling for Rebecca, calling for Russia.
She's like, oh, what's Russia like? You know, I'm like, they eat fish jello. Okay, not now Julie, like go get rush, you know, go get Rebecca. So she goes, and you know, when you're watching the world cup and you kinda never know when the time's gonna run out. Well, I'm watching the clock and I watch my time run out.
But then I hear it. From across my universe, I hear this high small voice say this is Rebecca. And I said, Rebecca, I miss you so much. And she said, Claude, I miss click. Now I had a lot more to say, but I don't know how to tell you how important that moment was, how much I needed that that summer.
Listen, God found a way. He found a way through time and eternity. He found a way through spiritual to physical because he loved you. He didn't say everything an infinite God can say, but he gave you enough for this life. Will you resolve to set in your heart again?
God restart us, not even from duty or desperation, but God restart our heart back with delight to delight in your word. Would you resolve to become a lifelong learner? In God's wisdom? Let's pray that together. God, thank you for your word.
We've forgotten how desperately we need it. Allow us God to delight in it again. You found a way, not just to save us, but to speak to us what we need most. God, we wanna renew our hearts to a lifetime study of your word. God, give us the resolve to fill our hearts and our minds with all of your truth.
And it's in Jesus name we pray. Amen.