Am I a Student of the Word? | Who Am I

We've been part of a Who Am I series, and it's Who Am I? And so the question that we want to address this morning is, am I a student of the Word? Not just am I a reader of the Word, am I a student of the Word? And there's a difference. Like I said, I just came back from Egypt last month, and there's lots of tourists who go to Egypt and they take selfies and pictures, they have lots of memories, they have lots of experiences, but they really don't know Egypt. They're not aware of the history, the time, the culture, the things that made them what they were way back in the day. Same way with the Bible. A lot of people come to the Bible and they hear it on Sunday mornings, they may hear it on the radio, little snippets, they may even read it from time to time, but they really don't know it well. And so I have an illustration here. So for a lot of people, they have the Bible or they know about the Bible, but what happens is they open up the pages of God's Word and it's blank. It's just blank pages to them. And so they don't really see anything or they don't really ever expose themselves to it. Now, some have a little bit of exposure. They maybe grew up around it in church or maybe with parents or grandparents or somebody like that. And they had some vague memories, some vague outlines of what's going on in the Bible, just little snippets here and there. And so they have that kind of awareness. But for a student of the Word, somebody who really knows, the Bible comes in living color. And so it's now the passages of the Scripture really pop out because they know the Bible more than just a surface level kind of understanding. So I know some of you are just amazed about that. But don't miss the point. The point is, are you a student of God's Word? And so there's an outline that I want to share with you this morning, and that's the three things I want to cover today. And so the outline here, we can put that up on the screen. I want to talk about the purpose. Why should we become a student of the Word? And we're going to see why we should study it at all. And then what's the posture that we should have with what should we come to the word as we open it and study it and read it? What's the heart attitude? And then lastly, I want to get into some really clear practical examples of how you can practice, how you can become a student of the word. And there's lots of different ways. I'm just going to share several of those with you this morning. So let's get into point number one, and that is the purpose. Why should we become a student of God's word? Why study it at all? And here's our passage for this point. Got a very familiar passage, but I wanna break it down to you that really, I think, will cinch this truth for us, why we wanna study God's word. So what's the passage? And how from childhood, Paul's writing to Timothy, you have been acquainted with the sacred scriptures, which are able to make you wise through salvation, through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and is, here's the things, it's profitable. It's profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and training in righteousness. Why? That the man of God, the woman of God, the person of God may be complete, whole, equipped for every good work. So right there, 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 really gives us why we should become a student of God's word. And so the Bible is profitable. And so many of you are involved in trying to maximize your financial portfolio. You want more money in your bank to pay your bills. So you want return on your investment. Well, what's the return on investment if you become a student of the word? Well, here's the return on investment. Here's what it's profitable for. It gives us four things that it's profitable for. Number one, it is profitable for teaching. What I like about this is that means teaching you what is right. So if somebody's teaching you, like I've taught generations of students at Moody, Pastor Carl has taught us, we're hopefully getting good teaching that's right, because that's what you expect from a teacher. You want things that come from their lips, come from their lives, to be right, to tell you what's right. And so that's what God's Word tells us to do. It tells us what's right, gives us right doctrine, It gives us right living. It tells us right attitudes. It gives us everything that we should be that helps us to be right. And so that's what number one, we expect that. We expect God's word to be giving us what is truthful, what is right. It's teaching. But what does it also do? Number two, it is profitable for reproof. We like the first part because we like the positive. But the Bible also, if we're a student of the word, tells us what's wrong. What's wrong in our thinking? What's wrong in our attitudes? What's wrong in our actions? And so it reproves us. We feel rebuked because we're not living what is right. And so the Bible tells us what's right, but it also gives us the other side. It tells us what's wrong. And sometimes that's hard. And so one of the things as a teacher, I have to challenge students for wrong thinking, for wrong writing. And so I have to get out my red pen for verbally now, it's all now in digital, but I have to get out my red pen and mark where the students are wrong. And that's what God's word does as well. We don't like to hear that, but it does tell us where we're falling short of what is right. And so the Bible tells us what's right, but it also tells us what's wrong. And so it's got those two prophet statements. But then number three, it tells us, and this is the beauty of it, it tells us what's right, tells us what's wrong, but if we get it wrong, it just doesn't say bad, bad, bad, bad, bad. What does it do? Next, it tells you what? It's useful for correction. Now, what is correction? Well, when you got it wrong, which we just talked about, it tells you how to get it right. It tells you what you need to do to change course. Just on Friday, I was driving with my wife. We were going down to the University of Chicago to the Isaac Museum with some of my colleagues, and we were coming back, and I made a wrong turn. I went wrong. So I had to follow GPS to make sure that I got back on course. so the bible is like that gps device in your car when you make a wrong turn what does it do it starts to make corrections so that you start to turn your life and go in the right direction and so god's word is useful for correction and so it's not telling you just what's right what's wrong but if you go wrong it tells you what how to get it right how to change course That's the beauty again of God's word. But lastly, in terms of the profitable part of God's word, of being a student of God's word, it tells us it's useful for training in righteousness. It tells us how to keep it right. So isn't this beautiful, what God's Word does? If we're a student of the Word, if we truly are a student of the Word, it tells us what's right, what's wrong, if we get it wrong, how to get it right, and then it tells us what? Training in righteousness, how to keep it right. Now, we just kind of had a wit way about the Winter Olympics. You think any of those athletes just started to take up their sport just last week? They had to do what? Train, so that when they come to the event, they know exactly what to do because what? They've been told what to do, you know, what kind of position when that ski jumper comes off that huge thing, the form, the position, and then I'm sure they've had situations where they've gone wrong and tumbled down the hill, and somebody's corrected them and say, well, you tilted in this direction wrong, Here's what you do. You tilt this way instead of that way. You lean into it instead of away from it. And then training, practice, practice, practice. And that's what it means to be a student of God's word. If you are a student of God's word, where you're continually allowing it to wash over you and your mind and your thinking, it will tell you what's right, what's wrong, how to get it right, and how to what? Keep it right. So you will be what? Here's the purpose of it all. The purpose is that you can be complete. You can be whole. And so it's purposeful to make you, yes, this completeness and wholeness, but also equipped. So it's a training manual. We just read about training in righteousness. And so this is now, you're going to be a perfect, not in the sense of 100% perfection, but you're whole, you're complete. You have everything you need for maturity as a child or a daughter of God. And that's what God's word. So that means we need to be a student of God's word. If it's got those prophet statements, what's right, what's wrong, how to get it right, how to keep it right, but then it leads somewhere. It's not just about the mind, but it's also about what? That you can become complete. God has wired us to have this body of knowledge that is always informing, shaping us, kind of making us who we should be as a child of God. But then it also does what? It equips us. We're here for a reason. We're here left on earth not to just study God's word for ourselves, but to do what? to equip others as well. And so that's what Paul is telling Timothy to do. That's the whole book of Timothy. He's giving him guidelines for what ministry is going to be like. And that includes, utmost, the Word of God. And so if you are to be a complete whole believer, you need to have the Bible constantly coming through your mind and through your lips and through your hands and through your feet so that you can then be equipped for whatever calling God has you to do, whether it's in ministry or whether it's in the home or whether it's in the workplace or whether it's in the neighborhood or wherever. You can be equipped for every good work. That's what God's word can do. So what does it do? It has purpose, it has profit. But number two, it also has what? What's the attitude that we should have as we come to God's word? And so the ultimate purpose then with all of this that we've just talked about is spiritual transformation. We talk a lot about discipleship here at 180. And being a disciple really means you're a scripture consumer. You are constantly engaging God's Word, and not just on Sunday mornings, as great as that is. It's not just listening to it whenever you can. It's listening, reading, studying it for your own, on your own time, in your own way. And we'll talk about how you can practically do that later. And so it's for spiritual transformation and service. But what's the posture that we should come with? With what should we come to God's word? And I just absolutely love this passage of scripture. What's the hard attitude we need as we even begin to live out what it is to be a student of God's word? This passage is in the preface of a book because I think it really encapsulates what I want to do personally and what I want others to do as they come to God's word. Listen to Isaiah chapter 66, verses 1 and 2. The last chapter of the book of Isaiah, this great book of the Old Testament, and here's how it concludes. Thus says the Lord. That's something for us to pay attention to. We're wrapping down this great book of Isaiah, and here's what he wants to really draw home with the readers. Heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool. What is the house that you would build for me? And what is the place of my rest? Now, what's going on here? Why is this question being asked? Well, people, of course, want to give something back in response to the God of the universe. And so Isaiah here, this passage is anticipating what can we give back to the God of the universe who created it all? And sometimes people think, oh, just a little token, a little sacrifice, maybe a little lamb every once in a while in the Old Testament, or maybe a little in the offering plate as it comes by. That's all the Lord requires. Heaven is my throne, the earth is my footstool, he says. I mean, I made it all. What is the place of my rest? What is the house that you will build for me? I liken it to when you were growing up, and you celebrated Christmas, and your parents gave you all sorts, well, you thought it was Santa, but it was really your parents giving you all sorts, oh, sorry, spoiler alert. They gave you all sorts of gifts. What would you give to your mom and dad on Christmas when you're four or five or three? could you possibly give? They provided the house. They provided your meals. They provided your bed, your clothes. They provided everything you ever needed. What on earth could you give back to them? They gave it to you all. That's really the background behind this. What could you give the God of the universe? That's a good question, right? Now, I have here what I remember giving to my parents on Christmas. A tinfoil ball with a pipe cleaner as an ornament they could put on the family tree. Okay? What else could a three-year-old, four-year-old kid do, right? That's the best I could do. Now, maybe it wasn't the best, but it was the easiest and the quickest way I could at least do something. Now, of course, mom and dad would do what? Smile, kind of, oh, that's nice. Put it on the tree next to the other specially made ornaments. But you get the point. You get the point. What can we give to the God of the universe? And I think that's a very important question. What can we give back to the God of the universe? Well, here's what we can do. Here's the right response, and it helps us with our passage and our message this morning. All these things my hands have made, and so all these things came to be, declares the Lord. I made it all. But to this one is the one I will look. You want to give something back to the Lord? Here's what you do. He who is humble, contrite in spirit, and I love this last one, trembles at my word. That's the best gift that you can give back to the God of the universe. These are spiritual formation traits, aren't they? These are traits that are gonna have to develop when you come exposed to God's word, as you're a student of God's word. And so a student of God's word, I think has these three traits. And quickly this morning, first of all, they come humbly. First of all, we have to admit that we don't know everything. We already talked about what the Bible is useful for, it's profitable for, what's right, what's wrong, how to get it right, how to keep it right. And yet what? We need to come and acknowledge that we need that information, that we need that kind of instruction, that we need that kind of reproof. We need that kind of correction and need that kind of training. That means we need to first of all come with humility. So that's the first stance. That's the posture that's going to help us become a true student of God's word. God, you have spoken. You have given us all of this. I better pay attention to it. I better not just be all about what I want. I better not be all about what I'm concerned about. I better be listening to you. That's humility because you have to listen to somebody else. Because sometimes we like to dominate the discussion when he says, no, I've already spoken, will you listen to me first? That takes humility. It also then means you don't come presumptuously. You come on your knees, appreciative, aware that the God of the universe has spoken. Secondly, they come with a contrite heart. They come with brokenness. Folks, these are some of our DNA traits here. Humility, realizing that we are broken people, we are messed up, we come with all sorts of dysfunctionality on so many different levels, and we need to be contrite. And so we come with the contrite spirit, not a defensive one, where we're trying to justify our thinking, our actions, our habits, sinful ones they may be. No, we have to come with humility, and we have to come contrite, saying, hey, I've messed up. And I know I messed up. I own that. But then it's this last one that I really want to focus on. They come with a trembling heart. their heart beats when God speaks. When God's word is revealed to them through their own study, through their own reading, through listening to it, perhaps in an audio fashion, their heart is starting to beat with the same heartbeat. And that's really my goal. Whenever I open up God's word personally, I want my heartbeat to start beating with the same heartbeat of the word of God. And so I have to be humble, I have to be contrite, and I have to listen. And so that's really what God wants. Remember, this is the God of the universe. What could we give him? Well, we can give him the fact that we can study his word, we can become a student of his word, and part of that is, hey, we need to be humble and recognize there's a lot I need to know about this world, about God, about how I can live this life. And then I need to acknowledge I'm broken and I need this information. I just can't make it on my own. I've tried on my own and I've messed up. So I need to be contrite about that. But then also I need to say, Lord, I want my heartbeat to beat with the exact same rhythm as yours. To tremble when you speak. I'm all ears. I want to listen to what you have to say. And it's not just listening, it's what? Living it out. It says, the first song we sang this morning, thank you, worship team, again. I'll take you at your word. You said it, I'll believe it. We sang it with our lips. Do we really believe that this morning? Do you live and act that out in your own lives? So we come trembling. So that is the posture that we should have. Humility, contriteness, and a trembling heart. Lastly this morning, I want to talk about some very simple things you can do as a practice. But we need to see what the Word of God says about this. One of the best passages in the Scripture comes from the Old Testament, from Ezra chapter 7. So let's listen to Ezra chapter 7, verse 10. This is Ezra, a scribe. He's a confidant, a companion of Nehemiah. Ezra set his heart, this is Ezra 7.10, to study the law of the Lord, to do it, again it's study it and to do it, and to teach his statues in Israel. So this is what I call total person training. When I first was at the seminary, our dean developed our whole curriculum around this whole total person training. And Ezra 7.10 was our theme verse. Why? Because it's about being. Ezra set his heart. You have to set your affections. It's about who you are, your being. But then it's also about knowing. It's not only just your being, your attitudes, your response, but it's also about knowing things. There's some knowledge things that we have to do. So you have to study God's word. And then you have the doing part. And so you get trained, you get to do what's right, then you get some correction and some reproof along the way, but hopefully you're training in this thing so that what? You can do it over and over again. And then, this is what Paul was writing to Timothy about too, right? Passing that on to others. If you want to be equipped for every good work to help others in this journey, because that's part of the whole goal of being collectively a part of a body of believers, is that we're encouraging one another on this path as we become deeper students of God's word. And this is part of that practice. And so to teach it. And so this is the thing. Now, a little aside here. I'm going to lead a trip to Israel with Carl in November. And one of the things we do is we go to Jerusalem and we can actually see a portion of Nehemiah's wall. And we can see that and be, again, amazed at little portions of that when we read about the whole book of Nehemiah is there. But in my estimation, we as an evangelical church have focused far too much just on Nehemiah. Now, Nehemiah is great. He helped rebuild the walls of Jerusalem during a time when it was under disrepair. He built the walls. A needed project, to be sure. But Nehemiah was joined hand in hand by Ezra. Now more people know more about Nehemiah and they get all excited about building and all those kind of things. But we should be even more excited about what Ezra's doing. Because you know what Ezra's doing? He's building the people. And how is he building the people? Teaching them the word of God. You read Nehemiah chapter eight. I encourage you to read Nehemiah chapter eight. Ezra stood up and the people listened all day to the book of the law. Their hearts were trembling. Ezra was building the people. Nehemiah, the walls, they still fell in disrepair. But the people, that lasts forever if you build in the people. And Ezra was doing that. And so he was doing this total person training. His heart was in the right place. He has set his affections on it to study the word of God. He was knowing the right things and then he was doing it and then he's teaching it. That's the whole plan right there. But it all starts with that right heart attitude. He set his affections on becoming a student of God's word. So I want to talk about some very practical steps here before we close about what you can do. And this is really the back stop, why I wrote this book, 14 Fresh Ways to Enjoy the Bible. Because I found a lot of people They really enjoy the Bible. They know a little bit about the Bible, but they don't know how to really get into it with much depth. And so what I did is I just put together 14 fresh ways, simple techniques you can practice, you can follow, that helps you get more out when you read God's Word. So that's great. You have to start with reading God's Word, but to become more than just a reader, you have to become a student of it and live it out. Well, how do you get from what you read into living it out? And these are simple techniques that you can put into practice. But at the end of the book, I put together a number of very simple Bible reading guidelines that can help you. And I'm just going to give you six or seven of them this morning very, very briefly. But if you want, you can have copies of my book on the information table and you can secure a copy. There's information about how you can purchase one there. But if you really want to become a student of the Word, read the Bible. If you want help on reading the Bible and you want somebody to come alongside, by all means, my book can help you in that endeavor. But let's talk about some things. Number one, read repeatedly. The Bible is intended to be read over and over and over and over again. One of my favorite movies is Shawshank Redemption. Should have won the Academy Award that year over the Tom Hanks movie, Forrest Gump. This movie is incredible. It's a story of a man falsely accused, put into jail for 20 years, and how he survives that trial. Yes, it's a great movie if you just watch it once. But every time you watch it, you see more. All of a sudden you see more of how the dialogue in the movie helps enhance your appreciation of it. So there's a scene there where two of the main characters are sitting on the prison outside wall or on the floor out in the gated area. And basically this conversation goes, get busy living or get busy dying. And that's a theme really for the whole movie. What are you gonna do if you're in that kind of situation where you're jailed for something you did not do? How are you gonna survive that kind of thing? But then he takes up geology in the movie. There's all sorts of things. And there's, believe it or not, a number of Christ-like images where the main character lives out in the movie. And then, of course, again, spoiler alert, prison escape movie, he does get out. But the whole film, the more you watch it, the more you see these things, these connections. So it is even much more with the Word of God. The more you read it, the more you see it. And the more you do what we call the hermeneutical spiral. You come at it with more knowledge the next time you read it, and you keep coming and coming and coming. And each time, you are more deeper into understanding God and His plan and program. So read repeatedly. Just keep reading, reading, reading. Number two, read whole books in one sitting. It was funny, we had an elders meeting yesterday, and Carl talked about how he read recently the whole Gospel of John. I said, great, I'm going to talk about that in tomorrow's message. Read a whole book of the Bible in one sitting. You can do it. Most books of the Bible can be read in under two hours. Even the longest one, when I taught Old Testament Seminary, when Pastor Jit was a student, he probably remembers this, I required my students to read the entire book of Jeremiah in one sitting. About five or so hours to read that. That's a commitment. Why? That's the longest book of the Bible. If you can read Jeremiah in one sitting, you can read any other book of the Bible in one sitting. That was my modus operandi there. So yes, in the amount of time that most of you will binge watch some series on Netflix, you could have read a whole book of the Bible. The Gospel of Mark can easily be read under two hours. And so if you can invest time watching a two hour movie, You get it, don't you? Convicting. Do you feel a little reproof right now? Yeah, because we can sit down and listen to that kind of stuff for hours on end, but we would never think about doing the same with God's Word. And so I encourage you, read whole books of the Bible. We would never do that. You would never even sit and watch a movie 15 minutes at a time. But yet we do it all the time with God's word. So we never read a book from start to finish. They're really standalone units. And so we need to be able to read all these things. And I'm not just talking about Philemon or Obadiah, one chapter books. No, I'm talking about longer books. And so even a Jeremiah, you can commit, you know, a good part of a day and you can get that knocked out. So read whole books in one sitting. Number three, read with expectations. Don't just come and just expect to just kind of read it, but read with a trembling heart, a heart of humility to say, speak, Lord, for your servant is listening. Open my eyes that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. And so come expectantly. Don't just do it to check off a box on a to-do list, but come that you're going to be meeting with God and God's going to commune with you and he's going to talk to you through his word. So read with expectation. And number four, read actively, not passively. I get it, sometimes we have this notion, well, God said it, I just need to pass it, we just kind of receive it and not push back or not have a dialogue. Whenever I open God's Word to read it, I am dialoguing with the authors, human and divine, all the time. Why is this next to this? Why is this repeating this? I'm constantly asking all sorts of questions. Now it's great to have a good set of questions that you already have kind of asking, but what I'm saying is I don't want you to become critical of the text, but I want you to become a good questioner of what is the motivation behind what God's word is intending to do. Because yes, God's word is historical. Yes, God's Word is accurate. It is dependable. It is inspired. It is all those things, but it's also intending to do something. And that communication is sometimes subtle. And it's not going to always hit you upside the head with a two-by-four saying, this is what you need to do. It's going to sometimes have to sit there for a while, and you're going to say, okay, okay, I now see why you're doing that. Why is Cain and Abel's story about two brothers not getting along the first story we read about in the Bible after the fall? Well, sibling rivalry is a major theme for the whole book of Genesis. Brothers don't get along with brothers. Women don't get along with women. There's a whole lot of sibling rivalry that happens and we're introducing, oh, that's why that passage is. Oh, who's reading this for the first time? Oh, it's the people on the plains of Moab. about to go into the promised land. And two and a half tribes want to peel off and say, we're done. You guys go fight. We're done fighting. But what does Moses do with this story about Cain and Abel? What's it intending to do? You are your brother's keeper. Oh. I mean, so it's not just about Cain and Abel. It's also about encouraging me to be my brother's keeper when I want to go selfish tendencies. Yep. So even narrative texts are doing things. It's great to read the epistles. They tell a straight line. You know, hey, flee youthful lust. Hey, dedicate your bodies as a living sacrifice, okay? We get that. But the rest of the stuff, psalms or history books or these kind of things, we struggle with sometimes realizing that they're also tending to do something with us. And so we have to read actively, not passively. Number five, I want you to live with the tension in the text. Yes, God has spoken. Yes, God tells us what's right. But sometimes there's tension. Let me give you a great example of this. In Proverbs 26, it says, answer a fool lest he become wise in his eyes. But you know what the next verse says? Don't answer a fool lest you become like him. It's like, What am I supposed to do? Which one's right? Which one's wrong? They're both in the text. You have to live with the tension. So what that means is what? There's not always a clear cut answer when you're around the presence of a fool. Sometimes you speak up and sometimes you shut up. Why? This is in the book of what? Proverbs, which is about wisdom. So you need to know, you need to read the situation to know when to be quiet and when to speak up. That's going to require, again, a lot of knowledge about human nature, about what kind of fool am I dealing with? Is this a rebellious fool, don't even bother? Or is this an ignorant person that can use some help? That means I might need to be more knowledgeable, equipped in all good works to know when to and how to speak to such a fool. And a parent, you've had children who need discipline. What's the correct way of disciplining your child whenever they do something wrong? Is it to really rebuke them, discipline them, and whatever you want to do for disciplining that child, time out or whatever? Or do you sometimes sit or put your arm around them and say, hey, I love you? Well, what's the right way? It's both in the context. And that's what God's Word does. It doesn't tell you what to do for every situation. It gives you a whole system. You need to do what? You need to be such in tune with God's Word and the Spirit of God and knowing the situation to where you can be equipped. To do every good work. Parenting your child. Dealing with a fool. Live with the tension. Yes, it may even look contradictory, but it's all about teaching you themes. Number six, what? Persevere. Keep going. Just keep reading. Just keep going. Yes, you may have some dry spells, but just keep reading. And lastly, number seven, memorize it. You need to have it ready to go. You need to have it on ready recall. When I was preparing for ministry, for my ordination, I memorized almost 300 verses of scripture, and a lot of them are still stuck around, and they are what God's able to use in my life and in the life of those I'm seeking to minister to. First John 2.6, he that saith he abideth in him ought to walk even as he walked. How many times have I had to recite that to myself? He that saith he abideth in him ought to walk even as he walked. That means I need to walk moment by moment just as Jesus would. If I say I'm a Christian, I need to walk like Christ. So again, that's a memorized verse that I'm able to then utilize to teach me what's right, wrong, how to get it right, how to keep it right. But it's got to be here, not just always here. So what's the why in the road for this message this morning? Really simple. I'm gonna give you a homework assignment. Number one, commit one verse to memory. 2 Timothy 3, 16 is a good one. Ezra 7, 10 is another good one. There's lots of great verses, even Isaiah 66, 1 and 2, great passage of Scripture. But you choose a passage of Scripture that you memorize this week, even today, and you then keep on reciting that. And number two, please read, if not today, this week, one whole book of the And if you need a place to start, I've been reading through Colossians more recently, reading it in book form, but also reading it, listening to it in an audio book, an audio fashion. And so it doesn't always have to be in printed form. It's great that you have that, but you can also be sometimes when you're traveling on the road, you have some downtime or while you're doing some exercise, you can listen to a book of the Bible instead of audible. But I want to add one more thing. Whatever verse you commit to memorize, share that verse with somebody else this week. Take the time to teach others about what you're learning and you can become a student of the word. Father, thank you that you have spoken to us. We have a true treasure because you have taken the time to give us your word. Father, first of all, we feel rebuked and we don't spend more time in it than we do. So, Father, help us to come with humility and contriteness. But may we, like Ezra, set our hearts today to study Your Word, become a student of Your Word. so that we can do it and teach others. Help us to have your word in our minds, memorized, so that it can be instant recall, so that we can know what's right, what's wrong, how to make it right, and how to keep it right. For this we pray in Jesus' name, amen.