Why don't we value the Word? Why don't people read and study God's Living Word? Well, there's a lot of reasons.
We know there's a lot of people that don't believe in God, they don't care, they don't believe the Bible, that they don't believe it applies to their life, there are people that tried to read it and they got bored or they didn't understand it, but I would suggest to you that of those that are believers and followers of Jesus, the main reason that people don't read the Bible is they just don't really understand how to do it. They've tried and they didn't get very far. So what we're doing is we're spending a couple of weeks talking about how to study the Bible and we're actually studying the Bible in the book of Philemon to learn not only how do we do it, but to actually do it.
So some foundational thoughts to prepare ourselves for part two of how to study the Bible would be this. If you're taking notes, it's important to understand that the Bible is meant to transform us, not just to inform us. I don't know if you've ever been around some Christian circles when there's almost like a Bible war going on.
I've been to some Bible studies when they say, "Turn in your Bible to whatever. " If you've got paper bibles, there's like this contest like who can get there first? Who's gonna win the Bible drill?
Who's gonna get there first? And then if you've got that Bible verse underlined or highlighted on your phone, that makes you more spiritual, and there are some people who almost measure their spirituality by how much they know and knowledge is good, but Scripture actually says, "Knowledge puffs up. " 1 Corinthians 8:1 tells us that while knowledge makes us feel important, it's love that strengthens the church.
The Bible isn't just a book we study to know knowledge, it's not a book that informs us, it's God's Word that transforms us. In fact, it was Rick Warren that said, "The Bible should give us a bigger heart, not a bigger head. " I like that, and that's why we're going to apply what the Bible says in James 1:22 when James told us, "Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves.
" But what are we gonna do? Let's all say it aloud. We're going to do what it says.
Online, type that in the comment section. What are we gonna do, type it in there. We're gonna do what it says.
So if people don't know how to study the Bible, we're gonna talk about how to study it and we're gonna review what we covered last week, the five big thoughts, and we're gonna go a little bit deeper this week. So how do we start in our study of the Bible? The first thing we're gonna do, remember, is number one, choose a translation you understand.
The second thing that we're gonna do is we're gonna choose a time, a place, and a plan to study the Bible. The third thing we're gonna do is we're gonna seek to understand the context, why? Because context matters more than you can imagine.
The fourth thing we're gonna do is we're gonna read slowly and we're gonna ask questions as we do and then we're gonna pray for God to speak to you and we're gonna apply what He shows you. This is how we're gonna approach the Bible. Now, on the screen, there's gonna appear a QR code.
If you haven't gotten this, I want you to get this. If you don't catch it now, your campus pastor will give it to you at the end of the service. If you're online, maybe watching on YouTube, this will be at the end of the message again, but if you haven't captured this, I want you to get it because on it we've given you tons of free resources, very valuable resources to help you effectively engage in God's Word.
So let's assume you're here last week, let's assume you've got what you need, at this point, you should have a translation that you understand. Not only that, but you may even have a study Bible like my study Bible or you're getting to know your way around the YouVersion Bible app. Hopefully, you've now determined a time that you're gonna study God's Word because last week, if you did what we talked about for the last seven days, you've been studying God's Word and hopefully, you're developing a habit around a specific time.
It might be morning before you go to work or it might be in the evening after you get the last kid to bed and who got back up and said, "I got to go to the bathroom," and he went to the bathroom and you put him to bed, you said, "Don't get up again. " Then you read God's Word because your kid is in bed. To the glory of God and praise be to Jesus or it might be on a commute that you take to work and you're riding on the train and you listen or whatever, but you've got a time.
Hopefully, you also have a place. It might be at the kitchen table with your coffee in the morning or it might be on a porch or your favorite chair or whatever it would be, but you've got a place and you've got a Bible and you don't just have a place, but this is really important. What do you have?
You have a plan. You have a plan in how you're gonna read and how you're gonna study. Now, you might say, "Okay, Craig, what is the best plan?
What's the best plan? " And I'm gonna tell you right now, there is no best plan to studying the Bible. I want to kind of give you some relief.
Your Bible study time does not have to be, are you ready for this? It doesn't have to be Instagrammable. (audience laughs) You know what I'm talking about.
It doesn't have to be at the coffee shop with the Bible laid out perfectly and everything for the perfect photo, look how holy I am. It doesn't have to be anything like that. It doesn't have to be a specific amount of time.
One day it might be an hour. One day it might be seven minutes. There's not a specific time limit you wanna put on it, you wanna put into it as much as you have that works for you, you wanna have a plan.
The only plan that is a bad plan is no plan at all, and so what I wanna do is I wanna give you just five different options of what you might do as you start to get into a rhythm of studying God's Word. So five different approaches. The first thing is this, is you can start with a book of the Bible.
You can start with a book and you're gonna get the context and if you're looking for a book, let me give you some ideas, you can jot these books down if you're taking notes. Where do you wanna start? Well, let's say you want to get to know the story of God, the beginning of His story where you can read Genesis and Exodus, if you want to go there.
Let's say that you wanna read about Jesus and you wanna get to know Jesus from the Gospels. There's four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. They're all good, most people who trained me would recommend John as a foundational Gospel.
You could start in the book of John. Let's say that you've got somebody's driving you crazy and you're trying to deal with difficult people or you're trying to learn to manage your money or you need to learn to handle your tongue or you need something practical to help you live your everyday life, what should we read? We should read Proverbs or the book of James.
They're gonna give you very practical insight into how you deal with everyday life. Let's say you wake up and you're hurting and you need some comfort or you want more of a devotional time with God or you want to cry out to God or you want to be prayerful in your spirit to God or you wanna worship God, what are we gonna read? We're gonna read the Psalms, if we're in a place like that.
Let's say that you want to go deeper in theology. Maybe you've been a Christian for a while and you wanna go deeper. Maybe you're a brand new Christian and you wanna understand what are the basics about sin and forgiveness and repentance and the Gospel.
Well, then you're gonna go to the book of Romans. It is not light, but it is life changing, and so when you have a plan, you could start with a book of the Bible or you could also study a person in the Bible. For example, don't hurt my feelings, but what person did we just study before this series?
We study the person of Ruth. Ruth. Thank you very much, and you can go through and study Ruth or you can study Elijah or you can just study, if you feel bad about yourself 'cause you keep messing up, you can study Peter, he'll make you feel really good or you can study Esther.
Why would you wanna study Esther? Because sometimes it takes a woman to get the job done right. (audience cheering and clapping) You can study the book of Esther, and so what could you do?
Well, you can read a book of the Bible or you can study a person in the Bible or you can study a topic in the Bible. For example, maybe you grew up in a very rigid, legalistic home with all these rules. You weren't allowed to watch SpongeBob Squarepants.
So what are you gonna do? I just made that up, is that even a thing? I don't know, but what you.
. . It is a thing?
Okay, so well, SpongeBob Squarepants. . .
Anyway, it's a song. What you can do if you grew up like that is you might research grace and that might take you to the book of Galatians or somewhere else where you study about grace or maybe you're dealing with mental health issues and so you can go to a concordance or the YouVersion Bible app and you can type in anxiety and you can read about, "Oh, I'm supposed to cast my anxiety on Him because He cares for me. " You can look up a topic.
Another thing you can do is you can do a daily devotional or a YouVersion Bible plan. What would be a daily devotional? There are a lot of good books and I'll recommend three that I hear about all of the time.
"Jesus Calling" it is kind of a classic that a lot of people read. "My Utmost For His Highest" by Oswald Chambers is a classic, and then, of course, "Daily Power" by Craig Groeschel is an all time classic, it's actually. .
. I'm not sure if anybody read it. I do know that my father-in-law, Sam Fox, read it and he said it was really good, but that's the only person I heard, but nevertheless, those are there or you can go to the YouVersion Bible app.
How many Bible plans do you think are available to you? There are the answer, about 53,000 different plans that are written towards specific things that you might like and there are over 500 million of them that have been completed and you could be 500,000,001. (audience cheering and clapping) So what can you do?
You can start with a book of the Bible, study a person in the Bible study, study a topic in the Bible, do a daily devotion, or if you wanna go for it at some point, you may read through the whole Bible. This is something that I've done for years and the reason I started doing it years ago is because I was a young pastor and I'd even graduated from seminary, but I still didn't feel like I knew a lot about the Bible, especially in the Old Testament and so I just started reading through the Bible year after year. I'll do it in different versions because I kind of get used to one and it helps me this way.
If you want to do this, I would recommend my very favorite plan is by my good friends, Nicky and Pippa Gumbel. There is a book version of this called the "Bible in One Year", there's also a free version on the YouVersion Bible app. This one is not.
. . You're not gonna be done with this one in 10 minutes a day.
It's gonna take you a little bit of time and it's very, very, very good if you want to go through the Bible. The bottom line is this, you want to have a good plan. If your plan isn't working, what do you do?
Change it up, do something else. If you're not getting something out of the way you're doing it, there's other options. The key is when you wake up tomorrow, you already know when you're gonna study, where you're gonna study, and what you're gonna study.
So what do we have? We got a good translation, we got a place, we got a plan, and now, let's go back to filet mignon. (audience laughing) Let's go back to Philemon and we're gonna study it like we did last week.
What is the first thing we need to know whenever we're gonna study a book or a passage? We need to know the what the? Begins with a C, ends with text.
We need to know the context, right? We three questions are we gonna ask? The primary questions is who wrote it, to whom was it written, and what was the purpose?
Before we start just picking a verse out of the Bible, we wanna know who was it that wrote this, what was going on in the time, to whom was it written, and kinda what's the big story? And so let's try to answer these questions and this will be a little pop quiz to see how close you paid attention last week. So Philemon, who was the author of Philemon, who wrote it?
The answer is? Paul. Paul was the author of Philemon.
Now, this was a trick question. Don't let this one fool you, but Paul wrote the book of Philemon. To whom did Paul write the book of Philemon?
The answer is? Philemon. Philemon, there you go, which is right there, way easier than (indistinct), okay?
So he wrote the book to Philemon, now, who was Philemon, do you remember? We learned that Philemon was a successful business owner. We know that he had a house church that met in his home, so he's kinda like a pastor of a life group.
We know that Paul actually led Philemon to Jesus and we know that even though this is wrong and we hate it and it's always been wrong and we're sad about it, at the time, slavery was a thing, a horrible thing, but it was a thing and we know that Philemon had a slave, who remembers what his name was? His name was Onesimus, okay? He had a slave named Onesimus and what did Onesimus do to Philemon?
He stole something from Philemon and he ran away and where did he run to, do you remember? He ran to Rome and who did he meet by the providence of God in Rome? He met the Apostle Paul when Paul was writing there from a prison, he met Paul, and what did Paul do?
Paul led Onesimus to Christ, and so all of a sudden you've got this runaway slave who's become a follower of Jesus and Paul is writing to Philemon. What was the purpose of the letter? What was Paul asking Philemon to do with the runaway slave who stole from him?
He was asking Philemon to forgive Onesimus. That is the context. So when we understand the context, we see a lot in there.
If you're with us last week, Paul is saying, "Hey, Philemon, you're so loving, you're so amazing. I know you're gonna do the right thing. " So either he was kind of butter him up a little bit or he was just being very sincere.
We're not sure, but he's saying, "Hey, you know, I really want you to do this. Remember, Jesus forgave you and stuff like that, so you should forgive him. " We've got the context and now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna read slowly and we're gonna see what God says to us.
So we're gonna read some, look for anywhere God speaks to you. Here's what Scripture says in verse 12. Paul says, "I'm sending Onesimus who is my very heart back to you.
" So you can imagine this conversation. Onesimus you stole from him, but now, you're a believer. What Paul probably say, "You need to get back there and repent of your sins.
" That's probably what he said. "I'm sending him back to you and I would've liked to have kept Onesimus with me so he could take your place in helping me while I'm in chains for Christ. " In other words, remember he said last week, he's useful, he's valuable, we don't know, maybe Onesimus is getting him meals, maybe he's delivering his letters to other Christians, we don't know, but Onesimus is helping Paul.
"But," Paul says, "I didn't want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do would not seem forced, but would be voluntary. " Remember, last week, what did Paul call himself when he introduced himself? He said, "Paul," not an apostle, which he almost always does, but he said, "Paul, a slave of Jesus.
" He wasn't writing to force his will even though he had the apostolic rank, but he was writing brother to brother, friend to friend. He says, "I didn't want this to seem forced, but I want you to do this 'cause it's the right thing. Perhaps the reason he was separated you for a little while is that you might have him back forever.
" It goes on to say, "No longer as a slave, but better than a slave, as a dear brother. He's very dear to me and even dear to you, but as a fellow man and a brother in the Lord. " Now, is God speaking to you about anything?
Not much to me, not yet, honestly, so what am I gonna do? I'm gonna keep on reading, so I'll read some more. "If Onesimus has done you any wrong or owes you anything," Paul says, "Charge it to me," ding, ding, ding, ding, ding.
My mind pauses for a moment, I think of another story. There's a parable called the Parable of the Good Samaritan. Where a good Samaritan sees a man beaten and left half dead by the road and he picks up the guy, bandages him, puts him on his donkey, takes him to an inn, takes him to a hotel, and pays the bill and says, "If he owes anything else, I'll come back, charge it to me," and all of a sudden I'm thinking, "Oh, my gosh, this kind of sounds a little bit like the Gospel.
" I'll read the next verse. Paul says, "I'm writing this with my own hand. If there's any expenses, charge it to me, and what will I do?
I will pay it back. Not to mention that you owe me your very self. " And all the sudden I'm starting to see, wait a minute, this sounds a little bit like what Jesus did for us.
Paul says, "I'll pay a debt that I don't owe," and it reminds me of the Gospel. So what you might do when you come to a place like this, if you happen to have a study Bible, you might use a cross-reference and I'll show you what a cross-reference looks like. This is my study Bible, this is actually a picture of mine.
If we zoom in to the right, what you're gonna see as we zoom in here, in the middle, you see verses that are exactly where you study that take you to other verses in the Bible that might say something similar. So when I cross-referenced this part about someone else doing something for you and paying the bill, it actually took me to the Old Testament to Isaiah 53. Now, if I'm gonna read Isaiah 53, I might wanna know the context of Isaiah 53 and if I look up the context, I might find that it was written seven centuries before the birth of Christ and then when I see it, I also might find that it is one of the most famous prophetic verses prophesying about Jesus to come, and here's seven centuries before Jesus was born, it says, "Prophesying of Jesus that surely he took up our pain and he bore our suffering.
" In other words, He paid the price for that which we owed. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought us peace was on him and by his wounds, we are healed.
" The debt that we owed, Jesus paid. (audience clapping) Whatever we needed He provided, and we see right there in Philemon, if there's any charge, charge it to me. Now, as you read the Bible, you wanna tell yourself, the Bible isn't about you, it's never about you.
It's always to you, but it's not about you. What is it about? The main story is always about God's love for the world and His redemption through Jesus.
The Bible isn't about you, but since it's to you, it's not wrong and it's not unwise to see yourself in the story and see what God would say to you. So as we're reading Philemon, we have three main characters, and I would ask you of those three, which one do you relate to? Which one?
Let's start with Paul. There's Paul and what's he doing? He's taking a risk on someone.
We also have another character, who's Onesimus, and he needs forgiveness. We have another character, and that is Philemon, who's being called to forgive. Which one of those three do you relate to at this time in your relationship with God?
Now, here's what's crazy, is if you read this book once a year for three different years, three different times, God may speak to you in a different way. One time you may be a little bit more like Paul. You're called to take a risk on someone.
There's someone that you're leading to Christ or there's someone that you're investing in or there's someone that messed up and you're loving them back into the fullness of God. Another time you may be like Onesimus, you did something dumb. You lied to someone that you loved.
You went back into that same old addiction that held you hostage, you lost your temper, and so something that you regret and so what do you do? Well, you might go to a concordance and what is a concordance? It's at the end of your Bible and you look in there and go, "Oh, my gosh, I need forgiveness," so you look up forgiveness and you look here and you're looking under forgiveness and it takes you to 1 John 1:9 and you say, "I need forgiveness and I'm seeing that in here, so I go to 1 John 1:9," and what does 1 John 1:9 say?
It says, "If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. " And so if you find that you've done something wrong and you're reading this and you're a little bit like the runaway slave, you may dig a little deeper in God's Word and it may take you to your knees in a moment of holy repentance when you just say, "God, I'm so sorry. " And God says, "You are forgiven.
" And you stand up whole and forgiven, not because you deserved it, but because someone paid for a debt you couldn't pay. Maybe you relate to Onesimus or maybe you relate to Philemon. Remember, Onesimus betrayed him.
Maybe someone hurt you, a friend talked behind your back or someone that you trusted lied or somebody that you admired and looked up to took advantage of you or just let you down and so, you know, "Okay, I'm a Christian, I'm supposed to forgive," but you don't want to forgive and you're sitting there reading this book for Paul's asking Philemon to forgive Onesimus and you remember the context. Wait a minute, okay, Onesimus stole and then he ran and then he came back, and what would Philemon have had the right to do to Onesimus? If you remember last week, he would've branded an F on his brow, which stands for fugitive, there's where we get our word fugitive from it.
He could have beaten a slave, he could have killed a slave, but here's what Paul said. He said, "Don't receive him as a slave, receive him as a brother. Forgive him, the slave that you kind of owned and wronged you, forget all that, you don't own him now, he's a brother in the Lord.
Love him like a brother. " And so you say, "Man, I'm supposed to forgive this person that hurt me and I don't know how. " So maybe you open up your YouVersion Bible app and you ask, "How do I forgive?
" And what's gonna come up is Ephesians 4:32 and you're gonna read it and God's gonna speak to you, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other," say this aloud with me. How do you do it? How do you forgive?
"Just as in Christ Jesus, God forgave you. " And so you're reading the book of Philemon, and one time God speaks to you like you need to take a risk on someone, another time that you need to be forgiven, another time you need to forgive someone, how do you do it? You look somewhere else, you say, "Oh, I forgive in the same way that Jesus forgave me.
" What is God showing you? What did God show you in His Word today? Imagine if every day could you answer that?
What did God show you about Himself and what is God saying to you? Because the Bible is not meant to inform us, but to transform us. If you'll commit to knowing Him through His Word, He will speak to you, love you, guide you, correct you, empower you, forgive you, transform you, and conform you to the image of His Son a little more every single day.
So we're studying the book of Philemon, but we're hungry for more and so we dig a little deeper and when you dig a little deeper, you may find what I call an Easter egg, a little hidden treasure. If you keep studying, what you're gonna find. .
. If you read a little bit more is you're gonna find something outside of the Bible talking about the Bible and if you fast forward about 50 years from when this story took place, you're gonna come across a guy named Ignatius. Who was Ignatius?
He's a famous martyr, that means he gave his life for the Gospel and he was the bishop of Antioch. If you study about him, you're gonna find that he was very likely discipled by John and so this guy was a strong Christian who was discipled and he wrote a letter to the church in Ephesus and in the letter, this guy Ignatius, brags about the bishop of the churches in Ephesus and he calls him a man of inexpressible love. He says, "This man was blessed by God who granted unto you," the church was blessed by God to be blessed with such an excellent bishop and he's bragging on this bishop.
What do you think was the name of that bishop? The name was Onesimus, and we can't prove it and were not sure, but scholars agree that that's about the right age and the right time and 100% the right name of the runaway slave that was transformed by Jesus right there, a treasure to show you what is possible when God works in your life. So what will God's Word do in your life?
And the answer is, it depends on what you need. Because if you're hurting, His Word will give you hope. If you're lost, His Word will direct your steps.
If you're doubting, we all do sometimes, right? His Word will build your faith 'cause faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. If you're anxious, you'll learn to cast your anxiety on Him, why?
Because He cares for you and He will give you a peace from heaven that goes beyond your given ability to understand. If you're trapped in a life that you never wanted, He will give you a truth that will set you free. I love God's Word, I need God's Word, I crave God's Word, I was saved reading God's Word and I want you to fall in love with who God is through His Word.
There are people that will risk their life to get a page and there are Christians who leave it set aside. I'm gonna ask you that if you're truly serious about being a disciple of Jesus that you make His Word a serious part of your life, very simple. We're about to move into a new month, last week was easy, seven days.
This time I'm just gonna ask you for a month, a month. A time, a place, a plan, do it for a month. That's about how long it takes to establish a habit and if you bring this into your life, the Word of God will transform you in ways that you could never imagine and years later, you will look back and say, "I'm different.
Not because I'm better, but because the Word of God is alive and it's changed me. " So Father, I ask that by the power of Your spirit, You would create a hunger, a desire. We already have the need God, but help us to see our need to get to know You, to feed on Your Living Word.
Today, as you're praying. . .
Nobody look around, I'm just gonna ask and I wanna kind of just. . .
No, no, no, forget this. Look up everybody, look up, eyes open. Ha, we're gonna go real here.
I'm gonna ask, would you commit to do this for a month? We're gonna do it with a little bit of accountability, and I'm gonna tell you right now, there's no pressure, meaning like some of you're not ready for this, I'm gonna tell you. .
. Don't raise your hand if you're not ready for this. There's a time I wouldn't have done it, just don't do it, but at all of our churches today, those who say, "I'm gonna commit for a month.
I'm gonna make God's Word a part of my life for a month, see what happens," would you raise your hands right now? Accountability, raise 'em up, raise 'em up. Man, thank God for you guys.
Thank God for you guys online. Just type it in the comments section. I commit to read the Word of God for a month.
Now, Father, I pray that Your Word would be a part of our conversations. When we're amongst Your people, we talk about what You show us. In our life groups, we share what You're doing in us.
God, I thank You that tomorrow there's tens of thousand of people, they're gonna meet with You. They got a date set up, there's a time, there's a place, and they got a plan, and God, I thank You in advance for the way You're gonna speak to them when they commit to meet with You. As you keep praying today without looking around, I want you to know there are two things and only two things that live forever.
Do you know what lives forever? The Word of God lives forever and the souls of people live forever. You will live forever somewhere.
You'll live forever somewhere, and Scripture says, "You'll live forever in the presence of God or you'll live forever separated from the presence of God," in a very real place the Bible calls hell. How is it that we qualify for heaven? And the answer is not on your own.
Scripture tells us very clearly, every single one of us, we have all sinned against God. Sin separates us from God, but in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God, and the Word became flesh. What does that mean?
That means God became flesh in the person of His Son, Jesus. Jesus is the Son of God who was without sin and died in our place so our sins could be forgiven. This is what the Bible says.
"For God so loved the world," He so loved you, "That he gave his one and only son, whoever believes in him would not perish, but would have eternal life. " There are those of you watching right now, you don't know where you stand with God, it's about to change. What's gonna happen is you're gonna step away from your sin and you're gonna trust Jesus.
Jesus is the Son of God. When you call on Him, Scripture says He will forgive your sins, they'll be separated from you. You don't become better, you become new.
The old is gone, the new comes today. Wherever you're watching from, those who say, "Yes, I need Jesus," what are we gonna do? We're gonna step away from our old life, we're gonna surrender to Him, we're gonna call on Him, He's gonna hear our prayer, He's gonna forgive your sins, you're gonna become brand new.
Wherever you're watching from today, those who say, "Yes, I need Jesus. Yes, today I surrender. I give my life to Jesus," that's your prayer.
Lift your hands high right now all over the place. Lift them up and say, come on church, let's thank God as we've got people today saying yes to Jesus. (indistinct) Amen, praise God for you guys.
Online, just type it in the comment section. I'm surrendering my life to Jesus. Type it in right there and as we see people around the world surrendering to Him, would you pray aloud, nobody prays alone.
Pray, Heavenly Father. Heavenly Father. Forgive my sins.
Forgive my sins. Jesus save me. Jesus save me.
Be first in my life. Be first in my life. Be my Lord.
Be my Lord. Fill me with Your spirit. Fill me with Your spirit.
So I could know You. So I could know You. So I could know Your Word, so I could live Your Word and I could do Your will.
Use me, God, to show Your love. To show Your love. To those who need You.
- To those who need You. Thank you for new life. I give you all of mine in Jesus' name I pray.
Could somebody right now celebrate, worship God, tell Him thank you for new life in Christ.
