Good morning everyone. My name is Neil Schori, and I’m one of the pastors here at The Edge. Wherever you’re joining us from, we just want you to feel extremely welcome.
I want to share just a little bit about our church community. We’re a church that truly tries to follow the Jesus of the Bible. Jesus is the foundation of every single thing that we do here, and we want you to come to know him deeply if you don’t yet. We know that we follow Jesus very imperfectly, but we entrust our imperfections to him — the one who saves us by his grace.
Today, we’re in week number three of our series for the start of 2021, and it’s called The Blueprint: Spiritual Disciplines For a God Filled Life. As we’ve shared before, the disciplines that we talk about in this series are not so that God is more impressed with you, or God is more pleased by your actions. But they are designed to be connection points with God so that we all might come to know him more. We are simply taking advantage of practices that are prescribed to us in scripture and some that are intimated in scripture and finally others that are long practiced by fathers of the orthodox faith over many generations.
It’s easy, oftentimes for us as pastors, to see things in scripture and, instead of expounding on them in a helpful and encouraging manner, we sometimes can sort of give them as a list of moral lessons without any suggestion of “how to.” Then, a lot of times, what happens is you end up feeling frustrated, and you feel like you’re a failure in your desire to be closer to God. We don’t want to be that kind of religious leader. Jesus condemned the religious leaders of his day for doing that very thing, and this is what he said about the practice of those leaders. You can read about this in Matthew 23:3-4, it says:
3 So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach. 4 They tie up heavy, cumbersome loads and put them on other people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them (NIV).
We don’t want to be that type of leader where we just add something to your life that’s not helpful and then we don’t walk along with you. Today, we’re going to address the spiritual discipline of study. My guess is when you even hear the word study, you’re not exactly excited. Okay? It’s not the most exciting sounding discipline. But I believe that if you stick with me through this, that it is the discipline with the potential to bring a consistency to your experience of God and his intersection with your everyday life. And I don’t know about you, but I want to experience God in a richer and deeper way in my life.
The challenge that we’re left with as we approach some of these disciplines is that we are told certain truths in the Bible, but then a lot of times we’re left to wrestle through the implementation of them. In other words, God doesn’t just say, “This is what I want you to do and this is exactly how you’re supposed to do that.” Yes, there are times in the scripture where that does happen, but for a lot of these disciplines, we’re left to sort of work it out. Some people might say, “Well, you don’t have to work out the details because every answer is in the Bible for your life and you just have to look. And what I would say is, it would be easy for me to agree that God has given us all wisdom that we need to apply to all of life’s particulars in 2021, but it’s going to take some focus for us to figure out how to make it apply, and that’s exactly where we find ourselves today.
There are plenty of passages of scripture that speak to our need for study in our lives. The first one that I want you to take note of is 2 Timothy 2:15. It says:
5 Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth (NIV).
So the first question in my mind is: How do we handle scripture properly in this way? And I would say a pretty simple answer is by not ignoring it through just a casual reading of it, but by digging into it so that we understand the context to actually apply to our lives.
Another passage is Psalm 119:9-10. It says:
9 How can a young person stay on the path of purity?
By living according to your word.
10 I seek you with all my heart;
do not let me stray from your commands (NIV).
I promise you this: In all of the years that I’ve done ministry, I’ve never seen anyone stay on a biblical journey of faith when they didn’t prioritize learning what God says to them through the Bible. Not once have I ever seen it.
The last two passages, Deuteronomy 6:6-9. It says:
6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates (NIV).
It sure sounds to me, from this passage, that Moses, through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, is telling us that we need to treat scripture with the same care that we binge-watch Netflix. Talk about it, but be about it, study it. Doesn’t it really sound like that? Most of us don’t have any trouble diving in and studying all of the different episodes of our favorite Netflix show.
Finally, Romans 12:2. It says:
2 Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is — his good, pleasing and perfect will.
The truth of the matter is we can sort of sleepwalk through life. We can let life happen to us as opposed to having a plan to interact with it. We can get overwhelmed by the sin and the brokenness of the world when we do that, but if we resist this world and we are renewed by the truth, our communication with God will become more dynamic, and here’s why: We will learn to pray for the things on his heart because they’ll be more deeply embedded in ours.
For the rest of today, we’re going to get practical, and I’m going to share ways that we can simply put study into the practice of our daily lives. One of my very favorite books on the subject of spiritual disciplines is by the theologian Richard Foster. He wrote a book called Celebration of Discipline over 40 years ago, and I am taking his suggestions on what effective study might look like for you because I really do believe there is no need to reinvent the wheel.
Foster suggests that the very first step that we need to take for study is the step of repetition. I want you to think just for a second about all of the things in your lives that are just built-in. We just repeat them. We do it over and over and over again. We wake up each day and we brush our teeth and we have breakfast and then we do work or we go to school or we do Zoom work and we do Zoom school and we go to bed each night and we study each day and maybe you started a brand new workout.
Every single January 1st, you start a brand new workout. How’s that going for you, by the way? Has that been built into your life yet?
We shouldn’t be at all surprised that what we repeat in our lives actually creates the substance of our lives. It shows people what we value rather than what we just say that we care about. What we think about consistently defines what we do, and what we do consistently creates the legacy that we speak with our lives. So what are you repeating in your life? Is it good, or is it bad? Is it something that you’re proud of, or is it something that you’re trying to stop? Are you tired of wandering around the same desert or circling the same mountain and you just want to get off of that? Repetition is the key to creating habits that are good or bad, and I’m going to be honest: The discipline of study is going to take significant focus and intention in order to break through to that place of more knowledge and intimacy with God.
Making the choice to read scripture daily is significant because you’ll be opening up this brand new avenue for God to speak straight into your life, and you’ll be confronted with things that you need to change in order to get closer to him as well. Some of you might be wondering, so how long is this going to take to build into my life? And maybe some of you are really wondering, will this even work for me?
I think that it’s pretty great that science is actually finally catching up to biblical accounts that are over 2,000 years old, and really what it is showing us is that old dogs actually can learn new tricks. Okay, for instance, maybe you feel stuck in addiction. Addiction is a terrible and frightening thing, and we can get addicted to almost anything. I want you to hear this loudly and clearly. You aren’t stuck in addiction. There is a way out. It feels impossible, doesn’t it? It is so ingrained in you that it feels like there’s no way you can change your habits so that you break free from that addiction or those bad habits, but there is a way to close those old ruts that have sort of formed in your mind and create new and beautiful pathways.
Scientists have made many discoveries in the field of neuroplasticity. It used to be thought that, once you formed patterns and habits as an adult, it was almost impossible to change. But scientists understand that the brain is more moldable than they thought, and the key to changing old and damaging behaviors is to start thinking about things differently, which creates new feelings, and then, ultimately, you do things in a different way, and when we do that over and over again, over time, those habits can be broken — those addictions can be left behind. And those take different amounts of time for different people.
There was a 2009 study in Psychology Today, and it says that the average person — you’ve probably heard this — that it takes 21 days to make a new habit. Well, that’s not the truth for most people — it takes longer than that. And the study from 2009 in Psychology Today says that, on average, it takes 66 days for someone to create a new habit, as little as 18 days for some and as many as 254 days for the slower connectors. But when we develop new habits, our lives are undeniably changed.
Maybe that’s why, in Deuteronomy 6, Moses told people the things that they were supposed to talk about and be about. They were called to think about God’s commands, study God’s ways and tell their kids all about him because Moses knew that when people chose to make God the center of their lives, that they would live lives that were wholesome and significant in the eyes of their heavenly father. Yes, you can change, and repetition is the first step.
The second step of study is concentration. So repetition and then concentration. Let’s be real; This is probably going to be the hardest one of our disciplines when it comes to study because we live in a society that is so overly connected to things, right? We play video games and we’re constantly on our phones and we always check social media and we’re always posting something on Facebook and we always want to see if we got a like on our tweet or a like on our latest Instagram post. It used to be that we had a little bit longer attention spans, right? But we’re an on-demand society now. I want you to think back just to March of last year when the pandemic struck. My guess is that you had a longer attention span for Zoom meetings, or maybe even a longer attention span for online church than you do today. We get it. It is hard to focus. It is hard to concentrate, but it’s essential to us if we want to break our autopilot mode of bad habits.
Philosopher and poet Henry David Thoreau once said, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” Can you relate to that? If you can — because I think a lot of us really can — it’s going to take concentration to change and then live out the life that God has made for you to live. But what if we adopted the attitude of Joshua in the Bible? In the book of Joshua 1:7-8, Joshua instructed the people. This is what it says:
7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night,
Listen to this part; it’s essential.
so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful (NIV).
The goal of concentration is not to be able to recite scripture (although that’s not a bad thing), but the goal of concentration, when it comes to study, is to learn to live it. And that is the magic that comes from repetition and concentration.
The third way of study is comprehension. If you’re studying something but you don’t understand it, it’s frustrating, right? I remember being in middle school and our teacher gave us all these passages to read, and then there were questions underneath it to test our reading comprehension, and I noticed I finished that faster than most of the other people in my class, and I kind of felt proud about myself, and then I answered the questions. And when I got my results back, my teacher said, “Did you even read this?” And I was really embarrassed-feeling because I did terrible. I did terrible, and it had nothing to do with my lack of ability to read and to understand. But the truth is, I have a tendency to skim things, particularly things that I’m familiar with, and then I will miss details in the story.
The story of God and of us that we find in the Bible is just like that. It is simple enough for a child to understand the basics of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it’s deep enough to confound the wisest scholar. Charles Spurgeon once said that no one outgrows scripture — it widens and deepens with our years. I know this to be true in my own life, that the more that I study scripture, the more that I read the stories in the Bible, the richer my understanding becomes. The more I’m confronted with who God is and who I am, things just change in me. I can honestly say that almost every single time I’ve ever prepared to give a sermon, God has graced me with a brand new understanding — like almost this light bulb comes on in this brand new way for me — and it’s awesome, and it’s an exhilarating experience.
I love what Richard Foster wrote about knowledge not being the ultimate goal. He said, “Do not mistake the accumulation of information as knowledge. You can’t equate spouting words with wisdom. Jesus made it unmistakably clear that the knowledge of the truth will set us free.” Now, where did Foster get that? I want to make sure that we understand the context of what Jesus was saying. It comes from John 8, as he spoke to the Jews who believed what Jesus was saying. In John 8:31-32, it says:
31 To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. 32 Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (NIV).
As you seek to know Jesus, make sure that your steps stay in alignment with what he reveals to you. And this is where something incredible happens because scripture tells us that when you’re obedient to the things that he reveals to you about his character and his expectations for you, it is then that you will know the truth, and that truth will set you free. Ultimately, freedom is the goal of comprehension when it comes to study.
Here’s the last step of study: It’s reflection. It’s one that’s really easy for us to skip because we’re happy that we got some brand new information. I get it. Sometimes I’ll read through something, and I’ll feel like I could win games where trivia is involved now because I got some new information, but I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it many times again in the future, I’m sure: Some of the meanest people that I’ve ever known are people that I’ve known know the most scripture, and they use that in some way to control the behaviors of others. So just because you know something doesn’t mean that it is deep inside you.
Reflection is asking questions. How does this apply to me? What is God trying to tell me about me? Let’s resolve ourselves to inviting God into these places to reveal who we are as we look into scripture. The worst thing that we can do when we read scripture is read it with an eye or a heart towards someone else. It’s like, we’ve all read a passage where we’re reading about someone who’s being judgmental, and we’re like, well, I hope he heard that, I hope she saw that. No, no, no. What if we just said, God, what do you have to say to me in this passage? And may we accept his invitation to be changed as he reveals more things to us.
Practicality is super important. I think that’s why the book of James is one of my very favorite books of the Bible, because it’s this sweet place of intersection of faith and real life. Because the reality is if scripture does not actually intersect with our lives, then what are we even doing? But it does. James shares a powerful truth and a challenge in chapter 1:22-25. He says:
22 Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. 23 Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror 24 and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. 25 But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it — not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it — they will be blessed in what they do (NIV).
That’s why reflection is important, and that’s why all these steps are essential to study, and these are all the reasons that study is essential for us as we seek to know God more. Each week, we leave you guys with questions to work through but, before I do that, I just want you to know something simple. God loves you. God loves you. He is for you, no matter what you’ve done. I don’t know all the people that are watching this, but my guess is there’s some people that are going to watch this that have never really truly heard this. Or if you’ve heard it, you don’t really know it for yourself. But I want you to know this: I am confident that God loves you. If you are breathing today, God sees you, he loves you, and he wants to have a relationship with you, and you can have a relationship with God, but it’s not on your own terms. You can’t just make it up as you go because he is your creator, and he creates the circumstances in which you can have a relationship with him.
The truth is, Jesus died in your place and he rose again. He defeated death so that you could live forever one day with him. The questions that we have for you to discuss, whether you’re in a house church or just with a smaller group or in your community group later, the questions are all related to that.
1. I want you to read John 3:16 and share what it means to you. Is it hard for you to believe for yourself or for someone else? I really want you to get personal. Share the why.
2. Read Acts 2:38-40 and share where you are on your faith journey, not where someone else is. I want you to focus just on you. Have you ever done this before? Have you ever taken the steps that Acts 2:38-40 talks about? And a question I have for you is: If not, what’s holding you back? Let us help you take those steps.
3. Each day this week, I want to challenge you to commit to reading those two passages. Just John 3:16, it’s one verse, and Acts 2:38-40, and I want you to ask these questions when it comes to study: What is the author saying? Don’t skim it, really read it, really soak in it, allow God to speak to you. What is the author saying? What does the author mean? What is the author’s intention? How does this apply to you right now?
Thank you so much for joining us. We’re going to close with another worship song, but we’re super thankful that you’re a part of this journey with us. May God bless you.