Well good evening. It's good to see you guys. My name is Matthew Young. I'm one
of the pastors here with Resonates. I typically on my titles Transformational
Community Pastor and that means that I oversee all of our small groups, our
villages, and the church and work with our our village leaders and others. But
I'm excited about tonight as we move into the summer and a new sermon
series to get to spend some time with you preaching and looking in the word
with you. So yeah, it's gonna be good. It's gonna be a good night. It's gonna be a good
summer. When I was about eight or nine years old, I remember I grew up in a
small town in Texas, not unlike Pullman in Moscow. There's a small college town
like this. There's a university in town and so we had an astronomy department in
the university and my dad worked for the university and every once in a while they
do like a time to invite the public out to come and look at the stars kind of
thing. And so they had this observatory outside of town out on this in this
blank pasture where there were no other lights or whatever to pollute the view
of the sky is the astronomers would say. And so I remember going out
there and eight or nine years old my dad he let us stay up late that night me and
my older sister and we went out in this field and and they had these these fancy
telescopes set up that you could look through. And I remember looking up the
sky and it's a nice beautiful clear night and you could see the stars like
like most nights and I'd seen that before and and so I even remembered in
classes reading the textbooks and seeing you know studying the solar system and
seeing pictures of the planets or drawings of the planets and and so I
remember going to this one telescope and the astronomer guy said hey this is
Saturn and I thought okay sure I bet it is I mean it's probably just gonna be
some bright white light I'll never really get to see the Saturn or whatever
and so I sure enough I take a step up and look through the little eyepiece and
oh my god there was Saturn orange just like it always was in the pictures with
the rings around it and I was blown away like that Saturn right there that
bright light in the sky that I'm looking through is Saturn and I was
overwhelmed and literally I felt within me there's a God and he made Saturn and
it's floating right up there and it's always been there and I always just
thought it was a bright light and they drew pictures of it and made up what it
looked like but there it is really orange with rings around it. I remember
another time when I was in high school junior senior in high school my
family took a vacation to Colorado and so grew up in East Texas we had tons of
trees and then we had hills and so Colorado as you know they had mountains
there and I had never seen a mountain before and so we drove up to Southern
Colorado Lake City Colorado this beautiful little town well it's wedged
into this little valley between these 13-14,000 foot peaks and and I remember
just the whole week we were there just being overwhelmed by the beauty of the
creation that I had never seen or with my own eyes before and just being
overwhelmed and blown away. One particular day we drove up to took jeeps up
through this mountain pass up into these these alpine meadows and these
beautiful vistas and at one point we there it is and at one point we got
drove up on top of this like 13,000 foot peak and I could drive the jeep right up
there on top and got out and you can just see the whole world and it was like
you were standing on top of it and just being breath-taking literally your
breath was taken away and and just overwhelming with man this is this is
in this world is huge and this creation is incredible. There's another time when
I was in college junior in college I got my minor in biology and and so I had to
take some biology classes for that obviously and one of those classes was
microbiology and so some of the biology classes I just wasn't really excited
about and but this one I went in I didn't really know what to expect it
sounded like okay microbes and stuff and and so I remember in the first in the
first lecture the professor began to talk about the the ubiquity of microbes
and I was like what does that word mean they're ubiquitous they're everywhere
and and they're all around us they're all over us they're in us these little
microscopic organisms that we can't see you with a naked eye and and then I
remember it really hit me when with them one of the first several lectures you
put this slide up on the screen as you do in PowerPoint which is cutting edge
back in those days and yeah he put this PowerPoint slide up and it was just this
web of boxes and circles and shapes and they all had labels in them and they're
all connected in some way or another and he was he was trying to communicate and
describe to us and give us a picture of of all of the animal kingdom essentially
and beyond that all living creatures and so each little box represented some
aspect about that and then he pointed down to this one little square down the
bottom left corner I remember and he said this square right here is where all
of the animals and living creatures you've ever seen this is where they are
right here in this box and these 25 other boxes that are all over this page
or all the microscopic living creatures that you've never seen before and I
remember sitting there on the back row of that lecture room up on the top row
and being blown away like oh oh my god you are amazing I mean I think your
creation is amazing in the parts that I've seen and now seeing having my eyes
open to what I haven't even seen yet or may never see your creation is astounding
God does that he reveals himself to us theologians call that general revelation
we see him through creation we see him through our senses our sight our sense of
hearing and smell and taste and touch we experience the creation around us
through that the scriptures talk about it in Psalm 19 one David writes the
heavens declare the glory of the of God the skies proclaim the work of his
hands even back in those days they would look up and see the skies and see the
clouds and and see the stars and be overwhelmed oh God you are glorious
Romans chapter 1 verse 20 similarly says this for since the creation of the
world God's invisible qualities his eternal power and divine nature have
been clearly seen being understood from what has been made so that people are
without excuse we walk amongst the creation a beautiful Saturday Sunday
afternoon like today and you see the green trees and the you see the hills
the rolling hills with the green wheat and the winter wheat coming up and it's
beautiful and it's breathtaking times and the sun sets on the police summers in
the police are wonderful congratulations all made in here this summer
because it's great and we experience that and generally God reveals himself
that way and when we when we experience that we say oh my God you are huge you
are magnificent you made all of this and you're creative this is this is
mind-blowing and so generally we get to know God that way it's his general
revelation and we're thankful for that many of us we spend it years and and
we spend much time worshiping in that some of us we love to get out and go
on hikes and camp and what have you enjoy the general revelation of God
through creation but God is a personal God and not only does he reveal himself
generally to us but he reveals himself to us specifically theologians they
call it specific revelation and so what we have is a God who says it's cool that
you like what I made but I want to show you something else I want to show you
myself you're meant to know me I created you to know me specifically and so
throughout history God has been compiling his specific revelation and he's
given it to us and that's what we have right here it's the Bible God's specific
revelation about himself he says generally you know me when you walk around
Romans 120 says that that we see his eternal power and his divine nature but
he says I want you to know me specifically I want you to know more
about me and so through that he's allowed us to experience and know the depth
of his character and the details of who he is he's allowed us to open up the
door for us to see the extent to which he loves us now I can be an all of God by
looking at Saturn in mountains and in microbes through microscopes but I don't
know how much he loves me without his specific revelation I don't grasp the
details of his character and the values that he values without his specific
revelation the magnet the magnitude of his creative power is further revealed
throughout his specific revelation and the abundance of what my life can be
what our life can be is clarified again through this specific revelation through
him saying this is me this is what I'm about this is who I am and in light of
that this is who you are this is what you need this is your problem and this is
what I've done to fix it so he's given us a general revelation that we all
experience he's given us a specific revelation which we experience as we
read and interact meditate on memorize study the word of God the Bible the
holy scriptures this book that we've received is an eclectic
glomeration of sorts in it you find letters historic records legal
documents songs laments and a bunch of narrative stories telling and giving
pictures of people interacting with God and God interacting with people in
people interacting with each other in light of God and through all of these
different modes of writing and telling stories and communicating information we
specifically learn about God we learn specifically about God this uniquely
popular book has been translated into over 2,000 languages that's 10 times
more than the next book that's been translated I was curious as to that
stat and I looked it up on found a page on Wikipedia because I was curious as
to what was number two and according to this page it said was Pinocchio and I
was a little surprised by that of course it's Wikipedia so who knows you know but
it's a book about a guy who lies and so I thought maybe that there's maybe being
ironic I don't know but number two is Pinocchio if you're wondering I don't know
but uh 44 million copies of the Bible are sold each year more than any other
book it's composed by God through more than 40 authors it's a collection of his
and collected by his people it's a compilation of and it's a composition of
66 books written over a period of 1500 years divided into the Old and New
Testament those people those over 40 authors who helped write this we talk
about them they were inspired by God to write grasping this because we've never
done that before most of us I'm thinking about in the room has written a book of
the Bible here I think that's pretty safe to say so we don't know exactly what
that looks like but I as we try to wrap our minds around what does it mean to be
inspired to write scripture I found a quote by Driscoll and Brashears in her
book doctrine it says this and follow along up here people these people who
are inspired are providentially prepared by God and motivated and super
super intended by the Holy Spirit they spoke and wrote according to their own
personalities and circumstances in such a way that their words are the very words
of God God's supernatural ease God's supernatural guidance of the writers and
their situation enabled them to receive and communicate all that God would have
us know for his glory and our salvation so they were inspired and God would use
their personalities the circumstances the culture with which they were working
in and how he interacted with them within that context and as they wrote
those words and the message that they wrote was inspired by God so that God
could communicate to his people to his creation specifics about who he was
about what life is all about about who we are in light of him science studies
all that we see that creation all that we experience through our senses
theology studies God the primary source of theology the primary thing that we
study and look at is the scriptures that he has given us his specific revelation
so that we can get to know him better study him and understand him and know
from him and walk with him this is not unlike getting to know my wife I first
met April Lockhart it must have been
2000 1999 in the summer of 1999 I believe and and she I was going to school
I was involved in a campus ministry at the University I was at and and she was
coming in she'd already graduated from college and she was coming in to be an
intern with that campus ministry and not unlike we have resonate interns that
work with us after they graduate and come so she came and her plan was to come
and work with college students and particularly the women within this
college ministry and disciple them and lead them and guide them and so I'd
heard hey new interns coming in and so several us went up to the go and meet the
new intern and met her name was April and she seemed nice enough and I began to
know her generally I had a general understanding of this girl named April
Lockhart and so she was there for two years while I was in school going to
biology class and various other things and so we'd interact on occasion at one
point we let a Bible study together and so she would do stuff with this
organization as a part of and so we got to know each other again generally got
to know April and so I was approaching graduation she was finishing up her two
year internship and she had a desire to go back to the Northwest where she'd
spent a semester before to the Portland area and do campus ministry further and
start seminary and I had similar thoughts and desires I wanted to go I
during that time in that trend during that time within college God had done
some significant transformation of my life and I wanted to be a part of seeing
that happen other people's lives and and I wanted to get out of Texas and I
wanted to see the Northwest I want to go to seminary and was able to do all
those things and this girl that I generally knew April Lockhart was
moving there at the same time it's like oh that's cool I generally know her so
we could generally be friends in the Portland area and that could be cool I'd
already know at least one person and it's that'd be fun and so we moved up
there in the fall of 2001 and we did ministry together at Mount Hood
Community College and went to seminary and and that general knowledge of April
Lockhart became more specific as we did a lot of life together and the more
specifically that I got to know her I fell in love and I liked her a lot and
and so we started dating and we got married and so right ten years of
marriage this August and and yeah it's good times and so went from this general
understanding of this girl to this very specific understanding of her and we
know each other very specifically now we've been doing this together for a
few years and the more I get to know her the more I love her and the more fun it
is to get to know her and I hope she would say the same about me I think she
would and so we go from this general revelation to man the more I will get
to know this person the more specific the more specifics I know about her the
more I love her and it's the same with God we start with this cool general
revelation that his creation is amazing the things that all of us experience
through our senses it's it's mind-blowing at times but the more you get to know
him oh my goodness it'll blow you away he's got so much that he wants to tell
you about himself he gets he's got so much that he wants to tell you about you
in light of himself and so he's given us his scriptures the Bible to get to know
him to get to know life and what it's all about in light of him and he invites
us into this we as English speakers in America in 2013 probably have no
greater opportunity maybe an all of history to get to know God through his
specific revelation than we do right now sitting in this room there in the back
there's a there's two tables on both sides next to the joy boxes with free
Bibles any of you could walk by there and take a free Bible if you wanted you
could take all of them if you wanted and go pass them out or go and read them
yourself that'd be weird or you can whip out your your phone and download an app
and it's right there in your pocket any minute you want it you have the Bible
God's specific revelation right there in your pocket at any moment of any day you
can pull up any number of websites and other things that can help you study
we're actually gonna look at some here later tonight to help you look into
multiple translations multiple ways to go about reading the scriptures we are
blessed in that way that God says I want to get to know you guys and I want you
to get to know me and I'm making it really easy for you Americans you
English speakers and he invites us into this to help you understand the
privilege that we have us in this room here tonight I want us to see a don't
you see a video of some individuals in the Chinese church where they don't have
quite that privilege where it's not as easy to maintain or to receive this
specific revelation and so watch this this this quick clip and and see what
it's like for them
it's a beautiful picture of people who've received this specific revelation of
God and you see how they how excited they were they open up that suitcase and
boom they're on top of it give me one give me one
pastor Josh Martin tweeted this a few weeks ago and it's on YouTube and you
can go and look at it somebody who speaks Chinese went and translated with
that young young woman was saying and something along the lines of we need
this book so much we need this this is gonna help us so much you can see them
almost almost like they wanted to devour it smelling it kissing it tasting it
specific revelation of their God and they're already beginning to open it up
this is it this is the scriptures
there's stories like this in the Bible people who love the word of God who love
God's specific revelation and Psalm 119 I don't know if you ever read Psalm 119
it's the longest chapter in the Bible and it goes through for each letter of the
Hebrew alphabet David the Psalmist writes about 12 lines about some in some
way saying this is how much I love the specific revelation of God I love his
commandments I love his decrees I love what he's written here I love what he's
given us I want to read you a few verses from that's Psalm 119 verse 97 oh how I
love your law I meditate on it all day long all day long I meditate on your
law on your specific revelation Psalm 119 103 how sweet are your words to my
taste sweeter than honey to my mouth before they had refined sugars the
sweetest thing in the world was honey and he would taste that and said this
evening as good as the word this isn't even as good as sweet as God's specific
revelation to me
119 105 your word is a lamp for my feet a light on my path that shows me where
to go 120 my flesh trembles in fear of you I stand in awe of your laws when we
stand in awe of Saturn and creation and mountains and beautiful sunsets David
stands in awe of your laws keep in mind at this point he had the Torah the first
five books of our Old Testament Genesis Exodus which Genesis is it's pretty
action-packed half of Exodus is pretty cool then Exodus Leviticus numbers
Deuteronomy man guys it's it's I'll be honest it's a little slow reading there's
it's still got specific relation it's good and David says it's sweeter than
honey I'm in awe of this stuff God verse 127 because I love your commands more
than gold more than pure gold more than the most valuable metal of his day more
than money essentially more than possessions I love your specific
revelation to me how you've revealed yourself to us I love it there's a story
in Nehemiah the nation of Israel and at one point their history they had been
taken out of there where they were from and brought to these other nations and
or they did not have got specific revelation readily available to them
and they were out they were in captivity for a while and in exile for a while
till eventually in the book in Nehemiah it tells the story how they got to come
back and they got to rebuild their city and rebuild the walls and when those
walls came to completion they said all right we're gonna celebrate and we're
gonna do that by reading the law and it talks about how from in chapter 8 and
chapter 9 how from day from dawn till dusk they read the law of God they read
God's specific revelation and they had a week-long celebration and party or
daily they would read and they would confess their sins and they would be
overwhelmed by the truth that that was presented to them as they got to hear who
from this God his specific words to them on how to live and who he was and how to
interact with them and they worshiped and they loved it and then in Hebrews and
we get to the New Testament God's specific revelation got very specific
as Hebrews 1 verses 1 through 2 says in the past God spoke to our ancestors
through the prophets at many times in a various ways but in these in these last
days he has spoken to us by his son heir of all things and through whom who he
appointed heir of all things and through whom also he has made the universe and
so God said let me get real specific I'm gonna come be one of you let me show
you how this how this human life is done let me show you how I would do this if I
were you and he sends Jesus his son to live the perfect life as an example of
what life can look like and then that perfect son part of God himself
sacrifices himself on our behalf he says that's what love this that's how much
I love you his ultimate specific revelation is in Christ as we look back
through the Old Testament we see that everything is pointing to that pointing
to him and we all learn only learn about the specific revelation we don't learn
it by looking at sunsets and spending time in the woods we learn it by reading
the word by reading the Bible and God says I want to show you how much I love
you I want you to see this look what I did look at my son I sent him for you
and he speaks about that over and over again and all the arrows point towards
Christ and it's a beautiful picture of how much God loves us specifically how
he loves us you may be thinking all right this is a sermon about they want
us to read the Bible more you're right it is our hope here tonight is not for
you to say oh you're right I should be reading the Bible I'll give it another
shot I tried it one time before but man that junk is hard sometimes sometimes
it is I'll be honest it is the scriptures actually honest about that in
second Peter there's this part where Peter who hung out with Jesus is writing
a letter to some some new believers and he talks about Paul's writings who had
written before and so much of the New Testament Paul is writing letters to
churches and explaining to them who God is explained to who Christ is and what
Christ has done on our behalf as he's inspired by the Holy Spirit to write and
explain this out with all of his vast knowledge of the Old Testament he says
this is who Jesus is this is specific and let me get real specific and Peter's
in talking about Paul's writings and in chapter 3 he says guys some of that
stuff that Paul writes hard to understand I get it and so for you to say
sometimes it's hard to understand it's okay it's alright that's normal and don't
let that scare you away he's calling you into this in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 Paul
is writing here and he's writing to one of his guys he's been mentoring who he's
pretty much passing the baton on to and he's writing to him some instructions
and he's talking about scripture at one point chapter 3 verse 16 and 17 he says
all scripture is God breathed and is useful for teaching rebuking correcting
training and righteousness so that the servant of God may be brought maybe
thoroughly equipped for every good work all scripture is God breathed that's
something that we need to understand as we interact with the Bible that we are
interacting with the living God that the words that we read on these pages are
God's words to us and so when we open up our Bibles when we sit down to read when
we open up that web page to read that scripture we need to do so expecting to
hear from the God of the universe expecting for him to speak to us ready
to hear something it's God breathed and it's useful for teaching rebuking
correcting and training there's things we need to know there's things we need to
learn that we don't get again from our general revelation and so to be taught
by the scriptures and again when Paul writes this when he's speaking mostly
about he's speaking about the Old Testament and he's saying we need to be
taught by that it's also useful for rebuking and correcting and training when
you open the scriptures you need to know that these are not primarily you
centered they're not me centered we don't open this up and find every answer to
our life specifically in all the details so where do I go to school what do I
major in which job should I take who am I supposed to marry that's not in there
you can you can look through there and there is a book called Matthew which you
know I like that one because of the title but it never it never mentions
April Lockhart that I'm gonna marry and it never talks about moving to Portland
it never talks about coming on staff with resonate but it does talk about who
God is and it does talk about who Jesus is and in light of those things it gives
me guidance to make decisions where God has given me the freedom to make
decisions but when you open this up there's awful also things that God wants
to correct and rebuke and teach you and so that this has authority God's word
and his speech to us his specific revelation to us has authority and so
we read the word we do so as though we're waiting to hear from God and we're
submitting to him saying God I am open to you as I read your scriptures I'm
open to you and I'm willing to hear from you I'm willing to give you influence in
my life I'm willing to allow you to lead me to make changes to affect my
decisions when we read it the other way when we say okay God I've got some
decisions I'm pretty much I know how I want to do this I just want you to
affirm that just want you to say it's okay and touch tell me to go on my way
and because this is my plan and I know I've got I probably don't have everything
together but I got some pretty good ideas about life and and I'm pretty awesome
and and if I if I'm not it's maybe stepping out of bounds but I think the
universe revolves around me so so if you want to help me out with that God that
would be great that attitude God says I don't have anything to say to you other
than you need to go spend some more time in my general revelation and see how big
I am there's a point and at the end of Job if you ever read the end of Job
verses chapters 38 through 40 God says Job have you considered my general
revelation let me specifically talk about that for four chapters it's pretty
good should go read it when we come before God and we open the scriptures we
do so as though they are an authority in our life that they are the inspired word
of God and he wants to speak to us and we open ourselves up to that in
submission saying all right God I'm being vulnerable for you all right talk to
me sometimes the scriptures get a bad rap for that people say that seems old
school these are old they're written over 1500 years by old people long time
ago and cultures that are completely unlike ours in 2013 it seems rigid and
it could be legalistic here they go again the church telling me to read my
Bible and that's how I am a good person I'm telling you that this is how you get
to know your Creator this is an opportunity for you to get to know
him there's a pastor in New York named Tim Keller he says a completely
authoritative Bible is the prerequisite of a warm and personal
relationship with God if you look at this in any other way if you say I don't
want this to speak into my life then it will be rigid and you'll find yourself
doing it out of religious duty not out of a relationship out of with someone
that you love and that loves you God specifically wants to talk to you and
he's calling you and inviting you into that something you need to know that
the scriptures or this book in and of itself is not divine this leather and
these pages with ink on them this is not God sometimes we get it confused and we
say that the father the son in the holy Bible we leave out the Holy Spirit and
now we say oh this is this is my God and we we treat even just these this thing
with some kind of weird reverence now when you've never had one of these
before like these people in China it's exciting no doubt and you take care of
it and you always want to have it near you so you can read it have it
available to you but know that it's the God that speaks through this that is
divine and he is God we don't pray to our Bible we pray to God and we listen to
him through the Bible and it's a this is the way that God transforms us he
speaks to us and he transforms us as we read and we spend time with him
listening to him as we meditate and think on and we allow him freedom into
our life he begins the transformation of his Romans 12 to says he transforms our
minds he renews our minds from all the way used to think through the general
revelation specific revelation and he talks to us and he transforms us he's
calling you into that transformation and he wants to speak to you when I was a
in college my freshman sophomore year I came into college and like many of you
probably experienced come into college and all of a sudden you have a lot of
choices and and I'd been brought up going to church of the regular routine in my
family I was familiar with Christianity I knew the stories but I began to be
surrounded by Christians who were being transformed by God and they talked
about the Bible like it was something cool yeah you know I've read it some it's
a little slow sometimes and I have a hard time getting into it sometimes and I
remember thinking through and it was some point somebody asked me Matthew why
do you believe what you believe that just because you grew up in a Christian
family or is this really what you believe I began to really ask ponder those
questions and I remember I came to a point where I said all right God I don't
under I don't think that I understand the scriptures the way these people do so
I began to prayer prayer as a freshman in college and I began to say God help me
to appreciate these things like these people do if there's more to this that
I'm not getting open my mind to that open my eyes to that there's something else
God I don't know if I fully grasp how much you love me and what love is and
all that stuff these other Christians they talk about that like it's a big
deal and I don't know if I quite get it so I began to pray and it was a it was a
common prayer regular prayer an ongoing prayer for me I said God teach me about
your scriptures why are they so important and God teach me about your love
and through that time my freshman and sophomore year God began to overwhelm me
through his scriptures about how much he loved me it was sweet and it was
mind-blowing and I began to see God in ways I never knew I could see him it was
transformational as we walk through this summer together we want to invite you
into the same thing the band's gonna come out here in just a moment we're
gonna play two more songs and during that time if you want to stand and sing
along then stand and sing along if you need to sit and pray then I invite you
to sit and pray if you think through this you're like yeah I've given that a
try but and I don't know if I get it Matthew seems a whole lot more excited
about this Bible than I do why is it so important that God gave a specific
revelation God I don't know if I understand if you're asking those
questions I invite you in to right now to begin to pray that prayer to God and
say God help me help me to understand your scriptures overwhelm me just like
you do with sunsets with how big you are how much you love me so as we sing and
as you pray I invite you into making commitments to God that this summer
would be a time when you step into hearing from your God when you step in
to transformation through his specific revelation invite you into that talk
with God listen to him he's calling you to himself he wants to talk to you he's
got something to say all right I know you're like what's going on what are
they doing so we want to talk about how to read the word of God now I'm gonna
spend the next couple moments looking in and we just want to give you some very
practical very specific ways that you can read the Bible and hear from God
and actually this this summer as we continue on from here in the series
that we're gonna go through the the rest of summer just as I shared a moment
ago that when I was a freshman in college I experienced the word in a brand
new way and God began to speak to me about his love each week we're gonna
hear from from someone else we have five different guys are gonna preach
throughout the summer myself and so the other pastors and a few other guys who
are future pastors we'll be sharing some about scriptures that they where God
spoke to them where at the right time God gave them the right truth that they
needed to hear at that moment to bring about continued transformation in their
life now some cool stuff has happened in our lives and we're excited about that
and we want to share it with you but just because we get to wear microphones
on our faces and stand on stage doesn't mean we're the only ones that can hear
from God you get to do that too and so we don't want you to miss out on this and
as you've been praying and thinking and talking to God and he's been calling you
to himself he wants to speak to you through the word through the scriptures
through his specific revelation and so what we want to do here over the next
couple minutes is just show you real briefly a few just real practical things
about how to go about doing that and try to try to take away some of the fear or
maybe misunderstand that you have about what that looks like and and how to move
forward from here so so we brought out the big fatty screen and I've got my
computer hooked up to it and then we're gonna essentially just have some Bible
study here and and go at it like that so real quick there are a lot of as you
may know and one of the things that you may have questions about is okay yeah
I'm ready to read the Bible which one do I read you're right there are quite a
few English versions first of all you need to read the Holy Bible not somebody
else's Bible but there's a lot of scriptures and there's different
translations and so I'm just gonna dive right into this and throughout the
English language as we've grown as we use language differently there's been
attempts and and and to try and put the scriptures got specific revelation in
the language that we can understand and so over time people have made new
translations and gone back to the original languages and and said okay
that's what that meant in the Greek that's what that meant in that Hebrew
thousand years ago thousand years ago okay what does that mean today what does
that mean to someone in 2013 and so the attempts within that is to communicate
that into a language that we can understand and so so as we look at the
as we look at a Bible as we look at the Bible and it could be in several
different English translations and so part of that and for this I encourage
you guys to within your program there's a sheet there the blank side of the
announcements the other side of it maybe jot down some notes I want you to get
this and not walk away and forget this or pull out your phone and make some
notes on that and so so within what I'm looking at right here what you're
looking at is Bible Gateway calm and we're gonna I want to search through this
a little bit but if I click right here where it says new international version
there's a whole list of translations the Bible and you can even get them in
Italian or Latin if you're into that man any language you just about any
language you can think of I think it's on here probably the one that's gonna be
most helpful for you is these ones here in English knowing most of you and so
but you can see there's there's several options there and so some of these are
better than others not be honest with you about that and usually the scriptures
that I read from earlier tonight we're all from the NIV usually here at
Resonate you'll hear from the NIV or the ESV sometimes use the NLT these are
good translations to be able to use but to try and take away some of the what's
the difference in them I've got a little bit I put this up here it's a little
bootleg but so some translation helps so if you look towards if you look at this
as a spectrum so this is one end of the spectrum going to the other you have
word-for-word on this end and paraphrase on this end can you guys see that we're
doing okay there yeah all right all right so on the end on that end the word
for word so the attempts of the translators there were to say okay this
is what it looked like in the English I'm sorry in the original language and if
we're gonna put this into English we're gonna try and make is little of a jump
from the original language the new language or to the English language and
so they tried to go word-for-word this is what it how it read in the in the
Greek or in the Hebrew okay and this is how that translates to to English so
subsequently sometimes it's a little bit harder to read and sometimes the
sentence structure is a little weird and I don't usually talk like that and but
I'm reading it here and so sometimes a little bit tougher to read it's kind of
like I don't know when you're when you're listening to someone with a really
strong accent at first you're like what are they saying and then you begin to
listen to them okay now I'm getting it now I'm getting the more you spend time
in some of those translations the easier is okay I'm understanding what's going
on and so but you get you're a little bit closer to maybe the original
original languages so as the translators on these ends as you move further to the
you're right on this towards towards a paraphrase you begin to get some that
are a little bit more easier to understand English language so this is
HCSB is the Holman Christian Christian Standard Bible and and so it's a good
one that that's it's still doing pretty good being being word-for-word and
really true to the original languages but they made some other steps to make it
a little bit closer to modern-day English for us to be able to understand so you
jot that one down you can even write this whole little thing down this little
uh what is this a thing and anyhow then you come on to the next one NIV and so
this is the new international version again this is what I read from tonight
they do a good job of making it easy to understand they just come out and one
for one in one and a new one in 2011 and actually that's the one it's back there
on the table so if you want to pick one of those up and it's helpful as you
take one step further you get to the NLT and they do a really good job of
making it in the modern-day language and making it understandable to someone
who's never read the Bible before so if you've never read the Bible before I
would I would encourage this this this version to pick it up and begin to read
from it and the new living translations that stands for the NLT I mean take
another step and this may be several steps over actually is the message and
and this is a guy named Eugene Peterson brilliant guy and he went through and he
looked at the original languages because he knows them and he said this is how I
would say this if I was if I was writing it to the modern-day here so it's
nowhere near word-for-word he adds words in there and adds phrases and
colloquialisms and and other things that make sense to us but would never have
been said in first-century Greek but it's helpful sometimes to go and read to
start with the ESV and then to read the message and be like okay now I have a
fuller understanding of what this passage is trying to communicate and so hopefully
this is helpful and not confusing to you if you're like I don't know I don't know
what you're talking about Matthew tell me just go pick up the NIV in the back
and start reading all right so with this as we as we get into this and if
you're still a little bit like I still don't know what to do I want to encourage
you just taking steps to try it out and again the God of the universe who made
sunsets and mountains and amazing things if he wants to speak to you he's gonna
find a way to speak to you and he's gonna through his specific revelation that
he's given us he's gonna speak to you and so trust him in that again go to him
speaking or planning on hearing from God expecting that and as you open that up
I was talking we were doing marriage counseling with a couple last night me
my wife with a couple of getting married and we're talking about before we got
married there was there were some aspects about being a married man that I was
a little bit nervous about and one of those was buying car insurance and I'd
never bought car insurance before and I felt like I was less of a man because of
that I was like what if she finds out I don't know how to buy car insurance and
so I felt like one time one night before we got married I felt like I need I need
to confess this April I don't know how to buy car insurance I've never done that
before and I was like revealing my soul to her and she said it's okay we'll
figure it out I was like oh yeah we will all right so same thing with this all
right if you're nervous about this you're like I don't know how to read the Bible
it's okay we'll figure it out all right so I'm gonna give you some some more
helps with this and and we'll move on so let's go back to it's a biblegateway.com
and so man I use this often when I it's if I can do it I don't have internet
here but so right there it's number two next to Facebook as far as the pages
that I use the most all right so I use this all the time daily when I'm
interacting with the scriptures when I'm looking up a new scripture when I'm
trying to find something and it's a really easy resource to use and so if
you've never used this before I want to give you just a brief tutorial on this
so right here if you just you come in here and you're like oh I need to look
up what was that verse in John you know John 316 I'll look it up real quick and
you can you can find that or one of the one of the cool things is a keyword
search I use this a lot whoops and if you click that this page would come up
and and so say how many times in the Bible where in the Bible does it talk
about meditating meditating on the word so I type in right here the word meditate
and then I can go down here and if I'm typing in a phrase I can do all words
exact words any words and and then in this case I want to search the entire
Bible but I could also just search the Gospels or a section of the Bible like
the epistles or the major prophets or the minor prophets or I could just look in
one book like Deuteronomy and figure it out so but if I want to search the whole
Bible then I would do that and and then hit search for keyword or phrase and
then when I did that this page would come up and so then I can scroll down here
and you begin to see and all of these places where the word meditate comes up
in the scriptures so you say that's really helpful like okay I want to learn
about what does God have to say about his love I guarantee if you type that in
there you'll get a lot of a lot of responses and you could begin to go
through and look at those scriptures and begin to look at them in their context
and what do they say and so actually when you do that so you could just click
right here if I want to look at Joshua 1.8 and what he says about meditating
keep this book of the law always on your lips meditate on it day and night so
that you may be careful to do everything written in it so then you'll be
prosperous and successful so there's a good one about thinking and interacting
with the God specific revelation so I can look at the verses right in
front of it and before it or I can just look at all of Joshua 1 which I
encourage you to do click that one see what's going on in the context around
this verse sometimes when we take one verse out of context we can do some
dangerous stuff and that's how heresy start you don't want to be a heretic I
promise so you continue to scroll down you see a whole list here and obviously
you see meditate come up a lot in Psalm 119 that's the one I was reading from
earlier where he is routinely meditating on the scripture on God's
specific revelation so but say I want to look up a specific or look up a phrase
what was that heard somebody it resonate the other night the preacher was
talking about something to use that phrase of that scripture had said
something about God so love the world so if I want to type that in you type it in
what was that verse oh it's John 3 16 so you found that verse that that little
tidbit you just remember part of it now I know the whole scripture I can go read
it and haul and the whole thing and and read all of John 3 you can go on and do
some other things that are really helpful I go get a whole whole passage of
scripture so to get into this further there's a tool that I want to teach you
guys and and just for basic Bible study and it's called soap it's an acronym and
I was trying to think a great way to remember this when you want to be fed
by the word of God eat soap but that didn't really work so I don't know why
it's so it just works out that way all right so soap so this is the S of soap
stands for scripture there you go scripture so you can just type out a
verse if you're if you're reading through a passenger scripture get into a
reading a Bible reading plan which you can find on you version the app you
probably have on your phone you can go to experience resonated calm and you can
find several different reading plans one for all year six months I would
encourage you if you're just starting off once you start with this 21 day plan
it takes you through all the book of John in the next three weeks as well as
the book of Mark and James but if you want to do John go with John if you're
starting off read the book of John over the next three weeks and go for it but
then you would be able to interact and so say okay I'm committing to read the
Bible every day and so I'm gonna start off my day with this or when I get home
or my lunch break I'm gonna read the word I'm gonna study it I'm gonna allow
God to speak to me and so he invites us into this and so we begin with scripture
and so start with a section of scripture a chapter of the Bible or half a
chapter a story within the Bible and begin to read through that and usually
when I when I start this I begin with a prayer and I say God I'm about to open
your word and I'm expecting to hear from you Holy Spirit highlight for me with
the new scriptures what you want me to see what it is that you want to say to
me today and then I start reading and so for tonight I thought we'd read and
look at Ephesians chapter one it's a great book the book of Ephesians and
Ephesians chapter one is a target rich environment there's a lot here that you
could begin to study and so as you read through this what you want to do the
ask for scriptures you want to pick out one scripture or a handful of scriptures
one or two once a few that you can digest today and and so you read through
this and begin to look for something that stands out to you within this the
holy and living God is saying all right I'm ready to tell him something is gonna
be good I'm fixing to show him something in Ephesians chapter one and it's gonna
be awesome and so I'm using up a lot of time I'm gonna skip down to verses by
the way verses three through fourteen amazing like if I went through that and
highlighted all the stuff that I want to think about and study it would all be
yellow okay so if we skip down to verses 15 I'm probably making you dizzy with
all that scrolling around sorry verse 15 for this reason ever since I heard
about your faith and the Lord Jesus and your love for all God's people I've not
stopped giving thanks for you remembering you in my prayers I keep asking
that the Lord our God that God our Lord sorry that the God of our Lord Jesus
Christ the glorious father may give you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so
that you may know him better I pray that the eyes of your heart may be
enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he is called the
riches called you the riches and the of the glorious inheritance in the holy
people and his incomparable and complicate and comparably great power for
us who believe so within that I began to read that and and what we see here is a
pretty cool section of scripture Rapal the writer of the book of Ephesians is
writing to this group in Ephesus and he's praying a prayer for them and so if
I was doing that I would I would interact him with the scripture I would
copy the part that I saw verses 17 and 18 and and so for you this may mean you
do this in a journal so you get out one of those just a little notebook where
you have a mole skin if that's how you pronounce it or one of those fancy
little trendy journals that you have right and you whip out your pen and you
write this down I have terrible handwriting and so I don't write
anything down because I can't ever read it again so I do the old control C and
copy that over and I'll bring it over here and paste it in a Word document
allegedly there it is and so this is out of Ephesians chapter 1 verses 17 and 18
and so I found my scripture as I read through that I said all right I feel
like God is speaking to me through this something about that is staying is
popping out to me what does that mean I have questions about that or oh my
goodness I think I think God is speaking to me through this scripture and so
whatever it is that stands out about that scripture and maybe it's you're
reading through it's like I'm determined to get through this whole chapter you
get halfway through it's like whoa whoa whoa I need to think on that for a
moment then it's okay if you don't finish the chapter it's all right if God
wants to talk to you then let him talk to you and so put this down write this
out and then you begin to observe so that oh and soap is observation so you
just begin to make some observations and you're just asking who how what when
where you begin to just figure out what what is this saying and what's going on
in this passage just basic observation not trying to be deep theologian
spiritual person just trying to find basic observation so within this as I
read this chapter I saw this is the apostle Paul writing so I would do big
big letter O observation so Paul is writing you're gonna see my terrible
typing skills as well here at work is the author he's writing to the Ephesians
there we are big red big red underlining there and so and within this I began to
look for other other observations I read through this I saw that man he seems to
know these guys really well and he even seems to love them it's deep and and so
man he's excited about these guys and he starts off with this huge paragraph
within this first chapter of how much he loves them what he wants to do in them
and how who they are in Christ and you see this this phrase in Christ come up
repeatedly and then gets into this section at 15 where begins to talk to
them directly man I'm excited about you guys I keep hearing about you so he
knows them well and if I wanted if I had time I would go and search this like why
does he know them so well with a book of acts is a book about a large portion of
Paul's journey and how he interacted with these churches and I would go and
look in around acts 17 or so somewhere in there or he spent several years with
these Ephesians so he knew them well and so that would affirm yes seems like he
knows them well so much so that when he gets to verse 17 he's overwhelmed with
them as he's writing that he writes out his prayer for them so this is a prayer
for the Ephesians his friends whoa how'd that equal sign in there I don't know
anyhow and so this is his prayer for them so he's writing out this prayer so
I'd move on I've made some observations and then I'd come to the a and a stands
for application so now I began to I've looked at the scripture I've made some
general observations I feel like God is speaking to me and he's highlighted this
prayer that God that Paul begins to pray for these people and he makes and so I
want to read through it again and want to see how this applies to my life I keep
asking that God that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ the glorious Father may give
you the spirit of wisdom and revelation so that you may know him better I pray
that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know
the hope to which he has called you the riches of his glorious inheritance in
his people as I began to think about Paul he's writing this in his first
century as people that he knew well and he loved and what he wanted for them
more than anything else for them to get it for them to understand how much God
loves them for them to understand the riches of his glorious inheritance in
his holy people for him for the eyes of their heart to be enlightened in order
that they may know the hope and I want that to Paul pray that prayer for me to
God I pray that prayer for myself God I want to know you want the eyes of my
heart to be enlightened so his application I'm praying this prayer for
myself glorious Father may you give me a spirit of wisdom and revelation so that
I may know you better I pray that the eyes of my heart may be enlightened in
order that you may know that I may know the hope to which he is called you to
which you have called me and so I think through man I want to pray that for
myself but then I began to think further is God is there anything else you want
to say to me through this passage the reality is there's people in my life I
want them to know this well as well I want them to understand this as well so
to apply this further I'm praying this for Mike and who else am I gonna pray
this for and so I might think a little bit I might say God is there anybody
else you want me to pray this for I'm gonna play it for Pat so from there I
continue to think okay God is there anybody else you want me to pray this
for how do I apply this to my life and I listen to him I interact with him how
does your word want to speak to me so then we come to the P of soap and
that's prayer and so then I do just that I seek to make application take this
application and make it real through beginning to pray and so if I was gonna
do this for real I would sit here and I would type out a prayer I'd ride out of
prayer it's one thing to sit and think it through your mind that's cool that's
fun that's good but to write it down then you have record of that you can come
back that come back to that in a week in a month ten years from now and you can
remember oh yeah I remember when I prayed for Mike and I prayed for Pat that
they would get it he got it yesterday after ten years thank you God for
answering that prayer does that make sense or as I go through and I write
that prayer out for myself in a week from now as I continue to work through
Ephesians and he's revealing himself to me it's like oh yeah that prayer for
God answered that prayer the holy God who created mountains and sunsets and I
see him regularly through his general revelation is now I'm interacting with
him specifically and he's speaking to me and leading and guiding me scripture
observation application prayer soap this is how you study the Bible it's that
simple again I encourage you to begin to put this into action began to say all
right what am I gonna do this week where am I gonna start and start in the book
of John if you want to read through the book of Ephesians go for that start
somewhere began to read start off saying I got I'm expecting to hear from you I
want you to speak to me I'm excited to hear from you and so I invite you guys
into this now I'm gonna pray for us we're gonna do a few announcements and as we
move into this summer of hearing from God through his scriptures and you hear
stories about God speaking to people through his scriptures don't ever
think that he can't speak to you he's inviting you into this he's got something
he wants to say to you let's pray God we thank you we're overwhelmed with your
general revelation and tonight we're overwhelmed your specific revelation
that you the God of the universe wants to speak to us God speak to our hearts
and help us to understand that we are privileged to get to be a part of this
we're privileged to get to read your word and so God I pray for these that are
here tonight that you propel them out of this place excited about the
opportunity to interact with you to hear from you to learn about who you are to
learn about themselves in light of who you are God is as Josh demonstrated you
have much to say to us through our script through your scriptures God put
in our hearts place it on our lips God may we learn to love you with our heart
soul mind and strength through interacting with you and getting you
know you through your scriptures God we love you and these requests I ask them
the powerful name of Jesus Christ amen thank you guys
