SPEAKER_01: Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years, welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible teaching ministry at Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.
SPEAKER_01: You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening.
SPEAKER_02: Hey, grateful you're here.
SPEAKER_02: Like we said last week, we are, and Pastor's going to talk a little about tugging the triangles, the purpose of developing spiritual habits.
SPEAKER_02: The purpose of developing spiritual habits is so that it becomes a habit.
SPEAKER_02: We can't live without it.
SPEAKER_02: You know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_02: It's one of those we want through the Christian life, the habits that we're going to talk about throughout the summer.
SPEAKER_02: We want it to be something of the idea of, if you don't do it today, when you go to bed, you're like, I missed something today.
SPEAKER_02: I need to get up, I need to go do it.
SPEAKER_02: Or not a guilt or anything, but the idea of meeting with the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And so let me pray with you, and then we'll get started.
SPEAKER_02: Let's go.
SPEAKER_02: Dear God, thank you so much for your many blessings.
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for your love.
SPEAKER_02: Just thank you for a chance just to uh open your word.
SPEAKER_02: And more importantly, Lord, as as we challenge each other, as we grow together, Lord, help us be what you've called us to be, and that is to be Christ-like.
SPEAKER_02: And thank you for your many blessings.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name I pray, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I'm on now.
SPEAKER_00: You can hear, right?
SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: We didn't kill it last week.
SPEAKER_00: So thank y'all for coming back.
SPEAKER_00: Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Um, also, uh, we are doing these unique microphone things because we are going to put this available on podcast.
SPEAKER_00: So we've had um people ask uh choir members and different people in the church, can we hear that?
SPEAKER_00: So we are putting together a new podcast that's just going to be the sermons and special messages like this.
SPEAKER_00: So uh that will be available soon.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why we're doing these.
SPEAKER_00: So we want to get uh rolling here, and just to set up before Matt comes back and talks about quiet time ways, want to remind you that these spiritual habits are how we grow.
SPEAKER_00: How we grow.
SPEAKER_00: And so remind you of how we describe that here and how I like to teach that through the triangle, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so your triangle represents your spiritual life.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, this is the transformation process.
SPEAKER_00: You are growing to become like Jesus, you're walking with him.
SPEAKER_00: In the language of 2 Peter 1, we talked about last week, the knowledge of Him.
SPEAKER_00: As that grows and as you are transformed, your triangle grows.
SPEAKER_00: So it's just a way to illustrate the spiritual chemistry of how we grow to be like Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Like any chemistry formula, there are certain elements, and then those elements work in a certain way, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we're using an equilateral triangle.
SPEAKER_00: These three elements grow equally together.
SPEAKER_00: Our commitment to Christ, that means we've given our lives to Him.
SPEAKER_00: He is our Savior.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have committed to Jesus, by definition, you have committed to the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You cannot commit to Christ and say, Well, I don't really want the body part.
SPEAKER_00: I don't really like those people.
SPEAKER_00: I love Jesus, but I'm not going to work with them.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: When you are committed to Christ, you are committed to the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Then the next leg is our relationship with Him, because it is a walk with Him.
SPEAKER_00: Again, knowledge of Him as we grow in our knowledge of Him.
SPEAKER_00: So, like any relationship, you have to spend time with Him and communicate in order to grow.
SPEAKER_00: And so our relationship grows through prayer, Bible study, and choices of faith.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer, Bible study, and choices of faith.
SPEAKER_00: So if you will look again at 2 Peter chapter 1, what we talked about last week, he talks about scripture that he's given us in verse 3 and 4 that has everything required for life and godliness.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, when we rely on those, we are we share in his divine nature, and we are escaping those worldly, earthly desires, that person that we were before we got saved.
SPEAKER_00: So we're being transformed.
SPEAKER_00: So we have the word of God, Bible study, prayer is simply how we talk back and forth to him.
SPEAKER_00: And if you are reading Scripture and you're talking to the Lord, then He's gonna say, While I've got your attention, Greg, I want you to work on this.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that right?
SPEAKER_00: Is that how that works?
SPEAKER_00: And so he tells us in chapter one that we are to, because of those promises, add to or supplement our faith with goodness, kindness, self-control, knowledge, and all that, right?
SPEAKER_00: So what that how do you supplement that?
SPEAKER_00: That means the Lord tells you, hey Greg, while I got your attention, we're gonna work on your patience some more, son.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna give you this verse and I want you to study this.
SPEAKER_00: And oh, by the way, you're about to have to deal with this and you're gonna have to be patient, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna work on that patience.
SPEAKER_00: And so, prayer, Bible study, choices of faith, those things that he puts in front of us.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, son, we're working on this.
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I'm giving you this verse because you're gonna face this later today.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm making that obedient choice of faith to grow in my relationship with him.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And then ministry, that is serving.
SPEAKER_00: That is serving other people.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you're going to be a part of Christ, then you're gonna be a part of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're gonna be a part of the body of Christ and be transformed to be like Jesus, then you're gonna have to serve others the way Jesus served.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, you think about this moment when Jesus is teaching his disciples and he says, A new commandment I give you, that you love one another as I have loved you.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, we are commanded, we got to serve the body the way Jesus serves the body.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is we grow spiritually by all three legs growing at the same time.
SPEAKER_00: Most of us in our lives, as we go through the trajectory of life, we're growing, and then all of a sudden, one of those legs gets stuck.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to be that committed to church.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know that I want to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And then what happens is in this growth process, he exerts pressure on that stuck leg to unstick it, and then we grow.
SPEAKER_00: You think about a new Christian, man, they're excited.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus loved them, they've gotten saved, they'll witness to a mailbox, they'll do anything in the church you ask them to do, they can't get enough of it, but they don't know anything about what's going on in scripture, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so their leg that is difficult is this relationship leg because we got to feed them as much scripture as we can possibly feed them to catch up their knowledge base, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then all of a sudden they find out they're not supposed to go out drinking with their buddies anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, whoa, nobody told me that.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody told me I had to give that up.
SPEAKER_00: Now we have a commitment issue, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so that's what happens in our lives, we're growing.
SPEAKER_00: So the key driver most often is this relationship driver.
SPEAKER_00: If we are spending time in the Word, if we are communicating with the Word, with the Lord through the scripture and prayer, and then we are responding when He puts a choice and faith in front of us, if we're doing that, then that leg right there will drive these others.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So this is a key part of the Christian life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's the first spiritual discipline that we have to have on a regular basis in order to walk with him and grow to be like him.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what we wanted to do is give you different perspectives from both of us about how we approach having a quiet time, spending time in the Word, how we listen to God through the Word, how we apply it in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Prayer, Bible study, choices of faith.
SPEAKER_02: So last week we had the question: what is the difference between information and knowledge?
SPEAKER_02: The other day I had a lady come into my office and she was wanting to talk to me.
SPEAKER_02: She was struggling, finances, life was a disaster.
SPEAKER_02: She came in, all right, this has been a while back.
SPEAKER_02: She came in, we were talking, and obviously she needed something.
SPEAKER_02: She needed more than I could offer her.
SPEAKER_02: So all I could say was, you need to read the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: And she says, I read the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting there, and then I said, I did not have, at that point, it just caught me, I did not have an answer for because what the easiest answer is to say, I knew she needed to get into God's word, but the words on the page were doing what?
SPEAKER_02: It was just a what?
SPEAKER_02: Just information or it was just words.
SPEAKER_02: She was getting bogged down by the black and white, and it was not what?
SPEAKER_02: Becoming knowledge to her.
SPEAKER_02: So we talking with Greg as we were looking through this, we wanted to go more into just telling you you need to have a quiet time too.
SPEAKER_02: What do quiet times look like?
SPEAKER_02: You know, here's what now I'll say this.
SPEAKER_02: There could be some of you in this room when we get done that could come up and say, This is the way I do it, and the Lord speaks to me every day.
SPEAKER_02: We keep doing it.
SPEAKER_02: We're not telling you to do it like me, we're not saying to do it like Greg, but we are.
SPEAKER_02: If you're struggling in your quiet time, and when you open your Bible, all you're seeing is black and white and some red as you get into the New Testament, then we are looking to maybe try, we're trying to help you make this Bible come alive and be practical.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Um if we if we look in 2 Peter 3, 16, we know by looking in the Bible, even Peter says this.
SPEAKER_02: If you look up here, Peter looks.
SPEAKER_02: When he says he, he's talking about Paul.
SPEAKER_02: Paul speaks about these things in all these letters in which there are some matters that are what?
SPEAKER_02: Hard.
SPEAKER_02: There are some matters that we read in here that we might, it might be hard for us to understand.
SPEAKER_02: But let's think about this just for a second.
SPEAKER_02: I don't think, or we can get wrapped up in hard topics, but I don't I don't think necessarily that's what we're called.
SPEAKER_02: Let me be careful with that, because that's not understanding the Bible is not the main desire, the main purpose of what we have to be careful with that because we can spend a lot of time getting deep into deep theology when we miss the practical of what the Bible's trying to make us daily.
SPEAKER_02: I've heard I've had people come in, listen to my whole statement, come in and they want to talk about the second coming.
SPEAKER_02: It's a great thing.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord is gonna come back.
SPEAKER_02: Mark has a shirt that said, I've got the Bible, and we know that the Lord wins in the end, right?
SPEAKER_02: So second coming is a but this guy was struggling with his daily walk with Christ, and he was trying to do theology on the end times.
SPEAKER_02: So, really, through our quiet time, listen to me, through our quiet time, we are walking through a journey of what does it look like to follow Christ daily?
SPEAKER_02: So I want to give you a few, here, here, here's some here's some thoughts, applying understanding God's word.
SPEAKER_02: Here, and this is on the page, here, and this isn't all of it, this is thoughts to why we do have quiet times.
SPEAKER_02: What does the Bible say about raising children?
SPEAKER_02: What does scripture uh how did how should scripture influence my decisions, my relationship at work?
SPEAKER_02: What is the biblical perspective on the upcoming choices that I must make?
SPEAKER_02: What does the Bible say about finances?
SPEAKER_02: You see what I mean?
SPEAKER_02: What does it, what is going on in your life that the Bible can speak into?
SPEAKER_02: That's why we're having the quiet time.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible is a practical deal to do what?
SPEAKER_02: To make us like Christ.
SPEAKER_02: I say it all the time.
SPEAKER_02: We should, through our Bible and through what we do today, we should be more like Christ today than we were yesterday.
SPEAKER_02: Not because Matt Passmore is good, not because I go to First Baptist Church, not because I sit on the second row during church.
SPEAKER_02: All those should help, right?
SPEAKER_02: But that's not what makes me good.
SPEAKER_02: It's what?
SPEAKER_02: My daily walk with Christ that makes me what?
SPEAKER_02: Better like him today than I was yesterday.
SPEAKER_02: Now, if we so so look with me, so that it tells us the importance of why do we have time with the Lord?
SPEAKER_02: Why do we spend time reading the Bible?
SPEAKER_02: Why is it so important?
SPEAKER_02: James 1.22.
SPEAKER_02: This was one of my hardest verses when I got into ministry.
SPEAKER_02: Now it's one of my favorite, because it holds me accountable.
SPEAKER_02: So James 1.22, it says this.
SPEAKER_02: He but be doers of the word and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
SPEAKER_02: Because if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his own face in the mirror.
SPEAKER_02: For he looks at himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was.
SPEAKER_02: But the one who looks intently into the per the perfect law of freedom and perseveres in it, and is not a forgetful hearer, but one who does good works, this person will be blessed in what he does.
SPEAKER_02: I'll be honest.
SPEAKER_02: For a long time, I was like the man that looked in the mirror, walked away, and forgot what I look like.
SPEAKER_02: Now I'll tell you this.
SPEAKER_02: I was trained at a young age, I had a quiet time every day.
SPEAKER_02: I'd be the first to tell you, I had a quiet time six to seven days a week.
SPEAKER_02: There were many days, and I hate to tell you this, there were many days that soon as I finished reading, that I shut my Bible and I'd go get breakfast or I would go do whatever, and by the time I got to the next event, I could not even have told you what I read.
SPEAKER_02: That is why that is not why we have a quiet time.
SPEAKER_02: That takes us back to the first question is we are wanting knowledge, not information.
SPEAKER_02: And so the question today is don't be like I was for all those years.
SPEAKER_02: The idea I was I was ready for someone to come up to me and say, Did you have a quiet time today?
SPEAKER_02: Of course.
SPEAKER_02: But I was a nervous wreck that they would say, What?
SPEAKER_02: Did you get something out of it?
SPEAKER_02: That's a better question, right?
SPEAKER_02: So I've tweaked my quiet time.
SPEAKER_02: And I know a lot of people do it different ways.
SPEAKER_02: Right now, I'll just tell you what I'm doing.
SPEAKER_02: I've done it or read through the Bible.
SPEAKER_02: I've done different Bible.
SPEAKER_02: I mean, I've I spent a little bit of time looking at last year.
SPEAKER_02: I tried to do people studies.
SPEAKER_02: So I was studying people in scripture and different things.
SPEAKER_02: Right now, what I'm doing is I'm reading through his utmost for his highest.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, it's just a simple read.
SPEAKER_02: But what I've done, if you if you if you know what the utmost force highest is, it just has a verse of scripture, and sometimes it's not even the whole verse of scripture.
SPEAKER_02: It has a point that they're wanting to make, and then you read just kind of an application of it, and then what I do then is I take, and like today, uh today was in um 1 Peter, um, 1 Peter, then I went and read the whole chapter or the whole chapter of 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_02: Because here's why I want to do that.
SPEAKER_02: Because so many times you can read that one verse, and you don't get what was before it, what was after it, and what does it.
SPEAKER_02: And then I had a pastor tell me about, or I was listening to a deal about four years ago, and this really hit me.
SPEAKER_02: He said, When I read my Bible, I've got to a point, and he was a his story was a lot like mine.
SPEAKER_02: He was reading it a lot just to say he read it.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, I I've changed how I read my scripture.
SPEAKER_02: He says, When I open my Bible to read the chapter, read whatever I'm gonna read, he says, I cry out to the Lord and I say, Lord, I'm not gonna shut my Bible today until you show me something.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, You know what?
SPEAKER_02: The first couple times it was hard because I was not what trained to do that.
SPEAKER_02: It was like I was opening my Bible to just get it done, I'd set it aside.
SPEAKER_02: I had to what?
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm serious, God.
SPEAKER_02: And he said, you know what?
SPEAKER_02: The more I've challenged the Lord to do that, he said, it doesn't take me as much because I know that the Lord has something for me each day.
SPEAKER_02: And so today I was reading, it was talking about in 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_02: And here, and here's kind of what also what where else in my life that I've started to do.
SPEAKER_02: Not I spend a lot of time eating with people, uh, people come into my office.
SPEAKER_02: I've made a commitment through my quiet time that I am going to try to use what I read in my quiet time throughout the day.
SPEAKER_02: I do my best every time that I'm counseling with someone, to to, and it's amazing how the Lord makes it fit.
SPEAKER_02: I don't get it, but it's amazing how the Lord makes it fit.
SPEAKER_02: But a lot of times, as they are sharing with me their problems, I can say, hey, this morning, and this isn't about how great I am.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I'm not telling them to say, oh, look, I had a quiet time, look, the Lord spoke to me.
SPEAKER_02: That's it is if they only knew why I'm doing it, they'd be, it's to hold me accountable.
SPEAKER_02: I want the Lord to say something to me, and then I don't want to just hold it.
SPEAKER_02: What's he calling me to be like him?
SPEAKER_02: I want to share it.
SPEAKER_02: And so today, I knew this was coming, so I read my Bible today.
SPEAKER_02: And in 1 Peter, um, it was talking about um the uh that in the Old Testament there was a priest, but in the New Testament we don't have a priest, that we can go directly to the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: And I know when I finished my quiet time today, it was thank you, Lord, for what you have given me that I can cry out.
SPEAKER_02: Think about this.
SPEAKER_02: They couldn't even go in the temple, they couldn't, they couldn't even do it at certain times, and only a certain person could go do it.
SPEAKER_02: I can cry out to the Lord anytime I want.
SPEAKER_02: I have that kind of relationship with him because of what Jesus did for me.
SPEAKER_02: And so today that was a lady came in today, and I was able to share, look, this.
SPEAKER_02: So, so as I'm gonna finish it, and Pastor's gonna share, share with his.
SPEAKER_02: Here are some, here, here are some examples of application-oriented questions that might help you say, okay, my question right now for me is Lord, what do you want to show me today?
SPEAKER_02: I don't want to quit until you show me something.
SPEAKER_02: It's kind of broad, but here are some that you might want to have, it's on your paper here that you can take through before you start your quiet time and just you have your personal question.
SPEAKER_02: But here are some.
SPEAKER_02: Does this text reveal something that I should believe about God?
SPEAKER_02: Does this text reveal something I should praise or thank God for?
SPEAKER_02: Does this text reveal something I should pray for myself or others?
SPEAKER_02: Does this text reveal something that I should have a new attitude about?
SPEAKER_02: Does this text reveal something I should change?
SPEAKER_02: And then you know where you're at?
SPEAKER_02: Does this text reveal something that I should you fill in the blank?
SPEAKER_02: Again, going back to the first question, we want to be careful.
SPEAKER_02: The Bible is a ton of information, but we're reading it for a knowledge, we're reading it for an application, we're reading it for a life change.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's my part of the challenge.
SPEAKER_02: A pastor's gonna come and share some more about how he breaks down scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I had to turn my mic back on.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, thank you, Matt.
SPEAKER_00: It is fun to talk about these things with Matt, and we spend some time working through them together, and so it's been a joy to do that.
SPEAKER_00: You have two pieces of paper there that's part of your handouts.
SPEAKER_00: Charlene created for you.
SPEAKER_00: The first one is this importance of spiritual habits.
SPEAKER_00: That was the outline from last week.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Y'all got that?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody got that?
SPEAKER_00: You good?
SPEAKER_00: Then you have another stack of paper stapled together, which is 1 Peter chapter 1, and it looks like this.
SPEAKER_00: It is the text of the chapter, chapter 1, and it's got big margins on the sides and uh and and big lines in between.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody got that?
SPEAKER_00: You with me?
SPEAKER_00: So, what I want to do is walk you through the two methods that I use in my life.
SPEAKER_00: Some of these I've taught before, uh, and so I'm just gonna remind you some of them, but we're gonna go through the exercise together, okay?
SPEAKER_00: These are the two things that I love to do in my life.
SPEAKER_00: And Janet and I have learned these and designed these together.
SPEAKER_00: The first is uh what is a lot of times called inductive Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: And when Janet and I discovered this way to do this, which I'm gonna teach you in a minute, it's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: It opens up scripture, it's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: It is so easy to do, it takes you no time at all, and it just breaks open scripture.
SPEAKER_00: It has been so life changing for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's how I preach, it's how I got to this.
SPEAKER_00: Janet uses it to teach other women how to do Bible study when she disciples them.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, every time we love to go to flea markets and we, you know, go and do all that.
SPEAKER_00: It's really fun.
SPEAKER_00: And so every flea market we go into, she is looking in the book section.
SPEAKER_00: For people who have discarded inductive Bible study Bibles, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know, you got all kinds of study Bibles, right?
SPEAKER_00: So she's collecting them all from any flea market that we ever run into.
SPEAKER_00: So if you find one, like get the$2, buy it, bring it to me, and I'll give you$3 for it.
SPEAKER_00: How's that?
SPEAKER_00: And because she just gives them out and teaches women how to do that.
SPEAKER_00: She's got them and she's marked them all up, and it's all kinds of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They're incredible.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's how we do that.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing is something that I developed looking for a way to teach people how to meditate on scripture and how to take it with them.
SPEAKER_00: And this is brew.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about this before, and I'll just continue to talk to you about it.
SPEAKER_00: If it's frustrating to you that I'm teaching you something that you've already taught, in 1 Peter chapter 1, we looked last week where Peter said, I'm going to keep telling you these same things so that when I'm dead and gone, you'll hear my voice in your head.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so I want you to hear brew in your head from me all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're going to do in that is believe that God has something to tell us, be, and so when you approach it, just like Matt said, the guys, you know, you're praying, God, I'm not going to leave here until you got something for me.
SPEAKER_00: I believe that your word has something for me.
SPEAKER_00: Again, 2 Peter chapter 1 says, He has given us everything required for life and godliness through these great and precious promises, so that we may share in his divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: And so if he has given us these promises in his word for the purpose of helping us experience his divine nature, be transformed in his image, then I have to believe he's got something to say to me, right?
SPEAKER_00: Then I take that verse or that passage and I read it over and over and over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, throughout my entire ministry, I've done this with people.
SPEAKER_00: It's unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: If they've never had a quiet time, they don't know how to do it, they read, here's what I'll do.
SPEAKER_00: I'll tell them I want you to take a week, and I want you to read the first seven verses of Philippians chapter one.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to read those every day.
SPEAKER_00: Make notes on what you don't understand, make notes that get your attention.
SPEAKER_00: Read the same verses over and over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: Seven days, one through seven.
SPEAKER_00: Then the next week, I want you to read one through seven on the first day, eight through fourteen on the second day, and go through that seven verses for seven days.
SPEAKER_00: And then in two weeks, you're going to sit down and tell me how which one you learned more from.
SPEAKER_00: Every person has always told me they learned a whole lot more from the first week when they read the same verses over and over and over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So there is a depth and an understanding.
SPEAKER_00: We pay attention.
SPEAKER_00: God gets our attention.
SPEAKER_00: We get through layers when we read them over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: Each word, you slow down and you pay attention to what each word means.
SPEAKER_00: Define each word.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what it means.
SPEAKER_00: Think about what happens, and then it begins to crack open for us.
SPEAKER_00: And then you write down what God tells you.
SPEAKER_00: You write down what he tells you.
SPEAKER_00: If the God, Creator God of the universe, stopped and spoke to you from His Word, it ought to be important enough for us to write it down.
SPEAKER_00: Make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So let me show you how it works.
SPEAKER_00: You're reading through a verse, and we go to 2 Peter chapter 1, verse 4.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just take that one as an example.
SPEAKER_00: By these, he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, especially the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read it again.
SPEAKER_00: By these, and then you begin to think, by what?
SPEAKER_00: By what?
SPEAKER_00: Verse before, great and precious promises, right?
SPEAKER_00: By these.
SPEAKER_00: By what?
SPEAKER_00: By his own glory and goodness.
SPEAKER_00: His divine power in verse 3 has given us everything we need.
SPEAKER_00: He called us by his own glory and goodness, by these.
SPEAKER_00: So scripture was written from the glory and goodness of God.
SPEAKER_00: Literally, the scripture that we have, God's glory is reflected in it.
SPEAKER_00: And by his glorious nature, he created and authored scripture for us.
SPEAKER_00: How can we not spend time in God's Word if it was written to us out of the glory of who he is as the creator God?
SPEAKER_00: How powerful do we think it is?
SPEAKER_00: If it was written by His the glory of who he is by the Creator God.
SPEAKER_00: And then it says by His glory and goodness, God's righteousness, his innate character of righteousness and holiness, and everything is right.
SPEAKER_00: And so you have right here promises written by the magnificent and majestic glory of God that are created through his inherent righteousness and goodness and holiness.
SPEAKER_00: How in the world is this not something that we take with us every day?
SPEAKER_00: How in the world can we take it for granted?
SPEAKER_00: How in the world can we not let it be the thing that defines our view of everything that we do, think, say, look at, evaluate, and all of that?
SPEAKER_00: Look at what it says.
SPEAKER_00: By these, by the majestic, incredible glory of God as the creator God and his inherent righteousness and goodness, he has given us very great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, we're doing this series on ten verses that are the favorite verses of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And these verses are incredible, are they not?
SPEAKER_00: It's a shame that I can't preach them any better because they're unbelievable.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they deserve, you know, Adrian Rogers' Billy Graham level of teaching, because they're that great.
SPEAKER_00: Are they not that great?
SPEAKER_00: And what makes them great?
SPEAKER_00: That God has activated them in the lives of our people and they stand on them.
SPEAKER_00: And they have turned them in and they're excited about them because of what?
SPEAKER_00: They are great.
SPEAKER_00: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: What does the word great mean?
SPEAKER_00: What does great mean?
SPEAKER_00: It's better than good, right?
SPEAKER_00: My wife makes good desserts, but my mama's lemon icebox pie, cookie pie, is great.
SPEAKER_00: Great, right?
SPEAKER_00: We have a pit out in our Chaffee property, but the Grand Canyon is grand.
SPEAKER_00: It is great.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Great.
SPEAKER_00: His promises are great.
SPEAKER_00: The advice of your friends, it may be good.
SPEAKER_00: This is great.
SPEAKER_00: I may come up with good stories or illustrations, but let me tell you what, that pales in comparison to the time that we spend reading God's word because it's great.
SPEAKER_00: Great and precious.
SPEAKER_00: It is precious to us.
SPEAKER_00: When you have clung to God's word and it has carried you through a moment, it is precious.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to my mom.
SPEAKER_00: My mom's got health issues, real significant health issues.
SPEAKER_00: She's got vertigo, has to walk with a walker.
SPEAKER_00: About eight or nine years ago, she had carpal tunnel surgery, and the doctor cut all the nerves in her hand, left hand, and so her hand does not do anything.
SPEAKER_00: My brother refers to it as the paw.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's literally, that's all it does.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, she can't do anything.
SPEAKER_00: So she has to carry a walker by strap on a wrist with a strap that goes like that, and you velcro it.
SPEAKER_00: So you tie this strap around the walker, and she carries a walker with one hand, and she has to drag it like that.
SPEAKER_00: And she has congestive heart failure.
SPEAKER_00: And so she is slowly deteriorating through life, and a lot of people go through that.
SPEAKER_00: It's she's, you know, it's kind of how we all get there, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you're going through.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm talking to my mom, and she's a great person who loves the word, and she has been talking to me about enjoying these series.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and here's what she said she has a verse.
SPEAKER_00: When I was in college, she had breast cancer, which back then in the mid-80s, I mean, it's always scary, but it was really difficult back then, right?
SPEAKER_00: You know people, or some of you have been through that, right?
SPEAKER_00: And she has a verse in scripture that she shared with me the other day, that is her favorite verse.
SPEAKER_00: And it's out of the book of Isaiah, and the verse says, You will go through great trouble, and through that trouble, your life will be saved.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, In my quiet time, God told me, This will be difficult, you will have great trouble, but you will live.
SPEAKER_00: And I lived.
SPEAKER_00: It was hard, but I had the promise of God, and now here I am through life, and she says, I go through this, I go back to my precious promise of God.
SPEAKER_00: Even as I go through this trouble, if I don't wake up tomorrow, I'm gonna be in heaven with John, my dad, and Jesus, my Savior.
SPEAKER_00: They are precious, are they not?
SPEAKER_00: They are precious.
SPEAKER_00: And you think about what you're feeling right now, and it took five minutes for us to slow down, pay attention to each word, and define a word like precious and what it means to us.
SPEAKER_00: That's what a quiet time is.
SPEAKER_00: That's the difference.
SPEAKER_00: You've got a word from God, and when you slow down and you repeat the verse, and then you go with each word, every single word drips with the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Every word was inspired by God.
SPEAKER_00: Every word is profitable for our life.
SPEAKER_00: And when you take a verse and you slow down and you start paying attention to each word like that, God begins to speak to you through all those.
SPEAKER_00: Now you read that verse after just a few of those illustrations, and let's see what that means.
SPEAKER_00: By his own glory and goodness, he has given us very great and precious promises.
SPEAKER_00: You see how that verse has changed?
SPEAKER_00: You get that?
SPEAKER_00: Then you write that down according to some of those questions Matt gave you and take out with you.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to be growing in the knowledge of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see how that works?
SPEAKER_00: Again, what he says, verse 2, may grace and peace be multiplied to you through the knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's the whole point of what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point of what Peter is trying to teach here is that we are trying to grow in our knowledge of the person of Jesus and in our walk with him, because as we walk with him, these things are activated in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: These promises, they give us what is required for us to be alive.
SPEAKER_00: They give us the requirements for eternal life.
SPEAKER_00: They show us how to be saved.
SPEAKER_00: They show us how to walk with him.
SPEAKER_00: They show us how to grow in our holiness and godlies through knowing him more closely.
SPEAKER_00: They become great and precious in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We are transformed into his divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: We become like him as we grow.
SPEAKER_00: We escape those things that we were saved from as we become more like Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And look what it does in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why Peter says, I'm going to tell this to y'all till I'm gone to heaven, and I'm going to say it loud enough, long enough, you're going to hear my voice in your head for the rest of your life about getting involved in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Brew.
SPEAKER_00: So that's when you find a verse.
SPEAKER_00: So now here's generally how you land on that.
SPEAKER_00: You're reading a passage of Scripture, or we're studying together, 1 Peter chapter, or 2 Peter chapter 1.
SPEAKER_00: And as you study through that, what's going to happen if you're listening to the Lord and you believe that he has something to tell you, one of those verses is going to go.
SPEAKER_00: And you're going to go, ooh, God just got my attention.
SPEAKER_00: And when he gets your attention with that verse, that's the one you brew.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Questions about that?
SPEAKER_00: Any thoughts, ideas you got?
SPEAKER_00: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's look at, and I want to walk you through this other exercise of inductive Bible study.
SPEAKER_00: Basically, it's three things that we're going to do.
SPEAKER_00: What does the word say?
SPEAKER_00: What does the word mean?
SPEAKER_00: And what does the word require or application?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So, observation, what does the word say?
SPEAKER_00: You got to learn to read it.
SPEAKER_00: You got to learn to read it carefully.
SPEAKER_00: That brew method, slowing down, paying attention to each word, that's what we're going to do.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to do.
SPEAKER_00: It takes no time to do this.
SPEAKER_00: It just takes discipline to sit down and process it this way.
SPEAKER_00: Then what does it mean?
SPEAKER_00: We're going to do a little bit of how you interpret that, because like Matt showed in chapter three, it talks about hard verses that people struggle with and what to do with that.
SPEAKER_00: And then verse 3, as we talked about application, what does it want you to do?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So let's take a minute and let's just talk about how to read our word.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is why this is so important to me.
SPEAKER_00: Number one, it's important to me because Peter says, as a pastor, I'm supposed to do it this way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says in verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: I will always remind you about these things.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I will always remind you about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you now have.
SPEAKER_00: And you think sometimes, man, Pastor Greg, this is what you teach in children's ministry, kids that don't know how.
SPEAKER_00: You don't teach it to the people who are the core of the church in a church that loves the word and has a heritage of the word, and we do this.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want Scripture said.
SPEAKER_00: He says right here, I'm going to remind you always about these things, even though you know them and are established in the truth you now have.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: Because, man, it gets away from us in a hurry.
SPEAKER_00: We are all three quiet times away from stupid.
SPEAKER_00: And so we got to stay in the word and keep growing.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, This I think it is right, as long as I'm in this bodily tent to wake you up with a reminder, since I know that I will soon lay aside my tent.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm going to die, as the Lord Jesus has indeed made clear to me.
SPEAKER_00: And I will also make every effort so that you are able to recall these things at any time after my departure.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, I'm going to keep teaching this while I'm here so that when I'm dead and gone, I'm in heaven with Jesus, you're going to hear my voice telling you to have your quiet time.
SPEAKER_00: Brew a verse.
SPEAKER_00: How's your triangle?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you're going to hear those things always.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we're doing.
SPEAKER_00: So let's talk about how we observe Scripture, how we read that.
SPEAKER_00: So take out your chapter one, and I printed it off for you like that.
SPEAKER_00: Charlene, help me do that, so that you can write all over this and practice and play with it.
SPEAKER_00: I know people get weird sometimes about writing in their Bible and all that.
SPEAKER_00: I don't write in my preaching Bibles.
SPEAKER_00: You can see that I don't write in my preaching Bibles because I can't read the words anymore.
SPEAKER_00: And if I got lines all over it, I can't read it.
SPEAKER_00: Some of y'all, y'all, most of y'all know that.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you'll get there, I promise.
SPEAKER_00: That's what happens.
SPEAKER_00: And I have other Bibles that I write all over them and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So people get weird about writing.
SPEAKER_00: So we've done this so that you can practice and you can write all over this.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we're gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do two things.
SPEAKER_00: The first is as we read chapter one, we're just gonna pay attention to these details.
SPEAKER_00: Who, what, when, where, why, and how.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody's heard those.
SPEAKER_00: Y'all been doing that school your whole life, you know what that is.
SPEAKER_00: Who, what, when, where, why, and how.
SPEAKER_00: And all this is gonna do is slow us down to read each word more carefully.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't matter if you put it under what or you put it under why, it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: The fact that you put it down somewhere says that you slowed down enough to read it carefully and see it's in there.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: All right, so do this with me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna read slowly and y'all call out every time there's a who.
SPEAKER_00: Let's just practice it together.
SPEAKER_00: You ready?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter.
SPEAKER_00: I love y'all.
SPEAKER_00: That's awesome.
SPEAKER_00: You guys are on it.
SPEAKER_00: I usually have to make people get there on the first one.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those.
SPEAKER_00: It even says to those who, so we know it's a who, right?
SPEAKER_00: Uh now, who is the who?
SPEAKER_00: And it explains to us, to those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with ours.
SPEAKER_00: Who is the ours?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's an apostle of Jesus Christ, right?
SPEAKER_00: So Peter's saying to all those people who've been saved, you have a salvation just like ours, through the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ, right?
SPEAKER_00: So we see who's the who there.
SPEAKER_00: Now, let's pay attention to that.
SPEAKER_00: Who's the who there?
SPEAKER_00: We have two words, God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: How many who's are in that phrase?
SPEAKER_00: One.
SPEAKER_00: That's my saxophone brother back there.
SPEAKER_00: We got it.
SPEAKER_00: Orchestra people are just smarter.
SPEAKER_00: There's one.
SPEAKER_00: Look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: There's no specific article right there.
SPEAKER_00: God and Savior, Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus Christ is the person, and he is both God and Savior.
SPEAKER_00: See that?
SPEAKER_00: That's important because as we talked about last week, what we understand is Jesus is God.
SPEAKER_00: He is one of the three persons of the Trinity, and He is God.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you read next verse, may grace and peace be multiplied to you.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the people reading this, or the believers, right?
SPEAKER_00: Through the knowledge of God, as a who, and of Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: And so you see there he talks about God, the Father, and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So you see the difference between the two verses.
SPEAKER_00: By paying attention to the who's, we discovered some cool stuff right there.
SPEAKER_00: Just from slowly reading the who.
SPEAKER_00: You see that?
SPEAKER_00: Is that incredible?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that didn't take any effort to do that.
SPEAKER_00: And so here he says the next one.
SPEAKER_00: Alright, so those are who's.
SPEAKER_00: As you read through there, you kind of see those.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's go to wins.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So let's think about when for a minute.
SPEAKER_00: If you see a win, past tense, present, future, whatever it is, call it out.
SPEAKER_00: Simon Peter, a slave and apostle of Jesus Christ, to those who have obtained a faith of equal privilege with ours through the righteousness of God and Savior Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I personally wrote a win right there.
SPEAKER_00: What I got was obtained, right?
SPEAKER_00: In past tense.
SPEAKER_00: So when I got saved, I got this already.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_00: Pastor, I grew up, used to tell us all the time that when you get saved, you get all of the Jesus that there is.
SPEAKER_00: You just have to spend the rest of your earthly life figuring out what you got when you got saved.
SPEAKER_00: He'd say, somebody who leads another person to faith in Christ, you're a soul winner and you lead somebody to Jesus, you get more excited about them getting saved than they do because you're further down the road and you know more about what happened to them when they got saved.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And so our transformation process, our growing triangle, is discovering all the things that happened to us when we got saved.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And so when you got saved, you got full access to Jesus in any moment, in any time, just as Matt said a minute ago.
SPEAKER_00: That illustration of the veil in the Holy of Holies being torn, and we can come into the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: And that's why in Hebrews it says twice that we can boldly enter into God's presence or the Holy of Holies through the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Boldly walk to the throne of grace in time of need.
SPEAKER_00: Because we have an equal privilege to Jesus as to who?
SPEAKER_00: There's a who there.
SPEAKER_00: The Apostle Peter, the dude that walked on water.
SPEAKER_00: The dude that walked with Jesus later in the end of this chapter, the dude that was on the Mount of Transfiguration when Jesus was transformed, the image of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Peter, you got equal privileges to Jesus when you got saved as one of his three best friends on earth, an apostle who was the church planner and led the creation of the church all throughout the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_00: The guy who sat on the Mount of Transfiguration with the Lord, you get every bit of access to Jesus as that guy does.
SPEAKER_00: Now that ought to be transformative in our lives, right there, right?
SPEAKER_00: And we got it already when we got saved.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get saved, and then you start trying to earn your way there.
SPEAKER_00: You got it all when you got saved.
SPEAKER_00: We're just learning what happened to us when we got saved.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: You see that win?
SPEAKER_00: And there's all kinds of wins in there.
SPEAKER_00: You're going to see not that many wins in the first chapter, but you're going to see a number of wins in other chapters.
SPEAKER_00: Matt talked about the guy struggling with the theological questions about the end times, but he's not even having his quiet time.
SPEAKER_00: In chapter 3, that very point that Matt made is explained in chapter 3.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us, I don't want you to be ignorant about this.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to understand Jesus coming back.
SPEAKER_00: But then here's what he says after that.
SPEAKER_00: Because of that, because Jesus is coming back, that should motivate you to live a godly life here and now.
SPEAKER_00: Then he goes on to say, and the hard saying part of that, people are confusing you with that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Don't be confused by all that.
SPEAKER_00: You are to grow in your knowledge of Jesus as you're waiting on his return.
SPEAKER_00: And so it is encouraging to us that Jesus is coming back.
SPEAKER_00: It's a subtle fact that he's coming back in the future.
SPEAKER_00: But the whole point of that should make us feel comfortable and free now that I don't have to worry about the future.
SPEAKER_00: What I have to do right now is grow in my knowledge of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so those whens are in there and they bring out great points for us.
SPEAKER_00: So let's think about what's.
SPEAKER_00: Let's play with what for a minute, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 2.
SPEAKER_00: May grace, there's a what, and peace be multiplied to you.
SPEAKER_00: That's a who to you, to us as Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Multiplied may be a what.
SPEAKER_00: It could show up in a why.
SPEAKER_00: You know, why do I get to know Jesus more?
SPEAKER_00: Because grace and peace are multiplied to me.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Either one of them, you got it done.
SPEAKER_00: But look at what he says.
SPEAKER_00: Through the knowledge, that's a what?
SPEAKER_00: Of God and of Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 3, his divine power has given us everything, and what kind of what?
SPEAKER_00: Everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: So in two verses, right in the very beginning of this, we get a what that is really important.
SPEAKER_00: The knowledge of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Our knowledge of him, our walking with him.
SPEAKER_00: Twice you get it repeated that quickly, it tells you God's got something important in this knowledge of Jesus business.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Now, you those are what's.
SPEAKER_00: The other thing we're going to do is we're going to look for repeated words and concepts.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I'll stand up there and y'all see me.
SPEAKER_00: I don't have notes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to remember what I'm supposed to say next.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm making up a story while I'm trying to remember what my next screen was.
SPEAKER_00: People in the booth are going, okay, Greg forgot what the next screen was.
SPEAKER_00: We better put it up there for him, right?
SPEAKER_00: And all that's happening.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm up there making stuff, and I'm probably repeating myself because I'm trying to work my way into what the next point is.
SPEAKER_00: If God repeats himself, it's not him trying to figure out what he's going to say next.
SPEAKER_00: If God repeats himself, he's pounding home a point, isn't he?
SPEAKER_00: He is layering that point.
SPEAKER_00: And so if he's going to start repeating a concept in here, then that concept is going to be central to this passage of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And so if we start running into the word knowledge a whole bunch, then I need to go right down on my notes, this knowledge thing is important.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense?
SPEAKER_00: And if you read through this, you're going to find the word knowledge in a whole bunch of ways.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see how it happens.
SPEAKER_00: His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness.
SPEAKER_00: By these He's given us great and precious promises, so that through them you may share in the divine nature, escaping the corruption that is in the world because of evil desire.
SPEAKER_00: For this reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful in the of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: You see how important it is?
SPEAKER_00: He tells us what it means to us.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us grace and peace is multiplied through it.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us that through those great and precious promises we get to know Him, and all of that happens, and then He tells us supplement our faith, and then He says, if, verse 8, if we have supplemented our faith with those things, then we will not be useless and unfruitful in our knowledge of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: If we are not doing that, it means that we are unfruitful in our knowledge of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So our knowledge of Jesus should be producing a growth in us.
SPEAKER_00: As we get to know Jesus, it should be changing us.
SPEAKER_00: It should be transforming us.
SPEAKER_00: As we get to know Jesus, our faith should be growing and becoming obedience.
SPEAKER_00: That verse again in James chapter 1 that Matt showed us, be doers of the word and not hearers only.
SPEAKER_00: What do you think it means?
SPEAKER_00: Make every effort to supplement your faith with goodness, goodness with knowledge, knowledge with self-control, self-control with endurance, endurance with godliness, godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.
SPEAKER_00: What are we doing there?
SPEAKER_00: We're being doers of the word.
SPEAKER_00: We're our faith, as we get in our relationship in that triangle, I'm talking to the Lord through prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I'm reading the word in Bible study, and he's gonna say, Greg, while I got you here, I need you to supplement with some doing here, and I need you to do some self-control.
SPEAKER_00: That makes sense?
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna work on self-control now, son.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, Father, here we go.
SPEAKER_00: And now I'm growing to be more like him as my knowledge is growing of him and who he is and how he works in my life and what he wants to do, then I'm being transformed into his image.
SPEAKER_00: Make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And so those repeated concepts, so you get knowledge, so you start to get some what's.
SPEAKER_00: And when you have the same what showing up a bunch of times, we better pay attention to that.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: All right, let me show you another concept that's repeated.
SPEAKER_00: Watch this.
SPEAKER_00: His divine power has given us everything required for life and godliness through the knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness.
SPEAKER_00: By these he has given us very great and precious promises, so that through those promises you may share in his divine nature.
SPEAKER_00: With me?
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with these obedient qualities so that we are fruitful in our knowledge of him.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 9, the person who lacks that growing deal is blind and short-sighted, and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.
SPEAKER_00: Or in other words, he's forgotten what happened to him when he got saved.
SPEAKER_00: So now I've got to go reconnect him to what happened when he got saved, so he's growing.
SPEAKER_00: Now look at the next series of verses that I read a minute ago.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, there's a change.
SPEAKER_00: We're doing something different.
SPEAKER_00: We've already talked about the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: We've talked about how supplementing your faith through obedience transforms in his image.
SPEAKER_00: Therefore, I will always remind you about what these things.
SPEAKER_00: What are these things that he's going to remind us of?
SPEAKER_00: They're the things we just talked about, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty simple.
SPEAKER_00: That's what they are.
SPEAKER_00: So he says, I'm going to remind you about the promises and how they work in your life and all of that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to remind you about those, even though you know them and are establishing the truth you have.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to keep reminding that so you remember it forever.
SPEAKER_00: So we have the first section of this chapter.
SPEAKER_00: The Word of God, His precious promises, they transform us.
SPEAKER_00: This second section, I'm supposed to be doing them all the time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm supposed to never forget them.
SPEAKER_00: I should recall them in every moment.
SPEAKER_00: In my life, I should be constantly reminded of having my quiet time, of taking these promises, obeying them, all that.
SPEAKER_00: And then you get this second, this third section in verse 16.
SPEAKER_00: He's now talking about the word again.
SPEAKER_00: For we did not follow cleverly contrived myths when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_00: Now, those are what's, right?
SPEAKER_00: We did not follow what?
SPEAKER_00: Cleverly contrived myths.
SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, there's a difference between our great and precious promises and myths that people make up.
SPEAKER_00: We have truth, and he's now going to tell us that this word is true.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, we were eyewitnesses of his majesty.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives that testimony about being on what we call the Mount of Transfiguration.
SPEAKER_00: For he received honor and glory from God, the Father, when the voice came to him from majestic glory, saying, This is my beloved Son, with whom I'm well pleased.
SPEAKER_00: You can read that over in the Gospels when that happened.
SPEAKER_00: Peter sounds there.
SPEAKER_00: He says, We ourselves heard this voice when it came from heaven while we were with him on the holy mountain.
SPEAKER_00: We also, so in other words, what I'm telling you, Peter says, is, I saw this happen and this is true.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an eyewitness.
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: I'm an eyewitness.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, we also have the prophetic word strongly confirmed.
SPEAKER_00: The Old Testament prophecies of Jesus showed up in the purpose of in the person of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: When we read from the Old Testament, it has been confirmed in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know that Scripture's true?
SPEAKER_00: Because prophecies from the Old Testament are confirmed in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Only God can do that.
SPEAKER_00: We know it's true, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, because Peter was there and saw it happen.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I'm telling you it's true because I was there.
SPEAKER_00: Then he says, we also know it's true, because you can read Isaiah, that Jesus would be beaten beyond recognition and go to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: And he was beaten beyond recognition and went to the cross.
SPEAKER_00: Micah, that we read on Sunday, in Micah is the prophecy of Bethlehem.
SPEAKER_00: In the book of Matthew, it tells us Jesus was born in Bethlehem just as the prophets foretold.
SPEAKER_00: Go back and just skim the first five chapters of Matthew and write down how many times it says, just as the prophet said.
SPEAKER_00: Just as the prophet said, just as the prophet said, just as the prophet said, just as the prophet said, over and over and over and over.
SPEAKER_00: We know this is true because the prophetic word confirmed.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, this, above all, in verse 20, no prophecy of Scripture comes from the prophet's own interpretation, because no prophecy ever came by the will of man.
SPEAKER_00: Instead, men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: In other words, he's repeating what we looked at two weeks ago in 2 Timothy, all Scripture is inspired by God.
SPEAKER_00: The reason Micah wrote that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem is because the Holy Spirit told him to write it just like that.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason Matthew says he was born in Bethlehem, like the prophet foretold, is because the Holy Spirit told him to write it like that.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason Peter is telling us to over and over and over remind these things, remind these things, remind these things, keep doing it, keep doing it, keep reminding these things, is because the Holy Spirit told him to write it just like that.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: And so what you've got now with repeated concepts is what the Word of God is, what we're supposed to do with it, why we're supposed to do it, and it's trustworthy that we should do it.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's incredible just by going, who, what, when, where, why, how, what's repeated, all this stuff explodes from the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: It is not hidden.
SPEAKER_00: It is easy to hear God's voice through Scripture, get to know Jesus through Scripture, if we just slow down and process our way through it.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Questions about that.
SPEAKER_00: Is that hard?
SPEAKER_00: Is that intimidating?
SPEAKER_00: It's easy, right?
SPEAKER_00: You get that?
SPEAKER_00: Now here's what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to give you some homework assignment for this week.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to go through and do the whys.
SPEAKER_00: Do the whys.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Because whys are important.
SPEAKER_00: The second step of Bible study is interpretation.
SPEAKER_00: That comes through just carefully reading it, as Matt talked about before, getting the right context.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you get one of those hard sayings, it just tells you I need to go study that some more.
SPEAKER_00: That's all it means.
SPEAKER_00: If you're carefully reading scripture and you're reading it in context, you're going to be fine.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're going to interpret it just fine.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And then the third part of this is what does the Bible require?
SPEAKER_00: Application.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's what he says.
SPEAKER_00: What does God require me to do?
SPEAKER_00: He tells me that I should supplement my faith with being a doer of the word and not a hearer only.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: That's what he tells me to do.
SPEAKER_00: But God loves us, he's equipping us, so he tells us most of the time, why does he require me to do it?
SPEAKER_00: And how do I do it?
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: He's not trying to confuse us, he's trying to work with us, walk with us, grow us, grow our triangle, so he's going to tell us why we should do it and how to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you are doing who, what, when, where, why, it is important because when we get to the application part, you're going to take your whys, and that's going to tell you why we do it.
SPEAKER_00: If you got your notes here that I taught from last week, look what I put in number two.
SPEAKER_00: Reasons why we work at obediently following the process for transformation.
SPEAKER_00: This chapter is filled with whys.
SPEAKER_00: With whys.
SPEAKER_00: Just look real quick and then we'll close.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason.
SPEAKER_00: That's a why, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: For this very reason.
SPEAKER_00: Look what he says in verse 8.
SPEAKER_00: For if you possess these qualities, they will keep you from being useless or unfruitful.
SPEAKER_00: That's a why, isn't it?
SPEAKER_00: Verse 9.
SPEAKER_00: The person who lacks these things is blind and short-sighted and has forgotten the cleansing from his past sins.
SPEAKER_00: That's a why.
SPEAKER_00: We don't want to be that person, right?
SPEAKER_00: Peter talks about, therefore, I will always remind you about these things.
SPEAKER_00: Why?
SPEAKER_00: With me?
SPEAKER_00: He gives us in here prophecy is trustworthy.
SPEAKER_00: It is confirmed.
SPEAKER_00: Holy Spirit wrote it.
SPEAKER_00: We were eyewitnesses to it.
SPEAKER_00: In that section, there are whys why we can trust God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to go through and see the whys.
SPEAKER_00: And as you walk through those whys, one of them in there somewhere, God's going to go, and that's your brew verse.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Is that good?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: Now, don't make this like homework.
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard.
SPEAKER_00: This is what mine looks like right here.
SPEAKER_00: That's all it looks like.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's all it is.
SPEAKER_00: I scribbled it down.
SPEAKER_00: When you have repeated words, just take this right here, and every time you have the word knowledge, you just circle it.
SPEAKER_00: Every time you get a who, write the word who over the top.
SPEAKER_00: If you get a what that makes a lot of difference to you right here, everything required for life and godliness, I just put brackets around it, and I do what.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's all you gotta do.
SPEAKER_00: Don't make it hard, don't make it difficult.
SPEAKER_00: I know people they spend more time trying to look for journals, and they're walking all over Walmart, and they're walking all over Books a Million, and they're trying to figure out how to do that, and they're trying to find how many colored pencils they need, and they're spending all this time doing that.
SPEAKER_00: And all the time you did that, you could have had four days worth of quiet time if you just had a legal pad and a pencil.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Don't make it hard, make it easy.
SPEAKER_00: It's this simple.
SPEAKER_00: This right here is walking with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That right there is going to give you what you need.
SPEAKER_00: And so when we talk about journaling, and we'll talk about that a little bit more next week, that's really all that is.
SPEAKER_00: And really that's all you need to grow in the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: 10, 15 minutes, right there, God will speak to you and He'll grow you closer in your knowledge to Him, which will transform your life.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: I'll be around, answer questions just for a few minutes.
SPEAKER_00: I have a mission trip meeting about 7.15, but I'll be glad to answer questions to that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me pray for us.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for today.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for what you're doing in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: We thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you that by your glory and goodness, you have given us great and precious promises to help us know our Savior, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I pray, Father, that as Matt and I have talked about these different ways to have a quiet time, to spend time in your word, to hear from you, that will be an encouragement.
SPEAKER_00: It will be a blessing.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that we are being faithful to the instructions of Peter to remind, remind, remind, and courage, encourage, encourage.
SPEAKER_00: Because we want our folks to grow closer in their knowledge of you.
SPEAKER_00: Bless them and keep them.
SPEAKER_00: Bring us safely back to your house on Sunday to come and worship your name again.
SPEAKER_00: It is in your saving name we pray, and all God's people said, Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Great to see you all tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for being here in this study with Matt and I.
SPEAKER_01: We pray this message has been a blessing to you and helped to strengthen your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith First Baptist Church.