SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_00: My name is Nate, and I'm the lead pastor here at Connect Church.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you, but there are times where I have a couple of questions that go through my mind.
SPEAKER_00: I actually have a lot of questions that go through my mind at times.
SPEAKER_00: I want to focus on a couple of them this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The first question I sometimes wonder is how do I pray with confidence that I am praying in God's will?
SPEAKER_00: You ever wonder about that?
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there's we'll look at some scriptures today that give us this sense of confidence that if we're praying in God's will, He hears us.
SPEAKER_00: And so how do I pray with confidence that I'm in the center of God's will with this prayer?
SPEAKER_00: Because I don't want to pray selfish prayers.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to be, I don't want to pray to God what I want in religious garb and say, now God owes me something, right?
SPEAKER_00: Second question I ponder is how do I speak my mind to others?
SPEAKER_00: So years ago, my mother-in-law, who is uh I I I want to say this the right way.
SPEAKER_00: My mother-in-law's sense of humor is different than mine.
SPEAKER_00: And so when I entered this family, I learned that I had to be careful about what I said and how I said it because my mother-in-law maybe heard it different than I intended, right?
SPEAKER_00: So if you're hanging around me very much at all, you know I like to joke quite a bit.
SPEAKER_00: So I was taken quite off guard when I said to my mother-in-law one day, Lila, I want to give those people a piece of my mind.
SPEAKER_00: And I was serious.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Are you sure you'll have enough left over?
SPEAKER_00: It was incredible.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, that's awesome, Lila.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: You put me in my place, you made me laugh.
SPEAKER_00: It was fun.
SPEAKER_00: I I still occasionally remind her of that.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things we're coming to understand in this Lectio divina series is that Jesus wants to walk with us and he wants to speak with us, like he did with Cleopas and the friend, most likely his wife, as they were walking back from Jerusalem on the Emmaus Road going home.
SPEAKER_00: And that conversation, this conversation best happens with God around Scripture, that that's what happened as Jesus explained the story.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we get in a space where Jesus explains a story by reading the story, this conversation with God, this idea of hearing his voice, sort of is elevated not just as a possibility, but a reality that we can hear from God.
SPEAKER_00: Not just at a head level, but at a heart level as well.
SPEAKER_00: But today we're taking that next step in this journey of understanding that even as we learn to listen to God, we are also equipped to speak to Him.
SPEAKER_00: I think sometimes we start with prayer, right?
SPEAKER_00: We want to speak to God, but I think this series has reminded us that maybe we need to start by listening.
SPEAKER_00: That's how good relationships are built, right?
SPEAKER_00: Spouses, you know, those of you that are in relationships that are just a little, you have two ears and one mouth, use it appropriately.
SPEAKER_00: Like listening is the greatest superpower you have to use the language that everybody's using these days.
SPEAKER_00: And I think when we when we go to God, this idea of listening is sort of difficult for us.
SPEAKER_00: We've been leaning into it the last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_00: But what I want to say is, once we begin to listen to God, now we're equipped to speak to him in a different way.
SPEAKER_00: As we understand and meditate on scripture, we're we're able to speak to God, to speak to him more confidently.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think as we learn to listen to God, we will be equipped to speak to him.
SPEAKER_00: And I think we will also be equipped to speak to others in a deeper and more meaningful way.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: So just a quick review of this series.
SPEAKER_00: We're looking at the Leshio Divina, we were looking at four steps.
SPEAKER_00: There's these little bookmarks, if you haven't picked one up yet, great little tool for you to keep.
SPEAKER_00: And we've been saying in the series, and I'll say it again today, this is not the only Bible study prayer devotional method.
SPEAKER_00: I think there are threads of this in this particular Bible study method I've used for years and continue to use.
SPEAKER_00: I'm tweaking what I do a little bit as this series unfolds.
SPEAKER_00: But it is also, if you don't have a methodology, why not try this, right?
SPEAKER_00: So, but the but whether or not we exactly unfold this ancient uh, you know, devotional methodology exactly like it is, I think there's principles here that matter.
SPEAKER_00: And the first one is this lesio, the rigorous commitment to the text.
SPEAKER_00: I said it multiple times last week.
SPEAKER_00: John underlined it when he preached that sermon.
SPEAKER_00: We, and it was even in the video today.
SPEAKER_00: The text matters, a rigorous commitment to the text.
SPEAKER_00: We have to have that.
SPEAKER_00: But it's not just about the text giving us information in our brain.
SPEAKER_00: We talked last week about the meditatio, the the meditation, the letting the slowing down in the text, and not emptying our minds to find the nothingness, but open moving space from our minds so that the word of God can penetrate our minds and move to our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: The meditating, the interruptions, the intuition, the imagination that we talked uh last week.
SPEAKER_00: So when you're reading in this method, you're looking for words and what words pop off the page, what ideas kind of come to your mind that sink to your heart?
SPEAKER_00: That's the meditation piece.
SPEAKER_00: And today we're looking at the oracio piece.
SPEAKER_00: So that when these ideas and thoughts come into our minds, now we can begin to pray short prayers.
SPEAKER_00: I I've I've meditated on this, and I'm gonna pray this back to God.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna say back to God what he said to me, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is taking it from just being something that edifies my soul to now being a conversation with God that is deeper than, Lord, I lay me down to sleep.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray my soul to keep.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It it's this idea of communicating back to God what he's already communicated to us.
SPEAKER_00: And then I think, and this is where the video landed on, and that video might have made some of us feel uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna come and speak to this issue of prophecy in a moment.
SPEAKER_00: Hang on.
SPEAKER_00: But this idea now of being in this communication with God, perhaps in those moments he gives us something to say to others.
SPEAKER_00: Or at the very least, he gives us language to use as we communicate with others differently.
SPEAKER_00: So that's what we want to say in this section.
SPEAKER_00: What does this meditation lead us to in terms of prayer?
SPEAKER_00: And then how can we consider how we might use this to others?
SPEAKER_00: Because we've been saying in this series that the Bible is meant to be prayed and lived, not just studied.
SPEAKER_00: Prayed and lived, not just studied.
SPEAKER_00: And each page, each wonderful page in scriptures, is an opportunity for us to have a conversation with God and to consider how we might have better conversations with others.
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible contains many different types of literature, books written in different genres and literary styles.
SPEAKER_00: So there can be all kinds of conversations.
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, when we when we talk like this, we think, well, this is good for the book of John, and it's fantastic for the book of John, this method, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: But I think even as we study all of scriptures, it's as we understand the literary genre, we can begin to see God speaking to us even in the book of Leviticus or Exodus or Jude.
SPEAKER_00: And so maybe that, you know, if we're reading the Psalms, this conversation could lead to praise or repentance.
SPEAKER_00: If we're reading Proverbs, this conversation could lead us to ponder next steps in a relationship and maybe some wisdom that we need to bring to the table in our marriages, in our workplaces, you know, with our children.
SPEAKER_00: If we're reading the gospels, we can have these conversations with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We can use that intuition, that imagination, that interruption from last week, and say, what would it be like to hear Jesus say these words to me in that context?
SPEAKER_00: And if we're reading uh scriptures that don't make sense to us, we can the conversation can be simply, Holy Spirit, help me understand.
SPEAKER_00: Help me see what I'm not seeing right now.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe we can even read, particularly perhaps in the Old Testament, we can read the passage and say, thank you, God, that things aren't like this anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Not that the word of God changes, but that the word of God was progressively telling a story that revealed Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And now that Jesus is here, the Old Testament hits different because all of that was pointing to something.
SPEAKER_00: And so now we can say, I understand this differently.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, uh, help me understand, but also thank you, God, that now we have Jesus instead of these laws that we have to keep, right?
SPEAKER_00: So this becomes a conversation.
SPEAKER_00: Again, remember, Leccio, the conversation is not with you and your friends or your social media or the preacher that you hear, including me or any of the other pastors from here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a conversation with God from His Word.
SPEAKER_00: You've meditated on it, and now you're in this conversation back.
SPEAKER_00: You're praying prayers back to Him, the conversations that start.
SPEAKER_00: And what if Lexio Divina is not only a way, as I've said, to open up a deeper conversation with God, but also equips us to proclaim God's word to the world and specifically to others?
SPEAKER_00: What if it gives us a chance to speak truth in a different way?
SPEAKER_00: In other words, what if it helps us speak our mind without losing it?
SPEAKER_00: What if it's the answer to my mother-in-law's prayer for me?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: What if what if the Lectio Divina could help us pray better and speak to others better?
SPEAKER_00: And the speaking to others better, I haven't used the language of scripture or the language of the video.
SPEAKER_00: This is this is what many call prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: All right?
SPEAKER_00: Coming back to that, but let's talk about prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I keep coming a terrible tactic for speakers to use is saying, I'm coming back to that.
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing that today.
SPEAKER_00: Because I'm coming back to that.
SPEAKER_00: I promise, I'll get back to it.
SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about prayer.
SPEAKER_00: The most frequent question, remember some of you around in March or so, we did the series on the questions Jesus asked.
SPEAKER_00: Remember that?
SPEAKER_00: We asked you to post post-it notes, and some of you had some fun with that, and we enjoyed that as a staff too.
SPEAKER_00: But the most frequent question that was asked is in that series, when you put those post-it notes out, the questions you have was how to determine God's will or to discern his voice.
SPEAKER_00: Questions that rotated around that.
SPEAKER_00: Something like the how do I discern God's will and how do I hear his voice?
SPEAKER_00: John 14, 12 says this.
SPEAKER_00: This is Jesus speaking not long before he dies.
SPEAKER_00: This is in the upper room in this intimate moment with his disciples.
SPEAKER_00: He says, I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I'm going to be with the Father.
SPEAKER_00: You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it.
SPEAKER_00: So that the Son can bring glory to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, ask me for anything in my name and I will do it.
SPEAKER_00: And I gotta believe that Jesus means more than just saying a prayer and then tagging in Jesus' name at the end of the prayer.
SPEAKER_00: I think that, by the way, is a great thing to do.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's a great reminder to us that everything we've asked for, we want to come under the will of God and Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But it can't be a magical incantation, can it?
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't seem like the Jesus that I serve.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's something more.
SPEAKER_00: And so I think it's the same question that many of you, some of you wrote on the sticky notes.
SPEAKER_00: How do I know when I'm praying in Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_00: Now, this there's a simple and a complex answer to this.
SPEAKER_00: I like to start with a simple.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what I know that praying the scriptures is a way to work out what it means to pray in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: I I don't think it stops there.
SPEAKER_00: I don't think I think we can pray in Jesus' name and pray things beyond the scriptures, but I know this.
SPEAKER_00: That when I'm reading and interacting with God's word and I'm meditating on it, and he shows me something and I pray it back to him, I know that's in his name because it's in his words.
SPEAKER_00: And there's power in that.
SPEAKER_00: The truly powerful thing about praying the scriptures isn't just that it's helpful as a prompt for conversation.
SPEAKER_00: It is.
SPEAKER_00: But it's that we are, in effect, praying God's words back to him.
SPEAKER_00: And we know that scripture prayers align our wills to his.
SPEAKER_00: Now that doesn't mean they're easy.
SPEAKER_00: When you start praying in Jesus' name, there's some things in your life that are probably going to change.
SPEAKER_00: There's some habits that you'll need to address.
SPEAKER_00: There's some sin you'll need to repent from.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: There's some forgiveness that you'll need to grant.
SPEAKER_00: Praying in Jesus' name is life-changing in every sense of the word.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus understood this.
SPEAKER_00: The quintessential passage on this is Jesus himself in Matthew chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: This is as near the beginning of his public ministry, before he really went out and launched his public ministry.
SPEAKER_00: You remember, tells us in Matthew 4 that Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted there by the devil.
SPEAKER_00: That's such a pregnant phrase to unpack, but we don't have time for that today.
SPEAKER_00: For 40 days and 40 nights, he fasted and became very hungry.
SPEAKER_00: One of the most understated statements in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I always went on to read them.
SPEAKER_00: Of course he became very hungry.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: During that time, the devil came and said to him, If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become loaves of bread.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus told him, No, the scriptures say that people do not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was human.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was fully human.
SPEAKER_00: And when you read his story, he quotes the scripture that he understands.
SPEAKER_00: This is the Hebrew scripture, the Old Testament as we know it.
SPEAKER_00: Over and over and over again, he quotes Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And in this moment, when he's tempted, he quotes Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And part of me thinks that Jesus could have maybe not quoted Scripture and still not given into the temptation.
SPEAKER_00: But he chose to say, I'm quoting Scripture in this moment of deep temptation.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was truly tempted here.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let your minds let go of that fact.
SPEAKER_00: If he was not truly tempted, he was not fully human.
SPEAKER_00: If he was not fully human, his death did not fully save us.
SPEAKER_00: And what did he do in this moment?
SPEAKER_00: Lean on his own understanding.
SPEAKER_00: No, he quoted scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Then the devil took him to the holy city, Jerusalem, to the highest point of the temple, and he said, If you are the Son of God, jump off.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, now Satan gets in on the game for the scripture's sake.
SPEAKER_00: Do you see what's going on here?
SPEAKER_00: Now Satan is quoting scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And Satan says he will order his angels to protect you, and they will hold you up to their hands, up with their hands, so you won't even hurt your foot on a stone.
SPEAKER_00: So Satan can quote Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Satan can take a proof text and make it prove what he wants it to be.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a magical incantation.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have to lectio.
SPEAKER_00: This is why we have to have a rigorous commitment to the text.
SPEAKER_00: Satan pulled a text out of context and tried to use it to test Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: This is not a magical formula.
SPEAKER_00: This is an engagement with the text, right?
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had meditated on scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Satan was using it as a weapon.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture can be dangerous to our lives when Jesus uses it to change us.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture can be dangerous in others' lives when we use it as a weapon against them.
SPEAKER_00: And tell I'm telling you right now, Satan will do that if we're not careful.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't even going to say that.
SPEAKER_00: But maybe you needed it.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I needed it.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus responded.
SPEAKER_00: The scriptures also say, like if I'm thinking Jesus is thinking, you really want to get into this with me, man?
SPEAKER_00: You must not test the Lord your God.
SPEAKER_00: Next, the devil took him to a peak of a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory.
SPEAKER_00: I will give it all to you, he said, if you will kneel down and worship me.
SPEAKER_00: Get out of here, Satan, Jesus told him.
SPEAKER_00: For scriptures say you must worship the Lord your God and serve only him.
SPEAKER_00: Then the devil went away and the angels came back and took care of him.
SPEAKER_00: Don't have time to unpack all this, but that last scripture is kind of the penultimate, that's the ultimate, right?
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of leading to this.
SPEAKER_00: Here at the end of the day, the first commandment is you shall have no other gods but me.
SPEAKER_00: Three times, every time Jesus leaned into scripture, Jesus leaned into scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And it was aligning Jesus' will with God's will.
SPEAKER_00: And again, Jesus was fully human.
SPEAKER_00: I it's a mystery to get my mind around fully God, fully human, but in this moment when he needed to overcome temptation, when he needed to pray in other contexts, he prayed the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So as we're committed to the text, as we're meditating on the text, and as we begin to pray the text, I want to tell you that when in doubt about how to pray, pray the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: You can't go wrong.
SPEAKER_00: But don't pray the scripture until the scripture has done its work in you.
SPEAKER_00: It's not a weapon.
SPEAKER_00: Praying the scripture is not for you to get what you want, it's to conform you to Jesus and align your prayers with his, your will, excuse me, with his.
SPEAKER_00: Second, let's talk about this issue of prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: A term that makes many of us uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: The whole prophetic understanding of what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: I do not have time or expertise to unpack all of that.
SPEAKER_00: Let me make a few comments.
SPEAKER_00: When you read in 1 Corinthians, there is a spiritual gift known as prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a variety of opinions on what that means across the Christian world.
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to tell you right now that this is one of those things I hold loosely.
SPEAKER_00: There's some things I will die on a hill for.
SPEAKER_00: The deity of Jesus, the Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: There's others.
SPEAKER_00: I'll die for those.
SPEAKER_00: Like literally, I would die for those.
SPEAKER_00: Not for this.
SPEAKER_00: There's other things I believe really strong in, and there's other things that I hold loosely.
SPEAKER_00: So what does this prophecy mean when Paul is talking about it in 1 Corinthians?
SPEAKER_00: Well, most people believe, and there's some truth to this, but I think it's sort of a lesser explanation.
SPEAKER_00: Even among scholars, this is pretty much agreed upon.
SPEAKER_00: But when we hear the word prophetic or prophecy, what do we think about?
SPEAKER_00: The future, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Like prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to prophesy the future, what's coming.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's an element.
SPEAKER_00: It certainly is in the Old Testament prophets.
SPEAKER_00: They had clearly had an element of that.
SPEAKER_00: Although much of what the Old Testament prophets, even when you read them, was the prophets speaking to the current culture, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: Most of their conversations was about the current culture.
SPEAKER_00: We just focus on their predictions of the future because we want to know when Jesus is coming back and how Daniel chapter 6 plays into that or whatever, right?
SPEAKER_00: Foretelling.
SPEAKER_00: Many scholars believe that when Jesus, excuse me, when Paul talks about this idea of the prophetic, he's talking about preaching.
SPEAKER_00: And someone who is particularly gifted is a prophetic voice, someone who speaks the truth of God.
SPEAKER_00: I think there's some truth in that.
SPEAKER_00: And then there's others who believe that God continues to speak through people prophetically, that He begins, continues to show through sort of spontaneous revelation given by the Holy Spirit for a specific moment, which is distinct from like past uh preaching.
SPEAKER_00: And so this gift of prophecy in the New Testament is debated, and I'm not entering that debate, but here's what I want to say.
SPEAKER_00: I do think there is a differentiation between the gift of teaching and the gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_00: I think that tells us something, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's something there.
SPEAKER_00: And I do think that we might be particularly gifted in an area.
SPEAKER_00: Here, hang with me now.
SPEAKER_00: The spiritual gifts don't mean that we are no longer responsible if we're not gifted.
SPEAKER_00: For instance, one of the spiritual gifts, this is my favorite example, is serving.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know people?
SPEAKER_00: I know people like this.
SPEAKER_00: Some of you are like this.
SPEAKER_00: You love to serve, you get energy from serving, you have the spiritual gift of serving.
SPEAKER_00: We you don't need the sign-up sheets.
SPEAKER_00: You're saying, How can I serve?
SPEAKER_00: You have the spiritual gift of serving.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean all of us are off the hook on serving.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I think all the spiritual gifts are kind of like that.
SPEAKER_00: There may be a few that are pretty specific and maybe not for everybody, but most of them, teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Some people are gifted at teaching, but if you're a parent, you're a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: You have a responsibility, right?
SPEAKER_00: The gifting doesn't mean that particular thing, that gifting is trying to exalt or someone is gifted, particularly in that area, doesn't mean the rest of it doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what I think about this idea for what I want to say today.
SPEAKER_00: What if it's possible that as we read the scripture, God not only gives us language to speak to Him and desires, but also desires to give us language to encourage one another?
SPEAKER_00: What if, regardless of what we think about this gift of prophecy, we can draw that out and say clearly scriptures are not meant to be contained in our own little shell.
SPEAKER_00: But if we are part of the body of Christ, maybe he's gifted some people in this prophetic way to speak current words to people.
SPEAKER_00: Some people will be comfortable with that, others won't.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe he's gifted some people to proclaim God's word, some will be comfortable with that, others won't.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But what if all of us, when we read God's word, are equipped and empowered to help others with what we're learning?
SPEAKER_00: That's what I want to lean into.
SPEAKER_00: And of course, of course, you're thinking it, I'll say it.
SPEAKER_00: It can go sideways really fast.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it, I've experienced it, I hope I've never done it.
SPEAKER_00: I've had people say, I've heard people say things, not so much to me, but to others that I dearly love, that are offensive and wrong and self-focused and damaging.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna give you an example.
SPEAKER_00: I had a friend named Mike.
SPEAKER_00: Mike died in a plane wreck the year we moved to Lawrence, 39 years ago.
SPEAKER_00: My wife was supposed to be in, Mike was marrying a young lady named Lenore.
SPEAKER_00: Janet was going to be in their wedding.
SPEAKER_00: He was flying an F-18, went in the side of a mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Plane disintegrated.
SPEAKER_00: The biggest part of that plane they found was a coffee can size.
SPEAKER_00: Just demolished.
SPEAKER_00: It was a year before they found Mike or the plane.
SPEAKER_00: It was a huge mystery.
SPEAKER_00: Nobody could find it.
SPEAKER_00: There's a whole story about that.
SPEAKER_00: If you're a conspiracy theorist, you can actually Google this and you'll find out the conspiracy beside.
SPEAKER_00: I don't believe this, because anyway.
SPEAKER_00: Mike died.
SPEAKER_00: Don Mueller and Naomi, my friends, Don's now with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: I was, I worked for Don.
SPEAKER_00: He was like an uncle to me.
SPEAKER_00: That man was hurting so deeply, and he had somebody prophetically speak to him words that kept his hope up in ways that were damaging to his grief process.
SPEAKER_00: And that angered me.
SPEAKER_00: It angered me.
SPEAKER_00: So yes, it can go bad.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe some of you have experienced that, or some of you are afraid of that.
SPEAKER_00: And so sometimes we're afraid to do this because of that.
SPEAKER_00: Having said that, what if we would simply speak God's word to others, similarly to how we speak God's word back to him?
SPEAKER_00: What if we didn't try to be one upmanship, didn't try to say something profound?
SPEAKER_00: What if we just found things in God's word and shared them with each other?
SPEAKER_00: I think that could be powerful.
SPEAKER_00: I think that is powerful.
SPEAKER_00: I think many of you are already doing that.
SPEAKER_00: I want to lean into that.
SPEAKER_00: I want to take this legio divina and say it's not just for me, but it's to bless others.
SPEAKER_00: What if we shared with others what originated in a deep conversation with God through interacting with scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: So there's three simple things that Pete Gregg, the guy who, you know, we might just have a short little 30-second Pete Gregg moment every Sunday because I just love that dude's accent.
SPEAKER_00: But anyway, that's what he just says, here's three things.
SPEAKER_00: And again, he's probably leaning more into the prophetic understanding of this as speaking directly from God to others.
SPEAKER_00: And again, I'm I'm comfortable with that, by the way.
SPEAKER_00: I'm comfortable with all those understandings, but I want to just take these principles to whatever level you want to take this idea of what God says to me, how do I say to others?
SPEAKER_00: So there's three words, affirming.
SPEAKER_00: It should be strengthening, comforting, upbuilding.
SPEAKER_00: In 1 Corinthians 14, where Paul is talking about this particular spiritual gift now.
SPEAKER_00: And in 1 Corinthians 14, he's talking about this spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_00: He says this, and I'm leaving out some words here, but to get to the point, verse 1, he says, Let love be your highest goal, but you should also desire the special abilities the spirit gives, the ability, especially the ability to prophesy.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the key phrase.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the money shot.
SPEAKER_00: But one who prophesies strengthens others, encourages them, and comforts them.
SPEAKER_00: A person who speaks a word of prophecy strengthens the entire church.
SPEAKER_00: So before we go blabbing our mouth up, before we go sharing our mind and hoping we have enough left over to operate, we need to ask the question is this going to help the person?
SPEAKER_00: But there's a second piece of this because it matters too.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be biblical.
SPEAKER_00: It has to be biblical, consistent, not with a proof text like Satan, but with a broad story of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And I continue to recommend the book if you've never read it, long story short, by our friend Josh McNall, who sometimes comes and speaks here.
SPEAKER_00: It's a great little book that helps you understand the long narrative of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Long story short, easy read.
SPEAKER_00: I assume you can still get it on Amazon because find it if you want it.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes when we speak these words that are affirming, that doesn't mean they will always be comfortable.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't think this idea of speaking affirming words to others always just says, you know, good job, keep doing it.
SPEAKER_00: Keep drinking your yourself to sleep every night and waking up with a hangover and ruining your family.
SPEAKER_00: Yay, God said I should encourage you.
SPEAKER_00: Now listen, you better have a really strong relationship before you start having those conversations.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes in your mindset of how is God asking me to speak to somebody, sometimes he's going to ask us to maybe say things that are a little bit harder.
SPEAKER_00: A little bit harder.
SPEAKER_00: Which means then what brings these all together is that these words better be Christ-like.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus spoke the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: It's a trite phrase, but it's trite because it's meaningful.
SPEAKER_00: He spoke the truth in love.
SPEAKER_00: I've already alluded to this.
SPEAKER_00: I'm actually thinking it might be in a sermon coming soon.
SPEAKER_00: I I've been intrigued by the idea in Jude.
SPEAKER_00: I talked about this about a month ago.
SPEAKER_00: In the idea of Jude, where Jude says, contend for the faith and comfort the doubters.
SPEAKER_00: Contend for the faith.
SPEAKER_00: Not, he doesn't say that was right next to each other.
SPEAKER_00: He starts with a contend for the faith.
SPEAKER_00: And at the end, he says, and comfort the doubters.
SPEAKER_00: So I think as we are, as we are thinking about how to take these insights that God has given us and share them with others, we need to ask the question, is this what I'm going to share?
SPEAKER_00: Does this sound consistent?
SPEAKER_00: Could Christ have said this to somebody?
SPEAKER_00: Because it's consistent with his teaching.
SPEAKER_00: Prophetic words can be affirming or challenging, but they should always be Christ-like.
SPEAKER_00: And we see this prophetic word idea playing out in our mess story.
SPEAKER_00: Remember the story of Emmaus as these were walking with Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We alluded to it earlier, but now that it's over and now they're going back to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: Now they're back in Jerusalem in verse 33.
SPEAKER_00: They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: There they found the eleven and those with them assembled together and saying, It is true, the Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.
SPEAKER_00: Then the two told what had happened on the way and how Jesus was recognized by them when he broke the bread.
SPEAKER_00: They told others what their conversation with Jesus had been.
SPEAKER_00: You use the word prophetic, use the word oracho, use the word just sharing what Jesus told me.
SPEAKER_00: They told their story.
SPEAKER_00: They didn't hold it in.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what I think scripture is intended to do.
SPEAKER_00: Of course, as it goes to others and passes through us, it edifies and changes us.
SPEAKER_00: But it's meant to be shared.
SPEAKER_00: So I thought without being too transp, I mean, I don't mind being transparent, but without be too self-focused or self-absorbed, I thought I would just tell you how this happened to me this week.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't planted on this.
SPEAKER_00: As I said, I use a little bit different Bible study method, but I've been I've been considering how I can tweak this to really line up with some of these principles we've been been doing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: I was in Psalm 36 this week, and I just read, I the the this is the these are the words that stuck out to me that I meditated on.
SPEAKER_00: Your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens, your faithfulness to the skies, your righteousness is like the highest mountains, your justice like the great deep.
SPEAKER_00: You know, when you read those words and just pass through them, it's like interesting, but I sat with those words.
SPEAKER_00: Janet and I love to go see mountains and oceans.
SPEAKER_00: I sometimes ponder the skies.
SPEAKER_00: I I as I was thinking about these words, I just thought, your love, Lord, reaches to the heavens.
SPEAKER_00: This was written at a time before the Hubble Space Telescope.
SPEAKER_00: I just looked up and saw these stars.
SPEAKER_00: And now science hasn't made that less grand.
SPEAKER_00: It's made it more grand as we think.
SPEAKER_00: Is that thing still out there?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know, if the Hubble, whatever's going out there, sending these pictures back, and they just say it's it's there's so much out there.
SPEAKER_00: Your love, oh Lord.
SPEAKER_00: I just pondered, I just said in that, I meditated on that idea of the love that is so big and the righteousness, the faith of the righteousness like the mountain, it's strong, it's sturdy, doing the right thing.
SPEAKER_00: God's right way gives strength to my life, and your justice goes like the deep.
SPEAKER_00: I thought of deep oceans and and it was the meditation turned to a ratio as I asked the question how do I share this with my grandkids?
SPEAKER_00: And I and God didn't give me a word to go share with Weston, Weston's ten.
SPEAKER_00: He would have been dad, Papa, what are you but how can I put into their lives an appreciation for the love and the righteousness of God?
SPEAKER_00: The faithfulness is like a mountain.
SPEAKER_00: Righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what I'm gonna do with that.
SPEAKER_00: But you see, as an example of how this can work in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: If I'd just read through that quickly, I never would have got there.
SPEAKER_00: So here's what we're gonna do to wrap up today.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take communion.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take communion very simply today.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna we're going to read the Nicene Creed together.
SPEAKER_00: All right, and when we're done reading the Nicene Creed, we will take communion.
SPEAKER_00: So you might want to grab those elements there.
SPEAKER_00: We will take communion together, but why would we be reading the Nicene Creed when we are talking about scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Well, the Nicene Creed, in my mind, we are saying back to God and to one another what we have come to believe is true.
SPEAKER_00: This this creed was not something that was written out on a napkin at a restaurant one day by a couple of the early church fathers.
SPEAKER_00: It was hammered out in conversation and discussion, wrestling with the word of God about these great theological concepts that their minds couldn't get around.
SPEAKER_00: And so as we read it, we're gonna be reading it to each other.
SPEAKER_00: Or we're declaring it ourselves, but we're reading it to each other.
SPEAKER_00: We are saying we believe these things to be true.
SPEAKER_00: Every word in this creed matters.
SPEAKER_00: Every word in this creed was theologically discussed and hammered out.
SPEAKER_00: Let's stand and read this ancient creed together.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: May be familiar with it, you may not, but just follow along, read, and then when we're done, we will partake of communion together.
SPEAKER_00: We believe, read with me.
SPEAKER_00: We believe in one God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things visible and invisible, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, begotten from the Father before all ages, God from God, light from light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of the same essence as the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Through him all things were made.
SPEAKER_00: For us and for our salvation, he came down from heaven.
SPEAKER_00: He became incarnate by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made human.
SPEAKER_00: He was crucified for us under Pontius Pilate.
SPEAKER_00: He suffered and was buried.
SPEAKER_00: The third day he rose again according to the Scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: He ascended to heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He will come again with glory to judge the living and the dead.
SPEAKER_00: His kingdom will never end.
SPEAKER_00: And we believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life.
SPEAKER_00: He proceeds from the Father and the Son, and with the Father and the Son is worshipped and glorified.
SPEAKER_00: He spoke through the prophets.
SPEAKER_00: We believe in one holy Catholic and apostolic church.
SPEAKER_00: We affirm one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
SPEAKER_00: We look forward to the resurrection of the dead and to the life in the world to come.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.