SPEAKER_00: Okay, does everybody have the book of Hebrews in their Bible?
SPEAKER_00: That's a good start, right?
SPEAKER_00: You got a good Bible if you got Hebrews.
SPEAKER_00: We are because we have lunch, we are gonna have a we're having a more condensed uh service, but I do want to draw your attention to these verses out of uh Hebrews chapter 5, uh verses 10 through 15.
SPEAKER_00: Before we read those verses together, before we read those verses together, um I just want to give you a bit of context for Hebrews, especially if you're new with us.
SPEAKER_00: We've been looking at Hebrews and it's written to encourage, it's it's it's written to encourage Christians in the middle of their walk with the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: They're facing some suffering, some things that are discouraging, and they've maybe lost their edge a bit.
SPEAKER_00: They've allowed sin to kind of creep into their life.
SPEAKER_00: And um and so there's an aspect of perseverance.
SPEAKER_00: There's an aspect of perseverance in this story.
SPEAKER_00: You like this?
SPEAKER_00: This is a Spurgeon quote by perseverance, the snail reached the ark.
SPEAKER_00: So there's an aspect of perseverance in this book, but there is a whole nother aspect that this pastor is trying to encourage these Christians, which, which is to activate their spirituality, to activate their spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: The concept that this pastor has in his mind as he's writing this is not of a static Christian, not of a Christian who's standing still.
SPEAKER_00: They maybe went forward and prayed a prayer, or they got baptized and then they're stationary.
SPEAKER_00: No, in this pastor's mind, he very much sees an a daily active Christian that is practicing their spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Some of those things were the idea of listening for God's voice on a daily basis.
SPEAKER_00: And this is only possible.
SPEAKER_00: And he's modeling it because he's meditating on the Psalms and then just recording his own meditation.
SPEAKER_00: But this guy's saturated in Bible.
SPEAKER_00: Like, even sometimes as he writes his letter, he's like, in some place it says this, right?
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't even give like the reference or doesn't give the book.
SPEAKER_00: He just knows Bible.
SPEAKER_00: One of my favorite um biographies is the story of um Jim Elliott.
SPEAKER_00: Jim Elliott was uh a martyr.
SPEAKER_00: He went as a missionary to reach the Alka Indians.
SPEAKER_00: He was married to Elizabeth Elliott, and he and uh four other um Christians, fresh out of college or early on in their 20s, they went um to try to reach this unreached people group, and they ended up being um killed by the group they were trying to reach.
SPEAKER_00: And so Elizabeth Elliott um is one of my favorite writers, and she did a beautiful job of just telling the story of his life up until the time of his death.
SPEAKER_00: Uh it's called uh Through Gates of Splendor.
SPEAKER_00: And um of the things that's remarkable about Jim Elliott is that he's just saturated in the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He cannot, when you read his journals, and then you she's quoting as as Elizabeth Elliott writes his story in this biography, she is just so clear in his writing that the guy was just daily in the Bible, just immersed in scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Um, there's this passage out of Colossians that says, Let the word of Christ dwell richly in you.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's like this Psalm 119 where it says, you know, how can a young man keep his way pure by living according to your word?
SPEAKER_00: And this writer, this pastor who's writing Hebrews, is just letting the word of Christ dwell richly in his life.
SPEAKER_00: And it's just seeping out.
SPEAKER_00: And that's part of practicing spirituality for him.
SPEAKER_00: He also has this idea of keeping a tender heart, keeping that that being a Christian is more than just understanding things in our head, but it really has to do with what's going on in our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, especially as you get older, that you can get a hard heart, you can become cynical, you can become callous, you can become bitter, you can have a cold heart.
SPEAKER_00: There's all these warnings about the condition of our heart in Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And this pastor makes it very clear that if your heart is not fertile soil to receive God's word, then you're in trouble and you need to watch out.
SPEAKER_00: The third thing is this idea, we've been talking about this for the last couple weeks, is just praying bold prayers.
SPEAKER_00: And that the framework has been set for you and I to be praying on a daily basis these really ostentatious, bold prayers, as if we were Levitical priests, because we've been brought into the very presence of God, that we can enter into the throne room of God because of the work Jesus did.
SPEAKER_00: And we can pray boldly.
SPEAKER_00: And the fourth thing that I wrote down is this idea of letting Jesus bring us into the presence of the Father.
SPEAKER_00: Just letting Jesus do his high priestly work.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus was called to be your high priest.
SPEAKER_00: That means he has a full-time job where he wants to bring you into closer proximity to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: He took care of the guilt and the brokenness in your relationship with God through the cross, but Jesus has taken it upon himself to bring you near to the Father.
SPEAKER_00: That's like he's actively living and wanting to bring you in, like tomorrow morning when you get up.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is advocating and doing everything he can to bring you into the presence of the Father, to get you close.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea of him being a high priest.
SPEAKER_00: And so I just in terms of just frame of reference, as we're again considering Hebrews this morning, this pastor is writing to Christians, many, many like just like us.
SPEAKER_00: Many of us have, you know, we can look back in our past.
SPEAKER_00: Years ago, we made a decision that we would follow Christ, and then life goes on, and we face different trials and suffering, and and real life occurs, and there can just be this kind of losing the edge a bit.
SPEAKER_00: And this pastor is writing a letter to those of us who are tempted to not keep going, to lose that daily fervency.
SPEAKER_00: Not only that, but this pastor also gives a context.
SPEAKER_00: He gives a context, like uh did how many of you, when you were in high school or middle school, performed in a play?
SPEAKER_00: Just show by hands.
SPEAKER_00: Anybody do a play when you're a few of you?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: Now, when I was in middle school, middle school age, I I did a play.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, the magician's nephew is one of C.S.
SPEAKER_00: Lewis's Chronicles of Narnia books.
SPEAKER_00: And as we were putting together this play, we had to set the stage.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't just the actors there, but the stage was set.
SPEAKER_00: And this book does give us a sense of context.
SPEAKER_00: We see Jesus as our high priest.
SPEAKER_00: So we're on this stage.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine, like, we're on the stage, but also is Jesus is our high priest on that stage.
SPEAKER_00: There's a rest that He wants to bring us into, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a part of the drama that we're in.
SPEAKER_00: There is a throne where we draw near with bold prayers, and there's the historic failures that uh serve as a warning for us that we don't want to repeat.
SPEAKER_00: And so the stage is set, the the um stage is set for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: We're on that stage.
SPEAKER_00: And this writer, this pastor is saying, you're interacting with these other these other um pieces, these other this other bit of context on the stage.
SPEAKER_00: Now, last week in chapter five, we finally dug into this idea of Jesus as our high priest, and we saw that he is the praying high priest, that he's ever living to make intercession for you and I.
SPEAKER_00: That Jesus is there praying.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for those of you that are under the age of 12, anybody under the age of 12 here?
SPEAKER_00: You, you, okay, yes, you.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, do you ever feel like as you're learning to pray, do you ever feel like I don't know what to say?
SPEAKER_00: Do you ever feel like that?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's like, what do you want to?
SPEAKER_00: No, you don't.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, but some of us, some of us do, I know.
SPEAKER_00: Some of us do.
SPEAKER_00: And the cool thing is that Jesus is praying right now for you.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is praying for you.
SPEAKER_00: The Holy Spirit, when we become a follower of Jesus as an apprentice, as a follower of him, he gives his spirit to us, and the Holy Spirit wants to put things on our mind.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes you may think, oh, I'm just daydreaming, but it's possible that the Holy Spirit is putting things into your mind that he wants you to pray for.
SPEAKER_00: That's just a part of kind of how God works.
SPEAKER_00: It's very subtle.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like, is that my head or is that God talking to me?
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you kind of just have to go with it.
SPEAKER_00: This is what we're gonna see as we go further.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so Hebrews chapter 5, 10 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: Hebrews 5, 10 through 14.
SPEAKER_00: Let's read this together.
SPEAKER_00: He says, and he was declared by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: And we have a great deal to say about this, and it's difficult to explain, since you have become too lazy to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God's revelation again.
SPEAKER_00: You need milk, not solid food.
SPEAKER_00: Now, everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness because he is in, he is an infant.
SPEAKER_00: But solid food is for the mature, for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what are the what do we do whenever we're studying the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: This is for those of you that are younger.
SPEAKER_00: What do we do when we're studying the Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
SPEAKER_00: We learn, yes.
SPEAKER_00: What's the first step?
SPEAKER_00: When we want to understand what it says, what do we do after we read it?
SPEAKER_00: We pray.
SPEAKER_00: Do we pray?
SPEAKER_00: Why do we pray?
SPEAKER_00: Because we want to say to God, God, we're ready to listen to your voice through this.
SPEAKER_00: This is your word, but we recognize that maybe your Holy Spirit wants to take this and speak to us, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: So let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, what do you want to say to us from this text in our life?
SPEAKER_00: Lord, you know everything we did this week.
SPEAKER_00: You know, school, work, family, friends, you know, the things that were frustrating and irritating, you know, the things that burden our hearts.
SPEAKER_00: And Lord, would there just be an intersection between your word, your word, and the work of your spirit in our life?
SPEAKER_00: We want to hear from you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: We ask this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: So let's see what do we have here in this text.
SPEAKER_00: The pastor, the pastor sees here in verses 10 and 11 the high priesthood of Jesus after the order of Melchizedek as vital to their spirituality.
SPEAKER_00: Now, who is Melchizedek?
SPEAKER_00: Danny, you said to me last week after church, you're like, who's Melchizedek?
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, I'm glad you're asking that question.
SPEAKER_00: Because we're gonna have to find out.
SPEAKER_00: You're not supposed to know yet who Melchizedek is.
SPEAKER_00: And here, look, he's like, I want you to know.
SPEAKER_00: Do you know who Melchizedek is?
SPEAKER_00: No, but you guys, aren't you ahead?
SPEAKER_00: I think in the kids' stuff.
SPEAKER_00: You're an Exodus.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, so you already covered it.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, it was before.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Melchizedek is this character from the Old Testament, and this pastor is like, listen, a part of you being encouraged in your spiritual life is understanding Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you really like this is important.
SPEAKER_00: In order for you to be encouraged, you've got to know who this guy Melchizedek is.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that funny?
SPEAKER_00: Like, part of your spiritual vitality in the place where you're at, like, you really need to know about this guy Melchizedek and how Jesus is a priest like him.
SPEAKER_00: That is just mind-blowing because wait till you see about Melchizedek, it's pretty crazy who he is.
SPEAKER_00: It's funny, it's interesting to me.
SPEAKER_00: And again, here's this guy who just loves the Bible.
SPEAKER_00: He just loves the Bible, and he has gleaned and found spiritual nourishment from the story of Melchizedek and applying it to Jesus, and he's going to bring us into that meditation in chapter 7.
SPEAKER_00: But he says this about it.
SPEAKER_00: He says, look, uh, this is the case that he is a priest according to the order of Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is in line.
SPEAKER_00: He's kind of like, he's like Melchizedek, but here's the thing.
SPEAKER_00: I have a bunch I want to say to you about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's difficult to explain, and here's why it's why is it difficult to explain?
SPEAKER_00: What does he say?
SPEAKER_00: What's the reason why it's difficult to explain?
SPEAKER_00: Can you see this?
SPEAKER_00: Let me scoot it forward so you can see.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I think we locked it.
SPEAKER_00: Can you see over there?
SPEAKER_00: A little bit, right?
SPEAKER_00: Why is it why is it difficult?
SPEAKER_00: He says, What?
SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
SPEAKER_00: They're lazy.
SPEAKER_00: They're too lazy to understand.
SPEAKER_00: Now, do you think that's an insult?
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of.
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, in order to get to the place where you need to be at, sometimes people got to speak the truth.
SPEAKER_00: And this pastor's like, I'm gonna tell you, like, this is a part of something that's important for you and your spiritual vitality.
SPEAKER_00: And it's hard for me to explain, but it's hard because you're lazy in your understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Now, he feels like it's difficult to explain because there are in another version, it says this here is translated, you're dull in your understanding.
SPEAKER_00: Dull.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you like a pencil that's dull, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's not sharp.
SPEAKER_00: Has anybody ever said like you have a sharp mind at school?
SPEAKER_00: You got a sharp mind.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, you do.
SPEAKER_00: You're sharp.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's like you grab a hold of things quickly.
SPEAKER_00: They're the opposite, they're dull, dense, they don't get spiritual stuff.
SPEAKER_00: They've gotten tired of listening to spiritual stuff.
SPEAKER_00: There's oh no, another sermon.
SPEAKER_00: I'm tired of this stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to engage my brain with it.
SPEAKER_00: And so they're dull or they're lazy in their understanding.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one writer said they are sluggish with regard to hearing.
SPEAKER_00: They're sluggish.
SPEAKER_00: I love that idea.
SPEAKER_00: It's slow to respond to what they hear.
SPEAKER_00: Just lazy.
SPEAKER_00: Lazy.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's kind of like he's gonna get to Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna get there, but he's saying, listen, listen, listen, listen.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta be a sharp people in order to get the Melchizedek stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So before we get there, before we get there, we gotta cover some other ground so you're ready to hear about Melchizedek.
SPEAKER_00: Here, one um commentator says this the author is thus accusing the addressees, the audience, not merely of nodding off during his sermon, but of failing to respond honorably and wisely to the message of God, of not giving that message its due attention with all diligence.
SPEAKER_00: Not paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: That's why sometimes when I struggle like to pay attention in class, one of the best ways to pay attention is like to take notes, right?
SPEAKER_00: I don't know what your tricks are.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, like when I was in college, is like I'm gonna sit there with snacks to stay awake, have some cold water, whatever.
SPEAKER_00: But but that is the accusation.
SPEAKER_00: Now, for the rest of our text, there is this idea, two contrasting states.
SPEAKER_00: Two contrasting states.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to verse 12.
SPEAKER_00: He says this although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God's revelation.
SPEAKER_00: Again, you need milk, not solid food.
SPEAKER_00: This is kind of the table, as it were, that we can look at.
SPEAKER_00: There's gonna be two contrasting ideas.
SPEAKER_00: There's the ideal, here's what he wants for us, but here's their condition.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: On the right hand side is gonna be their condition, on the left hand side is here's what he wants for you and for me.
SPEAKER_00: He says in verse 12, he says that you guys ought to be teachers, but you need someone to teach you the basic principles.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to be able to chew on solid meat, you ought to be having steak, spiritual steak, but instead you need milk or formula.
SPEAKER_00: He's gonna go on.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna add to this in the next verse, verse 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_00: But this idea of teach you should be a teacher is an interesting um thing.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: This is a very, there's over 60 times this word teacher is used.
SPEAKER_00: It's the word, it's the idea, it's a title that was given to Jesus many times.
SPEAKER_00: There was many times people would come to Jesus and say, teacher, and then they'd ask a question of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And um, and so this pastor is saying, you should be at that place now where you should be capable of being the teacher, and yet you need to be taught.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go to verse 13 and 14.
SPEAKER_00: 13 and 14 says this.
SPEAKER_00: Now everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with a message about righteousness because he's an infant, but solid food is for the mature, for those whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: So if we fill in the rest of our table here, the ideal is like, hey, you I want you to have your senses trained to distinguish between good and evil, but really the place where you're at is that you're inexperienced with God's word.
SPEAKER_00: You don't know how to handle it.
SPEAKER_00: You know, you know the ones that kind of tickle you, like a holiday greeting card, you know, Hallmark greeting card, or like the ones that go in the coffee mugs, but you don't really know how to use the Bible in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Like you don't know when you wake up tomorrow morning, like how to engage the Bible for real life.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of know the ones that you go to, Psalm 23, that makes me feel good.
SPEAKER_00: I can go to sleep now because I'm not anxious anymore.
SPEAKER_00: But it's like, no, the Bible's written to make you wise, to know Jesus, to be able to do all of life.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, in Peter it says that it's sufficient for life and godliness.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, the Bible is what you need.
SPEAKER_00: It is a light, it's nourishment.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is like so wealthy for you.
SPEAKER_00: And yet he says, listen, your condition is that you're inexperienced.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says this is like being a baby or being an infant versus um being mature.
SPEAKER_00: When I was 14 years old, I was diagnosed with attention deficit.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's already obvious to you.
SPEAKER_00: And um I was given an option.
SPEAKER_00: You can either take Ritlin or you can drink coffee.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't want to be on Ritlin, so I decided, oh, I'm gonna try coffee.
SPEAKER_00: And coffee has this stimulant, it affects your neurons, right?
SPEAKER_00: I know I'm always in danger territory when I start talking about the brain, and I have doctors around me that work on brains.
SPEAKER_00: But from how I understand it, this doctor said I could drink coffee and it would help me with my attention deficit.
SPEAKER_00: And um, so all that to say, I started drinking coffee, but I was in Africa, and the only coffee I had access to was instant coffee.
SPEAKER_00: Now, instant coffee, if you're young, instant coffee is like these little granules, like it's like a chocolate chocolate, um, hot chocolate packet, right?
SPEAKER_00: You pour it in there and it turns into coffee.
SPEAKER_00: Now, just so you know, that's not very good coffee.
SPEAKER_00: But when I was 14, I didn't know that.
SPEAKER_00: So I could have had like an instant coffee, or I could have had like ceremony, third wave, organic, single origin coffee, and I wouldn't have known the difference between the two.
SPEAKER_00: Because I was just 14 drinking coffee.
SPEAKER_00: Or it's just like maybe you're you know a teenager and you're like, okay, I'm gonna have steak, and you don't know the difference between like a London broil or a flame and yon.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You just don't know because you're just so young.
SPEAKER_00: And this writer, he's saying, listen, you're inexperienced in terms of Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You're not, you, you, you don't have this regular usage of Bible, and so you don't you're acting like babies still.
SPEAKER_00: You kind of slip away, yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you just are not using it on a regular basis, and so you're not sharp, you know.
SPEAKER_00: And so Now, would I drink instant coffee now, Colin?
SPEAKER_00: No, I wouldn't.
SPEAKER_00: I couldn't stand it.
SPEAKER_00: There's no way.
SPEAKER_00: I would have something else.
SPEAKER_00: Because my senses have been trained.
SPEAKER_00: And so what this pastor wants is he wants a people who are engaged with God's voice on a regular basis.
SPEAKER_00: Because you know what?
SPEAKER_00: Tomorrow, you're gonna need to make some decisions in your life.
SPEAKER_00: And now there may be some verses that you can point to where it's like, yeah, the Bible's really clear about what I should do tomorrow.
SPEAKER_00: But you know what?
SPEAKER_00: It's very likely that it's not specific enough.
SPEAKER_00: But if you're taking the Bible every day and you're assimilating it into your life, like Psalm 41, for example, we read Psalm 41.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have the ability to pull it up on my notes here, but it's just like Psalm 41 is talking about how you're blessed if you care for the poor.
SPEAKER_00: And then it's another, it's like jumps into the messianic stuff about you know uh Judas betraying Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: And it's it's God's voice.
SPEAKER_00: If you're reading that and meditating on that material, I guarantee you you'll have a Judas in your life at some point.
SPEAKER_00: You'll have a Judas in your life at some point.
SPEAKER_00: Now, is that written for your Judas moment?
SPEAKER_00: No, but if you're exercised in it, you hear how Jesus thought through that, if you're familiar with that passage.
SPEAKER_00: If you're questioning, like, does God care for the poor?
SPEAKER_00: You're exercised in it.
SPEAKER_00: Like your senses are attuned.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, this is what God sounds like.
SPEAKER_00: So sometimes as a pastor, I get people who are like, I don't know what God's will for my life is, like I don't know what job I should take, or who I should marry, or should I make this giant move, or should I relocate in this way?
SPEAKER_00: And the question is, is like, hey, are you exercising your senses on a daily basis in God's word?
SPEAKER_00: Because God's voice and his guidance is just becomes more and more familiar as you're exercised in it.
SPEAKER_00: And so, again, just going back to this text, this is this is one of my favorite passages of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Because the expectation of this pastor is that you're just around the Bible so much that you just get to this place where you're able to, like it says here, distinguish between good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Now, where else in the Bible, you Bible experts, you guys know your Bible, where else do we hear about good and evil early on?
unknown: Genesis and early.
SPEAKER_00: Genesis.
SPEAKER_00: Where?
unknown: Genesis, four and four and evil.
SPEAKER_00: True, yeah, that's right.
SPEAKER_00: Chapter 2.
SPEAKER_00: There's a tree.
SPEAKER_00: It's the knowledge of good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Or it should be good and bad, is how it should be translated, but it's the tree of the knowledge of good and bad, and God says, don't take from that tree.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's the question.
SPEAKER_00: Did God not want Adam and Eve to know good and bad?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: No, the reason he's prohibiting them from going to the tree of the knowledge of good and bad is because he wants to be their source.
SPEAKER_00: He wants to be the one that helps them discern what is good and bad.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to be the one.
SPEAKER_00: He's like, don't skip the process and go to the tree.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is a test.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to mature in me so that you're able to discern that.
SPEAKER_00: That seems to be the idea, the what's kind of implied through the passage there, especially as you go through this, that you put that, if that's the melody of the song and you it's put on repeat and the pattern repeats as you go through the Old Testament, it becomes more and more clear that God wants to be the source of the knowledge of good and bad, rather than go to the tree and jump the process, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Here, same idea.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the Lord, be exercised in his word, understand what is good and bad.
SPEAKER_00: Now, in um, this is the NIV version of the same thing, just because I can't get enough of this.
SPEAKER_00: Again, the way that they translate it is who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.
SPEAKER_00: Using the Bible over and over and over again.
SPEAKER_00: So, tomorrow, when you get up and you read your Bible, or you read your Bible tonight, or whenever, whenever you work into your schedule, your Bible reading every day, ask this question: how can I use this?
SPEAKER_00: How can I use this?
SPEAKER_00: How can I exercise myself in this passage?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're in the Psalms.
SPEAKER_00: This is shout to the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, go in the closet where nobody's gonna hear you.
SPEAKER_00: Just shout, say something to God, I love you, right?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, good.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: You exercise yourself in it.
SPEAKER_00: If we're talking about love, hey, God, I want to love.
SPEAKER_00: Like take it from the theoretical and exercise yourself in it.
SPEAKER_00: Here's my question for you.
SPEAKER_00: You if we go back to this picture here, he says you ought to be teachers.
SPEAKER_00: Someone, but you're at the place where someone needs to teach you the basic principles.
SPEAKER_00: And as I was preparing this morning, I just I'm just gonna give you just a window into my own life and just my own thought.
SPEAKER_00: One of the things that we talked about last week, I mentioned at the end of the sermon, is this revival that's happening at Asbury University.
SPEAKER_00: It's continued throughout this week.
SPEAKER_00: This this worship service, prayer meeting has continued at Asbury.
SPEAKER_00: They've opened up three other chapels, and now the the line to get in stretches around the block nearly a mile long to get into this one worship service.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: And and it's also spread to from Kentucky to these three other universities, Lee University and Sanford U, are also having similar, just ongoing worship services.
SPEAKER_00: And the way that these services, they're marked by worship, prayer, reading of scripture, testimonies.
SPEAKER_00: It's not sermons.
SPEAKER_00: There's no big leader running the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty much student-led.
SPEAKER_00: College students just kind of they're praying and seeking the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: It's amazing.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a work of God's spirit that's going on.
SPEAKER_00: But but this is the question that I had for myself.
SPEAKER_00: Last week I said if God wanted to do that in Baltimore City, across church, it wouldn't just be our church, but it was if if God decided, listen, this is what I want to do.
SPEAKER_00: I want to just send a spiritual revival awakening, would you give God permission to do that?
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the first question that you and I need to ask is would you let God do that?
SPEAKER_00: Now, he doesn't need your permission, he can do whatever you want, but if you don't give God permission, then you're gonna be on the sidelines missing out.
SPEAKER_00: But the second thing is if you came next week and all of a sudden it was standing room only in here, and it's just like a work of God.
SPEAKER_00: And like God just quickened people to spiritual things.
SPEAKER_00: Like all of a sudden, people had a heart for God.
SPEAKER_00: People who you know right now, they're like far from God, but all of a sudden, it's just a work of God's spirit drawing them in, and you show up.
SPEAKER_00: Are you my my fear is is this is like, are we ready for that?
SPEAKER_00: Are we ready?
SPEAKER_00: Because who's gonna teach them?
SPEAKER_00: Who's gonna teach them how to have their those people that just they're new baby Christians?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to teach them how to have a daily quiet time, how to read their Bible?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to teach them how to share their faith with their family and share the gospel?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to teach them about baptism and communion?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to teach them about the new covenant, the difference between the new covenant and the old covenant and the grace of God?
SPEAKER_00: Are you ready to teach them about spiritual warfare and Satan's realm?
SPEAKER_00: How we need to stand strong in the evil day.
SPEAKER_00: Listen, my my fear, my hope for you, like you're the you if that happens next week, you're all the mature Christians.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not gonna, it's not gonna be on me.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna be freaking out if you all expect it's just to be Josh teaching that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: No, we're doing this together, right?
SPEAKER_00: If God just decides, like, hey, now's the time for revival, and to just be honest with you, if you look at church history, it's overdue.
SPEAKER_00: It's not too soon, it's overdue, it's not unusual.
SPEAKER_00: God does it, right?
SPEAKER_00: So don't be like, oh my gosh, it happened.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I warned you, okay?
SPEAKER_00: But listen, this is not, this is this is the pastor speaking.
SPEAKER_00: He says, looking, I when I look at you, you ought to be able to teach.
SPEAKER_00: You ought to be able to teach, but you're still in the place where you need the basic principles.
SPEAKER_00: Now, two weeks ago, Donna came to me.
SPEAKER_00: She's she works on Fridays in the Compassion Center.
SPEAKER_00: And she's just like, you know, Pastor, I've been thinking about, I want to, um, I was been thinking about going to seminary and I want to just learn more.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, I was so blown away.
SPEAKER_00: I thought that was so awesome.
SPEAKER_00: I loved it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't even know how to answer a question.
SPEAKER_00: But I do have, I've got three, three ways to answer that question now.
SPEAKER_00: Because if your answer to the question is like, no, I'm not ready to teach about having a daily quiet time.
SPEAKER_00: I'm not ready.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't feel like you're ready to teach somebody, a new believer yet, I've got three sore, three things that you can do.
SPEAKER_00: One is the Bible study that's happening at Pastor Steve's house.
SPEAKER_00: If you want to see a mature Christian lead other people and teach other people, go watch Steve.
SPEAKER_00: You should.
SPEAKER_00: That guy's a blessing to me.
SPEAKER_00: He teaches me.
SPEAKER_00: Like if I need to know, like if I'm wrestling with stuff or I feel lonely, I call Steve.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm like, hey, what do you think?
SPEAKER_00: You know?
SPEAKER_00: So Steve's like, hey, I'll open up my house.
SPEAKER_00: So y'all should take advantage of that.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing, though, is this is a great website.
SPEAKER_00: This is a super simple website.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, what we have with the Spanish congregation is we got a bunch of people that are just new believers that are coming out of like Catholicism.
SPEAKER_00: They want to know more about their Bible.
SPEAKER_00: And so I'm trying to figure out how do I shape a church, how do I help establish a church?
SPEAKER_00: And this is basically the material that I'm using.
SPEAKER_00: It's really simple.
SPEAKER_00: Four fields.
SPEAKER_00: It's called the Four Fields Training material.
SPEAKER_00: You go to noplaceleft.net, they link off to a bunch of like simple YouTube videos.
SPEAKER_00: Awesome stuff, okay?
SPEAKER_00: And the last one is the Bible project.
SPEAKER_00: They have an app and they have a classroom.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a seminary one.
SPEAKER_00: Donna, this is the one that go to the classrooms on a um, if you have like a laptop computer.
SPEAKER_00: Uh Hudson, who's my son in Spain, he was saying that he's been doing this one.
SPEAKER_00: It's really good.
SPEAKER_00: And I have not done any of those classes, but I've taken seminary classes with them, and it's seminary level material.
SPEAKER_00: So it's there.
SPEAKER_00: We have no excuse.
SPEAKER_00: Like if these people had no excuse, oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_00: Doesn't that kind of scary?
SPEAKER_00: Like if they had no excuse, and we live in the age of the internet where you can access like thousands of sermons any day.
SPEAKER_00: Like we got no excuse, guys.
SPEAKER_00: We got no excuse.
SPEAKER_00: So I don't know what God's gonna do.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know who you're gonna be called to train or teach, but the expectation of this pastor is y'all are gonna be need to be at the place where you're able to teach some basic things.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, and it's such a joy.
SPEAKER_00: The best way to learn the Bible is to be a teacher.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why, yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00: Yes, little, little, uh, little that maybe we should put that at the fourth.
SPEAKER_00: Like, if y'all want to like grow, you should volunteer in children's ministry because the person who grows the most is the teacher, because you got to prepare the lesson.
SPEAKER_00: So um, that would be number four is consider uh participating in our children's ministry.
SPEAKER_00: All right, let's uh pray.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna take communion in a minute, but let's uh let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we thank you for your word, and thank you that you have high expectations for us.
SPEAKER_00: You don't set the bar low.
SPEAKER_00: You set the bar low in terms of grace and salvation, but then you want us to be not just sitting in the in the pews, in the chairs, but you're like, hey, I want you to be at the place where you're able to teach others.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we want to um rise to the occasion by your grace.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe be like Paul who said, I labored more abundantly than they all.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we ask that you would quicken us, quicken us to the things that you're doing.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we do pray and ask for a work of your spirit.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for uh this revival that's occurring amongst among college students in Kentucky.
SPEAKER_00: And God, we ask that you would use that and that you'd expand it.
SPEAKER_00: Just like a a forest fire jumps a fire barrier.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, would it jump out of the universities and the colleges where it's at?
SPEAKER_00: And would you allow by your grace it to be experienced in the churches?
SPEAKER_00: Um Lord, we humbly ask for your work in that way.
SPEAKER_00: And we pray this in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.