Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / August 3, 2025 | Onward - Navigation

Transcript

August 3, 2025 | Onward - Navigation · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Morning.
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Great to be with you.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: We're uh we're continuing our series here uh called Onward, and really the idea behind it is um talking about what it means in this Christian journey to take the next step forward, to go one more rung up the ladder, if you will, from wherever you're at in your walk with Christ.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we've the first couple weeks really have just been about kind of getting off the launch pad and and um as Spencer talked last week about focusing on our identity in Christ.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um but this morning we're gonna kind of answer this question of how do we stay on course?
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: What does it mean for us to, you know, really make sure that every step along the way we are doing the thing that not just we should be doing, but the thing that gives us life, right?
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um if any of you grew up with one of those um like foam rockets, it'd be like a yard toy that you stomped on it, right, to shoot it up into the sky.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe you had like after you got bored after 20 minutes, you pointed it at a sibling and then were firing it off at them.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: If you watch those go up into the sky, right?
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: The little foam things, they've got foam fins glued on, they go up maybe 20 feet, and then they kind of flutter back down.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: We don't want that to be our Christian life, right?
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: We want something that is sustained, we want something that keeps going, and we want something that um continues on and ultimately, right, as we head towards eternity with Christ.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so the way that we make sure our rocket, if you will, continues moving forward is by constant adjustment according to the Word of God.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: Really relying on that daily correction that only the truth can give us.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the problem is that for, and I would just, not many of us, but it's something we all slip back into at times, is the Christian life can become more about just pointing and shooting, right?
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Kind of like that foam rocket where we just aim it at what we think is the right target and hope that we get there.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: But as we'll talk about here in a second, pointing and shooting and just aiming at the right thing, relying on our own instinct, ultimately doesn't get us to where we need to go.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: It's our instinct that brought us to Jesus and required the need for Christ's sacrifice.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because our instinct isn't perfect.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: It fails a lot, it has a lot of errors.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: And so we need to rely on the only true thing that can guide us for this whole journey.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So this morning there's not really a better place for us to go than Psalm 119.
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: You said, I thought we were done with the summer in the Psalms.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, we're going back in, but Psalm 119, if you know your Bible trivia, if you don't, that's totally fine, is the longest chapter in the entire Bible.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: We are not going through all of Psalm 119 this morning, but I have pulled out four lessons from Psalm 119.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's fitting, right, that the psalmist who um wrote the longest poem or narrative here in the Bible, the longest chapter, um, that he wrote it about God's word, right?
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: He wrote this beautiful psalm about what God's word is, what it means to us, why it matters, and how it is essential for anyone seeking to follow him.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: So the first lesson that we will pull out from Psalm 119 comes all the way from verse 160.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: The entirety of your word is truth.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_00: Each of your righteous judgments endures forever.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: Simple question to ask is does objective truth really exist?
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: Objective truth being something that is true regardless of opinions, backgrounds, or perspective.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Depending on who you talk to, um a lot of people today would say that objective truth doesn't really exist, or at best it's a suggestion, right?
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or maybe they wouldn't be as bold as to say something like that, but it's how we live our life.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who decides what is right and what is wrong.
• 4:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm the one who determines what is good and what is bad for me, and if somebody else has a different opinion, it is at best that.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's an opinion, it's a suggestion.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: But if the earth orbits the sun, if fire is hot, if two plus two equals four, it is true that there are certain things which, regardless of our background, regardless of our opinions and circumstances, are universally and unchangeably true.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain things, and you don't have to go far to find them, that we actually do base our life around.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even for this series, the fact that gravity is keeping us attached to terra firma here, is something that we base our life around even if we don't think of it.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so if something can be objectively true, then the question becomes well, if there are small things, there must be bigger things.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: There must be some kind of answer for morality, purpose, even what it means to follow after God.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: There must be a place that we can go to to find truth about those items as well.
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_00: There must be a place that, without relying upon the shifting sands of human wisdom, can give us instruction about life meaning and morality.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: And if such a place existed, it would be not just wise, but crucial for our own lives for us to seek it out and to learn from it.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: And ultimately, this is exactly what the Bible claims to offer.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: Not just advice, not just inspiration, not just encouragement, but a truth revealed by God Himself.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: That is what the Bible is.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_00: The word of God is truth.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_00: And to make kind of what seems like a small correction, but it's an important one, is it's not a source of wisdom, right?
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: It is the wise teaching of God.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is not a source of good instruction, it defines what is good.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so when we look at the Bible, right, when we read it and understand it and study it, we understand that it is God's true and enduring word.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: His righteous judgments, as the psalmist says, endures forever.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_00: So the first lesson this morning is simply that God's word is true.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: We set our course with it.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Um, we might use the word inerrant, being without error.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it is infallible.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: Whichever words you want to attach to it, the point is that God's word is a different influence upon our life than every other input, right?
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is the thing which guides our course.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: We, in fact, we set our course based upon what the Bible says.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: It is the thing that gives us our, it's our navigation system, right?
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: If you want a rocket that doesn't come crashing back to earth, you need some kind of navigation system to rely on, something to base what truth is, or rather where to find truth, and everything else that says it's truth, you can compare it back to this one source.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so the Bible is a stable and reliable place to hear from our Creator, but we have to remember, too, that the Bible is not just something that we uh go hunting and pecking through it to find the parts that are most exciting to us.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: The psalmist here in 119 says the same thing that 2 Timothy does, which is all scripture is breathed out by God and is useful for us, right?
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: All scripture, even Leviticus, right?
• 7:52
  SPEAKER_00: Even the parts that, even like the 40th chapter of Isaiah, like even the parts that sort of begin to test us a little bit because we are struggling to see how it immediately applies to our life.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's because there's a deeper uh meaning here behind us studying God's word.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: It is not the, let me say this, the end of studying God's word is to understand truth.
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is not to, in every single circumstance, walk away with a seven-step action plan for how to improve our life.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_00: There are many sections of the Bible that tell us how to live, why we should do it, how to find life from our Creator, but the truth is deeper than that.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: This is God's enduring word, which lasts from generation to generation.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: We are wise to set our course with it.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: But as you might imagine, understanding truth is not the end of reading scripture.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, there are the book of James tells us that even demons, right, understand truth.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't follow after it.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's more than recognizing the Bible is true.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_00: We need to use it to better under better understand the world around us.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: The psalmist in verse 105 says, Your word is a lamp for my feet and a light on my path.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: You might have heard that before.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: What is he referencing here, right?
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_00: That the word of God illuminates the path that he is walking.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: If any of you have ever been in a home with toddlers at night, you know you need a flashlight.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, a, in my case, a wooden train jams itself up inside your foot as you are walking down a hallway, right?
• 9:38
  SPEAKER_00: You, it is good to look ahead and understand what is coming before you.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is dangerous here, this goes back to the correction that we need, is not just about pointing and shooting and relying on our instinct, right?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: Because our instinct is fallible and it's broken.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: And what happens, which is true when you don't have light, is you can be walking down the wrong path without actually recognizing that it's the wrong path because you don't see what's going on around you.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: You just assume that it's the way that we should be going.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_00: And this is so difficult because it can sometimes feel.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, how many things we base our life on because we feel them.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: It can feel like it's the right path.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: But again, our instinct is not enduringly true like the Word of God is, and so we can't rely upon it.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: This was made evident.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_00: The need for discernment anchored in Scripture was shown if you follow sort of the Christian celebrity culture.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, Chip and Joanna Gaines, who they're the fixer-upper crew on HGTV, and now their own network.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: They have a new show coming out called Back to the Frontier, where people pretend that it's 1880.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: Not really sure why I would want to do that, but anyhow, that's what they're doing.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: But they have all these different families and couples that out to do uh come out to this show and and film for this.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the couples is a same-sex couple, it's two men, and there's a huge firestorm of kind of criticism that erupted around uh their decision to uh highlight not highlight but include this couple as a part of their caste.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_00: And kind of depended in uh from Christians, right, all debating this, because the outside world doesn't really care.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: So one perspective was, man, this was an act of inclusion, welcoming, it was empathetic.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Another side would say that, well, this was a compromise of biblical truth.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the conflict highlighted something that we all know too well, which is how difficult it is to faithfully navigate this world while maintaining Christian principles.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: It is not easy.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_00: And for all of the people who pointed sort of their social media guns at the Gaineses and criticized them, it is often without remembering how much we struggle in our daily life to try and live out the things that God has called us to do in messy situations.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, the point isn't simply, which would be my point rather, that the Gaineses chose to platform something that was contrary to God's design, but rather that they were trying to seek God and their decision, and yet what was ultimately lacking in that situation is they were pointing and shooting, right?
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: And here in a moment, I'm gonna expand this to everybody, so this is not just against them, because I do this too.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: But we can often aim instinctually for what we think love and empathy and welcoming looks like without recognizing how the Bible actually uses those words and in what situations it's using it.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: Like Jesus doesn't always act the way we think we remember him acting when we actually go back to the Gospels and see him interacting with people.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so there is a desperate need for us to not just understand truth, but then to allow it to illuminate our entire life, not just to rely on what we think we know it says or what we think might be the best practice, but rather what is ultimately going to be God-honoring.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: The second truth here is that God's word is light, and we need to see our course with it.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_00: Because what is so hard is that for the vast majority of people who were criticizing what the Gaineses were doing, is that I think we were operating a little bit with some selective discernment here.
• 13:54
  SPEAKER_00: Meaning that instead of using God's word as a lantern to illuminate our entire environment, we're using a flashlight, a mag light.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_00: It's got a very specific beam.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: And we're pointing it at the things that we don't like without allowing it to sort of illuminate our own hearts and minds.
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's very easy to become critical, to use God's word to criticize other things without recognizing that, you know, that good old proverb that Jesus said about removing the plank from our own eye first.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: When we look at God's word and allow it to illuminate our own life, what it does is it reveals a whole host of things.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: It reveals dangers, it reveals areas that we need to avoid.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: It also reveals areas where we need to walk, right?
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the most uncomfortable part is it often reveals in that discovery phase the things about us that need to change, which is very discouraging at times because we recognize that we have fallen short of God's standard.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: We continue to be sinful, even though we seek to follow his will to the best of our ability, which is why this whole situation involving a weird premise for a show became a proxy for what it looks like to just try and live out God's word to the best of our ability.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: All of us are aiming for that.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: But it is not just about effort.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It is about taking the word of God and allowing it to illuminate everything, to not just point and shoot.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: We all need scripture to light the path, and that is becoming even more true as our world, and this is not an us against them kind of thing, but just in general in the Western world, as Christianity is becoming less and less of a culturally significant standard, if you will, it's becoming more challenging for us to understand what does it look like to engage, right?
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: In a world, in a place where somebody doesn't have the same values that we do.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_00: How can we still continue to proclaim the love and empathy and justice of Christ in a world that doesn't have the same reference point?
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_00: And the answer is by seeing our course, using God's word to illuminate our situation and going back to it over and over and over again, whether young or old in the faith, to brighten our path, not just parts of it.
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so we allow, it is wise, right, to allow God's word to shine in our life.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, to trust that even when it convicts, it ultimately protects and leads us in the way that we should go.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_00: But while it inevitably does reveal danger or sin, when that happens, rather, the psalmist says that that is going to prompt them to change their course.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I submit to you that this is the hardest part of the whole thing, right?
• 17:04
  SPEAKER_00: We understand truth, it can illuminate our life, it reveals an area that needs to change.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_00: Are we going to change it?
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: Verses 59 and 60.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_00: I thought about my ways, they say, and turned my steps back to your decrees.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: I hurried, not hesitating to keep your commands.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: I hesitate a lot in keeping God's commands.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: I don't always hurry.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Christian who seeks God's word is wise not only because God gives wisdom to those who ask, but because his word enables us to avoid many of the pitfalls that would otherwise cause us harm.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_00: It is true, it is enduringly true, right?
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_00: It illuminates our path, but as it illuminates, we uh encounter opportunities, paths, if you will, forks in the road, whatever you want to call it, where we can choose to follow God's word and his truth, or we can choose to follow something else, which, if we run down that rabbit hole, is ultimately a lie.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_00: God's word is the basis of truth, and if something conflicts with that, it is not another version of truth.
• 18:13
  SPEAKER_00: It is something contrary to truth.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is a lie.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so we might say we can choose to follow truth or we can choose to follow lies, but ultimately we do have that option before us.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_00: Critically, though, your ability to follow God's truth is not reliant simply upon your willpower.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_00: If it is, we'd all be sunk, right?
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: We all have tried to do something just based on sheer force and know that it can fail.
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: God's Holy Spirit rests within every single person who has trusted in Christ as their Savior.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: There is not a challenge, there is not an addiction, there is not a sin that you cannot overcome through the power of the Spirit.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_00: God has empowered you to do all that he has commanded you to do.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: There's no task that he has set before you, no pathway to life that he has provided for you, that you don't also have the ability to walk down or pursue.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing that you read in his word is beyond your ability because it is not your ability, it is the Holy Spirit's.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so as he is empowering us, though, we still recognize that we have these opportunities that come up, and there's this joint process that works together, right?
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord gives us power, but there's an element of us exercising that power.
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: We know that God empowers us to do something and yet we don't always do it.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: Paul talks about that in the book of Romans.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: He's like, I don't do the things I know that I should be doing, right?
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's his whole lament.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: When we go back to the image of a rocket, um oftentimes when you just think of how a rocket shoots up into the sky, you just think, oh man, just goes straight up, right?
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: But actually the curve of a rocket incorporates something called a gravity turn.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: And what is happening is that this massive piece of machinery, the biggest one right now, is about 5,000 metric tons, right?
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_00: When it's shooting up into the sky with the thrust of however many hundreds of locomotives or whatever example to give, right, we often think that it's just going straight up.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: But in order for it to properly enter Earth's orbit, it needs to turn and begin going horizontal so that it can kick into, you know, our globe and its its orbit.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: If it just goes straight up, right, we're gonna be in problems.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the things that happens with this rocket is that every second after it goes off the launch pad, its engines are doing, they have the ability to do something called gimbal.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_00: And that means that these massive engines all have a bit of a pivot point.
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_00: And each one, when you get 33 of them, or however many are on the biggest rocket right now, and when each one is slowly making adjustments, it is what is turning this rocket ultimately to go horizontal and into orbit.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so this is not a matter of just pointing and shooting and hoping that it like uncontrolled goes in the right spot.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_00: But every step along the way, this rocket is making micro adjustments based on wind shear, based on changing mass, based on um uh the um, oh, what was the other thing?
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: Atmospheric drag, that was the word I wrote down, okay?
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_00: All of this stuff that is happening to the rocket that we don't even think of, things that the engineers couldn't have expected.
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: It has this internal guidance system, and it is not just pointing and shooting, it is constantly changing its course so that it can be successful.
• 21:57
  SPEAKER_00: You might imagine where I'm going with that, right?
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: God.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: God's word corrects and we adjust our course with it.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: The word of God illuminates our path, and we must take the opportunity to adjust according to his word, but not just for the point of obedience, right?
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: That's not the end of this whole thing, right?
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_00: The goal is that we are being transformed into the image of Christ.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: That the you from six months ago looks a little bit less like Jesus than the you right now, which will look a little bit more like Jesus six months from now.
• 22:34
  SPEAKER_00: You are being transformed into the image of your Savior.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: You are made in the image of God.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_00: We have fallen away from that standard because of our sin, and we are slowly returning back to this place where to the world around us and in creation we resemble our God.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily physically, okay?
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_00: Doesn't mean we're all going to look like Jesus, but rather that we have his heart and we have his mind and we speak the way that he would.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Our heart breaks for the things that break his heart.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Until we get to be in eternity with him, we are slowly, step by step, making micro adjustments on this journey to looking more like Jesus Christ.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_00: But this requires humble, constant adjustment, right?
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: This requires a soul that recognizes that we are broken.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: It requires an attitude that says that we want to change and that we know that we need to change and that we're going to find it in the Word of God.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is our internal guidance system, gently correcting us, empowering us, and keeping us aligned with the path God has set before us.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, why would we do this?
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: Because this is where we find life.
• 23:57
  SPEAKER_00: You were designed with a purpose.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_00: You are designed for a kind of life that we have all walked away from because of sin.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_00: Your greatest fulfillment, it is not ultimately about you, but this is part of the thing, is your greatest fulfillment, your greatest sense of purpose and direction and satisfaction and joy in this life is when you align most closely with the will of God and who He designed you to be in your mother's womb.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: That is going to be far more satisfying than any number in your bank account or any number of friends that you have or anything else we fill this world with.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you return to the way that God designed you, you will find life.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: I've got a couple plants in my office, and I keep having to bring in new plants because I keep killing the old ones, okay?
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I get plants that belong in the desert.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: They're supposed to be harder to kill.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm finding new ways to do it.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And often it is because I'm overwatering them, alright?
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: How is it that a plant doesn't need water for like three months?
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_00: I don't understand, but I continue to water it too much.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_00: And so what happens is I'm killing my plants.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: I think I know what's best for it.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_00: I think that the soil looks really dry and I haven't done it since I can't remember.
• 25:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so I should dump a little bit more in here.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: Then a couple weeks later, I need a new plant, right?
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: This is your life.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: God has designed you specifically in a way that brings life when you follow his path and his plan for you.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_00: When you do things based on instinct, when you do things just because we think that they're right or we think we know better, ultimately we are not following his truth.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: We're following a lie.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: No matter how many times I think my plants need water, if they don't actually need water, it's a lie, okay?
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just telling myself it's a truth.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm telling myself the plant is wrong or something.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: God's word corrects and we need to adjust to it.
• 26:01
  SPEAKER_00: So this is the third point out of four.
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: But the fourth is really more about just diving deeper into all the things we just talked about.
• 26:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because if God's word is enduringly true, if God's word can illuminate our path, help us avoid error, and ultimately give us instruction for where to go next, even in messy situations.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: And if God's word is good for correction so that we can be transformed into this life that we want to lead, right, that he has designed for us, that is fulfilling and aligned with our Savior, well then we need to read the Word of God.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: We find in Psalm 119 that the psalmist had no problem with that instruction.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he loved doing it.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: He said, I will meditate on your precepts and think about your ways.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_00: I will delight in your statutes and I will not forget your word.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I will delight in your statutes, I will not forget your word.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: There is an extensive process.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: If you would like to be an astronaut with NASA, you would first apply, and in order to even be considered, you need to have a resume that puts you in the top 1% of the entire world.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Usually you need to be an engineer or a scientist, have flight experience.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you come from the military, that would be helpful.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: But you need to be doing research, you need to be capable.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: It helps also if you're unbelievably physically fit and you can do and you're extremely intelligent, right?
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: That just gets you in the door.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_00: Then you're picked, you're chosen to be an astronaut.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_00: And then what begins is four to five years of training.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_00: There are usually two years of basic training: survival, robotics, flight, and spacewalk for all astronauts.
• 28:02
  SPEAKER_00: And then, once you're an astronaut with NASA, it doesn't mean that you are going up into space.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: You then need to be chosen from amongst that pool to go on another mission.
• 28:13
  SPEAKER_00: In which case, there's another one to two years after that of training related to your specific assignment.
• 28:19
  SPEAKER_00: Working with the crew on every step of the flight, including the rehearsal of all possible malfunctions and errors, not the least of which is that when you go up into space, you are responsible for a certain part of the journey and you need to have every single answer ready to go, no matter what takes place.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_00: A couple weeks ago, I mentioned a woman named Soony Williams.
• 28:44
  SPEAKER_00: She was an astronaut that got stranded at the International Space Station last fall when her Boeing spacecraft couldn't bring her back.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so she was up there along with a guy named Butch for an additional like nine months or something.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she over and over again, as the world became aware of their situation, she proved herself to be such a capable astronaut in part because of the training that she had undergone.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she said this we don't just train for the normal day, we train for every possible failure.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: We train so much that when something goes wrong, it's almost like muscle memory.
• 29:21
  SPEAKER_00: This whole time, I've been talking about the problem of relying on instinct.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: You can begin to rely on your instinct if you shape it and mold it into the word of God.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: That is, if you dive deep and you train, we don't just treat the Bible as a reference manual, right?
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: We don't just treat it as we're just going to look up what feels important to us in the moment.
• 29:47
  SPEAKER_00: But we base our lives in it, we drink deeply from that well, we study it, we look over it, we're consistent with it.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: If we do that, what happens is the spirit begins to change the thing, the way our mind works, the way our soul feels, right?
• 30:02
  SPEAKER_00: Like what we then begin to think of as the right course of action does start to look more like God's truth than it would have otherwise.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: I push back on something that I see a lot, which is that we think a verse of the day or a little devotional is really what it means to be in God's word on a consistent basis.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: You are just scratching the surface.
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_00: That is a wonderful start, don't get me wrong, but like there is so much more beauty and depth and understanding if we decide to dig deep into God's word and not just allow it to be a verse that sounds good on our coffee mug, coffee mug, on a t-shirt, on a piece of wood, you know, somewhere in our living room, right?
• 30:50
  SPEAKER_00: We write verses in those places to remind us of these things, but it needs to be engraved on our hearts.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_00: And the only way to get that, the only way to make that a reality is to study it, is to train for it and prepare.
• 31:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then what happens is when you go through hardship, your well is deep and you can draw from it.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: I, like many of you, have probably typed in to Google at some point, more often than I can count, like, what does the Bible say about anxiety?
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: You know?
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let me just read 70 different places where scripture talks about anxiety, just because I want what I'm going through right now to be, and I have this desire to base it in God's word, and so I go there.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: But what I can tell you is far better is to understand those places ahead of time, know God's truths ahead of time, so that when I encounter those difficulties, my first instinct is for um to rely upon the Holy Spirit to bring these things back to my mind so that I can guide myself using God's word through those circumstances.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_00: There are times in life when you just don't have the time to use it as a reference manual.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: It needs to be a training ground for you.
• 32:13
  SPEAKER_00: So my fourth and final point here is that God's word is helpful.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_00: We study our course with it.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: Helpful probably being too small of a word to use, but what I mean by that is that if we rely upon God's word and we study this course, like an astronaut, we prepare years in advance for something that is going to take days, okay?
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: They put in so much time and effort because what they are doing is important.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: If you think that your relationship with Christ is important, you should be putting in the time and attention and effort that it takes to prepare for that journey and to be on the right course.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: So here's my encouragement to you this morning, and really the application, which is one thing in two parts.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: It is make a Bible reading plan and get a Bible reading group together.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_00: And if one of those two things, right, sort of blows your mind, okay, I've got some in the time that we have left, I just want to dig down really, really practical.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: Say, let me help you uh figure out what it looks like to create a Bible reading plan.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then let's say that you're somebody who is doing that already.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_00: You're reading God's word, you're in it all the time.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_00: Get some other people to read it with you, right?
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: If you've never read the Bible, invite somebody.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if you've read the Bible a lot, invite somebody.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_00: Get together and read God's word so that we can draw deeper in this together.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: So, first, right?
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: Let's talk about a Bible reading plan.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of ways that you can cut this cake.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_00: Three of them are that you can divide it by time, i.e., you could go 10 minutes every morning and just see how far you get in a certain quiet time.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_00: You can go by frequency.
• 34:04
  SPEAKER_00: You could say, well, every weekday I'm going to read one chapter of the Bible.
• 34:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or you could go by content.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: You could say, I'm gonna read the book of Proverbs, the book of John.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people where they will take one book of the Bible and they'll read it for a whole month.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd say, okay, well, like the book of James is five chapters long.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_00: What do you mean you're gonna read it for a month?
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's not much.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that person who is really getting after it, they might read one chapter a day, but by the end of that month, they're going to have read the book of James six times.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: They're really gonna understand the book of James.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_00: It's a little bit of a tortoise versus the hare kind of approach, but it means that we can read our Bible and understand it more.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, let's let's say you're past that point and you want to take on a bigger challenge.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_00: If you want to read the Bible in two years, it's a little bit less than two chapters per day.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's really not much.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you get to Psalm 119, maybe you just read one chapter that day, okay?
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, reading just under two chapters per day gets you through the entire Bible in two years.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: Or if you want to get through the New Testament and the book of Psalms and Proverbs in a year, you do a one-by-one plan, which means you read one chapter from the New Testament and one chapter from either Psalms or Proverbs each weekday.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: That gets you through the New Testament and Psalms and Proverbs in a year.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: The point is not that you do exactly one of these things.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: If you go to UVersion on your phone, download an app, they have an endless number of ways that you can read through the Bible.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: They've got, you know, Bible reading plans based on um marriage or anxiety or, you know, a New Testament or the letters from Paul or the prophets or a lot of different things.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the point is that you pick something and you stick to it in a way that draws deep into God's word rather than staying on the surface level.
• 36:03
  SPEAKER_00: But step two is invite some other people to do it with you.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: Get a Bible reading group, set a goal, set a time, and make a plan.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_00: We want to read through the book of Mark in two months, which by the way, the Mark is 16 chapters, and so that's about two chapters per week.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_00: Let's meet weekly to discuss them, okay?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you go, I have no idea what to discuss when I come together to read or to our reading group.
• 36:28
  SPEAKER_00: Like, how do we go through that?
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_00: One option would be the soap method.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_00: Scripture.
• 36:36
  SPEAKER_00: What did we just read?
• 36:37
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 36:38
  SPEAKER_00: Did we all read the same thing?
• 36:39
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't always happen.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_00: Like, do we understand where we're at right here?
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_00: Observation, what's going on in the text?
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_00: What's the context?
• 36:47
  SPEAKER_00: Is this the nation of Israel wandering through the desert?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a prophet talking to um uh Jerusalem?
• 36:56
  SPEAKER_00: Is this Jesus in the gospels?
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_00: Is this a letter to the Corinthians?
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_00: What is this that we're reading right now?
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_00: What's the context?
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_00: Application, right?
• 37:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is that rubber meets the road part.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: How does it apply to my life?
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: What is the point here?
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_00: And moreover, like in every single example of scripture that we can look at, what is God teaching us about Himself?
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes that's really the question, rather than just what needs to change about my life, or what are the seven steps that I'm going to take to fix this thing.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, and this is often true in like Old Testament narratives, the point or the application is that you learn something about who God is.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: You learn, you get a better understanding of who the Creator is, his love for you, his holiness, what it means to bring glory to his name, any number of things.
• 37:52
  SPEAKER_00: But let's talk about how it applies.
• 37:54
  SPEAKER_00: And then finally, how can we respond?
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_00: And really just through prayer.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: This is not the only thing you need to do, right?
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is it could be whole any number of things.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe the greatest thing is just that you're getting together in community with other believers.
• 38:13
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to encourage you to do this, to not make your Bible reading something that is an isolated and individual affair, but rather to share it with other people, to walk with them through it.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: And again, if you are a little bit further on in this Christian journey, keep in mind, right, that we have this calling upon our lives to disciple other people.
• 38:35
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the easiest ways to engage people in a discipleship relationship to help them on a journey is to say, hey, do you want to get together for like two months and read through the book of Mark?
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: We can meet weekly, I'll buy you coffee, it'll be great.
• 38:51
  SPEAKER_00: Most people say yes to that.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_00: So my encouragement to you, right, is to dig deep, to see the Word of God is more than just encouragement, more than just inspiration, but really something that the Spirit is going to use to change our lives and keep us on this journey.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Final thought The power to live out God's truth comes from the Holy Spirit.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: But it begins with a commitment to know that truth through his word.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: I want you to make that commitment.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to take steps to move forward in that commitment.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I want you to bring people around you to keep you accountable and holding to that commitment.
• 39:32
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we come before you today.
• 39:38
  SPEAKER_00: Father, we thank you for your word.
• 39:40
  SPEAKER_00: You have given it to us, and it is beautiful, and it is wondrously helpful in guiding us in this path that you have set us on.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, a path that we often take detours in.
• 39:54
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, your word is truth.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: It illuminates our path, it corrects us and guides us and teaches us.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, ultimately, it is helpful as we meditate upon it for leading the life that you've provided.
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, might your spirit draw us deeper into this.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Give us clarity in what our schedule can allow, but also to challenge us that perhaps our schedule might need to change just a little bit to take on this challenge.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, help us to make a plan and to get a group to go through that plan so that we can join and encourage one another in this love and good deed.
• 40:33
  SPEAKER_00: God, we thank you for these things in Jesus' name.
• 40:36
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.