Hi, good to see everybody out tonight. If you have grabbed a handout on your way in, we're going to start a new Bible study tonight and I'm looking forward to this. I hope it's encouraging and helpful to you. We're calling this Bible study, Listen and Obey the Application of Scripture to Everyday Life. And the idea is born out of this simple question is how do you How do you know what to do with the Bible? How do you go and apply the Bible to your life? So I want to start with this just basic, some basic questions. And some of these may seem too basic, but I think they're worth asking. The first question I have at the top of your sheet there is, does God care what you do? Absolutely, right? I mean, does God care? Well, I mean, think about it. A lot of Christians today focus more on what some people call being than doing. It's like you even hear people say, well, Christianity is not a religion, it's a relationship. Okay, I understand what you mean by that, but even relationships involve obligations and responsibilities, things like that. Does God care what we do? I think absolutely, because religion, the Bible even calls us to do true religion, which we'll see in a second, involves obligations and duties. That's your blanks. It involves obligations and duties. You cannot get away from this. To be a Christian, if you're going to follow Jesus, it involves obedience. And we need to be aware of this. Now, our obedience, I need three people to look up verses here. One person look up John 14, 15, one James 1, 27, and another 1 Samuel 15, 22. Our obedience is not just rote obedience because, like in the army, if you have a drill sergeant who tells you to stand up straight and you obey him because of the threat of, I don't know, whatever the threat would be, being humiliated in front of people or having to do kitchen duty. But our obedience, the Bible tells us, should come as an outpouring of our love for Jesus. That's where our obedience should come from. So look at this first statement from Jesus, John 14, 15. Who has it? Okay, Helen. If you love me, you keep my commandments. Yeah, if you love me, Jesus says what? keep my commandments. It's very simple that Jesus cares what we do and he connects our love for him with our obedience to him. Again, these are very foundational and very important things for us to state and affirm and believe. Because some people say, well, it doesn't really matter if you're following Jesus or not. It does matter. If you love him, he says, you'll keep his commandments. We demonstrate our love by how we act. When we obey Jesus, we demonstrate we love Him. When we disregard His will for our lives and we do what we want, we demonstrate our love for whom? For ourselves, right? Ken Collier used to say, and still does, there are only two choices on the shelf, pleasing God and pleasing self, right? You have choosing God or self. And they're these two choices you have loving God or loving self. If you love me, keep my commandments. If you find yourself disobeying God's commandments, who are you loving? Yourself, right? You're loving yourself, not God. The Bible warns us about this. He says, no man can serve two masters. Either you will love the one and cling to the one, despise the other, right? Or you'll love the one and hate the other. You cannot serve God and money, or God and mammon. Here, God and self. You can't serve two masters. How about this one, James 127. How does the Bible describe pure religion? Yes, sir, go ahead. This is pure and undefiled religion in the sight of our God and Father. To visit orphans, Okay, there is two elements he gives to true religion. What's the first element of true religion? Ministry, caring for others. Specifically, caring for the people who do not have anything to give back to you. Orphans and widows. You're not going to receive anything back from them. This is not something that you're doing to gain favor with them so they can benefit you. It's not an exchange. It's giving. But there's another one. Holiness or purity. Keep yourself unspotted from the world. What does that mean? Right, be in the world but don't belong to the world. Do not get sucked into the thinking of the world. Romans chapter 12 tells us, do not be conformed to this world. Don't allow the thinking of this age, the priorities of this time to mold you into who You are, you must have your mind transformed by God. So there's two elements, this pure and undefiled before God, I'm sorry, pure religion and undefiled before God the Father is this, to visit the orphans and widows in their affliction and to keep yourself unspotted from the world. So pure religion is caring for other people, it's showing love, it is involving action, it is involving doing, it's not just about being. How about this third one? 1 Samuel 15, 22. Yes sir, Bill. So Samuel said, hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to heed than the fat of rams. So the story here is Saul has disobeyed God and has done what he was not supposed to do, and Samuel confronts him about this. Saul says all kinds of things, right? He blames it on other people, et cetera. And then Samuel directly confronts him and says, does God have as great a delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying his voice? It is better to obey God than to worship. I mean, that's what he's saying. To obey is better than sacrifice. And to listen than the fat of rams. What is going on with sacrificing and the fat of rams? What is that? In Old Testament context? Not in our context, today we're thinking barbecue. But in that day, fat of rams, what is he talking about? Sacrifice, sacrificial assistance, worship. worship, public worship. And he's saying, I would rather, and there's a lot of emphasis. I mean, how much of the Bible is talking about the sacrificial? There's a whole book of Leviticus and a lot of numbers, and there's detailed descriptions about how we are to worship God or how the Jews were to worship God through the sacrificial system. And he says, God doesn't like that as much as he likes obedient people. So, He desires obedience. I put likes. I think desires is better. He desires obedience more than He desires even your worship. I think this is because when you obey, that is a way of worshiping Him. You're showing Him His worth. That is proper. You cannot properly worship God if you're disobedient. If you're being disobedient, you're not worshiping. And if you're worshiping, you're being obedient. So that's the point here. So obedience to whom? I have some verses here for us to read. Exodus chapter 5 and verse 2. And then they're all listed there on your sheet, Exodus 19, 5, Deuteronomy 11. If we're talking about obedience, who are we supposed to obey? What are we supposed to obey? How are we supposed to obey? But whose voice are we to obey? I'll read the first one, then I'll need somebody to read Exodus 19. In Exodus 5, Pharaoh is talking to Moses and he says, Who is the Lord that I should obey His voice and let Israel go? I do not know the Lord, nor will I let Israel go." This is fascinating. He says, I don't know Him, so I won't obey Him. Okay, so I wonder if there's a connection between knowing God and obeying God. Exodus 19.5, who can read that for us? Yes, ma'am. Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, then you shall be a special treasure to me above all people, for all the earth is mine. Okay, God's speaking to the nation of Israel. In Exodus 19, what's the context of that? Mosaic covenant, we've got the covenant of the law there. Ten commandments. So he says, if you will obey my voice, keep my covenants, you'll be a special treasure to me. There is a responsibility for God's people to keep his law. Deuteronomy 11, 13 through 17, a little bit longer of a passage. Who's got that one? Yes, sir. And it shall be that if you earnestly obey my commandments, which I command you today, to love the Lord your God and serve him with all your heart and with all your soul, then I will give you the rain for your land in this season, the early rain and the latter rain, that you may gather in your grain your new wine and your oil. And I will send grass in your fields for your livestock that you may eat and be filled. Take heed yourselves, lest your heart be deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them. Yeah, he says, not only should you obey, but there's a danger in disobedience. You need to obey the Lord. If you disobey God, you're going to face consequences. for that. In Acts 529 we have an amazing story where Peter and the other apostles are confronted by the civil authorities and they're told to stop preaching. Jimmy, why don't you read that verse for us? So who do we obey? God over people. When there is a conflict in authority, when it's God or man, who should we obey? We obey God. And that's the priority, the hierarchy of our obedience. And the implication here is that God has given us instructions, and our allegiance is to God, even over the human authority that is around us. Human leadership we have, our ultimate allegiance is to God. In fact, we're even told to obey the word of the apostles, 2 Thessalonians 3, verse 14. Yes, sir, Jimmy, go ahead. And if anyone does not obey our word, and this epistle knows that the person and did not keep company with him, that he may be ashamed. Okay, so if there's someone in the church who's not obeying the Word of God that was given to them by the apostles, so Jesus' ministry was continued by the apostles. We have that ministry in the written Word of God. And that epistles, those epistles, those letters were written to people. And so here in 2 Thessalonians, Paul is saying, if someone does not obey our Word in this epistle, he is to be You're not to keep company with Him. You are to dismiss Him. You are to treat Him, or basically this is like church discipline in a sense, that He may be ashamed because He's not being obedient. So we are to obey the spiritual authorities God has given us. We are to obey the written Word of God. We are to obey God Himself. We must obey God. That is who we are called to obey. Would everyone turn with me to Romans chapter 2? I want to read a few verses together and look at the consequences for disobedience. Because, again, these things tend to get downplayed in our culture today. Romans chapter 2, this is in a long discourse, a long discussion, and so we're not going to see everything that's going on. But in the general sweep, Paul is speaking about sin. He's talking about the fact that the pagan people are aware of their sin and they're guilty before God. because they're idolaters, and so are the Jews. The Jews themselves are also guilty of sin, and they have received the riches of His goodness, verse 4, the forbearance, longsuffering, the goodness of God will lead you to repentance. But look at verse 5, 5 through 11. He says, but in accordance with your hardness and your impenitent heart, You are treasuring up for yourselves wrath in the day of wrath and the revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will, notice the quote, will render to each one according to his deeds eternal life to those who by patient continuance in doing good seek for glory, honor, and immortality, but to those who are self-seeking and do not obey the truth but obey unrighteousness, indignation, and wrath, tribulation, and anguish on every soul of man who does evil, of the Jew first, also for the Greek but glory honor and peace to everyone who works what is good to the Jew first and also to the Greek for there is no partiality with God the book of Romans is all about salvation by grace through faith so he's not teaching a work salvation here what he's saying is is that you will be dealt with you will be judged according to your works your works matter your obedience matters And God will hold you responsible. And he says he doesn't have a partiality. He's not going to overlook the Jews because of the chosen people of God. All are required. All are expected to obey him. And God will bring justice. He will render each one according to his deeds. There are several verses he's probably quoting here. Psalm 62, 12 is probably what he's quoting. But there are some other verses possibly he's referencing there. So, there are consequences for being disobedient to God. We face God's judgment. So, how do we obey God? And I gave this little path, this little thing in our last Bible study we did, which was the first step to obeying God is knowing God. You know God. You have to know God. How do we know God today? How can you get to know God better than you know Him today? Through the Word of God. God has revealed Himself to you. He has spoken. And as you listen to His words, His words carry His authority. His words teach us about His character. You need to know God. You learn about Him through His Word. Once you know Him, only when you know Him can you trust Him. Because you can't trust what you don't know. So it goes from no to trust. And lastly, once you trust, then you can obey. And I'm not saying that you can say, well, I can't obey, Pastor, because I haven't developed enough knowledge of God. That's not the point. It's not knowing facts about, it's knowing Him. Knowing Him and trusting Him leads to obedience. If you are not obeying, where this is helpful is if you're being disobedient, what is that showing? Either you don't know Him or you don't trust Him. Or trust something else more than God. You are leaning on something else to solve your problem. So if you're not obeying God, you're trusting in yourself. And this is a Proverbs 3, 5, and 6 solution. What does that verse say? Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your paths or make your paths straight. Trust in the Lord with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. See, it all comes down to this. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He shall direct your paths. So this is the way in which we learn to obey God. What we're talking about, the basic concept here is that God calls us to be obedient. What are we to obey? How do we know what's obedience? How do we know to obey? What we should obey? When my wife tells the kids to do things, she'll often make a list for them. And she'll make a list. And in fact, when she leaves me at home with the kids by myself, I have a list sometimes too. And we all have a list. And so she says, okay, here's what's going on. your daughter has to do her violin, she has to do her reading, and she has to take out the trash, or I forget what else, umpto the dishwasher, and then do her laundry, and then she can read a book, or then she can whatever, play with this. Okay, okay, so I know what the rules are. because they've been spelled out for me, and it's easy to follow. And sometimes I still don't get it quite right. But you know what I'm saying, right? I try, but she does a great job with this. But God does this too. God gives us his expectations. He's not gonna come in afterwards and say, why didn't you do that? Well, we didn't know. Well, she should have known. God doesn't expect us to just know, He tells us. So the Bible, I just put here, why should we read God's Word? This is what we're getting down to with this study, is we read the Bible to be informed, we want to learn, but we really read the Bible to be transformed. The reason we read the Bible is not just to be informed, but to be transformed. And this word comes out of Romans chapter 12, verses one and two, which tells us that we should not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the what? Renewing of your mind. And that takes place when you are coming into contact with God's word. We want to know what God expects out of us, and we read the Bible so we know how to live out this truth. 2 Timothy 3.16. Let's turn there. We've got a lot of different places to go tonight. 2 Timothy 3.16-17. If I could have somebody who is able to read that out loud, that would be great. Okay, Jenna. for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. All right, so scripture is God-breathed. That's what inspired means. All scripture is given by inspiration of God. This word inspiration depends on your translation. Some say all scripture is God-breathed. That's really good. Is the word theo, Panoustos which means God breathe Okay, literally so inspiration means that scripture is given by God. It's God's breath. It's what God intends and so when we Recognize this we recognize that God's Word is our absolute authority for doctrine in life Okay, not the DSM 5 which is the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Psychiatric Things, not the New York Times, not Fox News, right? Not a book you read that you picked up at Barnes & Noble. It is God's Word that is our authority for life and practice and doctrine, so we have to lean on that. And so 1 Kings 20, And verse 35 to 36, this is actually this coming Sunday's message. You don't have to turn there, but the point is that to disobey the word of God is to disobey God himself. The prophet, it says, a certain man of the sons of the prophet said to the neighbor, by the word of the Lord, he speaks, strike me, please. And the man refused to strike him. So he said, because you have not obeyed the voice of the Lord, surely as soon as you depart from me, a lion shall kill you. Very severe, but the point being that to disobey the word of God is to disobey God. And we know this intuitively. If I send one of my kids to another child, I say, hey, tell them that dad says it's dinner time. And they go out in the backyard, they say, dad says it's dinner time, and the other kid sticks their tongue out at him and says, I don't care what you say, I'm not coming inside. Who are they defying? The father there. Yeah, they're defying the messenger too, but ultimately they're defying the message giver So disobey God's Word is to disobey God himself. So God's Word is the authority So, how do you make sure you're obeying God's Word? How do you make sure the Bible is full of commands in Leviticus 18? It says you shall keep my statutes my judgments which if a man does he shall live by them. I am the Lord. How do we apply? direct commands of Scripture here are some questions to ask Does it matter who originally received the command? Yes. Yeah. Does the context of the command matter? Sure. Do we have to follow the command directly or are we allowed to make it work in our current context? That's a tricky, tricky question. How do we know if certain commands apply to us and other commands do not? Is it possible that by following the letter of the law, we might miss the spirit of the law? I mean, all these things are legitimate questions, and that's what we're gonna be talking about in this Bible study. It's like, how do we know that what I'm doing is what God wants me to do, because I take God's word seriously. God's word is God's message to me, and I want to make sure I'm obeying it, and I want to know that I'm obeying what he calls me to obey, and I'm not missing it somehow. Okay. So how does God, if you flip your thing over, how does God confront us with his word? The word of God is confrontational. Because what it does is it presents the world as it is, and it demands us as readers submit to its truth. I was reading a book, and this book is not a Christian book. It's actually a book about literature. It's by a guy named Auerbach, and he talks about the difference between the Bible and other literature. Specifically here he's talking about Homer, who wrote the Odyssey and the Iliad, okay? Here's what he said. He said when you compare this with our these are my words first Then I'll tell you when he starts when you compare this the Bible with ancient literature the Bible stands alone and confronting us with reality Our box states the Bible has a completely different purpose and orientation than Homer who delights and entertains biblical narrative here's here's what he says quote was oriented towards truth and He said the bible's claim to truth is not only far more urgent than homers. It is tyrannical. It excludes all other claims The scripture stories do not like homers court our favor They do not flatter us that they may please us or enchant us They seek to subject us and if we refuse to be subjected we are rebels That is so true. The Bible does not just enter, it's not Hollywood. It's not just a take it or leave it. Like you can watch a show on TV and be like, oh, that was fun. And then you leave it and you forget about it. The Bible is confrontational. It says, this is the way it is. There's a God who created you and you're responsible to him. And it's confrontational unlike anything else. And that's why people don't like it. because it speaks truth. And so, the Bible confronts, this is another quote from a great book by John Lehman, it says, the Bible does two things. It announces what God has done, this is your box quote here, and it confronts its hearers with this news and its implications. For a preacher to expose the Bible, therefore, he must expose the Bible's announcement and its confrontation. And what does it confront? Well, the Bible's going to confront, number one, your worldview. And I think the Doigs are watching tonight. Good to see you guys. They told me earlier I left my microphone on accidentally while we were sitting down here for a second. But Larry Doig talked about your Weltanschauung, which I think is how you say it. It's a German word for worldview. It is the way you see the world. It's how you perceive things. Like, I look at the sky in the morning the other day, I came early to church to go get those banners we have for Easter Sunday, and I'm sitting there and the sun is coming up, and I see the beautiful sun peeking through the clouds, it's pink and it's warm outside, and the buds and everything, and the trees and the flowers, and I'm thinking to myself, Lord, you are such an amazing painter. But the person who might come up behind me at the stoplight or whatever, they might be an atheist. They might look and they might not acknowledge God at all. Their worldview has written God off. So they see through a different lens. The Bible will challenge your worldview. The Bible challenges your worldview in a lot of areas. Let me just say one area in which Westerners, Americans get challenged is your spiritual worldview. Do you believe in demons? How much of an impact do demons and angels have in this world today? In our culture today, we downplay spiritual forces. If somebody's facing a difficult thing that we downplay it, we're like, oh, you know, they're just having a rough day or something like that. We don't like to think about spiritual warfare, but you look through the scripture and there is so much about spiritual warfare that, I mean, I'm not saying you should go and get curious about demons. I'm not saying that at all because it's a very dangerous thing, but in our Western worldview, we don't like to think that way. We're very naturalistic people. Okay, we're very materialistic people. The Bible will challenge your worldview. You need to take it for what it says. Secondly, the Bible will challenge your spiritual state. Your spiritual state. How's your walk with God? You know, how's your trust in God? How's your prayer? Every person is struggling with sin in some way. I'm convinced of that. Every person in some way is struggling with sin. We need to allow scripture to speak on our struggles with such things like idolatry, with justifying ourselves, with loving ourselves, with loving the world, with pride. 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 through 14, did I put that? I did not. You might want to write that in the margin there. That's a great passage to look at later. 1 Thessalonians 5, 12 through 14. He says, we exhort you, brethren, warn those who are unruly, comfort the faint-hearted, uphold the weak, be patient with all. We are to recognize we'll be challenged in our spiritual state. Also, our social state will be challenged. You think about what does God have to say to you men and you husbands, how you ought to treat your wives? And what does the Bible say to you wives and how you want to respond to your husbands? What does the Bible say about you as a citizen of a country? How about as a person, as a Christian, what's your responsibility to this church family? What's your responsibility to the church body? What's your responsibility to your neighbor? God is gonna challenge you in your role as a husband, as a wife, as a man, as a woman, as a child, as an adult. If you have a lot of money, what does God expect of you? If you don't have a lot of money, what does God expect of you? God expects it. God is going to deal with us in our social state in our spiritual state He's gonna deal with our worldview. I think I had one more. Yeah, how about your place in the church? What you know your corporate church, how do you live out truth in the church what is God challenging you to do your place in the church I So this is what God is going to confront us with, with his word, and we have got to be equipped to take what God is confronting us so we can obey him and do what he calls us to do. And this is all introduction, please understand, or getting there. But what I'm hoping that, I'm hoping not to complicate matters. I don't want you to walk away thinking, well, I'll never be able to apply the Bible because it's so complicated. That's not the point. What I'm hoping to do is simplify it so anyone can pick up their Bible and read the Bible and ask the Lord to help them apply it to their life today. Okay, any questions or comments so far on anything we've covered? Because this is all, of course, introductory. We've still got a little bit more ground to cover before we get into... practical. And then so my goal is just so you know, we're just introductory material. We'll talk through principles of how to understand the Bible and apply it. And then we're going to do practice of application. We're going to go through each section of the scripture. We're going to go to the Old Testament law, going to go through the Psalms, going to go through letters in the New Testament, even prophecy, things like that. How do you take a text? And we're going to work together. We might even break you up into small groups. And we're going to have a challenge to apply. How would you live this out in your life this week? and actually apply the word. So we'll do some of that together. And this is stuff, honestly, this is stuff pastors we do all the time, right? We sit, every sermon that I work on, every sermon I preach, I write. We're writing down applications and we work through these processes. And I'm trying to make this available so you can do it yourself, so you can grow in your personal devotions. Does that make sense? You see what we're doing so far? Any comments or questions or thoughts? I'm at a good stopping point, so I'm not going to go into the next section. Yes, sir? When I read the Bible and I put it down, if I'm not convicted, I didn't read it right. Yeah, so true, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, the Bible convicts, the Spirit convicts. He judges us as guilty. He shows us what we've done wrong. Yeah. Very true. Very true. We need to be allowing God to work in our hearts. Any other comments or thoughts or questions from something I said maybe didn't come out right or want to clarify anything? It's full of God's instructions. It takes time. We'll talk about this. I have already worked to a certain point. There's commands in Scripture that we obviously know don't apply to us. Okay, Paul tells one of his people, he says, bring me the parchments. Okay, so here's how you live that out. You all need to buy me a book and bring it to me, because I'm Paul, obviously, and bring me the parchments. Oh yes. No, I mean, there are obvious things. Anyone would read that and say, well, obviously I'm not supposed to go get a book or call someone to bring me parchments or bring a parchment to Paul who's gone now. So how do I live this out? There are ways to understand what this means, how this confronts our life. Even short phrases like that can matter. Or greet one another with a holy kiss. We actually talked about this during COVID. I brought that verse up with our staff. I say, I'm being completely honest. I'm being completely sincere that personal touch and personal contact is part of fellowship. and you cannot socially distance Christian fellowship. And we talked about this, and I said, hey, greet one another with a holy kiss. It's right there in the Bible, and people be like, ha, ha, ha, and they laugh, and I'm like, I'm not laughing, I'm serious. There is a degree to that. But how do you do that? How do you greet one another with a holy kiss? Is it literally kissing? Probably not in our context. If you did that today, you might get hit. But we went to France, you know what happened? We walked in church and all these people came up and kissed me on the cheek. And I'm like, whoa, not used to this. If you're Italian, yeah, I guess French too. I mean, it was just, it was the way they did it. And, uh, they don't really care. I mean, it's like, it's like a, like they make a little kissy noise and they put their face next to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, you know, I mean, y'all know that stuff, but as, as a Southern American, I'm like, Hey, whoa, not, not, not my cup of tea. Andy. the founder of the Brethren, J.N. Darby. It was that verse that let him keep his books. He was ready to give all these things away just for that one thing. He was ready to keep his books. Yeah, you never know. What is it that God is trying to do through, how does this confront my worldview? I need to close it up because I'm going, I thought it was gonna be done earlier, but I'm going a little bit long. There are so many things, I've read a lot in prep for this, and there are so many things that actually downplay. and say, well, you really shouldn't apply this or shouldn't apply that. And I think that we're shortchanging ourselves if we don't think carefully. But how do we apply the Scripture? We need to think carefully about it. And I'm encouraging you to do some of the work yourselves and grow in this area. I know God will use it, and you'll grow. And you'll be amazed what God is teaching you in His Word. All right, let's pray. Father, thank You for Your Word. Thank You that You ask us to apply it and live it out. It's not just a book that we read to be entertained by or in are excited by and then leave and forget about. But Lord, it's something that we are to live in, and it's to live through us, that Your Word directly affects us and confronts us. And so, God, today we...