Let's get settled down and get started. So good to see you all on this nice day here in Woodland, Washington. So I wanted to introduce a little bit more about myself to you. Last week, Diane and I shared about our love story. I wanted to share with you today how I became a pastor. Around the time when I was about 21 years old or so, I was doing research on the world and missions, and I saw that there's a huge number of Muslims in this world, like a billion Muslims. And very few of them have come to know Jesus Christ. And actually, very few Christian missionaries were working with Muslims, especially at that time. So I got a real heart to work with Muslims. Now, I'm not gifted to be a good missionary in a lot of ways. I'm not a good language learner, for example. And a lot of the Muslims speak Arabic. And I thought, I'll never be able to learn Arabic. But in North Africa, in Tunisia and Algeria and Morocco, they also speak French. And so I thought, well, maybe I could learn French. So I started taking French so I can become a missionary in North Africa. So the problem was that it's hard to learn French when you're taking one hour a day of class and then you speak English the rest of the time. So I saved up my money and sold a bunch of my possessions and I moved to France to be in, you know, around French people and to learn the language that way. While I was there, I took French for three months in a French language school and I met some young people about my age who were with Operation Mobilization, which is a youth mission group. And they said, why don't you come with us this summer, and you can spend the time with us doing missionary work in the French side of Belgium. And I thought, well that's good, I'll learn more French that way, and I can practice being a missionary. And I learned two things that summer by being a missionary. Number one, I didn't have the gifts to be a good missionary. I was right about that when I started. But number two, I had a very unique experience when I was in Belgium. I had come from my parents' home where I was living in California, and when I got to Belgium and I was starting to be trained by Operation Immobilization to be a missionary, they paired me up with a guy named Patrick, who was from Belgium and who was fluent in French, so we could go door-to-door and talk to people. When Patrick found out that I was from California, he said, hey Rick, I know someone from California. You probably know him. I thought, no, I doubt it, Patrick. I don't think so. He said, yeah, I think you might know this guy. And I said, Patrick, there are 29 million people in California. There's no way I'm going to know the guy. And he said, well, I want to show you his picture anyway. So he went to his case, and he got the picture of this guy out, and my jaw almost hit the ground. I knew the guy. In fact, we went to the same church together. In fact, while I was in Europe, he was renting a room in my parents' house. And the room he was renting was my bedroom. I thought, that's impossible. How could this ever happen? And so that summer, as I was doing missionary work and seeing that I really didn't have the gifts to be a good missionary, I kept thinking about my friend Elias, who was back in my parents' home. And Elias would have been the perfect missionary to go to North Africa. He already knew French fluently. He also knew Arabic fluently. His dad was from Syria, and so he looked just like a North African. And I would stick out like a sore thumb. And I thought, why did God give me a heart to be a missionary to North Africa, but not the skills and the gifts? And he gave Elias all the skills and the gifts to be a missionary, but didn't give him the heart to do that. Elias was into computers, and he got a job with HP down in California there. And so I couldn't figure this out. Why would you do this, God? Why would you give me such a heart to be a missionary, but I don't really have the language learning skills? I'm not good at traveling. There's a whole bunch of reasons I knew I wouldn't be a good missionary. I wasn't a good evangelist. And why would you give me the heart but not the skills? And you give him the skills but not the heart. And so when I got home, I'm a Dutch guy. I'm stubborn. I'm going to be a missionary. I don't care if I have the gifts or not. And I get pushing on it. But finally, I realized this probably isn't a good way to go. And God showed me that maybe I could be a pastor of a church and help the church be strong in missions. and develop a good missions ministry and send out people that did have the gifts to be a missionary. So that's what I did. I became a pastor. And so for the 34 years I was pastoring Southwest Hills Baptist Church in Beaverton, we really pushed on missions and especially to the Muslim world. We had very, very strong missions ministry to the Muslim world. And so that's how God got me to be a pastor and how God helped me to leverage my heart by sending out people that did have the gifts when I didn't. Well, that's a little bit more about me. So let's review what we learned last week. Five basic questions to ask the text when you're reading. Try not to look. Let's see if you got them, okay? One, sun, commands. Two, shoe, examples. Three, tree, God. Four, floor, others. What others say? Five, hive. What am I going to do with this, right? You got it? That was your homework. I hope you're doing it. So today I want to actually introduce to you some more questions you can ask the text. But I want to say up front. If you're having trouble just getting these five basic questions down, don't worry about going any further. With those five basic questions, you can get a lot of insight from Scripture. But if you want to push on further, I'm going to be sharing with you some further things that you can learn. Now, I ask you also to, as homework, to study 2 Timothy 1 and use those five basic questions. I don't have time to go around and ask you all the things you learned. I am going to see, though, If any of you have put something into practice, question five, five, hive, what am I gonna do with it, okay? So we'll let you share in just a minute some of the things that you, maybe you're putting into practice this week from 2 Timothy chapter one, but I'm gonna share with you what I got, those five questions, okay? So one, son commands, verse eight is the one that God really put on my heart when I was reading. It says, therefore do not, That's a command that God really put on my heart, because one of the reasons I'm not a good missionary is I'm kind of a timid evangelist, you know? I guess I'm ashamed sometimes, or I love my reputation with unbelievers more than I love the unbeliever, and that's not right, is it? That's sinful. So that's a command that God put in my heart. Now examples, two shoe examples. Look at the second verse. Paul says, to Timothy, my beloved child. Now, Paul is acting as a father to Timothy, isn't he? Timothy, my beloved child. So what does he do for Timothy? Verse three, I thank God whom I serve as did my ancestors with a clear conscience as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. God really used this to help me actually many years ago to become more of a prayer warrior for my kids. Paul acts as a father to Timothy. And what does he do? He prays for him night and day, he says. And I wasn't doing that until God really put this verse on my heart many years ago. And I thought, I need to really step up my prayer life for my children if I'm going to be a faithful father. And so God put that in my heart many years ago. But this time, he especially put verse 5 on my heart. It says in verse 5, I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois. And now that I'm a grandparent, that speaks to me, really, you know? The faith was first in the grandmother, Lois, and his mother, Eunice, and then it was passed on to Timothy. And I want to pass on my faith to my grandchildren, so I appreciate that verse. And then three, tree, God. In verses seven and eight, it talks about the power of God that he gives us. Verse seven, for God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power. And then in verse eight, therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God. And so I learned a little bit more about God as I thought about that, that God gives us, He shares His power with us. He makes His power available to us. Maybe that's a better way of saying it. As we depend on Him, His power, which is so great, like it says in Ephesians, the power that raised Christ from the dead is at work in us. For, for others, now this last week we were on vacation, I didn't have a study Bible or a commentary, so I didn't get anything from anybody else, but I just go on to number five, question five, what to do about it, and that, what I do is after I underline, I go through scripture, and I'm gonna talk about this today, I go through my reading, I underline what God impresses on me, what I learn, and then I go back and I pray through those things. And as I did that, the one that I really wanted to focus on putting into practice was verse eight, not being ashamed of the gospel, but sharing it more freely and boldly. Okay, how about some of you? Did any of you read 2 Timothy chapter one? Do the five questions and the fifth question, what did you do about it? Does anybody wanna share what they did about it or what they wanna do about it? Anybody, just raise your hand and Declan's got the mic here and he'll bring it to you. Okay, right there. Be confident in God's care for us. Be confident about what? God's care for us. Yeah, what verse did you get that from? Sorry to put you on the spot there. But be confident about God's care for us. Don't worry about it. It's okay. It's somewhere in the chapter. That's fine. Okay, so, and that's a good way of. of looking at it, too, is it's not just always something we do. A lot of times our response is what we think, changing our thinking because we're transformed, it says in Romans 12, too, by the renewing of our minds. So sometimes when you're asking that fifth question, what am I going to do about it, it's not always an action to do. A lot of times it's a change in the way we think. So being confident of God's care for us, that's very important. Somebody else want to share what they got? What did you do with Chapter 1 of 2 Timothy? Anybody? Okay, well, that's fine. We'll just go on, okay? So, let me review quickly the five things you do to solve the problem we all have. None of us are born with a great Love and desire for God's Word. We're born with a sinful inclination, and we want that to change. We want to learn to love God's Word, and we want God to change our hearts. So I said, five things you can do. Number one, own the problem. Own the problem. If the Bible's not a delight to you, it's not the fault of the Bible. It's not that God wrote a boring book. The problem is in our hearts. And that's the first step, to own that problem. It's my problem. It's my heart's problem. So that leads me to step number two, which is to repent. To go to God and say, God, I need to be changed, and I can't change my heart. You need to change it. Would you change it? Please change it, Lord. And then three, act in faith that God is gonna change your heart and get up and read the Bible then. After you're on your knees praying and repenting, you get into God's word and you trust that God will change your heart. He works slowly, but he does work to change your heart. As you come to God in repentance and humility, God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble, the Bible says. And then number four is to persevere. You gotta persevere in it. Like Eugene Peterson said, the Christian life is a long obedience in the same direction. You keep going. Remember my illustration of acquiring a taste for coffee. I didn't like it when I first drank it, but as I drank it more and more, I acquired a taste for it. And as you keep in God's word, he uses that to help you acquire a taste for it. And then number five is sharpening your Bible reading skills. And we're gonna talk a little bit about that today. Now, I wanna read to you four counseling cases. that are all about a counselee who repented and it didn't work. And I want you to tell me why it didn't work to repent, okay? Here it is, number one. A happily married man came for counseling because he had a growing emotional attachment to his secretary and that scared him. The counselor explained the danger he was in and how he needed to repent before God. A week later, the man came back to the counselor and said he had repented every day, yet the attraction was growing. He mentioned that it was increasingly difficult to stay faithful to his wife, especially during the daily lunches he had with his secretary. What's wrong with that picture? Number two, a woman complained that she couldn't lose weight and felt addicted to food. The counselor explained that food had become her idol and that she needed to confess this sin and repent to God. When she returned the following week for counseling, she reported that she had faithfully been going to God in repentance, but that she was continuing to gain weight and fixate on food. She said she especially noticed her obsession with food when she ate her nightly bowl of vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce. What's wrong with that picture? What's wrong with the repentance, okay? Three, number three. A man was struggling with lustful thoughts. A counselor showed him in the Bible that he was committing adultery in his heart. He agreed to repent every day. Yet a week later, he came back and said it wasn't helping him. The counselor asked him if he ever looked at pornography. He answered, yes, but only for about 10 minutes a day. What's wrong with that picture? Why didn't the repentance work? And the last one, number four, a woman asked her pastor to help her learn to delight in the Bible. The pastor explained the five steps she could take, beginning with owning the problem and repenting. But it didn't seem to work for her. She wondered if maybe she needed to cut back on her two or three hours a day of social media. What's wrong with that picture? Okay, what's wrong with all four of those pictures? Actually, these are not real counseling cases. I made them up, okay? But if they were true, what would be wrong with this? What's wrong is that repentance is not just prayer. When I explain those five steps you can do, own the problem, repent and ask God to change you, act in faith, persevere, and then sharpen your Bible skills, I made repentance sound like it was just going to God and praying, but repentance in the Bible is more than prayer. Like Paul talks about, he says, put to death what is sinful in you, right? Jesus says, if your right eye causes you to sin, what do you do? Gouge it out and throw it away. Now that's hyperbole. I don't think he literally wants us to gouge out our eyes, but he wants us to take strong action. Repentance is not just asking God to change you and confessing sin, it's taking action. In Hebrews, in chapter 12, it says, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off Everything that burdens us and the sin that so easily entangles us and let us run with perseverance the race set out for us. So we've got to do something. We've got to put aside the stuff that pulls us away from what's good and what's right. So when my kids were little, the oldest one was just five years old. And one day he comes up to me and he says, hey daddy, Why do you always read the newspaper and don't play with us? Oh, that hit my heart deeply. Why do you just read the newspaper and don't play with us? That really hit my heart. In those days, we had a subscription to the newspaper. I went on the telephone right away and I canceled the subscription. It's one of the best decisions I ever made. Now, that did not make me a better father. but it made it possible for me to be a better father. It made it possible for me to put my time where it really should have been, more with my children than with reading the newspaper. Now what does that story have to do with delighting in God's word? Think about it. Is there anything equivalent in your life to that newspaper, what it was for me? Something that's pulling you away from God's word. And it might not be a bad thing. Reading a newspaper is not a bad thing. But it was pulling me away from something that was more important. Is there anything like that newspaper in your life? Let me make some suggestions here. How about the internet? How about social media? How about the news? How about emails? How about text, sports, movies? You know, on average, on average, Americans look at their phones, get this, 96 times a day, for a total of four hours and 25 minutes. That's about two months of every year. That's a lot of time, isn't it? I wanna think about this with you, okay? The internet is really, historically it's pretty new, isn't it? And it's always changing. So I don't know all the research. But I'm gonna share with you some concerns I have from what I've seen and what happens in my own life, okay? Because the internet can trip us up, even before we even have a chance to learn to delight in God's word. And we may need to think about repentance here as more than just praying, but doing something, radical even, to free up time and to learn how to delight in God's word. I'll explain that more in just a minute. The internet's a great source of information, but it's also captivating, entertaining, and literally endless. So I used to be able to read the newspaper when it came to our house. Now with the internet, I can read almost every newspaper in the world. I could spend all my life on reading newspapers now because of the internet, you know? And again, it's not necessarily a bad thing or a sinful thing, but it pulls me away from something more important if I'm not careful. So, you know, social media, text, emails, other fun and entertaining aspects of the internet appeals to our natural selves, right? Oftentimes more than the Bible does. And so we could spend hours on these devices and not even have time to listen to God's word, let alone learn to desire it. So the daily prayers of repentance that I recommended last week are probably not going to work. unless you're also willing to take action, because repentance is more than prayer. God will do his part, but we have a part to play, too. So what I recommend to guys that I mentor is don't open your phone or your device or your computer until you've done your Bible reading. That's one way to handle it, because a lot of guys tell me, once I open my computer, that's it. I never get to my Bible reading, you know? Once I start checking my phone, that's it. I never get to my Bible reading. So I tell them, well, that's easy. Then don't open your computer or look at your phone until you've done your Bible reading. Another way to handle it is to have a dedicated time each day to read God's word. That's how I do it. My dedicated time is breakfast. During my breakfast, I eat my breakfast by myself, and I read my Bible while I'm eating breakfast, and it works really well for me. But there's other issues here with the internet besides just time. So when my kids were little, there were two children's programs that we thought might be helpful to them educationally. Two programs on TV, Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, you guys know Mr. Rogers? And Sesame Street. Now, they both may have changed a lot since our kids were little, but in those days, they were both, you know, good and educational, and we thought, you know, they would be fine for our kids. However, we never let them watch Sesame Street, ever. They could only watch Mr. Rogers. You know why? Sesame Street is always moving. It never keeps a scene more than a minute or even 45 seconds. It's constantly changing. You're jumping around here and there, moving here and there. And I thought, wow, if our kids watch this stuff, I bet it's going to really affect their attention span. They always have to have something new all the time. When you're reading the Bible, if you want to learn to delight in it, you have to have a sustained, deep reading of the Bible. You can't just hop around from one thing to another like we do on the internet. The internet actually affects the way we think and the way we read if we're not careful. So when I was working, I was a school teacher before being a pastor. I taught middle school for a couple years and I read at that time, if you want to teach middle schoolers, you've got to change what you're doing every eight minutes. That's what they were saying. That was a long time ago. It's probably less than that now. They said every eight minutes you have to change what you're doing because the average attention span of a middle schooler is eight minutes. How many of you are middle schoolers or going into sixth, seventh, or eighth grade? I think that the kids here, that's probably not a problem like it is in the general culture. And so I commend you for that. But you got to be careful here because what the internet does to me and probably to you and many others is it teaches us to kind of flit around from one thing to another, to not read deeply and not read in a sustaining way. Constantly skimming things but not reading deeply. And if you really want to delight in the God's word, you've got to read deeply. You've got to read deeply. So I think the internet conditions our brains to be entertained and to flit from one thing to another. What's that? So I might change my mind on this and I could be completely wrong and maybe if you ask me in a couple years I'll feel differently but I told the church one time I wasn't the biggest fan of Bible reading plans because of kind of related what you're talking about In me, I'm just projecting my own experience on others, but I felt like they pushed me through verses quickly. To do the Bible in a year, I've got to read these many chapters, and I found I wasn't doing many of the things that you're describing, which I think are wonderful things to do, to meditate or to digest. and a Bible reading plan, I found myself moving pretty quickly. And that's not to say I couldn't have slowed down or done it differently, but I sort of discouraged maybe Bible reading plans to my church. And again, I might feel differently about this, but what are your thoughts? And how do you harmonize Bible reading plans with kind of the meditation on God's word you're prescribing now? Okay, well I think both are important. I've read through the Bible in a year, that kind of thing, you know, a number of times, and I think it's good to get the big picture like that. One of the problems is, I figured this out once for my church, I can't remember the exact figures, but I figured out, you know, I usually preach in about 10 verses. I used to take a section about 10 verses and go deep into it. And I thought, now how many years would it take me to get through the whole Bible? And it's like the people would have to live to be 230 or something to hear me, and I'm not going to live that long. You know, you can't get through the whole Bible if you just go 10 verses a week. And so just what I like to do is I like to take a chapter and go deep into it. But if I just do that, how many chapters in the Bible? There's over a thousand, right? I mean, it's gonna take a long time to get through the Bible. And so it's helpful sometimes to read through it faster. I don't have any problems with that. But I think it's also important to have some time you dig deep. The way I do it is if I'm reading quickly, I also memorize scripture. So there'll be a few verses I'm really going deep in. I mean, I memorize scripture anyway. That's part of my devotional life, which is really helpful. So I always have that depth part. But I like to read a chapter. So it's kind of, I don't know what to say. Whatever you tell your people, that's the best thing, I'm sure, Scott. You're a good man. So anyway, for me, a chapter works really well. And I'm gonna explain how I do that with a chapter. But first, just a few more thoughts about the internet, okay? Not only does it distract us from spending time in God's word, but I think it does teach us to be entertained. And we have to think about that. Because the Bible isn't written to entertain us. It's written to transform us. It's written to get us to think differently. You know, the way we think is oftentimes not the way God thinks. And the Bible helps us to, so it challenges our thinking more than entertains us. And I think third, the internet shapes the way we read and think, and that's what I'm trying to point out here. In Hebrews 12, 16, it says, don't be godless like Esau, who for a single meal sold his inheritance rights as the oldest son. You know, in the Old Testament world, the oldest son had inheritance rights. You know, they got double portion. And that was a real honor. And he sold that for a single meal, something that would last for a few hours. And the Bible calls him godless there in Hebrews because he does that. And so I think we have to be careful, too, not to sell the beauty of this book that God's given us just for learning to be entertained and to flit around on the internet and things like that. We need to take radical action. One of the guys that I was mentoring actually gave me his computer. Not forever, not to keeps, but he gave it to me for a week. He said, this thing is just distracting me so much and leading me to see the wrong kinds of stuff on it. So he just gave me his computer for a week so he could see what it was like to not have that. And then he was able to get it back and be more self-controlled with it. It showed me that here's a person willing to do what Jesus said. If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. Take strong action. So, here's my question. Is there anything like the newspaper was for me? that's in your life that you can put aside, or at least you can cut back on, so that you can really learn to read deeply in scripture, whether it's reading through the Bible, or as Pastor Scott said, to take a section and read it deeply. Okay, any questions? I kind of gave you my opinion on the internet. Again, it's changing so quickly, I don't know what all the research is saying. Does anybody have any questions, though, on what we've said so far? Or you want to give me your opinion, that's fine, too. Anything? Well, you guys are making it too easy for me. You can challenge me. Okay. Patrick has a question there or a comment. Well, I've been on the internet and stuff like that, but what really bothers me is that they misquote the Bible. And then they say, this is what the Bible really means. They keep questioning what it says. And they say, that's not what it means. OK, so that's represented differently than what is in the word. Okay, so that's a whole other issue, isn't it? Where what you read on the internet you can't necessarily trust. Obviously, anybody can put anything on there. OK, good. So what Patrick said, if you didn't hear him, when I read something on the internet about the Bible, I go to the Bible to see if it really says that. That's good. He's a good Berean, Acts 17.10. The Bereans were more noble-minded than the Thessalonians, for they listened to what Paul said, but they examined the scriptures every day to see if what he said was true. So that's very good. Any other thoughts on this? Right here. Always, when you guys talk, you always give me your name first. I'm trying to remember your names and it's so hard. What's your name? Dwayne. Dwayne, that's right. Okay, good. In my teens and 20s, I didn't have any problems memorizing. It was relatively easy. Now in my 60s, it's just so hard. How do you do it? OK. I'm 72, so I got you beat on that. So it's even harder for me. And you're absolutely right. You guys that are younger, let me just tell you something. When I was about, I don't know, 18 or 19 or 20 or something like that, I memorized Colossians and Titus. and Philippians, and James, and I can't remember now, one other book too. So I memorized these five books of the Bible when I was, you know, late teens, early 20s. I still have them right here. You know, I do have to review them, I do review them, but What I memorized back then sticks with me. What I'm memorizing now is really hard to hold on to. And I have to take time every single day to review. I review all the scripture I've memorized at least once a month. The review is the key for me. And as far as memorizing, I just have to work on it every day, which I do. I find it to be very, very helpful for my spiritual life. But it's certainly not the most important thing. If you don't think you have to memorize, if you're not reading the Bible regularly, make that your first priority in prayer, okay? Make those things your first priorities. But then if you're doing that regularly, you wanna start memorizing scripture too, meditating on it deeply. And once you memorize it, you gotta review it. You gotta review it over and over again. at least if you're like me, because otherwise it just kind of, somehow it leaves in my brain, you know. So I'm not saying it's easy, it's hard work. Anything else? Okay, Patrick again? On the internet, they keep talking about Enoch and the book of Enoch that has been separated from the word. They didn't put it in the Bible. So they keep bringing it up. OK, so Patrick's just mentioning books that are not in the Bible. They were never accepted in the Bible by the Jews or the Christians. There's plenty of them. There's lots of books that are floating out there that try to fill in gaps. People write, for example, we don't know anything about Jesus' childhood. you know, the first couple months of his life, and then we know about when he's 12 years old, and then we don't know about him until he's about 30. So there's actually a book in the Bible that talks about Jesus as a little kid making mud animals and then making those mud animals come to life. I mean, really weird stuff, you know, which obviously wasn't true and was never included in scripture. So don't, yeah, you don't want to listen to that kind of stuff. Let me go on now, okay? I'm gonna go on. Let me talk about how to read the Bible for deeper insight. So this is the fifth thing you wanna do is sharpen your Bible skills. So here's what I do, okay? I'm gonna talk about what I do before I read, and what you should do before you read, what to do as you read, and then what to do after you read. And all three are really important, and a lot of times Christians miss at least one of these steps. So what to do before you read. It's a mistake to just pick up the Bible and start reading. Reading the Bible is not like reading any other book. Just like taking communion is not like eating at McDonald's, okay? There's a difference, right? Taking communion is not like eating at McDonald's. Reading the Bible is not like reading another book. You gotta come to it with a humble attitude of obedience. God has to help you understand it. One of my favorite prayers before I read the Bible is Psalm 119, 18, where the psalmist says to God, open my eyes that I may behold wonderful things from your law. God has to help us understand this book. Like I said, it challenges our thinking in every way. We think we can reach God through good works and religious rituals. The Bible says, no, you reach God through faith and humility. We think we're basically good. The Bible says, no, we're not basically good. We're basically sinful. We think we should strive to be first. The Bible says, no, you should be a servant of all. We think we should protect and exalt ourselves. The Bible says, no, you should die to yourself. We think it's best to be served. The Bible says, no, it's best to serve. You know, over and over again, the Bible's challenging the way we think. It's like going to a foreign country where you don't know the language or the customs. And in fact, I would even say reading the Bible is going to a foreign country because it was written like 2,000 years ago or more. In another country, I mean way on the other side of the world, the culture is different, the thinking is different. We got to ask God to teach us. So I always begin my Bible reading by praying and asking God to help me to open my eyes, to see, understand. We also have to have an attitude of obedience. You know, anyone who plays baseball knows you can't hit the ball and run to second base. You gotta touch first base first, right? If God is showing you something in scripture that you're supposed to do and you're not even trying to do it, why should he give you more insight? Not that we're going to be perfect, but at least we have to desire in trying to do what God has already shown us to do if we expect him to show us more, right? So you got to come to the Bible with an attitude of humble obedience. When God speaks to Isaiah in chapter six of Isaiah, God says, who shall I send who will go for us? Do you remember what Isaiah says? Here I am, send me. Now, Isaiah didn't know where he was gonna be sent. He didn't know what his message was gonna be. He didn't know anything about the mission. He just knew God wanted someone, here I am. See, that's the attitude to have. If we come to God with that kind of attitude of humble obedience, then God will reveal more to us. He'll show us. No wonder he showed so much to Isaiah, because Isaiah had that kind of attitude. So we gotta come to the Bible with humble obedience. Before you read, check your attitude. Go to God in prayer and say, Lord, I need your help to understand this book. It's your book, you speak through it. The Bible is the sword of the spirit, it says in Ephesians 6. So may your spirit speak to me. And whatever you show me, I'm going to do. At least I'm going to try to do it, okay? I'm going to take it seriously because it's your word. So that's what you do before you read. You come with humble, obedient attitude. Now, what to do as you read. There are lots of ways to read the Bible. And I don't have a monopoly on this. I don't have the final answer on this. I'm just gonna share with you how I do it, okay? And take it or leave it, however you want. If you have a really good way of reading the Bible, and you delight in God's word, then you don't even listen to what I say. Just keep doing what you're doing. You're doing great. But if your Bible reading needs an upgrade, then I would ask you to try this out for the rest of this month while I'm here, these four Sundays, so we can talk about it. If it's not working for you, we can interact together. But here's what I do. I begin by praying. Like I told you, before I read, I pray. and ask God to give me an attitude of humble obedience. Then I take a chapter. Like I said, I like to do a chapter at a time. And I initially read it through. It takes maybe five minutes at the most. I underline whatever God impresses on me or anything I learn there. And then I go back and do a deeper dive in the same chapter. And I'll use the five basic questions that I told you last week. Are there any commands here? Any examples to follow or to avoid? What does it teach me about God? What do others say? I'll read the notes on the study Bible. And then what am I going to do with it? So those five questions. Now, I have seven other questions also. And I'm going to teach them to you real quickly here. But listen, if the five questions, that's enough. If you want to keep it simple, and if you don't want to go beyond that, just stick with those five questions. You'll get plenty of insight with that. So don't get lost here, okay? I wish I had 14 hours. This is a 14-hour course. I'm compressing to four hours, okay? So if I had a lot of time, I'd go much more slowly, but I'm just gonna put it all out there, and if you want to go further than those five basic questions, here are five intermediate questions to ask the text that will give you more insight into God's word. Question six, six rhymes with? Sticks. I want you to picture, close your eyes. Now picture Pastor Scott up at the pulpit, and as he's preaching, he's beating the pulpit with a stick. Can you see it? He's trying to emphasize a point. Six rhymes with sticks, emphasis. What is the emphasis in that section? So go to 2 Timothy 1. Yes, I asked you to read this chapter for homework last week. Look at the first two verses. What's the emphasis here in these first two verses? I'll just read it to you again. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, according to the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus. To Timothy, my beloved child, grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus our Lord. What's repeated three times? Christ Jesus. You got two verses, three times, Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus, Christ Jesus. You know, Paul said in Philippians, for me to live is Christ, yeah, and you see it right up front. Christ Jesus is being emphasized right from the beginning. There's another thing that's being emphasized in those three verses, or those two verses, and that's the word mercy. Notice it says grace, mercy, and peace. If you look at all Paul's other letters, what does he usually say? Grace and peace, right? But with Timothy, he says, grace, mercy, and peace. So just the fact that he's doing it differently here puts emphasis on mercy. Why does he add that for Timothy? I'm not going to give you an answer right now. You just have to think about that one. So look for what's being emphasized. So picture Pastor Scott beating that pulpit with a stick to emphasize a point. So what is the scripture emphasizing where you're reading? For example, Oh, I don't know. Hebrews chapter 11, the faith chapter, right? It says, by faith. Abel, by faith. Enoch, by faith. Abraham, by faith. Noah, by faith. What is it emphasizing? Faith, right? Or the love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, does not boast, it's not proud, it's not rude, it's not envious, it's not self-seeking. Love does not divide in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts. It's talking about love, everything's about love. So what's being emphasized, okay? Question seven. Seven rhymes with? Heaven, okay, good. Close your eyes and picture, you know what a porpoise is, right? A dolphin, a porpoise. Picture a porpoise jumping up through the heavens. Can you picture that? Jumping up way into the sky, through the heavens. So the seventh question is, what is the porpoise? What is the purpose? The purpose, you get it? What is the purpose of this passage? Whatever's being emphasized, that's probably the purpose. The two questions go hand in hand. So six rhymes with sticks. Emphasis, what's being emphasized? Seven rhymes with heaven. Purpose or purpose, what's the purpose of this section? What's the author trying to get us to do or think in that section? I'm studying the book of Colossians right now. Paul in Colossians is trying to get people to focus on Jesus Christ, to see who Jesus Christ is in all his glory and splendor. What is the purpose? A lot of times I've preached sermons where I've, for example, you know, in Matthew chapter eight, it talks about Jesus calming the storm. How many times, you know, you hear people like myself or other preachers saying, you know, Jesus will calm the storms of our life. And that may be true. He does calm storms in our life, but that's not the purpose of that section of scripture. The purpose is to show that Jesus Christ is God, that he has power over the sea. In the Old Testament, it was God who had power over the sea. And Jesus speaks to it, peace, be still, and guess what? It was still. The purpose of that was to show who Jesus is. So you don't want to miss the real purpose of a section of scripture. Okay, that's question seven. I would say in 2 Timothy 1, what's the purpose of this chapter? Well, verse 6. It says, for this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands. You learn in chapter four that Paul was just about to die. Paul is this close to death, and he wants to encourage his young disciple Timothy. to be serious about the faith, to be willing to suffer for it, and to fulfill the gift that God had given him through the laying on of Paul's hands. Okay, number eight. Eight rhymes with? Gate. Okay, gate. So close your eyes for a second and picture a gate. Like maybe if you have a gate on your house that goes to your backyard or something. And picture that somebody has painted it purple. with big yellow polka dots. Can you picture that? And how surprised you are. You're so surprised, what, what, who did that? How did that happen? That's eight, eight rhymes with gate, surprise. What surprises you in the passage of scripture? I have had many of my best insights when I just notice things that surprise me. For example, I thought God's prophecies always came true. And then I was reading Jonah, and God told Jonah, you know, go to Nineveh and preach the message I will give you. And it says there in chapter 3, Jonah obeyed and went, and he preached in 40 days, Nineveh will be destroyed. Was Nineveh destroyed in 40 days? No, and I thought, wait a second, there's something wrong here. God's prophecies always come true, don't they? And then I was reading in Jeremiah 18 that that's not always the purpose of prophecy. Prophecy's not always to show us the future, it's to get us to change in the present. And as it says in Proverbs, in Jeremiah 18, if I tell a nation, I will tear you down, and they repent, I will relent. And that's exactly what happened to Nineveh, right? They repented and so God relented and did not bring that upon them. There's lots of times in Revelation chapter three, when Jesus is speaking to the church at Laodicea, he says, you guys are lukewarm. And then he said something that I just couldn't figure out. He says, I'd rather have you be hot or cold. Now, I can understand why God would want him to be hot, but why would he want him to be cold? Isn't lukewarm better than cold? I couldn't figure it out. So I looked at my notes in my study Bible, and it had a very good explanation. You see, Laodicea did not have a good water supply. It was close to two other cities, Colossae, which had cold spring water, and Hierapolis that had hot, Hot springs. Now, hot springs are useful, aren't they? They're soothing. They're therapeutic. The cold water in Colossae was also useful. It's refreshing. But because Laodicea didn't have a good water supply, they had to bring water in from aqueducts. And by the time the cold water from Colossae got to Laodicea, it was lukewarm. By the time the hot therapeutic water got to Laodicea, it was lukewarm. Lukewarm water's not good for much of anything. That's what he's saying. I want you to be useful. I want you to be cold and refreshing like the water at Colossae or hot baths and therapeutic like the water at Hierapolis. So if you ask questions, what surprises you about what you're reading? It helps you get good answers. You ask someone like Scott or Nathan or ask someone who knows more about it than you do. It consults your Bible. study Bible notes or a commentary, and you'll get great insights. Okay, so six rhymes with what? Sticks. Emphasis, right? Six sticks, emphasis. Seven, heaven. Purpose, purpose. Eight, gate. Surprise. What surprises you? Okay, if I'm losing you, don't worry about it. Just stick with the five basic questions, okay? Let me review those once again. So six rhymes with sticks. Emphasis. Seven rhymes with heaven. Purpose, eight rhymes with gate, surprises. Nine rhymes with mine. Think of a coal mine, okay, a coal mine. Okay, close your eyes for a second and picture a coal mine with question marks floating out of it. Can you see that in your mind? A dark coal mine with question marks floating out. Nine rhymes with mine, questions. What questions do I still have? After you study it, after you ask those kinds of questions and maybe read the notes in your study Bible, you still are going to have some questions at the end. You're not going to have everything figured out. And that's where you go to Pastor Scott and say, hey, what does this mean? Or you read a commentary, and you'll get lots of insights that way. And then finally, 10 rhymes with hen. I'm sorry I'm going so fast here, but just close your eyes for a second and picture a hen. A hen, ten rhymes with hen, picture a hen who has a cell phone and the hen is texting on the cell phone. Can you picture it? You know, the sillier the picture, the better this works for remembering it. So 10 rhymes with hen. Picture a hen texting on a cell phone. Context. Context. That's 10. What is the context of what you're reading? It's so important to understand the context. For example, in 2 Timothy, when you read chapter 3 or 4, wherever it is, where Paul says, chapter 4, he says, the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race. I have kept the faith. He's just about to die. These are the last words we have from the Apostle Paul. It makes sense why he's encouraging his young disciple, Timothy, to be serious about the faith and to pass it on to others, chapter two, verse two, and to... and to stir up that, you know, fan into flame the gift of God. Your ministry I've given you through the laying on of my hands, you know, be serious about it. I'm about to die. You need to take over for me. You know, do you know that Peter and Paul both died about the same year? We don't know exactly because we don't have all the history, but they both probably died around 67 AD when Emperor Nero was the Roman emperor. And when I first realized that, I thought, what a blow to the early church. Here you got your two greatest guys, and they both die at the same time. That must have put the early church way back. And then I realized all the people that Paul had trained. Timothy, Titus, Luke, Priscilla and Aquila. I mean, you can go, I think I went through the New Testament, I found 40, I don't know what it was, 43, 44 people that Paul had trained. And so when he died, there was all these people to take over. I mean, Paul knows he's going to die when he writes 2 Timothy. He's almost at death's door. I mean, we don't know exactly when he, but it was not too long after he wrote this. And so he's writing with passion. His time is coming to the end. Timothy, you need to step up and take over. See, it makes sense when you know the context. Context. So, tan rhymes with hen, context. Greg Cockel, if you know who he is, he says, never read a Bible verse. That's an interesting statement, never read a Bible verse. What he means by that is don't read a verse by itself. You're bound to get things wrong if you do. For example, in Jeremiah 17, it says, the heart is deceitful above all things, desperately sick. Who can understand it? Some people have formed a whole theology around this, that verse, as though everybody's heart is deceitful above all things and desperately sick, who can understand it? But verse one, if you read the context, he's talking about Judah, the nation of Judah at that time when they were so rebellious against God. It says in verse one, the sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, with a point of diamond, it is engraved on their hearts. And then he says, the heart is deceitful above all things. See, he's talking about those people in particular. You gotta understand the context. So, what do you do before you read? You pray and come with a humble heart to God. What do you do when you read? Well, what I do is I read it over once, underline what God impresses on me or what I learn, and then I go back and do a deeper dive. And I ask questions like the 10 questions I've given you. And then finally, and this third step is just as important, the third step, what to do after you read. And this is where a lot of people miss out. If you just read your Bible and then run off to school or work or whatever, you're gonna miss out. You're gonna miss big time. You gotta close the circle. So a lot of Christians have a time of Bible reading and a time of prayer, but the two don't merge. or intertwine at all. So listen to this conversation and then talk about what's wrong with this conversation. Okay, it's a conversation between John and Sarah. Here's John. Hi Sarah, our basketball team did really well. I mean we won by more than 20 points. Now here's Sarah. Hi John, I can't believe how sunny it is all this week, can you? John, I really think our team will go to the finals and maybe we'll win it all. Sarah, they say that a few 80 degree days are just around the corner. John, the only thing that will keep us from winning the championship is if Justin hurts his back again. Sarah, with this great weather, I'm headed for the pool. What was wrong with that conversation? Right? They're not connecting. So a lot of Christians, they'll read their Bible, they'll listen to what God says, and then they have a prayer list or they pray about something else. It's like this. There's no connection. So what I've learned to do that's been so helpful is I underline what I learn or what God impresses on me as I'm reading the Bible, and then those are the very things I pray about. For example, if I'm reading in Luke where it says, love your neighbor as yourself. And if I underline that, then I'll go back to that. I'll say, Lord, OK, I want to do this because you told me to. So I have a lot of neighbors. How do I love them? Which one? I can't. What one thing can I do today to show love for my neighbor? And which of my neighbors should I focus on? And I just talk to God about what he's talked to me about. And it really makes a good conversation. It helps me grow deeper in my relationship with God, and it helps me apply the Bible. I pray about other things too, of course, but I always pray for the things I've underlined. And that's why you should underline or highlight when you go through your Bible reading, so you can use that for prayer. Okay, so we're almost out of time. We've got like one minute, right? One minute, okay, so let's see what we can do in one minute. Go to 2 Timothy 2. And it says, okay now, what did I say you need to do before you read the Bible? Pray, I almost violated that myself, let's do it. Lord, we only have a minute here. So we're not gonna get very far. But I pray that even in a minute, that you will open our eyes to see more. And that we can come to you with a humble heart, Lord. We need you to show us, to teach us. And Lord, I pray that we will be obedient children for whatever you teach us. In Jesus' name, amen. Okay, it says, you then, my child, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses in trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others also. Share in suffering as a good soldier of Christ Jesus. No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules. It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops. Think over what I say, for the Lord will give you understanding in everything." Ah, that's exactly what I said. The Lord will give you understanding. You pray about it and you think over it, he says, right? What else can we see in that chapter? What is being emphasized here? Notice he talks about the good soldier. And then he says something more about the soldier. No soldier entangles himself in civilian pursuit, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him. And then he talks about the athlete and the hardworking farmer. What are these images, metaphors of? The soldier? The athlete? The farmer? What does that mean to you? Pardon me? A disciplined life. Exactly. Hard work, discipline. He's trying to encourage Timothy. So what's being emphasized here? There you go. A disciplined life. Hard work. So that's probably the purpose of this little section. Again, to get Timothy to really step up to the plate. Because Paul's about to go to heaven, to be gone. So step up to the plate. Work hard. Be disciplined, he says. The context, like I said, from chapter four, Paul's about to die, and that helps understand why he talks this way to Timothy. And verse two, what you've heard from me in the presence of many witnesses and trust of faithful men who will be able to teach others also. So find others that you can teach, just like I've taught you, Timothy, now it's your turn. Step up to the plate, find other people that you can teach so that the gospel spreads. Makes sense, right? I mean, I didn't think this through before coming today, but just reading just these first seven verses, there's a lot here. Are there commands here? One son command? Yes, there are. The very first verse, be strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus. How do you do that? Question number nine is what questions you have. That's the question I have. How do you get strengthened by the grace that is in Christ Jesus? I'll have to look into that more. Verse two is a command too. You're supposed to pass these things on to faithful people. Verse three is a command. Share in the suffering as a good soldier. Is there good examples here? Well, you got the three examples of the soldier, the athlete, and the farmer. What do others say? Well, if you have a study Bible, you probably have all kinds of notes on these verses so you can read. What are you gonna do about it? Well, maybe be more self-disciplined like what you just suggested right there. Maybe we can be more like soldiers. Be willing to suffer for the gospel. That's what I need because I'm a reticent evangelist for sure. Well, listen, time's up and homework I have for you this time is, I think on your notes I put 2 Timothy chapter three, didn't I? We didn't get to go through two though, so just do chapter two. Would you read chapter two this week, and asking the five basic questions, and if you want to go further with those five intermediate questions, do that too, but you don't have to, you can just do the five basic questions. Try to memorize those questions. Use the questions to study 2 Timothy 3. And then share with someone your answer to question five. If you're gonna go past the five basic questions, then don't do number five until you've finished. If you get all the way up to 10, then go back to five. Okay, what am I gonna do with it now? And if you don't put the Bible into practice, you're not really reading it, are you? James said, be doers of God's word and not hearers only who deceive yourselves. We deceive ourselves if we only read and we don't answer question five. What can I do with this and put it into practice? Thanks so much for your time. I'm sorry to push so fast and go over this stuff. Let me just close in prayer. Father, I thank you for your word. We want to learn to delight in it. We want to learn to understand it. We want to go deeper in it. I thank you for these precious brothers and sisters in Christ who are willing to listen to me and then to move into the worship service and hear the sermon today. And I just pray that you will teach us. You'll open our eyes that we may behold wonderful things from your law. I pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. See you next week.