I am on vacation. Next sermon will be published after July 26. This one was July 5.
Hebrews 5:7-14
Today’s message is really addressed to Michelle who has completed her confirmation studies. It’s ok if the rest of you listen in, but it’s addressed to Michelle. I am going to pass along to you one of the finest pieces of advice I received from one of my mentors when I first became a Christian. A mentor is anybody with a little more experience or knowledge than yourself who is willing to help you along by sharing his or her earned wisdom and knowledge. In my case his name was Veruch Mesmanian. He was from Lithuania and I don’t expect you to know him but I just love saying his name: Veruch Mesmanian.
He was a math teacher in the Steven’s Technical Institute, Hoboken, NJ. He was also the campus liaison to that school’s chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I wasn’t even a student at that school. But one of my Christian friends was and he invited me along to their meetings. So that’s how I met Veruch Mesmanian. I think I only had about three conversations with him. But he was very glad to have met me because he wanted to encourage me in the faith. I had been a new believer for only a few weeks when I met him.
Here is the piece of advice he gave to me. Gregory, you must make sure to read the Bible every day. He called it, “having a personal quiet time with God.” I have since come to learn that this is a very common and much promoted spiritual discipline in many churches and congregations. I have also learned over time that even though a lot of Christians know that they should have a personal quiet time and they know it would be good for them, not many people actually do it.
It’s like any kind of exercise. People know it would be healthy for them. But it’s just easier to be busy with other things. Nobody really likes hard work, even though everybody knows hard work is beneficial. I have even met a lot of people who don’t even go to church anymore, even though they willingly say they know they should. They say it just like people say, “I know I should go on a diet.” So as a healthy habit, a Christian needs to read large portions of Scripture as much as possible to learn how God wants us to live in this new life we receive from Jesus Christ. It is even more important than brushing your teeth every day and I know you wouldn’t skip that! It is also very good to memorize verses that mean a lot to you and verses that will help you share the gospel with other people.
Now, I took his advice very seriously and I began to read my Bible every day. I tried memorizing verses too, and I got a couple of the recommended ones down, like John 3:16 and parts of the Romans Road that leads to salvation. Some here may remember that I did a series on the Romans Road a while back. I even provided a laminated bookmark with the verses listed to make it easier for people to work on memorizing that. But I really wasn’t very good at keeping up with review and constantly adding new verses. I am thankful for the ones I do have stuck in my head and heart. Right now I am working on Psalm 16, my favorite psalm in the Bible. I already memorized it once years ago, but I had to start over recently.
Veruch also told me that a very big help in my personal quiet time would be to keep a journal. He said I should use a blank note book to write down my prayers, and answers to prayers, and write my thoughts about the life I have in Christ, also write down my reactions and thoughts as I read the Bible and reflect on what each passage means. That is what I have here. This pile of notebooks (About twenty different kinds of spiral bound notebooks and journals) represents thirty-six years’ worth of my journaling. Here’s some sad news. They are not even full! Some of them only have a couple of pages filled out! Then I forget about doing it. By the time I remember I should do it, I can’t find the last one I was using so I start a new one. If I had really kept a journal every day of those thirty-six years, this stack would be much higher. The only reason I have all these together again is because we have moved three times and I would rediscover them in different places through sorting and packing. Kathy told me to gather them into one place, which I finally did as we got ready to move here and more as we were unpacking once we were here.
I even have here a recent example of a new idea that I heard about and that impressed me enough to give it a try. This is a book in which I mean to write out the entire Bible in my own hand writing as a way of spending a long, slow time in God’s word and think about what I am writing as I go. But look in here. I have put dates on each time I did some writing. I started on Feb. 7, 2011. That’s more than four years ago now. And look how far I have gotten. I got off to a great start and wrote out Genesis 1 & 2 in one day, about an hour really. That would have been on Feb. 7, 2011. The next date, at the beginning of Genesis 3 is Sept. 8, 2014. For more than three years I forgot about this project! Even though it sat right next to me in my desk drawer in my office all that time. I am determined to keep it near me and finish it one day. I wonder how long it will take. If I had worked at it every day. It would already be done.
Here’s the truth. Even though I believe very much in having a regular daily quiet time, it has taken me a very long time to make sure it happens. That is because it is a spiritual battle that the devil wants us to lose. He knows that if we spend time in God’s word he will have a harder time discouraging us from obedience. It is a lot easier for him to lead us into sin if we don’t know the Bible. Our regular daily quiet time is like the exercise program in which we make ourselves available to God’s Spirit so that he can strengthen us to stand firm and live for Jesus in purity and holiness.
Over the years it has finally come down to me getting up at 4:30 in the morning every day for a couple of years in order to spend that first hour with God and the Bible. I read and I pray. But I still don’t journal much. More recently it has evolved into where Kathy and I both wake up about 5 am, listen to the news and a Christian program, then at 5:30 I feed the cat and get us both a cup of coffee. Then we read a one page story in a book about persecuted Christians. Then we read a brief, one page devotional thought with a Scripture reading from a Methodist one year devotional, then the Covenant Home Altar, and then the missionary prayer calendar. Then we pray together and then we each have different books that take us through the whole Bible in one year so we go our separate ways for that.
Now I also fast every Monday. I skip breakfast and lunch and try to spend most of the day with God in the church. That can be hard to do to with many different ways to be distracted by people and things that simply must get done. None of this is done perfectly. And that is how I know I am not bragging about my accomplishments. I still feel like I’m not very good at this thing I am asking you to try to do.
But here is the point Michelle. Never give up. Never stop working at developing this discipline. It will not turn you into a perfect person. But it will be extremely valuable to you as you try to figure out how to obey God in a world that is increasingly turning away from Biblical Christianity. God needs his children to know as much about the Bible as we possibly can. One of the reasons Jesus told his disciples that they must become like little children is because children know they have a lot to learn. Grownups think they are done. I have talked to several people who think they don’t have to go to church anymore because they think they learned all their lessons in Sunday School and now they are good enough or have learned enough.
That is why the writer of Hebrews seems so angry or frustrated when he has to tell the people he was writing to in Hebrews 5: 11-14, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” That’s why it is so important for you to try to do this regular daily quiet time. That is the constant use that will train you to distinguish good from evil.
That problem of people not doing it hasn’t gone away. Even in the history of this church, there was once a man, many years ago I’m sure, who shocked his pastor who had asked him to do some Bible study at home. The man didn’t do his homework and when he was called on it, the man said, “I don’t come here to think. I come here to be told what to think.”
But there are some other good examples around you. Eleanor is one who is still reading and learning. For those of you who do not attend any Bible study during the week, you don’t know what you’re missing. We have a lot of fun talking about what we read in Scripture. Kay leads a women’s group on Thursday morning. And I lead the Wed. evening study. On Wed. nights we are working our way through the gospel of Luke. We have been at it for more than a year now and we are almost up to Luke 23. A little more than two chapters left before we pray about what to do next, either another book of the Bible or a topical study.
Our Bible study is sort of guided by my study of the commentaries, but it is not an opportunity for me to preach another sermon. It is a lot more interactive where you get to share your questions and observations with the group. Eleanor comes to Bible Study on Wednesday nights and she brings questions and issues that she wants to talk about. Not all the time, but enough so that I know she is constantly studying and learning new things and then checking with the rest of us for confirmation or correction. Sometimes her question is so interesting or important that it ends up being what we talk about the whole time after we pray together. That’s a very good thing.
The advice I am giving you really comes right out of the Bible. The apostle Paul was writing to a young pastor. In this case Paul was the mentor. Timothy was the young student who already had been given by God a position as a pastor in his local church. Paul’s instruction was given in 2 Timothy 2:15. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” And near the end of this letter, at the place we call 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we read, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” You’ve seen that one before, in one of the Building blocks in your study materials.
So that is my advice to you. Though you have finished working with me in the Journey material, you have really only just begun a lifelong study of the Scriptures, a study that will be very profitable and rewarding of wisdom and God’s direction if you do it with much prayer and with the fellowship of other believers. That is one reason I was glad to hear of your interest in joining the adult Sunday School Class next. I wish all God’s people shared your enthusiasm for learning! God bless you on your way.
Hebrews 5:7-14
Today’s message is really addressed to Michelle who has completed her confirmation studies. It’s ok if the rest of you listen in, but it’s addressed to Michelle. I am going to pass along to you one of the finest pieces of advice I received from one of my mentors when I first became a Christian. A mentor is anybody with a little more experience or knowledge than yourself who is willing to help you along by sharing his or her earned wisdom and knowledge. In my case his name was Veruch Mesmanian. He was from Lithuania and I don’t expect you to know him but I just love saying his name: Veruch Mesmanian.
He was a math teacher in the Steven’s Technical Institute, Hoboken, NJ. He was also the campus liaison to that school’s chapter of InterVarsity Christian Fellowship. I wasn’t even a student at that school. But one of my Christian friends was and he invited me along to their meetings. So that’s how I met Veruch Mesmanian. I think I only had about three conversations with him. But he was very glad to have met me because he wanted to encourage me in the faith. I had been a new believer for only a few weeks when I met him.
Here is the piece of advice he gave to me. Gregory, you must make sure to read the Bible every day. He called it, “having a personal quiet time with God.” I have since come to learn that this is a very common and much promoted spiritual discipline in many churches and congregations. I have also learned over time that even though a lot of Christians know that they should have a personal quiet time and they know it would be good for them, not many people actually do it.
It’s like any kind of exercise. People know it would be healthy for them. But it’s just easier to be busy with other things. Nobody really likes hard work, even though everybody knows hard work is beneficial. I have even met a lot of people who don’t even go to church anymore, even though they willingly say they know they should. They say it just like people say, “I know I should go on a diet.” So as a healthy habit, a Christian needs to read large portions of Scripture as much as possible to learn how God wants us to live in this new life we receive from Jesus Christ. It is even more important than brushing your teeth every day and I know you wouldn’t skip that! It is also very good to memorize verses that mean a lot to you and verses that will help you share the gospel with other people.
Now, I took his advice very seriously and I began to read my Bible every day. I tried memorizing verses too, and I got a couple of the recommended ones down, like John 3:16 and parts of the Romans Road that leads to salvation. Some here may remember that I did a series on the Romans Road a while back. I even provided a laminated bookmark with the verses listed to make it easier for people to work on memorizing that. But I really wasn’t very good at keeping up with review and constantly adding new verses. I am thankful for the ones I do have stuck in my head and heart. Right now I am working on Psalm 16, my favorite psalm in the Bible. I already memorized it once years ago, but I had to start over recently.
Veruch also told me that a very big help in my personal quiet time would be to keep a journal. He said I should use a blank note book to write down my prayers, and answers to prayers, and write my thoughts about the life I have in Christ, also write down my reactions and thoughts as I read the Bible and reflect on what each passage means. That is what I have here. This pile of notebooks (About twenty different kinds of spiral bound notebooks and journals) represents thirty-six years’ worth of my journaling. Here’s some sad news. They are not even full! Some of them only have a couple of pages filled out! Then I forget about doing it. By the time I remember I should do it, I can’t find the last one I was using so I start a new one. If I had really kept a journal every day of those thirty-six years, this stack would be much higher. The only reason I have all these together again is because we have moved three times and I would rediscover them in different places through sorting and packing. Kathy told me to gather them into one place, which I finally did as we got ready to move here and more as we were unpacking once we were here.
I even have here a recent example of a new idea that I heard about and that impressed me enough to give it a try. This is a book in which I mean to write out the entire Bible in my own hand writing as a way of spending a long, slow time in God’s word and think about what I am writing as I go. But look in here. I have put dates on each time I did some writing. I started on Feb. 7, 2011. That’s more than four years ago now. And look how far I have gotten. I got off to a great start and wrote out Genesis 1 & 2 in one day, about an hour really. That would have been on Feb. 7, 2011. The next date, at the beginning of Genesis 3 is Sept. 8, 2014. For more than three years I forgot about this project! Even though it sat right next to me in my desk drawer in my office all that time. I am determined to keep it near me and finish it one day. I wonder how long it will take. If I had worked at it every day. It would already be done.
Here’s the truth. Even though I believe very much in having a regular daily quiet time, it has taken me a very long time to make sure it happens. That is because it is a spiritual battle that the devil wants us to lose. He knows that if we spend time in God’s word he will have a harder time discouraging us from obedience. It is a lot easier for him to lead us into sin if we don’t know the Bible. Our regular daily quiet time is like the exercise program in which we make ourselves available to God’s Spirit so that he can strengthen us to stand firm and live for Jesus in purity and holiness.
Over the years it has finally come down to me getting up at 4:30 in the morning every day for a couple of years in order to spend that first hour with God and the Bible. I read and I pray. But I still don’t journal much. More recently it has evolved into where Kathy and I both wake up about 5 am, listen to the news and a Christian program, then at 5:30 I feed the cat and get us both a cup of coffee. Then we read a one page story in a book about persecuted Christians. Then we read a brief, one page devotional thought with a Scripture reading from a Methodist one year devotional, then the Covenant Home Altar, and then the missionary prayer calendar. Then we pray together and then we each have different books that take us through the whole Bible in one year so we go our separate ways for that.
Now I also fast every Monday. I skip breakfast and lunch and try to spend most of the day with God in the church. That can be hard to do to with many different ways to be distracted by people and things that simply must get done. None of this is done perfectly. And that is how I know I am not bragging about my accomplishments. I still feel like I’m not very good at this thing I am asking you to try to do.
But here is the point Michelle. Never give up. Never stop working at developing this discipline. It will not turn you into a perfect person. But it will be extremely valuable to you as you try to figure out how to obey God in a world that is increasingly turning away from Biblical Christianity. God needs his children to know as much about the Bible as we possibly can. One of the reasons Jesus told his disciples that they must become like little children is because children know they have a lot to learn. Grownups think they are done. I have talked to several people who think they don’t have to go to church anymore because they think they learned all their lessons in Sunday School and now they are good enough or have learned enough.
That is why the writer of Hebrews seems so angry or frustrated when he has to tell the people he was writing to in Hebrews 5: 11-14, “We have much to say about this, but it is hard to make it clear to you because you no longer try to understand. In fact, though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God’s word all over again. You need milk, not solid food! Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching about righteousness. But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” That’s why it is so important for you to try to do this regular daily quiet time. That is the constant use that will train you to distinguish good from evil.
That problem of people not doing it hasn’t gone away. Even in the history of this church, there was once a man, many years ago I’m sure, who shocked his pastor who had asked him to do some Bible study at home. The man didn’t do his homework and when he was called on it, the man said, “I don’t come here to think. I come here to be told what to think.”
But there are some other good examples around you. Eleanor is one who is still reading and learning. For those of you who do not attend any Bible study during the week, you don’t know what you’re missing. We have a lot of fun talking about what we read in Scripture. Kay leads a women’s group on Thursday morning. And I lead the Wed. evening study. On Wed. nights we are working our way through the gospel of Luke. We have been at it for more than a year now and we are almost up to Luke 23. A little more than two chapters left before we pray about what to do next, either another book of the Bible or a topical study.
Our Bible study is sort of guided by my study of the commentaries, but it is not an opportunity for me to preach another sermon. It is a lot more interactive where you get to share your questions and observations with the group. Eleanor comes to Bible Study on Wednesday nights and she brings questions and issues that she wants to talk about. Not all the time, but enough so that I know she is constantly studying and learning new things and then checking with the rest of us for confirmation or correction. Sometimes her question is so interesting or important that it ends up being what we talk about the whole time after we pray together. That’s a very good thing.
The advice I am giving you really comes right out of the Bible. The apostle Paul was writing to a young pastor. In this case Paul was the mentor. Timothy was the young student who already had been given by God a position as a pastor in his local church. Paul’s instruction was given in 2 Timothy 2:15. “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.” And near the end of this letter, at the place we call 2 Timothy 3:16-17 we read, “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” You’ve seen that one before, in one of the Building blocks in your study materials.
So that is my advice to you. Though you have finished working with me in the Journey material, you have really only just begun a lifelong study of the Scriptures, a study that will be very profitable and rewarding of wisdom and God’s direction if you do it with much prayer and with the fellowship of other believers. That is one reason I was glad to hear of your interest in joining the adult Sunday School Class next. I wish all God’s people shared your enthusiasm for learning! God bless you on your way.
Comments
Post a Comment