Enjoying the Bible | Ps Rob Buckingham

hi and uh let's get into the word of god right now if you want to follow this in your bibles just turn to psalm 25 and we're going to get to that a little bit later in the message but just have that at the ready the title of the message today is enjoying the bible and i know some people are like enjoy and the bible in one sentence but yeah i'm going to show you today some really good ways that we can enjoy this incredible book i've been reading this and studying it now for over four decades yes i'm that old and have learned a few things about how to enjoy this amazing book i'm going to share some things with you today some of the things i've learned on my journey but first i want us to look at some of the things or some of the ways the wrong ways to read the bible so i'm going to share four of these with you these are wrong ways to read the bible number one reading it out of obligation it's like well you know god says read the bible so i better read the bible even though i don't really want to um that really isn't kind of going to do anything for you and god's like he doesn't want you doing something out of obligation the verse that springs to mind is 2 corinthians 8 where it says you know god loves a cheerful giver he doesn't want us to give under compulsion or reluctantly but cheerfully from the heart and it's that kind of attitude that we need to bring to the bible as well if we're to enjoy it now maybe you kind of feel out of uh obligation to read the bible because of some of the teaching that you've had in your christian journey i heard some messages in the first few years of my christian life where it was like well you've got to read the bible and and while you're at it you got to pray and that kind of thing you just kind of sit there and go oh yeah well i gotta so i better but i did it out of obligation rather than enjoying it in the early years of my christian journey i went to a seminar and really i mean god save us from seminars i don't think we need another one do we but this one was called the hour that changes the world it was put together by a guy called dick eastman and i don't want to take away from him he's a wonderful man of god he's written some great books over the years he's still alive i believe he's in his late 70s but i went along to this it was a seminar on prayer and it was called the hour that changes the world and it was based around 60 minutes of prayer that was then broken up you can have a look at the picture that's on your screen right now and there you will see 12 segments each of five minutes duration in the middle of the circle it says prayer hour and it's based on the statement of jesus to the disciples in the garden of gethsemane couldn't you even watch with me or pray with me for one hour and so he breaks the hour up into these twelve five minute segments so for the first five minutes of your prayer hour you have to spend in prayer prayer and worship or praise and worship the second five minutes is all about waiting on the lord the third five minutes you confess your guilt and your sin then you move into praying scripture the next five is watching then intercession petitions thanksgiving a song contemplation meditation listening and praise that's how you finish up i gotta say until this time i really enjoyed my prayer life you know prayer was kind of free-flowing something i do through the day practicing the presence of god enjoying reading the word but this brought such a structure into my prayer life that it became quite regimented and quite controlled i mean can you imagine me doing this with christy or you doing this with your spouse your partner or someone that you're close to you know maybe a friend or you sit down with them and you say okay so we've got an hour together and so we're going to structure the hour i've got my timer here and i say to christy now go you've got five minutes to talk about your day and at the end of that five minutes the time is gonna go off and now it's not your turn anymore christy because it's my turn so now i've got five minutes to talk about my day so for the next five minutes i talk about my day but i'm being timed and after five minutes the timer goes off again and it's enough for me and now for the next five minutes christy we're going to talk about the children go so we talk about the kids for five minutes but we've only got five minutes because the time is going to go off again and so on and so forth all the way through the end and at the end of the time i say to christy hasn't that been a wonderful hour together and now i i'm leaving off i go and do whatever i want to do i mean she'd be sitting there can i tell you with christy we wouldn't have even got through the whole hour until she said you know what i don't like the system let's rip it up and that's what i've done with uh the hour that changes the world because it was so regimented that it actually strangled the joy out of my prayer life and my time in the world it's a really good way to ruin any relationship to make it so structured that it literally throttles the joy out of it you see we don't read the bible because we have to we read it because it's good for us it's good for our relationship with god it's good for our relationship with others and the world around us so wrong way to read the bible number one is out of obligation number two reading it as an instruction manual i've heard bible b-i-b-l-e described as basic instructions before leaving earth uh it's clever but it's inaccurate seeing the bible as merely an instruction manual a handbook really takes away from its status of being god's inspired word god's holy communication from divinity to humanity the bible is so much more than just a list of do's and don'ts now yes there are do's and don'ts in the bible and i have discovered if you spend all of your time doing the do's you don't have the time to do the don'ts but what we've got to understand is that the law the instruction manual actually didn't work that's what some of the new testament is talking about paul particularly uh and and the book of hebrews you know if the first covenant was able to bring us into a relationship with god then jesus came in vain but he didn't come in vain jesus god born into a human body lived amongst us died rose again ascended into heaven to draw us into a relationship with god and so the law didn't work and so relationship works in fact in galatians chapter 3 the apostle paul talks about the law as being like a tutor it taught us and led us to jesus and now we have relationship with jesus and we don't need the tutor anymore you see god is interested in a relationship with you he's interested in a real relationship and real relationships are not built on to-do lists again you know with with christy and i if every morning i wrote a to-do list and i stuck it on the fridge hi honey do these things today and she did the same hi hi rob please do these things today one two three four five and and then our uh relationship was built on what she does and what i do then the relationship will never grow never go anywhere now i'm not saying there aren't things to do around the house and around the garden absolutely there certainly are and the to-do list can be very helpful but let's not base our relationships our friendships on to-do lists and let's not base our relationship with god on a to-do list he hasn't brought us uh into relationship with himself just simply to give us a bunch of instructions the third wrong way to read the bible is as god's answer book the bible has lots of wisdom but it doesn't answer every question and every situation of life some people look at the bible like it's kind of like a daily horoscope i have to find my verse for today many of you are aware for many years i worked on a commercial station here in melbourne easy music 3mp and over the 15 years i used to fill in for the breakfast announcer on quite a few occasions when he went on holiday part of the breakfast show was to play the stars which were normally on a reel to reel but sometimes my co-host would read them on one particular morning she said oh goodness i can't find the stars for today anywhere at which point she rummaged through a whole pile of papers came up with a sheet she said i haven't used these ones for a while i'll use these today and i mean it's kind of a funny story but there are people who actually used to ring the station they said i haven't heard the stars for today yet i can't get out of bed until i've heard what my horoscope is and we used to have to read it for them so that they could they could hear their stars for the day sometimes people treat the bible in that way as well it's like well god you can show me what's the verse for today randomly open up circle have a look and see what the answer is there's a word for that kind of thing and the word is bibliomancy basically it's fortune telling for christians and bibliomancy you ask a clear question to god and then you open the bible to a random page you trail the finger at in decreasing concentric circles you point to a verse and that's what the spirit apparently is saying to you containing the answer to your question i heard about a guy who did that and uh his finger fell on luke 18 22. he was asking god what he should do and so the answer from god apparently was sell everything you have and give it to the poor he's like well i don't like that one very much so he closes the bible and opens it again trails his finger down and finds luke 10 37 that says go and do likewise it's like oh i really don't want to do this so he's third time lucky let's try this again and his finger goes down to john 13 27 what you are about to do do it quickly and so that's a funny kind of way of looking at it but we've got to see the bible as so much more than god's answer book and it certainly isn't our horoscope for today but don't get me wrong god can and does lead us to specific bible verses that do speak to us in a time of need god sometimes causes us to stumble on a verse at precisely the time we need the message that that verse contains occasionally i'll put a bible verse that's been speaking to me i'll put it on my facebook page and invariably when i do that someone will comment and say wow that's awesome that's exactly what i needed to hear today and that's wonderful but the bible is so much more than just an answer book the fourth and final wrong way to read the bible is to win arguments yes we all know that person who is always right about the bible and more than willing to tell you why on every occasion this person invariably lacks grace and humility and they come across as harsh legalistic and dogmatic that's why i want to take you into psalm 25 and if you've found that psalm 25 and we're going to pick it up from verse 4 and i encourage you to read this a few times during the week it contains about five principles on how to have a teachable spirit so let's have a look at psalm five from verse four show me your ways lord teach me your paths guide me in your truth and teach me for you are god my savior and my hope is in you all day long remember lord your great mercy and love for they are from of old do not remember the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways according to your love remember me for you lord are good good and upright is the lord therefore he instructs sinners in his ways he guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way all the ways of the lord are loving and faithful toward those who keep the demands of his covenant for the sake of your name lord forgive my iniquity though it is great who then are those who fear the lord he will instruct them in the way they should choose they will spend their days in prosperity and their descendants will inherit the land the lord confides in those who fear him he makes his covenant known to them my eyes are ever on the lord for only he will release my feet from the snare turn to me and be gracious to me for i am lonely and afflicted relieve the troubles of my heart and free me from my anguish look on my affliction and my distress and take away all my sins see how numerous are my enemies and how fiercely they hate me guard my life and rescue me do not let me be put to shame for i take refuge in you my integrity and uprightness protect me because my hope lord is in you so many wonderful statements so much amazing truth in that psalm and as i say spend some time reading it and ask the holy spirit to enlighten you on the different ways that you can develop a teachable spirit one of them that resonates with me is found in verse nine it says he guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way if you want the lord to teach you then have a humble heart we need to bring a humble heart and mind that word humble also means gentle so gentleness of heart and mind we need to be able to come to the lord and say i don't know at all and i haven't arrived yet please teach me i want to learn that is the person whom god will teach we need to bring that heart and mind into our time in god's word and so with that backdrop in mind about the wrong ways to read the bible let's take a few minutes to look at how to enjoy the bible devotionally in my devotional life i do my very best to bring a humble and gentle spirit to the lord and to his word and i trust god to speak to me through scripture here are four things that i find particularly helpful number one read a chapter or two at the very most in my early years as a christian i used to read four chapters a day because if you read four chapters of the bible every day you will get through the entire bible in a year so here i've got this is the bible i used to use when i first became a christian it's a king james version of the bible um it's been very well uh read and written in and lots of scribbled notes and it's kind of going a yellowy color because it's so old and it's been used so much and on the bottom of certain pages i've asterisked it and ended up putting a date down as to when i finished reading that particular section of the bible and so i found this section here revelation chapter 12 which are the fourth four chapters that i read uh in this week 38 years ago and so asterisk at the bottom it's got the 9th of september 1983 and so i did that for the first few years of my christian life four chapters a day every day and read the bible cover to cover every year now if you're a fairly new christian you might want to do something similar to that as well and there's plenty of bible reading plans available including on the bayside church website under connecting with god you'll find a devotions tab and that will bring up a number of ways you can do your devotions including reading the bible in a year but for me today i don't want to read big chunks of scripture i like to read maybe a chapter maybe just sometimes a few verses and what i'll tend to do is i'll pick a a particular book in the bible or a letter in the bible or a section of a book and i'll want to spend a few weeks in that particular area right now i'm reading one thessalonians and two thessalonians and just reading a few verses every day and spending time in that and letting it really soak into my spirit and so i think as you mature in the lord it's not about quantity it's about quality and you want to go deep i see the bible very similar to the early days of gold mining in inland victoria around ballarat you know when they first struck gold people would go there and they could pan for gold and they'd find little nuggets on the surface of the ground but after a while all of those were gone and so they had to dig a little bit deeper to find some gold but then of course all of that had gone over the process of time they'd have to send down mine shafts to find seams of gold deep down into the earth and mine those and i think that's similar when it comes to the scriptures when i first became a christian it was like oh there's a nugget there's another nugget oh here's a nugget and but then you you all of those are gone so you need to dig a little deeper and then you need to send down mine shafts into the scriptures and really find some beautiful seams of gold that you can harvest and mine for your spiritual strength and so that's number one read a chapter or two at the most unless you want to read the whole bible in a year number two select a verse or a line something that stands out to you as you've read it you might want to read that same passage several times but then a word or a phrase or a sentence may really stand out to you this is what stood out to me during the week from 1 thessalonians 5 and it's actually verses 16 to 18 but they're very short verses rejoice always pray continually give thanks in all circumstances for this is god's will for you in christ jesus and so select a verse or a line and that's the line that i selected from 1 thessalonians 5. the third thing you do is meditate on it meditate on the scripture the hebrew word for meditate by the way literally means to ponder by muttering it literally means to to talk to yourself now i'm so glad we have mobile phones because before we had mobile phones in our car if you were talking to yourself or praying out loud in the car and people pulled up alongside you they would look across and they would think that you're weird why is that person in their car and they're talking to themselves but of course now we have mobile phones and so you could be speaking to someone on the phone and so you're in the car and you're praying and you're muttering you're pondering by talking to yourself about the verse or the line from scripture that you read that day and people look at you and they go oh that guy's talking to someone on the phone which you're not you're kind of talking to god and talking to yourself so meditate on it ruminate mutter muse all of those things and then fourthly respond to god and so four questions that i find helpful here number one what is god saying to me through his word secondly how will i respond to god's word thirdly how does this cause me to love god and then fourthly how does this cause me to love my neighbor there are four great questions that will help you really process what you're reading as i say those uh verses from 1 thessalonians 5 have really been speaking to me rejoice always give thanks in all circumstances here we find ourselves in the middle of a global pandemic you know it's tough times we see stuff around the world where people are getting sick and dying and here in melbourne and new south wales and other parts of the world there's lockdown there's restrictions people have lost jobs businesses are struggling people are finding their mental health is impacted we can't gather as a church community in person at the moment all of those sort of things impact on us and yet i come to the word and i get reminded rob rejoice always rejoice always why because the joy of the lord is our strength and give thanks in all circumstances what all circumstances yeah apparently that's what this says so what would that look like in the circumstances that we find ourselves in at the moment i'm giving thanks i have a heart of gratitude to god things i can be grateful for even though i hate lockdown i don't like the restrictions no i don't like wearing a mask and all of those things and yet i can grumble about that but the bible the word of god that's been highlighted to me is give thanks in all circumstances and so an attitude of gratitude i thank you that i have my next breath i thank you that i have a wonderful family i thank you that we have an amazing church community of just some of the most incredible people that i have ever met i'm grateful for all these things i'm grateful that i get to live in this land australia where we have a democratic government where we have benevolent leaders who are making decisions for the common good all of those things i look around the world and i am so grateful to god for what we have here so i encourage you you know maybe that's a verse that you could meditate on this week rejoicing always praying continually giving thanks in all circumstances and you know nothing changes but everything changes when you start to do those things finally just a few comments about enjoying the bible together and this is a particularly hebrew thing my jewish friends would very rarely actually read scripture on their own they always read scripture aloud in groups of people uh they enjoy scripture in community so the bible is not just something we appreciate on our own god's word should be read aloud in community discussed and enjoyed with other believers that's something you can do in a connect group or maybe you just pick one two three friends and you agree on what you're going to read and over say a fortnight and then you do a zoom or you go for a walk when restrictions are eased and you discuss what each of you got from that bible reading one particularly powerful way to enjoy the bible in community is the ancient christian meditation practice of lectio divina or sacred reading and there are four very basic steps that are so very easy to learn so i'll just take you through those before we wrap up today number one in lectio divina is the lectio or the reading that is slow contemplative reading of a text out loud so if you're doing this in a group you have one person who is dedicated or selected to be the reader you don't spend much time rationally analyzing the text and you don't try and work through it quickly instead you let your mind linger on individual words and phrases you might read the text several times each person listening for a word a phrase a sentence that speaks to them so that's the lectio the reading the second thing is the meditation or the meditation at some point during the process of lectio one passage or verse or sentence or word should speak to you more than others spend some time repeating that might be silently or just whispered letting it really sink in write it down if that helps you i love writing down the verse or the phrase that god is speaking to me and then of course everyone can share their insights from the scripture later on after the lectio is over the third thing is the horatio or the prayer where you use the truth that you've gained from meditating informing a prayer i like to write my prayer down i like to script a prayer and then when i'm happy with the prayer i read that out loud to the lord you can say it you can say it silently some of you if you're creative maybe you want to draw a picture or paint something or write a poem or write a song or a psalm and whatever your creativity your creative gifts are you can use those to express how you feel to god in prayer and then the fourth thing is contemplation or contemplation if you feel yourself being enveloped by the presence of god then let go of all words and then silently settle into that experience enjoy being loved by god and enjoy loving god i want to pray for you right now maybe you just want to close your eyes and let's pray together heavenly father i thank you for your goodness and your love and i thank you for my brothers and sisters lord god and i ask that right now you will envelop them with your love your grace your presence may every person within the sound of my voice sense your loving arms around them fill them with your holy spirit lord i pray draw us closer to yourself and closer to one another and lord in this time which is so difficult for so many people i pray that we will find a fresh love and enjoyment in your amazing word the bible the scriptures that you have given to us thank you father for this time today and i pray for anyone that doesn't know you yet that you by your spirit will draw them into a loving relationship with you in jesus name we pray amen if you find yourself at the beginning of your spiritual journey and you're interested in finding out more about god more about jesus and the bible can i encourage you to click on the link that you'll find either in the chat feed or in the bulk of the notes if you're watching this on youtube you just click on there and fill out a brief form that will put you in touch with one of our leaders at bayside church and we'd love to follow up maybe give you a call send you an email we certainly send you a bible and some information about what it means to be a christian and how to start becoming a follower of jesus christ

Channel: Bayside Church Melbourne

Views: 44

Rating: 5 out of 5

Keywords: bayside church, rob buckingham, bayside, God, Christianity

Id: iRMbiYYCKlU

Length: 29min 30sec (1770 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021