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“STUDY THE SCRIPTURES: TAKE TIME TO DIG DEEP”Legacy: Carving Out A Life That CountsMarch 10, 2013Cornerstone Community ChurchMy granddaughter McKenzie is now about four months old, so it’s long past time to start her education. I suppose that her parents will have some say in all of this, but I assume that as the family’s patriarch I get the final word. So I’ve been thinking – what do I want McKenzie to learn? For one thing, I think it’s important that I teach her to love TV, and based on the early returns I think I can say, “Mission accomplished.” No matter where she is in the room, she’s craning her neck to see what’s on the TV. I am so proud.But besides being a couch potato, what else do I hope McKenzie learns? Science? Her Mom is especially good at science, so I suppose McKenzie will get the chance to learn about that, even though it’s not my first love. How to use tools? She would never learn that from me, but fortunately she has a Dad who can fix most anything and who I’m sure will pass that on to his daughter. SAT vocabulary words? Yes, I can promise you that it won’t be long before Grampa pulls out the SAT vocabulary flashcards to start quizzing McKenzie in between the TV shows we watch together. But what I want McKenzie to learn more than anything, what I want her to love learning more than anything, is the Bible. I hope she grows up to do well in math and science and geography and English literature, but what I most hope for her is that she develops a love for the Bible. And the reason isn’t so she can win Bible trivia games. I want her to learn to love the Bible because I know if she does the Bible will empower her to carve out a life that counts. I have no idea what McKenzie might become someday, but I know that if she devotes herself to learning and obeying the Bible she will create a legacy worth leaving.Let me show you our text for this morning. We are in a study of Paul’s second letter to Timothy, the last of the thirteen New Testament letters written by Paul, written just a short time before his execution by the Romans. After warning Timothy to avoid the influence of evil men, Paul writes this:But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the person of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. (2 Timothy 3:14-17) Notice this about Timothy – from the time he was an infant, he was being taught the Scriptures. At that age, of course, the Scriptures for Timothy were the Hebrew Scriptures, what we call the Old Testament. And we learned back in chapter one who was teaching him the Scriptures – it was his mother Eunice and his grandmother Lois. For as long as Timothy could remember, from the time he was an infant, his mother and grandmother were teaching him the stories, songs and sermons of the Old Testament. They taught him that God created the heavens and the earth. They taught him about Adam and Eve, about Noah and the ark, about Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and Joseph. They taught him about Moses and the ten plagues and Passover and the crossing of the Red Sea, as Moses led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt. They taught him about Joshua leading the Israelites across the Jordan River and into the Promised Land, about Samson being tricked by Delilah, about David defeating the giant Goliath, about Daniel escaping from the lion’s den. But be sure to notice this. Be sure to notice the purpose of teaching Timothy the Scriptures. Paul writes, “… and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” The purpose of teaching Timothy the Scriptures from infancy wasn’t to make Timothy smart; it was to save his soul. And notice this; this is particularly interesting. Paul says the Scriptures are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Now how could the Scriptures help Timothy be saved by faith in Jesus if Jesus wasn’t even born until over 400 years after the last Old Testament book was written? That seems like a strange thing to say, doesn’t it?But the fact is that the Hebrew Scriptures actually do tell us quite a bit about the Jesus the Messiah, which is what the word “Christ” means – the Messiah, the Anointed One. Listen to what Jesus himself said on this topic in John 5: “You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me … If you believed Moses, you would believe me, for he wrote about me.” (John 5:39, 46) According to Jesus, the Old Testament Scriptures testified about him, even though he came along in human history hundreds of years after those Scriptures were written. On another occasion, after Jesus rose from the dead, when he appeared to the disciples as evidence of his resurrection, Jesus said this: “This is what I told you while I was still with you: Everything must be fulfilled that is written about me in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms.” Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures. (Luke 24:44-45) Here’s what Jesus himself said about the Hebrew Scriptures – if we want to understand the Old Testament Scriptures, we need to have our eyes open for Jesus. Read the Law of Moses, and if our eyes are open, we will see Jesus. Read the seventeen books of the Prophets, and if our eyes are open, we will see Jesus. Read the Psalms, and if our eyes are open, we will see Jesus. Bible students tell us there are over 300 prophecies in the Old Testament that find their fulfillment in Jesus. If we want to find Jesus, we can find him in the Scriptures.Now it took the Apostle Paul to help Timothy and Timothy’s mother and grandmother to understand that Jesus was in fact the Messiah, the Christ, the one they had been waiting for, the one the Scriptures they so loved testified about. But with Paul’s help, they made the connection, and the result was the salvation of their souls. And that’s the bigger point; that’s why my hope and prayer for McKenzie is that she learns to love the Scriptures, because it is the Jesus she will discover in the Scriptures – both Old Testament and New Testament – who alone can save her soul.Now the next sentence is an especially important one for us to appreciate. Paul makes quite a claim about the Scriptures in verse 16 when he says this: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.” That word “God-breathed” can also be translated as “inspired.” There are two questions we need to answer in order to appreciate what Paul means. First, what does he mean by “all Scripture,” and second, what does he mean when he says the Scripture is “inspired” or “God-breathed”?First, when Paul refers to “all Scripture,” Bible scholars believe he’s referring to more than just the Old Testament. He’s likely also referring to his own writings. Now it’s true that Paul never calls his letters “Scripture,” but in the book of 2 Peter the Apostle Peter does just that – he refers to Paul’s letters as Scripture (2 Peter 3:15-16). And here in 2 Timothy Paul tells Timothy time and again to be very careful to pass along to others precisely what Paul has taught him. Back in chapter one, for example, Paul writes, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching … Guard the good deposit that was entrusted to you.” (2 Timothy 1:13-14) You might also remember that Jesus considered his words to be Scripture; according to Jesus, his words were the very words of God. Jesus said, “These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.” (John 14:24) And that gets us to the second question – what does Paul mean by saying the Scriptures are “inspired” or “God-breathed”? And the short answer is this – by saying that, Paul is claiming that the Scriptures are more than the words of humans; they are the words of God himself. Now that’s not to say that the authors of the Bible merely took dictation from God. When we say the Bible is inspired we don’t mean that Paul or John or Isaiah or any of the other biblical authors heard an audible voice telling them word for word what they were supposed to write down. On the other hand when we say the Bible is inspired we don’t mean the same thing as when we say that we were inspired by a sunset to write a poem. Here’s how one scholar puts it: “When Christians says the Bible is inspired, they mean that it’s both the Word of God and the words of men. [They mean that] without violating the authors’ personalities, they wrote with their own feelings, literary abilities, and concerns. But in the end, God could say, ‘That’s exactly what I wanted to have written.’” (“The Case For The Real Jesus,” p. 74) That’s the doctrine of biblical inspiration. And that’s what Paul wants us to understand, that we can trust what we read in the Scriptures because what we read is exactly what God wanted to have written.And someday that’s what I hope to be able to explain to McKenzie when we read the Bible together – that this is book is different from any other book she’ll ever read, because this book was ultimately authored by God. God breathed his words into this book. God made sure that this book contains everything we need to know about what’s most important in life. In one way or another I hope I can help McKenzie to understand that if she wants to carve out a life that counts, then she needs to learn as much as she can about this book.But of course, there’s a huge distinction between knowing what this book says and doing what this book says. And that, in the long run, is the point. Look again at what Paul tells Timothy: “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” (2 Timothy 3:16-17) The point of reading the Bible, Paul says, is so the Bible can train us to live right and equip us to do good. The point of reading the Bible is not so we can get “brownie” points with the pastor or with God. The point is not so you can win Bible trivia games. The point is not to gain information; the point is to experience transformation.Some of you may have read Walter Isaacson’s biography on Steve Jobs, who passed away just in October of 2011. Jobs was a brilliant innovator. Many of the products Jobs helped to create have transformed the way many of us live. But if you’ve read the biography, you know that Steve Jobs, like all of us, had his flaws. He could be quite harsh with people, we are told. One of Jobs’ friends asked Isaacson to ask Jobs a question for him, which Isaacson did. Here was the question: “Why are you so mean?” And here was Jobs’ answer: “This is who I am, and you can’t expect me to be someone I’m not.” From Steve Jobs’ perspective, he was who he was; he couldn’t change, and it wasn’t fair to expect him to change.But the message of the Bible is that we can change. The words and truths of the Bible can change your life. It might not be able to transform your paunchy midriff into a six-pack, but it can transform your relationships, your character and your destiny. And it’s a process. It happens day by day by day, as we read God’s Word and meditate on God’s Word and study God’s Word and put God’s Word into practice.Now I just slipped in a word there that might make a lot of you cringe – study. Do you remember when you were younger, back in high school or college, and someone asked you what you were going to do for the weekend, and your friend was going to go do something fun but you had a lot to do for school? What did you tell your friend? Did you say, “Oh, I get to study this weekend! In fact, I probably will get to study all night long tonight. You have to go out and go to the movies, but not me – I get to study!” That’s not what you said; you said what? “I have to study.” And you weren’t happy about it. That’s what comes to mind when we hear the word study; it’s something we don’t want to do but that someone in authority over us made us do.But here’s what I hope to teach McKenzie someday – the Bible is a book worth studying. In fact, more than any other book you will ever read, this book is a book that will make your life better the more you study it and the more you put it into practice. In the Book of Acts the author, Luke, pays a high compliment to the Christians who lived in the town of Berea. Here’s what he said: “Now the Bereans were of more noble character than the Thessalonians, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” (Acts 17:11) That’s the kind of diligence that will really pay off for you in terms of carving out a life that counts – to with great eagerness examine the Scriptures every day. Not just to read the Scriptures casually. Not just to hear a pastor talk about the Scriptures for a few minutes on a Sunday morning. But to personally invest time and energy studying the Scriptures day by day.Now here’s the big question – what does it look like to study the Bible? How do we do that? A year ago as a church we went through a spiritual growth campaign along with churches all across the country called “40 Days In The Word.” Many of you were here for that. And in that campaign we learned one way to study the Bible called the “devotional method.” Do you remember that? Pastor Rick Warren from Saddleback Church down south taught us in our small groups six different techniques to use in the devotional method. He called these techniques the pronounce it method, the picture it method, the probe it method, the paraphrase it method, the personalize it method and the pray it method. If you still have your materials from last year, I hope you’ll pull them out and review those techniques, because they’re a great way to get more out of your Bible reading than we do when we simply read a few verses and go on our merry way.But the devotional method is only one method of studying the Bible. In your programs this morning there’s an insert outlining twelve different methods to use to study the Bible. I’m going to invite Chris Ferraro to come up and illustrate for us one way to do a Bible study.Pastor Chris: As Craig said, we are going to look at just one of the twelve different methods for studying Scripture as outlined by Pastor Warren in his work Bible Study Methods. On your insert locate the study method titled “The Chapter Study Method.” We are going to study one chapter in about 10 minutes this morning. The purpose of this method is to allow the novice as well as the experienced Bible student to study an entire chapter quickly while comprehending the overall theme and message the writer was attempting to convey. We will be studying 1 John chapter 1 (the book is located towards the end of the New Testament after 2 Peter and before Jude/Revelation). The opening chapter of first John is rich with images of Jesus and probably of more importance to you this morning its also only ten verses long!The first task to undertake is to read the passage through five times. The purpose of this repetition is to allow you to fully grasp the text at hand. For most of us, reading something once may result in slight memory retention but it is likely to last only momentarily. We need to read it through multiple times to grasp the general meaning of the chapter. Pastor Warren also suggest a few things:Read it without referring to your notes – If you own a Bible that you have noted key thoughts, prayers and so on in the margins and or you have highlighted verses that’s great, however for this particular method we want to attempt to remove any presuppositions or biases you may already have about this chapter in Scripture. This will help to form potential new insights about this chapter we are studying. If you can’t ignore those notes then you can easily utilize websites like or mobile apps like the Bible App from You Version to read the chapter without notes interfering with your reading. Read it without stopping – Read the chapter all the way through without stopping. As you do this more frequently it will help you grasp the flow of the chapter.Read it in several different contemporary versions/translations – If you currently study from a number of the more seasoned versions of the Scriptures (The King James, NIV, and so on) then while using that version to read through once, select two other versions or translations, such as the New Living Translation or the Holman Christian Standard Bible, to read through the chapter at hand. No need to purchase another Bible, you can easily access these alternate translations on the Internet or on your smart phone. Read it aloud to yourself…quietly, in your library voice – I personally favor this tip. If you have a problem concentrating, which I do when there are other distractions and noises around, read the passage aloud to yourself and notice the recognition rate increase as you read it through time and time again.Ok so now that we covered the basic tips let’s begin with the method. We have posted the chapter on the screen behind me, so as I read it aloud you read along with me practicing tip #4 which is to read it aloud “quietly” in your library voice. Are you ready? That which was?from the beginning,?which we have heard,?which we have seen with our eyes,?which we looked upon and?have touched with our hands, concerning the word of life—2?the life?was made manifest, and we have seen it, and testify to it and proclaim to you the eternal life,?which was with the Father and?was made manifest to us—3?that which we have seen and heard we proclaim also to you, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed?our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ.?4?And we are writing these things so?that our joy may be complete.This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that?God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.?6?If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and?do not practice the truth.?7?But?if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and?the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.?8?If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and?the truth is not in us.?9?If we confess our sins, he is?faithful and just to forgive us our sins and?to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.?10?If we say we have not sinned,?we make him a liar, and?his word is not in us. (1 John 1 – ESV)As you read other versions you may notice subtle differences in the text. You will begin to see the way another translation can bring to light a different image or clarify a potential tough spot. For instance in verse 1 the ESV puts the ending, “concerning the word of life.” Upon a first reading you may not think to look for Jesus in this passage however if you read the verse in the New Living Translation you would recognize a slightly different ending. Here’s how it ends, “He is the Word of Life.” Now when you read it that way you can begin to see Christ emphasized here. Now assuming we read through the chapter four more times we can begin with the the 10 C’s Rick Warren lays out for us. In the interest of time we are going to look at just 6 of the 10 C’s so you grasp the general point of studying a chapter in Scripture. For a complete list refer to Pastor Warren’s work.Caption – Try to identify the chapter in a single word or short phrase. For 1 John 1 lets label this chapter “Life-Light” in reference to Jesus as the Word of Life who has made Himself known to us and the light that we find dwelling in God which is His righteousness. Of course feel free to label or caption this chapter as you see fit, the point is to use a catch phrase to remind you of this chapter in Scripture.Choice Verse – Choose a verse that speaks to you or summarizes the chapter. I think verse 3 is a choice verse to highlight here. Its says, “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you may also have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.” (NIV) This verse summarizes our mission in life to spread the good news of the Word of Life, Jesus Christ so that others might experience the same fellowship and favor with God that we do. As always you may be struck by another key verse, so make sure to pick the one that suits you for best retention and understanding.Cross-References – Using the cross-references in your study Bible (or an online search), look up the other verses that help clarify what the chapter is talking about. From the beginning of verse 1 for example, you can use the cross-reference of John 1:1 which states, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word, was God.” This idea was familiar to John’s readers in his gospel and he repeats this theme in 1 John 1:1 when he makes mention of Jesus as the Word. There are plenty of verses to cross-reference in Scripture, in particular, the first verse we just looked at has five different verses that reference the themes in contained in 1 John 1:1. Study each of these to gain a deeper understanding of the message the writer intends to relay.Christ Seen – What can I learn about the nature of Jesus Christ from this chapter? This is a crucial question and hidden in the answer to this question are the gems that the Holy Spirit provides for us to get a glimpse of the person of Jesus Christ. In 1 John 1 we can learn that Jesus is called the Living Word which means that in him the words of life (the gospel message) were spoken and commissioned to be proclaimed until he returns. We see as well that Jesus is the Son of God which means he is the second member of the Trinity. This gives further understanding to the unique relationship between heavenly Father and Son. Of course you may discover more truths about Christ here but the most important thing is to realize the Bible is littered with the story of Jesus in both the Old and New Testament. Central Lessons – Write down the major principles, insights, and lessons you learn from this chapter. Ask why did God place this chapter in the Bible? What does he want to teach us from this? In our text this morning we see a struggle between good and bad, light and dark. God himself is pure, light and as the text says, darkness cannot exist in His presence. God is the ultimate source of good, and if we trust in Christ and walk in the light of His life we will have fellowship with him. There are of course more insights you could gather but this again is the part where you ask the crucial questions and seek to respond to them the best you know how.Conclusion – This is the application portion of your study.Develop a plan or project to apply what you have learned in the chapter. From 1 John 1 we can come to understand fellowship as a main theme. How can we apply the fellowship we see outlined here in our lives? Perhaps, if you are not involved in one now, you seek to find and engage with a small group. If you have questions about when and where these groups meet, see myself, Craig or Kathleen Staub who is head of our small groups ministry and we can help get you connected. The thought behind this step is simple, put your learning to action and you will retain what you learned and have your life transformed in the process. Now applaud yourselves, you just did an in depth study of a chapter in the Bible and it really didn’t take that much time or effort. Sure you had to think a little, and you did have to read but it did not cost you a whole day or even weeks pouring over material. You read, thought about, outlined, summarized and considered the key points in this chapter and you created a plan to engage this chapter practically in your life. There are 11 other methods in Pastor Warren’s book and I would recommend you adapting one or all of these for your personal study. Finally, as we close its important to remember you not are reading and studying Scripture so that you are prepared to pass a test or to appear smart to your small group or close circle of friends. We study Scripture so that the Words of life begin to work in our lives and help transform us. The promise of Scripture is simple really, the Living Word is sure to influence, shape and motivate your walk with Him. And that’s what its all about, as the song we sang earlier tells us, “Nothing compares to knowing you more,” and when we read and study Scripture that’s exactly what we experience! ................
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