Well, hey, good morning, Venture Church. My name is Gray and I get to serve on the Hunt Club campus as well as being part of the teaching team. And so, I figured we should go ahead and kind of talk about the obvious this morning. I did get new shoes. Just kidding. Had a little shoulder surgery: bicep tendon, rotator cuff, and labrum. So, not so much here or here, but more like all of this. It's a Chris Farley reference. And so I am in this nice sling today. And I need to tell you that this is a first. I have taught with black eyes. I've taught with stitches. Last Christmas Eve, I had surgery before Christmas Eve and then taught the next day. I don't remember the message, but I did teach and I still have a job, so I'm assuming it was about baby Jesus. But this is a first. So you guys just bear with me. You may see me still try to use this hand and it will look like a little T-Rex hand and, you know, there's nothing I can do about it.
But anyway, we are continuing our series that we started last week. Craig got us kicked off, had a great foundation, and we're going to continue that on the Bible. The series is called The Bible. And so, to get us started, initially I was going to look at one question. And the more I was digging in and preparing, it kind of led me to two questions. So, this morning you get two for one. All right. Here's the first question we're going to try to answer this morning, in reference to the Bible: how does it work? As we read it, we're talking about reading the Bible, we're talking about being a priority, like, how does it work? The second question is this: why do so many people miss out on whatever the Bible does in us? We're going to talk about why so many people, and I would even say believers, miss out on what the Scriptures, what God's word, is doing and what God desires for it to do in our life.
So, if you have your Bibles, I want you to go ahead and turn to Hebrews chapter 4. We're going to be there. And to help you get there, it's in the New Testament. It's towards the end. If you were using your Bible during the Philippians series, if you go to Philippians, because you've probably gotten used to getting there, and head right, you'll get to Hebrews. That's where we're going to be. But as you're doing that, I want to kind of set the stage a little bit with this question of how does it work? Because all of us in our lives, when we have read the Scriptures, whether you were curious or you've been a believer for three decades or somewhere in between, we come to reading the Bible with a particular mindset, and a lot of times we don't even know. If I asked you this, you may not be able to articulate it, but as I describe it you're probably going to go, "Oo, that's me. That's how I think the Bible works in my life," or "That's how I approach the Scriptures."
And so I want to give you a couple examples, and maybe you can relate to these. The first one is a quid pro quo approach. And let me just tell you, with my dyslexic brain with all those Q's and P's, that was a miracle just then. Quid pro quo approach. And what this means, that's Latin for something for something, and a lot of times folks will come to God's word and we'll read it thinking that it works like this: God, I'm going to read your Bible and because I'm reading your Bible, you're going to do something for me. You know, God, I scratch your back and you scratch mine. It's almost as if we're reading the Bible for God's benefit. Like, he wrote this and so we don't want God to feel insecure. So, hey, like, throw him a bone. Give him a few minutes, read the Bible, and then in return, he's going to do something for us.
Now, I want to tell you what this looked like for me in high school. So, in high school playing sports, we'll just go with baseball, there were some things that I always did on game day, okay? I always prayed. I always read my Bible and I worked really hard not to cuss, right? And the thought was, "All right, God, I've done this. So, God, if I go three for three for those, how about I go three for three at the plate?" Like, if I do this for you, then you're going to do this for me. Now, I couldn't articulate that. This is just me looking back. But a lot of times, that's how we approach the Bible. It's like, "All right, God. I'm going to do this for you so that you do this thing for me."
A second way that we think the Bible works, and maybe how we approach it, is like a honey-do list. I think this is where, living in the South and growing up, we hear a lot about Jesus and God and the Bible and prayer, and you can ask anybody on the street and they may say they're a Christian, but they may not legitimately be, because it's almost like it's your ethnicity. "Yeah, I'm Christian." And so we approach it with this honey-do list approach where it's just a box we check. If I'm going to be a Christian, then I go to church, you know, then I've done it. Men, it's kind of like this. And ladies, I don't have a good illustration for you because I'm not a lady. But man, if you've ever cut your grass at the end of the, you know, Saturday afternoon, and you cut your grass and you get it all blown off and everything's nice and tidy, you go in, get you something to drink, you come back out and you stand on the front porch and you just kind of put your hands on your hips and go, "That looks good. I did that." In the honey-do list, it's kind of like that. We look at it back at the end of the week, we go, "Read my Bible three times. Don't know what I got out of it, but I read it." So, the honey-do list approach.
Then there is the bank account approach. All right. And this one is like, if I read the Bible, then God, like, there's this spiritual bank account and God is going to deposit some extra mercy and some extra grace and forgiveness in that account. And that's important because, you know, last night was Halloween, and maybe you went to a party and things got a little crazy. And so you made sure, leading up to Halloween and that party last night, that you spent some time in the Bible so that God would deposit some grace in your account, because you knew that you were going to make a withdrawal last night and you don't want to overdraft. "I read four chapters this week because I knew I had a big weekend planned," right? And so we read it as if God is going to somehow love us more because we do that.
And again, with these approaches, you probably never set out to go, "You know what, I want to read the Bible this way," but a lot of times we just kind of gradually get there and that's how we approach the Scriptures. And here's what's true about all of these approaches, and how we think the Bible works in these ways, is that there's some type of obligation. They're obligatory. Like, I'm going to do this so that I get this, whether it's a feeling or God's going to love me more or God's going to do something for me. And this is what I want you to know about God's word: God's word was never intended to be obligatory, but rather it's an opportunity. And I'll be honest, guys, if we could understand this, it changes the game drastically, that it's an opportunity. And what's the opportunity? It's an opportunity to know God better. And through that, we end up knowing ourselves better. And that creates this really cool cycle in our life of we know God better, we know ourselves better, which allows us to go deeper with God, which allows us to know ourselves better. And it's just this really fruitful way of living.
And so this morning when we go to Hebrews, I want to talk about what it looks like to approach God's word as an opportunity and not an obligation. So, if you turn your Bibles, Hebrews chapter 4, and we're going to read really just two verses, and we're going to pull out three truths of how God's word works in our life, and then how we make the most of that opportunity that is available to us. So, here we go. Hebrews chapter 4. This may be a verse that you're familiar with. "For the word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account."
If you have your Bibles, I want you to underline the word alive, or your translation may say living. And the idea behind God's word being alive, or the reality, is that we serve a living God. And because we serve a living God, his words to us are living. And so this book is not facts and information. Are there facts in there? Is there information in there? Absolutely. But it's deeper than that. And this is the word I want you to get from this one word, alive. It's that it's personal. Because we serve a living God and this is his word to us, it is alive and it interacts with us. And so it is personal. It is relational. It is a conversation. Maybe you could open up God's word and, instead of just looking at it as a checklist, you go, "Okay, God, what do you want to say to me? I'm entering into this conversation with you." It meets us where we are.
A couple weeks ago, we were in the Philippians series and we were talking about contentment in our house church. And it was cool just to go around the room and see how God spoke to each person in a unique way when it came to contentment. For some it was about stuff. For some it was about who they are in Christ. And that's what God's word does. It speaks to us where we are. It's personal. It's not just an encyclopedia. Anybody grow up with the World Book encyclopedias? Oh yeah, man. You put them up. You wanted everybody to see them. A through Z. Yeah. Usually XYZ was one. But that's not what God's word is.
St. Jerome lived in the 300s AD. He said this. He said, "The Scriptures are shallow enough for a babe to come and drink without fear of drowning and deep enough for a theologian to swim in without ever touching the bottom." This is why we never outgrow God's word. This is why, if you've been a believer for 30, 40 years, every time you approach God's word, you can get something different and new. It's personal. It meets you where you are.
If we go back to Hebrews chapter 4, it says, "For the word of God is alive." And the second word in your Bibles you can highlight or underline is that it is active. Some translations say it is effective. And this word in the Greek is where we get our word energy. Meaning that it's bringing about change. It's doing something in us. And the word I want you to think about when you hear that word active is the word powerful. Not only is God's word personal and it meets us where we are and it's a conversation, it's relational, it's not just information, but it is powerful. In the same way in Genesis when God speaks his words to create, the word of God, when we read it, the Holy Spirit uses it in our hearts to create and to cultivate and to bring about change in our lives. It's powerful.
But if we only come at it from an information standpoint, if we're coming at it in an obligatory way of like, "Ah, this is what I got to do, and I got to cut the grass," or "I hope God does this for me because I'm doing this," we'll miss that. But when we approach God's word as an opportunity to have a conversation with our heavenly Father, then we begin to experience the power of his words in our life, and we see life change happen.
The third truth that we can pull from the Scripture, if you go back to Hebrews 4, "For the word of God is alive and active." And now we're going to settle in on the rest of the passage: "sharper than any double-edged sword." Now, when you see that phrase, I don't want you to think about, like, Arnold Schwarzenegger from Conan the Barbarian in the '80s, where he's got this, like, six-foot-long sword and he's standing there in his speedo like that. I want you to think more like, don't Google that. I want you to think more, ladies, like Gladiator and a Roman gladius, which is a shorter sword, and it's shorter because it's made to get under the armor, in the small spaces that the armor doesn't cover. And so he says the word of God is a double-edged sword. It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart. Nothing in all creation is hidden from God's sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.
And the word I want you to think about is that it penetrates our hearts. You know, the hardest substance on this planet is not iron or diamonds or granite. It's the human heart. And the author of Hebrews says that as we approach God's word as an opportunity to have a conversation, it's personal. It allows us to engage with the power of God's word and then God's word begins to penetrate our hearts. And oftentimes, if you've heard this passage taught, it's probably taught in terms of conviction. And that is 100% true, that it exposes the dark places in our hearts. It exposes the sin, but it never just exposes just to expose. It's not exposing to shame, but it exposes to bring healing, to bring victory. Not only in those places of sin and struggle, but it penetrates to those deepest wounds, those things that you've never told anybody about. And God's word can get to that point and he can bring healing through his word. He can bring peace. He can bring comfort, because it penetrates to the deepest and darkest places in our hearts.
That's what God's word does. That's how it works. It's an opportunity to have a conversation, to engage in his word that is powerful in our lives, to create change, to create new things. And it does that by exposing those things in our hearts.
If you flip over in your Bibles to the next book, it's the book of James. That's Jesus's half-brother, who believed that Jesus was the Savior. And I don't know what it would take for you. It'd take a lot for me to believe that one of my brothers was the Savior of the world. That's probably the greatest evidence to me that Jesus was legit, that James believed it. But this is what James says and I think it sums up why we want to read our Bibles. He says this, "But whoever looks intently into the perfect law," that's God's Scriptures, "that gives freedom, and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it, they will be blessed in what they do." But I want us to come back to this word freedom. "But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom." That's what we're after. We want to live a life. You say, "Gray, I'm free. I live in America. We can't be any more free." But I'm talking about free from sin. I'm talking about having freedom in our relationships, that we're not creating messes. I'm talking about living lightly, that we're not burdened by our decisions, that as we bring our lives under God's word, we begin to experience freedom in every aspect of our life.
And this is what brings us to our second question. Why do so many people miss out? Miss out on what? Living freely. Let me kind of narrow the focus a little bit on this question. Why do so many believers miss out? At the end of the day, if reading God's word brings freedom in our life, why do we miss out on that? And I think it comes down to one word: authority. We don't want to give God's word authority in our lives.
And I think about this in my own life. I will trust God with my eternity, but not with how I run my relationships. I will trust God with my eternity but not with my money. We will so easily trust God with forever. And then there's these areas in our lives where we say, "God, I'm going to keep that to myself. I know best on how that needs to work. I hear what you're saying. I read what you're saying, but I think I know best."
This is what it looks like. Last week Craig said that our desire is that you love the Bible, that you love God's word. Man, there are some Scriptures that I love to love. Let me show you some of them. John 3:16: "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life." Man, I love that. Isn't that good? Yeah. Here's another one. Same vein. "For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith. This is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God, not by works, so that no one can boast." You know what this means? This means I can't, you can't earn your salvation. Which means once we receive it, we can't lose it. Man, that is great news. I love to love that verse.
What about this one? We quote this one a lot, probably at the wrong times. Romans 8:28: "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." So that when I look around and it looks like my life is going to pot, I know that in all of that, God can use even the messes I make. God can use that. And that brings me so much peace. I love to love Romans 8:28.
This one is dear to my heart. "Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you." We serve a God whose shoulders are broad enough, whose back is strong enough to carry the things that weigh us down, and invites us to unload that on him. Ain't that easy to love? Man, I can submit to that all day.
What about these, though? "If you love me, keep my commandments." That's straight, that's Jesus talking. I mean, come on, Jesus. You don't mean all your, like, you don't mean that. We can keep reading this. It gets better. "Flee from sexual immorality." This is in 1 Corinthians. You know, we would say, "Hey, Paul, man, it is 2026. We got all kinds of things and, like, that's not relevant today. I don't have to submit to that authority today." But he continues. He said, "All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but whoever sins sexually sins against their own body." And then he says this, "Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own. You were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your bodies." I mean, that's old. That's archaic. That doesn't apply today. He didn't mean that for today. I mean, this is my body. I get to do what I want to with my body.
We can keep reading. It doesn't get much better. I mean, look, this is straight out of Judea. "You have heard that it was said, 'You shall not commit adultery.' But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." And we will go, "Come on, Jesus. I mean, I don't need that kind of authority in my life." He doesn't quit there. He keeps going. "You have heard that it was said, 'Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'" And we would all say, "Amen." No. Jesus says, "If you said amen, I won't judge you." Jesus says, "But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you." I don't know if I want to do that.
What about this one? This is the last one. "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility, value others above yourselves." Man, I love me some me, and I don't want that authority in my life. And we could do this all day.
But the reason so many people miss out is because we don't place our lives under the authority of God and God's word. Because the reality is, freedom, what we talked about, what James told us, freedom is found under God's authority. And I know that freedom and authority is kind of like an oxymoron. It's like jumbo shrimp. Which one is it? You can't have freedom and be under authority. But this is what God has put in place.
I want to give you an example and then we're going to wrap up. I don't know how many years ago, I was 19, whatever the math is on that. I did a trip with the Boy Scouts. It was called Rayado. They don't do it anymore because it was a liability. And as I talk about it, you'll understand why it was a liability. They took eight or nine guys from all over the country and they would put them on a team, a group, and then we had a ranger. We were three weeks in the backcountry. We had a ranger that was with us for about three days and then he just left us. And then the rest of the time we had to go from place to place, find our way, and navigate this. I was the oldest, I was 19, the youngest was 15. And so you could imagine the liability in this, when we're just out in the middle of the mountains in New Mexico.
And we would have to go different directions, and sometimes we would do something because we could. Instead of following the trails, we would "swack," and that's just a word we made up, where instead of doing all the switchbacks coming down a mountain, we would find point A from where we were and find point B, and we would take our compass and we would take our map. Just a quick orienteering class: on your map you have a compass rose that's printed on there, and you take that map and you orient the north of the map to the north of your compass, and then you find where you are and then you find the place you want to go, and then you move your compass and you get your heading. So, we're just going to say 10 degrees, 8 degrees north. And as long as we stayed on 8 degrees north, we were going to end up at that point. The compass heading was the authority.
One day, we were swacking and we were heading down this ravine and we began to hear the voices of the campsite that we were headed to. And so, we put our compass away. We kept walking like, "We're close." We put it away. We put the authority away. And after about an hour, we were just talking, shooting the breeze. We stopped. We're like, "We should be here by now." And we listened. There were no voices.
We stopped hiking that night at about 11:30 p.m. because we had guys dropping like flies because they were dehydrated. We camped on the side of a mountain. And when I say on the side of the mountain, we had to put rocks downhill so we didn't roll. And it was all because we put our compass away. It was all because we got to a point in life, or a point on that trail, where we thought we knew best. And so we put our authority away and we began to handle things ourselves and it cost us.
Man, I think that's such a great analogy of what happens when we come to God's word for some things and disregard it for others. And we end up like us on the side of the mountain, looking back, and we got people, it may be our family, and they're dropping like flies. It may be our reputation. And it may be our lives in general, because we have put the authority away. And I don't want that for you. I don't want it for me. But it sure is a temptation at times when I come across something that seems difficult for me.
And so as we close, I want to give you guys some compass headings, if you will, from the Scriptures, just some things you can think about. These, I think, are available on the notes, and they'll probably be available on social media later this week. So I'd rather you listen than just try to write them all down. But here's some headings that you could begin to follow as authority in your life.
If you want to know who Jesus is, go to John, the Gospel of John, and begin to read and bring your life under the authority of what you find. If you want to know what it looks like for your identity to be in Christ and what that means on a day-to-day basis, read the book of Ephesians. If you want to know how to honor God in a culture that has no regard for holiness, read 1 Corinthians. If you want to know about wisdom, go to the book of Proverbs and bring your life under that authority. If you want to know why everything is broken, just read the first three chapters of Genesis.
If you want to understand the gospel, I always say this, the Apostle Paul is like a mechanic. You and I may understand how a car runs. There's fuel and it goes into the motor and there's combustion and all that, but then Paul can come in and tell you all about the intricate parts and what does what and how it's all connected. And that's the book of Romans. And if you've got questions there, read that. If you want to know why we're never satisfied, read Ecclesiastes. Joy and suffering, we just got out of this, read Philippians. Faith in practice, read the book of James. How to pray, and I would even add, how to pray honestly and vulnerably to a holy God, read the book of Psalms. Bring your life under the authority of God's word and see what he begins to do in you and through you.
Let me pray. Father God, I thank you for your word and the gift that it is. And Father, I just pray for those in the room that maybe aren't Christ followers, God, that they could suspend their questions and just pick up your word and begin to read. God, I pray for those of us in the room that have followed you for a long time and still there's areas where we choose our own way over your way, over your authority in our life. God, give us the courage to step in, to lean in, to bring our lives under the authority of your word. And we pray all these things in your Son's name. Amen.