From Sampler to Sower

Last week was a crazy week.  Didn’t get much done by the way of blogging unfortunately.  But I didn’t forget you all . . .

Here it is, the Week in Review for our second night in the Mythbuster’s series.

Weekend Teaching Series: Mythbusters

Message Title: Myth Two: God Doesn’t Speak to People Any More

Sermon in a Sentence: If we want to hear God’s voice, we need to stop reading the Bible and start eating it.

Text(s): Deuteronomy 11:18; Joshua 1:8;1 Samuel 3; Psalm 1:2; 2 Timothy 2:15; James 1:22; Revelation 10:9

Weekend Scale of Difficulty: 7 of 10, now that our set is set, this service was fairly easy.  The only real challenge was making yet another episode of Mythbusters: Water’s Edge

Message Summary: We started with the story of the calling of Samuel, a young man dedicated to God by his mother Hannah, who grew up in the Tabernacle serving God and the High Priest Eli.  Late one night the Bible tells us that Samuel heard a voice calling his name.  He got up, went to the side of the aging Eli the priest, as he probably did fairly often, and asked “What is it you want?”  Eli tells Samuel that he did not call him, and sends him back to bed.

The Bible tells us this happens three times before the High Priest realizes what’s going on.  Finally it dawns on the old priest that God is calling the boy.

Now we can understand why young Samuel might be confused.  What doesn’t make sense is Eli’s response.  How can the High Priest of Israel fail to recognize the voice of God?

I suspect it’s because Eli fell for our second myth: God doesn’t speak to people any more.

Surely Eli knew all the stories about God talking to people in the past.  People like Adam, Cain, Noah, Terah, Abraham, Jacob, Moses, Joshua, Deborah, and Gideon.  Even in Eli’s day there were many stories of God speaking to people.

The problem was, it hadn’t happened for a long time.  1 Samuel 3:1b tells us “In those days the word of the LORD was rare; there were not many visions.”

It wasn’t that Eli didn’t realize God spoke to people.  It’s that he assumed it didn’t happen any more.

Sound like anyone you know?

We make the same mistake. We read the Bible and hear God speaking to all these people and wonder why it can’t happen for us.  Why doesn’t he speak today like he did back then?  Why doesn’t God speak any more.

Only he does.

Note the advice that Eli gives Samuel when he finally figures out what’s happening.  “Go and lie down, and if he calls you, say, ‘Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.’”

If we want to hear God’s voice, we have to learn how to listen.  And we can’t learn to listen to God if we are ignoring His Word.

We don’t live in times like Samuel and Eli.  We don’t have to wait for a prophet to come before we have the opportunity to hear God’s Word.  God has given us His Word.  We call it the Bible.

Unfortunately, We spend too much time reading our Bible.

Now before you start throwing rocks at me, let me explain.

You might not realize this, but at least as far as I can tell the Bible contains no commands that God’s people read God’s Word.

There are a couple of commands that come close.  Deuteronomy 17:19 comes close. But it’s not directed at just anyone.  It specifically applies to the King of Israel.  And to my knowledge, none of my teens nor any of my blog’s subscribers are the King of Israel.  And 1 Timothy 4:13 comes close.  But it’s not a command to Timothy to engage in devotional reading.  It’s a command that the pastor Timothy devote himself to reading scripture publicly in corporate worship.

Beyond those two, the Bible never commands us to read it.  Possibly that’s because few people in Bible times enjoyed the privileges we do today.  Few owned written copies of the Scriptures (and the copies that did exist were to valuable to make accessible to the general public.)  And very few would have been able to read them if they could get their hands on a copy.  The Word was heard, not read by the common man and woman.

But that doesn’t mean that the Bible commands us to ignore Scripture.  Just the opposite.  The Bible commands that we:

• Study God’s Word
• Memorize God’s Word
• Meditate on God’s Word
• Obey God’s Word
• Delight in God’s Word

But perhaps most interesting of all to me, God commands us to eat his Word.

Take for example the story of John on the Island of Patmos.  He sees a vision of a mighty angel, straddling land and see, holding a scroll which contains God’s Word to God’s people.  The angel is speaking from the open scroll, and John wants to record what he says, but a voice from heaven (wonder who that could be?) commands him to stop writing.  Instead, says the Voice, “Go, take the scroll that lies open in the hand of the angel.”

When John obeys, the angel commands him “Take it and eat it. It will turn your stomach sour, but in your mouth it will be as sweet as honey.”

And when you stop and look into it, John’s not the only one to eat God’s Word.  Ezekiel and Jeremiah both found themselves dining on the Word.

But what could this mean for us? How are we supposed to eat the Word?

• You chew on your food. At least hopefully you do.  It’s less than healthy to wolf down your food without taking the time to chew on it for a while.  Besides, you miss out on the best parts if you rush through your meal like that.  In the same way, God calls us not just to rush through reading our Bible in order to get on to what comes next.  He wants us to take time to chew on it.  For more on this idea, take a look at Eugene Petersen’s book Eat this Book.  In it he notes that the Hebrew word for “meditate” is actually a word picture depicting a dog, “worrying a bone,” chewing at it to get out every morsel of goodness.  A powerful image that shows how much more God expects from us than just reading the Bible.
• You allow it to become a part of you. Our bodies take nutrients from the food we eat and use it to fuel the process of growth, until, quite literally, what we digest becomes a part of who we are.  In the same way, God calls us to digest his Word, integrating it into our lives until it becomes a part of who we are.
• You live and move with the energy it gives. It is our food that drives our physical activity.  In the same way God calls us to digest his Word until we are driven by it’s energy and movement, until we move with it’s rhythm and flow.
• Sometimes it upsets your stomach. Kinda like eating too much Pop Rocks and Coca Cola, sometimes what you eat doesn’t settle so well.  John found out God’s word is like this too.  John obeys the angel and then reports “It tasted as sweet as honey in my mouth, but when I had eaten it, my stomach turned sour. (Rev. 10:10)  Truth be told, God’s Word shouldn’t sit well with us.  It should be troubling, and it should stir within our bellies a holy discontent until we are moved to change.  When God’s Word is troubling, don’t worry.  Like Denorex, the tingle tells you it’s working.

So, don’t fall for the myth that God doesn’t speak to people any more.  He’s given you His Word, start eating?

Volunteer/Student Involvement: Students continue to be involved in every level of our programming.  What is more, the number of cast and crew in our videos is growing.  On the adult side, we had a few extra adults helping fill in tonight too, so things are looking up.

Element of Fun/Positive Environment: We started playing a “mythbuster” game.  Students were called up front, read three statements (two true, one false) and were asked to identify the myth.  Player who correctly identified the most myths won.  We also gave everyone a package of Pop Rocks and a can of Coca Cola to enjoy during the game.  Finally, we showed the second episode of Mythbuster’s: Water’s Edge.

Worship Set: Hungry;   Father, Spirit, Jesus;   Jesus Messiah; And one other I can’t remember just now.

Favorite Moment: Seeing Sierra bring a couple of friends.  It’s always awesome to see teens bringing their friends with them.  After all, that’s why we do what we do!  (And she wasn’t the only one.)