The Joy Of Reading The Word Of God

January 23, 2022 Sermon Spiritual Disciplines: The Joy of Reading the Word

We are on the 3rd week of our current study of the spiritual disciplines, which we’ve also referred to as spiritual privileges, because they most definitely are that. They are ways that we can grow, ways that we can blossom as we take responsibility for doing our part of connecting with God.

Did you know that you have a part in your relationship with God? Did you know that you are not just a passive receiver of God’s grace? Any relationship requires an investment - of time, energy, emotion and reason. We understand that with other humans - if we put nothing into a relationship with another person, that relationship will never grow.

It may remain an acquaintanceship - you know - you’ve met the person, maybe you remember their name, likely you remember their face - but they are for sure not part of your deeper life.

But when we put the time and effort into getting to know someone, again the time, energy, emotion and reason, we get close to them. Do you want to be near to God? Do you want to have sweet fellowship with your Redeemer?

That could be a question we need to thoughtfully sort through, but assuming our final answer is “yes”, there are things that you can do to draw near - and those are broadly referred to as spiritual disciplines, which again we like to also call spiritual privileges.

The first week we looked at an overview of all or most of the spiritual disciplines. Last week we looked in some depth at prayer as a key way to connect with God, and we looked in particular at a few concrete approaches to drawing near to God.

For our discussion about the spiritual discipline of Reading the Word, I also want to look at some pretty clear, tried and true approaches to engaging with God through the Reading of His Word.

First we might ask, “why?” Why isn’t prayer and giving and going to worship services enough? Isn’t that just adding a big old drag to the Christian life by saying we should ALSO read the Bible? That is a possible response to this topic.

I might respond in this way: there is a version of the Christian life that involves simply believing the gospel, praying on occasion, and attending services. That’s not all that uncommon. But, and it’s a big but, that can take us only so far. Just for the purpose of broad illustration, let’s look at this.

If 1 is the point of conversion to Christ and 10 is the fullness of life in Christ, then that version of believing, praying a bit and attending services might take us to a 3 at best. Likely, in my experience personally and as a pastor, pretty much never beyond a 3. When 8,9 or 10 is possible, why stay at a three?

When the dinner table has steak and chicken and potatoes and vegetables and salad and milk, why only drink the milk and not all that is available to you, as a gift by the one throwing the banquet?

Think of a child as he’s growing only ever being given milk. Milk is awesome and perfectly appropriate for an infant, who is small and somewhat helpless. In fact they must be fed by others.

But we know that as the child grows, they must eat other, more substantial food, or they will suffer. In fact their growth will halt. Perhaps you’ve seen pictures of underfed children. They are very, very sad and difficult to see.

We want to be well-nourished. We want to be able to feed ourselves. We want, I would suspect, to thrive.

Pastor Arleen talked about the Inward spiritual disciplines in the first message in this series a few weeks back: They are: Prayer, contemplation, journaling, fasting, solitude and studying the word of God.

As we look at The Joy of Reading the Word, we discover that contemplation, journaling, solitude and studying the word of God are addressed in today’s message.

I say all that by way of introduction. We make reading the Word of God a regular practice in our lives in order to grow, and in order to grow up into maturity. Now let’s get into 3 ways to engage in Reading the Bible: Lection Divina, Talking to God Through His Word and Leaning to Swim. You’ll need to stay with me to understand what I mean

Lectio Divina (Divine Reading)

This is a tried and true method of communing with God through His Word. It’s always a good idea to have a safe, quiet comfortable space where you can do this. How do we practice this? Here’s how:

We Prepare - 5 to 10 minutes