Story

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Pete Hughes, he’s a British pastor, contemporary author. Today, he has a line that I just can’t get over. He says, the story you live in is the story. You live out as human beings. We don’t just love stories. We hear them long enough and we begin to live them. You and I are not just drawn by stories. We are in fact driven by them.

Just yesterday I was reading a book called The Originals. Have you read that yet? Nope. By Adam Grant. It’s a wonderful book, and in it he actually talks about the impact of story. Uh, and this isn’t on your notes, you know, you’re, I’m already, I think you’re going off script already. I, he said we weren’t gonna do this anyways, so, uh, this is what I do.

So, in it, it actually talked about how stories, children’s books will always kind of point to how those, when they become adults, what will, how it they will become and how they will be shaped. So we actually gave an example in the 18 hundreds. There was a huge theme here in America to write stories about being original and being a creator like an inventor.

20 to 40 years later, after that predominant fiend of books, there was a 66% uptick in people doing what as adults, creating, making, and, and actually making patents. What you tell stories to, to your children. We’ll form them as adults. You see this in the data time and time again. Andrew Delbanco. He has this really fascinating book.

It’s called The Real American Dream. And in it he argues the direction of our nation has always been driven by a story. It’s what makes history to me fascinating, especially American history. There he argues that there’s been three stories, not all at once, but there’s been shifts of hope, a narrative that helped people come to America and stay there and keep making it larger and larger.

The first point he makes is in the beginning of America, the, the general narrative was that of God puritans, right? They fled religious persecution and they founded America. And in his book he says, hope was chiefly expressed through a Christian story. They gave meaning to suffering and pleasure alike and promised deliverance from death.

So this story, contrary to popular belief, I think was pretty short-lived. Many would say historians like Andrew, Deb Banco, that America wasn’t really the, the God narrative. The story about this is a place for God only lasted up until the Revolutionary War. Then there was a shift in stories. You saw it in the newspapers and books.

Everything. It now became not about God, it became about country. So for those next period of time, it was all about many factors that were shifting away from God because of the enlightenment and really about what can we do for our people. And so you even see remnants of this today where things like the Constitution are held and the same regard as the scriptures.

Never forget a conversation. Someone said that the two things I believe are the Bible and the Constitution. I’m like, okay, but like can you say Bible and then like Constitution, way down here, right? Not to dishonor the Constitution, but to that dishonors the Bible to put those in the same sentence. But this was really the story.

Uh, this was the idea that American freedom is worth dying for. It was actually a compelling narrative because it, it was all about expanding a kingdom called America, and it was. What was great about this narrative that we don’t have today is that it was something to live for, but hear me, it was also something to die for the stories we have today, there’s nothing worth dying for.

There’s a lot worth killing for, but we’ll get to that later. There’s no longer, this is no longer the majority story since World War II and especially the 1960s, you had a new narrative, Delbanco argues, and it’s that of self-actualization. This is the story you and I live today. Unless we are very intentional being shaped by another story, we no longer sacrifice for God.

In fact, we no longer sacrifice for country. We don’t trust institutions in general, and we certainly won’t give people power over our lives. Our hope is an individual freedom and our own defined identity and our own defined purposes. Sam Berry, uh, really helpful pastor and author says the eighties was all about serve yourself the nineties.

Find yourself the two thousands. Accept yourself, the 2010s. Express yourself. And I would argue the 2020s redefine yourself. And this story of self-actualization has divided our country. And more than that, it has destroyed our souls, mainly cuz it really has no answer for pain and has no answer for evil.

The new story that you and I are bathed in today, the story of self is essentially boiled down to this one story. Pursue a story in life where you maximize pleasure and minimize pain. We see this in everything, even in getting people to volunteer for church, that’s a little painful. We automatically assume pain, boredom, hard things are bad.

Because the narrative, we had been bathed in it. There was some cultures they believed if it wasn’t hard, then it wasn’t good. We’re the exact opposite today. It also doesn’t have a robust framework for evil. We know there’s evil, there’s rallies, right? We know there’s injustice, but we can’t really point to, uh, a bible, a word, something higher than us that shows what’s true.

And you’ll even see those who have really bought into this narrative of the self. We are shocked that there’s still so much evil in this world. Why is there still so many bad things that happen? And our word kind of makes it clear. We know that there is still evil in this world, and we have an explanation for it.

So we didn’t just wake up one day and decide to become a nation of self-actualization. But what has happened slowly but surely, we reshaped our stories and now our stories have reshaped us. And so what we need to do is to change the story. In this moment of confusion, despair, division, and chaos. The Bible can be, again, a lamp to our feet in a light and to our path.

Here’s the problem though. Typically we look to the Bible just as like a cookbook. Five Ways to Save Your Marriage, three Ways to Increase Your Income. Now, are those things bad? I mean, I’ll take ’em, right? But it’s not the whole purpose of this. If you relegate it just to a cookbook, you’re missing out on something really special.

Not only that, the Bible, a lot of us treat it as a rule book, right? Have you ever heard the Bible thing, basic instruction before Leaving Earth that woefully falls short. That doesn’t give us the answer to a lot of things. In fact, it makes you think everything has an answer and it’s simply not true. And the last thing is a lot of us just read it as a textbook, and that’s not what what’s gonna help us today.

Right. We need to believe that this word of God is living. It’s active, it’s sharper than any two-edged sword. And so it has the power to do something in our life. It’s not just an ancient document that we can just leave whenever we want. Instead, what’s more compelling, it’s not a cookbook, it’s not a rule book, it’s not a textbook, it’s a story.

Yeah. So a lot of us grew up with these sort of reductionist views of what the Bible is or what it isn’t. And so in an effort to help us all be on the same page about how to read the Bible as a story, here’s our best definition of what the Bible is. So the Bible, this is simple, is a library of writings both human and divine, that together tell a unified story that points to Jesus.

So I just wanna make three kind of quick observations about that statement, about what the Bible is and what it isn’t. So first, uh, the, the Bible is a library, not a book. Uh, it technically didn’t take the form of a book that you have in your hands now, or that Pastor Tray has. I have it on my iPad. That’s okay.

It’s fine. It didn’t take the form of that book until later. Uh, you know, after the printing press in the 15th century, before that, it was really just a compilation of different scrolls, uh, and letters and things like that. And so when you talked about scripture, you talked about a, a storehouse that had multiple scrolls, and that was scripture.

And then, uh, letters and things got added to it as they were recognized as being divinely authored and inspired. And so this means that when you read the Bible, when you pick up the Bible to read it, you are not reading like one single story written by one person from start to finish. Like you would read other religious texts like the Koran or something like Lord of the Rings, where it’s like, there’s a lot of things in there, but it was written.

Yeah. There you go. Yeah. You’re a Lord of the Rings fan now. I am now. All right. We’ll talk about that later. It was written by one person, you know, JR. R Tolkin wrote from beginning to end. The Bible is not like that. The Bible is a library of books. Uh, that means that we have to, when we read the Bible, when we pick it up and when we actually study it and go through it, we have to learn to read it as a collection of books.

Um, that are all kind of put together in a way that they’re unified, but they all are made up of individual pieces. And so think about how you would approach a library, an actual library versus an encyclopedia. So library, you know, you, you walk in and you’re expecting to engage with fiction books differently than you’re expecting to engage with, like textbooks and poetry books and things like that.

Um, and encyclopedia is just, it’s a volume that has different topics and you kind of look up what you want to look up and, and you learn that way. Um, each book of the Bible fits into a genre, and so there’s multiple genres in the Bible. Uh, how you read Genesis in the Old Testament is gonna be different than how you read Psalms or the letters in the New Testament.

Uh, simply put, this means that we have to learn how to read the Bible literary, which just means like literature. Like if you read good literature, like Lord, the Rings good literature. Amen has different genres in it. There’s poetry in there, there’s like weird kind of laws, there’s fairy tales, there’s myths, and then it all kind of comes together to tell one epic story.

And so when you’re reading the Bible, you have to learn how to read it within its context. Look at the author, look at what’s happening in the context. What’s the genre? What’s the, what’s the author trying to communicate? And then how does this fit into the larger story as a whole? So, secondly, the Bible is both human and divine.

And so contrary to popular belief, the Bible, uh, did not plop down from heaven just as one book already put together. Uh, instead, inspired by the Holy Spirit writers of Scripture, different authors of these books wrote down their stories, their experiences, uh, and their instructions. And so these writings were later recognized.

They were not created, but they were recognized as divinely inspired. Hmm. And so that means that’s really important, that when we read the Bible, when you’re reading a certain book of the Bible, you’re reading something by a specific person, written for a specific purpose, and every author of the Bible is gonna.

They’re gonna demonstrate their own personalities and their own characteristics through whatever it is they’re writing. And so John, the Apostle John writes a lot about God’s love and he’s very like emotional and God is a divine. He’s God and God is love and we are him. And you know, all that stuff. And then Paul is like very law and like he calls you out and he calls you stupid.

Sometimes in the Greek it’s the Greek word. So very different approaches. Yeah. The Greek word for stupid, I don’t know what that is. I forgot. Did you actually know it? I did at one point. Anyways, different authors writing differently. Paul is very different from John. And usually your personality will be drawn to the, some people like John Moore, some people like Paul Moore.

Exactly. Some people like David, some people like Moses, so they’re all bringing something to the text that they’re writing. At the same time, the Bible is also divine. And so the Bible is humanly authored, written by people, but it’s also inspired by God. What that means is that it’s authoritative, which we talked about last week.

You can go back and listen to that. But that means that it actually points us to what’s really true, that because God is kind of helping inspire these people to write down their stories. That what’s, what’s being recorded and what we have is trustworthy. Uh, and that’s the second thing that, um, the Bible isn’t written by people that have an agenda.

Uh, the Bible is written by people that have experienced and encountered God, are writing down their experiences. And then through the Holy Spirit is those experiences are being recognized as these are things that actually reflect who God is and who we are in light of, uh, the story. And so, third thing, the Bible tells a story that points to Jesus.

So I’m gonna read a passage. This is Luke 14, or sorry, Luke four, verse 16 through 21. And we’re gonna look at a few passages that all cut passages that point to the Bible being a story, a collective sort of narrative that points to Jesus. Uh, this is Luke four. Just for context, um, this is the beginning of Luke’s gospel.

Jesus is just kind of starting out his ministry. This is one of the first things he does to like publicly announce that he’s here and that he’s gonna teach, and that he’s the son of God and all of that. So starting in verse 16 of Luke four, he came to Nazareth where he had been brought up as usual. He entered the synagogue on the Sabbath day and stood up to read the scroll of the prophet.

Isaiah was given to him, notice a scroll, not the Bible, but a single scroll of the prophet Isaiah and unrolling the scroll. He found the place where it is written. The spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim and release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind to set free the oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.

He then rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. And the eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fixed on him. He began by saying to them, today, as you listen, this scripture has been fulfilled. And so what Jesus is doing here, this is Sunday gathering, like a Jewish person would go to the synagogue just like we are gathering together, and they would hear something from the scriptures being read, and then they would hear some kind of teaching on it.

And so Jesus is doing exactly what we’re doing right now, except when he reads this Old Testament prophecy from Isaiah. He sees it as part of a larger story that is ultimately going to find it’s ending in him. And so to Jesus, everything that was written in the Old Testament is part of a narrative, right?

A part of something that’s pointing to what he is about to do. So each book, each genre, each letter and each poem fit together to tell this large story. And it’s a story that Jesus recognized, that God has been telling about himself, about humanity, about the world, and even for us today about our place in the world as well.

I wanna look at another passage later at the end of Luke’s gospel in Luke 24. So this is at the end of Jesus’ ministry. This is actually at the end of his death and resurrection. So he teaches, he does the miracles, uh, he’s crucified for three days. He’s dead, and then he rises again. And between his resurrection and this passage, he’s kind of appearing to different people.

And so this is after his death, uh, starting in verse 13. Now, that same day, two of them were on their way to the village called a Emmaus, which was about seven miles from Jerusalem. So these are two disciples of Jesus. Together they were discussing everything that had taken place. So that’s everything that Jesus has just done.

And while they were discussing and arguing, Jesus himself came near and began to walk along with them, but they were prevented from recognizing him. Then he asked them, what is this dispute that you were having with each other as you are walking? And they stopped walking and they looked discouraged. The one named Cleopas answered him.

Are you the only visitor in Jerusalem who doesn’t know the things that happened here in these days? What things he asked them? So they said to him the things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet, powerful in action and speech before God and all the people and how are chief priests and leaders handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him, but we were hoping that he was the one who was about to redeem Israel.

Besides all this. It’s the third day since these things happened. So essentially they’re saying, we were excited to follow this Jesus, but then he died and he’s been dead for three days. Go up to verse 25 if you’re following along. Jesus said to them how foolish you are and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.

Wasn’t it necessary for the Messiah to suffer these things and enter into his glory? Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets that shorthand for the Old Testament. Beginning with the Old Testament, he interpreted for them the things concerning himself in all the scriptures. Best Bible study all time.

Best Bible study of all time the goat. You sit down with Jesus and he basically explains everything that you’ve ever had a question about from the Old Testament, and showed how they all pointed to him, and then this is the effect that it has on them. Picking up in verse 31, then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, but he disappeared from their sight.

They said to each other, weren’t our hearts burning within us while he was talking with us on the road and explaining the scriptures to us like the disciples on the road to Emmaus. By understanding the story that scripture is actually telling, we have an answer, a real answer to why evil exists in the world.

We have an answer to where our hope comes from. We have an answer to what meaning in life really looks like, and we have an answer to how to live in the midst. Stiff pain. One more passage, John five, verse 39 through 40. Uh, you can flip there or just follow along on screen. Uh, this is in an argument, a debate that Jesus is having with, uh, the Pharisees who considered themselves experts of the Bible.

And this is what Jesus tells them. You pour over the scriptures. I think the N I V says you study the scriptures diligently. Hmm. You think you have eternal life in them, and yet they testify about me, but you are not willing to come to me so that you may have life. All I just wanna point out, there is a way to pour over the scriptures.

To study the scriptures diligently and completely miss the point of scripture altogether. Wow. This is information versus formation. If the goal in reading the Bible is just getting a lot of knowledge, then like the Pharisees, we can completely miss the point. But if the goal of reading scripture, especially as a story, is to lead us to Jesus, Jesus says, this is how you find life.

That’s good. I want you to open your Bibles now to Isaiah eight. As you’re turning there, um, again, I’m trying to really give you time. I realize a lot of times when I preach, I say the address and then I go and I want to give you some time to actually look it up. But here’s a, a key idea we want to lean into now, is if we don’t see our, our Bible as a story to live in, then it won’t be a story.

We live out. We’re gonna pick a story, trust me, but it’s gonna be a lesser version. And so even a, a good point is we need to saturate ourselves in the word of God. And that’s one key practice we’re gonna talk about at the end of this message. Really getting into the Bible, you don’t really see it as a story until you read it over and over again, but take a look with me in Isaiah eight.

It’s a good example of someone who is looking for a story to make sense of the pain and chaos they’re experiencing in their life. And in their world. Isaiah chapter eight, uh, verse 11. It says, for this is what the Lord said to me with great power. Underline this to keep me from going. The way of this people, there’s confusion, chaos, heartache, and they’re now being frantic and there’s sharing stories to make sense of the world.

Look at verse 12. Do not call everything a conspiracy that these people say is a conspiracy. What are they doing? They’re freaking out and now they’re having conspiracy theories. We don’t do that today at all. Let’s keep reading. Do not fear what they fear. Typically, we do conspiracies because we’re afraid and we’re confused.

Do not be terrified. You are to regard only the Lord of armies as holy. Only he should be feared only He should be held in. Ah. Like the time of Isaiah, we’re in a cultural moment of fear, confusion of pain. I think it’s because we’ve had a story that isn’t making sense anymore, right? We were shared a story of how the world’s supposed to work, and the world is not working that way.

We’re freaking out and we’re making up new stories. We’re desperately grabbing to make sense of the pain and the chaos. What stories do is they f they have the power to frame our fears and bring clarity to our confusion. Quickly take a look at the screen. Let’s look at the next slide. What does that mean?

Hurry? Does anybody know? Okay, here’s what stories do. Next slide. Now these make sense. I, ibm, f b, cia, J fk, lds, nsa. That isn’t like a sequential story. It’s not like some code I IBM M took over the f b I shot the cia. Okay? Where we’re getting. Cia, jfk, there’s something. Anyway, so conspiracy theory. Um, I did not plan that.

It’s not in the notes. It’s not in the notes, but you see what stories do. What they’re able to do is they take confusion and spread things out and go, here’s what this all means. Now, it could just be, I accidentally just typed all those letters, but you space them out. It’s like, look what he meant. Why does it say ibm?

I knew it. Right? This is what stories can do. It has a way to frame our fears and bring clarity to all the confusion. Here’s the reality. You and I are bombarded with stories every single day. The two primary ways you and I hear stories are through marketers and through politicians, marketers, they sell us deceptive stories that tap into our dreams and desires.

Watched a commercial the other day, if I own a truck, it says I’m gonna like go camping every weekend. I’m gonna have friends who want to hang out with me, and I’m gonna like a really good looking dog. I need that truck, right? This is what they do. And what happens is we buy them subconsciously. We believe those stories.

There’s a reason. There’s certain brands that you wear and brands that you don’t wear. It’s all about story and it’s a narrative that you’ve bought. I, if you have time, look into the, the story of Steve Jobs and how he painted Apple as like the place of rebellion, right? And everybody bought Apple once he figured out his pitch, what the story is all about.

And also, politicians hate to say it, but they sell us deceptive stories to tap into not our dreams and desires, especially as of late more. They share stories to tap into our fears and our nightmares. Vote for me. So your nightmare will never happen again. We believe them subconsciously, but they never fulfill us.

They leave us empty. It is a story that has no good ending. Now hear me out are some conspiracies, right? Yeah. I saw Elvis the other day. It was crazy. Some are right, sometimes it’s true. Sometimes the government lies to us, which so many movies say that, right? And we believe that. But here’s the question we should ask, even with all conspiracies and just stories in general.

What am I grabbing for when I long to hear those stories? Why do I wanna believe this conspiracy to be true? And it’s usually because you’re full of fear. The world isn’t as it should be, and you desperately want peace and clarity. You want control. The next question I want you to ask, what do these conspiracies produce in me?

Typically, it creates divisive people, creates hatred, tribalism us, verse them. It definitely creates hours of doom scrolling and watching stuff online, going through rabbit holes. The devil would love to just distract us with all these other stories we bring about this point to show we all love stories.

And we’re all gonna live in one. Will you trust the story of scripture or these other stories that are bombarding us every day? God tells us in this earth, keep from going the way of this people. The sad truth is that we will orient our lives around memes with far less resistance than if somebody gave us a scripture that challenges our own thinking.

I’m gonna say it one more time. The sad reality is we will orient our lives around a meme with far less resistance than if somebody gave us a scripture that challenges our own thinking. But here at this church, we believe the ultimate truth is not found in the latest conspiracy or political party. It’s found in the person of work of Jesus as told in the story of scripture.

Bono for the win.

Any U2 fans. Good. Let’s get to the next one. Nobody, okay. I think it’s cuz all of us were forced to have that album on their iPod and it’s like, I didn’t want this, but you made me download an apple. Anyways, bono, he has a really helpful, uh, quote I wanna share with you, even though we all apparently hate him.

All right, so here we are. You see at the center of all religions is this idea of karma. So he’s saying, this is a story most of us play. You know, what you put out comes back to you. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics and physical laws. Every action is met by an equal or an opposite one.

It’s clear to me that karma is at the very heart of the universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet along comes this idea, or I would say story called grace to upend all that quote as you reap so you will. So stuff. Grace defies reason and logic, love interrupts if you like the consequences of your actions.

Which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff, including making his songs apparently. But anyways, I’ll keep moving. I thought there’d be at least one U2 fan. Woo. Okay. Pray for me. I’m not in touch with the people. Now, here’s what this idea is that we wanna lean into.

This is the story. We’re all called to live to the story of grace and the story of truth. And we have the, we can make the decision either to live into that story or live into another one. So we wanna humbly ask this question, what can happen if Passion Creek lives out? The story of scripture, what can happen where we become a people of rest in a world of hurry?

Right? I I, I hope that this last three months, as we’re going through Sabbath, we’ve bought into this story. That we are a community who rests once a week to the glory of God. We use it to breathe in his grace and to pour out his praise. We live in a world that believes the story of Pharaoh, of doing more, having more, being more.

And once a week we say, no, no, no, no. That’s not the narrative we believe in. We believe God is enough for us. In fact, we believe in this thing called grace, and so God loves us. Even on the days when we do nothing. That’s a story. We aren’t exhausted. We are a people at rest. So that we may become a people of love.

And when you to imagine if we lived out the story of scripture, we can become a people of truth in a world of lies where you and I were not in prison with shame, but we’re captured by grace. If I can just say, as your pastor, so many of us in this room believe the story of shame and it is trapping you.

It is suffocating you from what God really has in store. But if we live in this story continually reading what it means, we will eventually live it out because of the cross. We are people of grace in a people of truth. Imagine where we become a people of contentment in a world of consumption. If we live out the story of scripture, what’s gonna happen for our community is we will truly believe and live out this reality that less is more, and that it really is better to give than to receive.

And we believe one more. There’s a lot that we have in our vision board of what we’re gonna be as a people and the story that we’re gonna live out according to the scriptures. But we really do believe, as we bathe ourselves in the scriptures, we’re gonna become a people of hospitality and a world of hostility.

We believe the story that it’s not us. Verse them. There’s not certain people we’re not allowed to talk to. No. We love all of our neighbors.  We sacrifice for all of them. We love each and every one of them. Even the ones who hate us, we’re gonna love and serve them in secret sometimes, right? Bless them without getting the credit.

Why? Because the story of scripture is about Jesus. And Jesus live this way, and His Holy Spirit has been given to us so that we can live the very same as well, not so we can earn God’s love, but know that we churn to God’s love that’s fully on offer. And again, the only reason we wouldn’t do any of these things is because we’re living in society.

Stories, stories that aren’t full of Christ, but are full of karma. Stories that aren’t full of grace, but full of hate stories we believe that aren’t full of forgiveness, but retribution stories that aren’t about love. It’s about lust. It’s not about a covenant, it’s about the contract. And it’s our job as pastors to really point out the stories of society and say, Jesus’ way is certainly better.

And when you and I become students of the scripture, so we could be honest about our hurts, but not imprisoned by them, we could be honest about our failures, but not defined by them. And we could be honest about our past, but not condemned by them. That’s the story I wanna live in. That’s the story that I want us to live in.

And I believe that is the story of scripture. Yeah. And so read scripture is so powerful. Hebrew says that it, it divides between bone and marrow because what it does is you don’t, usually, you don’t realize the story that you’re living in. Hmm. So by reading scripture, what’s gonna happen is you’re gonna familiarize yourself with what’s really true about yourself and about God and about others.

To the point that then you start to recognize intentionally and over time, slowly the story that you’re actually living out. And so, We always want to end by giving you a practice or something really practical that you can do. How do you actually read scripture? Like a story If you’re thinking this is great, and how do I do that?

Cuz Leviticus is really hard. Um, I would say here’s, here’s, I’m gonna give you two practices. Before I do that, let me just say too, in the scripture guide that we wrote for you, uh, which you can pick one up if you don’t have one already, or just go to form by jesus.com and it’s on there digitally. There’s a section that actually gives you the overview.

What’s the story that scripture’s actually telling from Genesis to Revelation? Yeah. So when you’re looking at a book of the Bible, you can know exactly kind of where it fits and what, what part of the story you’re in. But here’s kind of two key practices that we want to lean into this week, but hopefully as we move forward from here in the months and the years to come.

So first, just start by reading through the New Testament. Uh, the bookmarks that we’ve given you are designed to, to take you through the New Testament, um, in a way that is actually engaging and helpful and practical. Uh, but notice we didn’t put dates on them and that’s because we want you to go at your own page.

And so if it takes you a, you know, a week to get through, you know, one of the little check boxes, that’s okay. If it takes you a day, if it takes you three weeks, the goal is that you just kind of slowly begin saturating your mind with the story that the Bible is telling you. And for some of us, like this is the first step.

We just need to start. Yeah, we just need to pick up our Bibles and actually read it and not aimlessly, like we have to have an end goal in mind, right? So by reading through the New Testament, we see sort of the end of the story. We see how it all makes sense. We start with the life of Jesus, and it kind of goes through about how that impacts us today.

Um, and so read through the New Testament. Make a commitment to, to work your way through that bookmark, either by yourself or with your family or with a friend or two. Uh, the second thing though, and this is the practice that you’re actually gonna do in your groups this week, um, is to actually read large portions of scripture at a time.

And so this was actually how much of scripture would have been read, uh, the Old Testament narratives, for example. Uh, they would’ve been handed down orally. And so you would actually sit down in a community like this and you would tell the story of Abraham and Genesis or of Noah or of King David or whatever, and you would listen and you would kind of hear it all being told from start to finish.

You would see God’s movement throughout the whole thing. Um, there are various parts throughout the Old Testament where the actual law is read in, in its entirety to the Israelites. And so, um, the Israelites are commanded to do this every seven years after Moses dies. God says, when you do this every seven years, read the law.

Why? So that they know their place and the story. Uh, Ezra and the book of Nehemiah does this for the Israelites as well. He tells them their story as they’re about to get to ready to, to rebuild the temple. There’s a lot of context there, I know. Don’t worry about it. But basically the Israelites are about to step into who God called them to be and to prepare them for that.

Ezra reads them their story all in one sitting from daybreak until noon, until they’ve gotten through it all. And so, and then even the New Testament, the, the letters of the New Testament that were written when you read Roman. That was a letter written to a church, so they would be delivered to the church.

Whoever delivered it would then read it all in one sitting to the community. The community would hear the story being told and they would go and they would live it out. And so by reading large portions like this, we’re reconnecting with the ancient way of reading scripture that people throughout history of always read it.

We’re familiarizing ourself with the story. We’re familiarizing ourself with God’s actions in God’s movement. We’re familiarizing ourselves with ourselves and how we respond. We learn to place ourselves in the story, and ultimately we get to see where we fit in the story that God has been telling from the beginning of time, all the way until new creation in Revelation.

Can I just say you can do it. You can read the old, the New Testament I. This, this room is really special to me. Uh, when I was in junior high, I went here, you know, only a few years ago, and, um, I fell in love with my Bible. I fell in love with it. I, I couldn’t stop reading it. And I was in seventh grade and what’s so funny is I got it so wrong.

So like, as I think back, I look back at my seventh grade Bible and my notes on the side, I’m like, Trey, this was not gospel. You missed it. But it’s a helpful reminder for me as we’re in this room, you’re gonna mess up. There’s gonna be times your takeaway for the day is gonna be wrong, but man, you got in your scriptures.

And that’s right. It over the long haul, the scripture’s gonna help you interpret scripture and you’re gonna lean in. So many of us. We wait to understand the Bible in order to read it, but we have to read it and order to understand it. And so I just wanna say, you can do this. Pick a friend here in this room, start saturating your mind with the scriptures.

And see what God can do. We can talk all day, say we’re blue in the face about how we want God to show up in a miraculous way. We wanna become this people who are Sabbath people and we wanna be loving, we want, we can say that forever. But until we become a people of scripture, I’m convinced it won’t happen, and so may we.

Let me encourage you, decide today to say, you know what? Every day is not gonna be great, but I’m gonna put in the time. It’s not about marking off tallies for God, it’s about marking out time with God. And when you approach the scriptures and allow it to shape your life, you’ll be changed for eternity.

Let’s pray.