All right, I want to invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Psalm 19. I'm going to read verses 7 through 9 from Psalm 19 as we begin a new sermon series this morning on spiritual habits. And if you're using one of our Bibles, it's on page 579. Here now, God's holy, true, and life-giving word. Psalm 19 verses 7 through 9. The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul. The testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever. The rules of the Lord are true and righteous altogether. This is the word of the Lord. Let's pray together. Father, we do thank You so much for Your Word in which You reveal Yourself and Your Spirit and Your Son. And we do pray that You would bless us now as we look at some of the things Your Word says about You and Your Word. We do pray that You will fill us with joy as we realize what the Scriptures are and as we think about what they do, what Your Word does within us as we believe it and as we apply it. Would You bless our time now in Your Word and we pray in Jesus' name, amen. All right, so let me give a sentence and I want to see how You would complete it. And don't do it out loud because that could be awkward. How would You therefore finish this sentence? 2019 will be the year in which I... Blank, what would that be? This is the year in which I will what? We have a lot of college students. Some of you might answer that by saying 2019 will be the year in which I graduate. Maybe some of you are thinking 2019 is going to be the year that I get that promotion that I've been after. Maybe some of you are thinking 2019 is the year that will become empty nesters and your sort of half terrified, half exhilarated. Or maybe you think 2019 is already a bust on January 2nd. My sister showed me a meme that said, I've messed up already 2020 will be my year for sure. Whatever it is, whatever our hopes are for this year, I hope we can together choose to make a goal of saying this as a church. 2019 will be the year in which I grow spiritually more than I have, maybe ever or at least in a long time. What if we began this year here even though we're a week into it? What if we started off this year with that as our heart? That we want this to be a year in which we grow spiritually and flourish spiritually more than we have in the past. I hope that we can have that hope and that prayer together because after all, the more that we grow spiritually, the more we're fulfilling the purpose that we were created for, which is to glorify and enjoy God. Like we said in the Catechism question in answer. Why would we not want to grow spiritually? The more we do, the more we glorify and enjoy God. And so one of the things that's important about spiritual growth is these habits that God's people employ in order to embrace and experience more and more of the grace of God, like Mike preached about last week. And so we're going to be talking about some of these habits that are important for us if we want to grow spiritually, if we want to flourish spiritually and experience more of what it is to glorify God and more joy in our relationship with God. So for the next few weeks we'll be talking about some habits to have that lead to spiritual growth and flourishing. And so this week we're going to talk about scripture, scripture, and our habits with scripture. One author says, no spiritual discipline is more important than the intake of God's word. Nothing can substitute for it. There simply is no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of scripture. That's pretty compelling, right? There is simply no healthy Christian life apart from a diet of the milk and meat of scripture. We can listen to that, but we can also listen more importantly to our king himself, to Jesus, who tells us when he's battling against the devil in Matthew 4.4, he's quoting from Deuteronomy. And Jesus said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. That's a pretty powerful thing to say. That our life to live, we need the word of God. And so we want to create some healthy habits of interacting with scripture. So our main focus for this morning is this, that healthy habits of interacting with scripture are essential to Christian growth and flourishing. Christian spiritual growth and flourishing. Healthy habits of interacting with scripture are essential to Christian spiritual growth and flourishing. So we're going to talk about this in two ways. We want to first talk about why scripture is so essential and build this case for why we want to make sure we're having habits of being in the word. And then what habits are essential. Okay, so we'll do the why and then the what. So let's start off with the why. Why is scripture so essential for the Christian life? Why does God want us to know his word? And here's a statement from John frame systematic theology professor at the reformed theological seminary here in Orlando. And I think it's really helpful and I want to I want to I'm going to state it and then want to unpack it this morning as we think about why it's so important that we have a healthy diet of scripture. He says God's word which is scripture God's word is his powerful authoritative self expression. So when we think about what the Bible is when we think about what scripture is this is a great summary he says that God's word is his powerful authoritative self expression and I want to take each of those and unpack what he means there but I want to do it in reverse order. We'll start with self expression why do we want to have a healthy diet of scripture because it is God's self expression. Okay, let's think about that and just think about this for a second. It's it proves to us then that God wants us to know him right like he already knows everything there is to know about us. But he is so gracious he also wants us to know him to know about him your God wants you to know him. Because we're meant to have a real relationship with him and therefore he has to reveal what he's like he has to reveal himself in the scriptures. Chad Van Dixhorn says above all it is the purpose of scripture to reveal God see one of the things that we don't realize or we forget is that in our fallen estate in our fallen humanity. We can never guess as to what God is like and be right. Every thought that we have about God that just comes from within is going to be wrong because we're fallen because we're sinful and we can't assume or imagine what God is like he needs to tell us what he's like. This is why Paul says in Romans 1134 for who has known the mind of the Lord or who has been his counselor. It's why in Isaiah 55 verse 8 God says for my thoughts are not your thoughts neither are your ways my ways declares the Lord. So God graciously makes it very clear and plain in his word that we actually are dependent on him to reveal himself to us if we're going to know him. And he has revealed many things about himself in general revelation in the fact that he's created all things we all know God exists but he has revealed special certain things about himself only in and through his word which is why it's so important that we have a healthy diet of scripture because through it we actually know him we get to know our God. And you know what's interesting is that's really a main facet of the whole purpose for why we exist. Think about what Jesus says in John 17 verse 3 in his high priestly prayer he says and this is eternal life that they know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent. So Jesus is telling us that the very nature the very beauty of what eternal life will be is us knowing God and being absolutely amazed by him at every second of eternity. So the thing is though we can't know him unless he reveals himself to us and that's this is how he does this through the scriptures he has provided the scriptures as his self expression so that we can without a doubt know what he's like. As we study the scriptures and particularly as they teach us about Jesus were dependent on that written word. There's a I know a man who when he was or I knew him when he was young his mother was taken away and so he was separated from her and he did not get to grow up knowing her very much and then he actually he never saw her again after she was taken away into a mental institution. And so when he was growing up he always long to know his mother more but he didn't have any way to speak with her directly and at the same time he had this old box of letters that he knew were from his mother and to his mother the problem is they were in Norwegian and he didn't speak Norwegian and this was in the time of like Google translate he couldn't just figure it out. This was well before any of that and so he had this box of letters and he knew that they were to and from his mother but there's nothing he could do about it. Then one day he's sitting in church and the pastor says something in Norwegian and so this man gets really excited and he goes up to the pastor afterward and he says do you speak Norwegian can you read Norwegian and the pastor said yes and so he said would you translate some letters that I have and the pastor agreed to do that. And so he ended up translating all these letters which then opened up all this new information about this man's mother to him including some relatives that he had in Norway he was able to develop those relationships even going to Norway to meet them and it was absolutely amazing and he all that happened because of what she had said about herself and what others had said about her in these letters and those letters then became the one source that he had to know. Who his mother was and what she was like. This is the way God wants us to see the scriptures as the one infallible inherent source through which we get to know him it's where he expresses who he is to his people. So that's one of the reasons why we want to be in the word to get to know him more and more. Also John frame says it's God's the word is God's powerful authoritative self expression so authoritative think about that God wants us to have an authoritative source that we know is true and we know it tells us what's true and what's false we know we it tells us what's right and what's wrong. He knows that we will flourish as we have an authoritative source to appeal to on these questions and so he gives us his word and it's not just that he wants us to submit to his authority because he just wants to be in charge. It's because he knows how exactly how we were designed because he designed us and therefore he knows exactly how we need to operate to flourish and have to have the life that we are meant to have. In relationship with him so his authority over us is a very good thing. We want to live in authority to him because when we do by the power of the Holy Spirit as we obey God and see his word as authoritative it transforms us. We see that the things he's having us do the things he calls us to or calls us away from do produce good fruit in our lives. And we see this both in the Old New Testament in Deuteronomy 10th 13 as Moses is talking about God's law, God's instruction. He says to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord which I am commanding you today for your good. Man if we could just believe that right that God's law for the nonbeliever the law of God breaks you and shows you your need of a savior. But then for the believer it forms us it shows us how we were designed to live. It's good. John 15, 10 and 11, Jesus says the same thing. He says if you keep my commandments you will abide in my love just as I have kept my father's commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be full. That's powerful. Right there Jesus is making a clear connection between God's commandments and then our joy. Right. He wants us to obey him because he's instructed us to live in ways that will lead to our joy and our flourishing and our deepening knowledge of him. That is if we will trust him if we will trust that his way is really what's best and that is where we struggle as sinners. We struggle to trust that doing things God's way really will benefit us or be as joyful. There was this lacrosse coaching lacrosse is I hope so it's the greatest sport there is. And lacrosse you have this you have a stick and on the ends kind of a basket and then there's a little ball and you throw it around and it's kind of like hockey in the air sometimes people say. So this lacrosse coach was working with a bunch of kids that were new to lacrosse they were all eighth graders and he wanted to teach them something incredibly important. But he also wanted him them to trust him and so what he what he was doing in these first few weeks leading up to their first game is he made them play with their non dominant hand half of each practice. Okay so the right handed kids could play with their strong hand for half the practice but then for the other half of the practice they had to switch to their weak hand. If you want to know what that's like just try to write your name with your left hand if you're right handed or your right hand with your left hand. So you know how it's so funny whenever you do that you see what you looked like when you wrote as a kid but anyway you know that feeling right of playing with your non dominant hand or doing something with your non dominant hand. So this coach was making them play half of the practice with their non dominant hand and they drove them nuts because they were terrible. But he kept making them do it even though they grumbled and for weeks leading up to their first game he continued to have them play both with their dominant and their non dominant hand. And then it was at the game is at the first game that they realized what the coach had done for them. Because as soon as the game began and the first minutes of the game the team realized two things the other team could only play with their dominant hand. So they always knew where the ball was going to be and they were very easy to defend. And then the other thing they realized is they were able to play with their dominant hand or their non dominant hand which made them basically unstoppable and they were clobbering this team. And it was then that it set in, oh the coach knew all along. He was teaching us something that would lead to this moment, that would lead to this type of flourishing. And when we think about our relationship with God it's so much better than just what happens in a lacrosse game. It's in life that God is preparing us for. He's showing us how to live that as we submit to his authority which takes a lot of repentance. It takes turning away from what we would do naturally and doing what he has instructed in his word relying on the power of the spirit. As we seek to obey him and see his word as authoritative which takes dying to self. It's hard stuff but as we do that over time more and more we begin to see that he is commands are for our good. That he is leading us to live in such ways where we will experience joy. Just think about the Psalmist, look back at Psalm 19, just look at verses 7 and 8 and just think about this for a second. These are not the words of somebody who is speaking theoretically. He doesn't say I think anywhere in here. This is a man who is speaking with not only the inspiration of the Holy Spirit but also experience in obeying God's word and seeing the fruit in his life and look what he says. The law and by the way that Hebrew word can be translated as instruction. The law or instruction of the Lord is perfect. Reviving the soul. How can he say that? That's amazing. God's law is perfect. As he has sought to obey it, he's realized, yes, it's perfect. He says the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. He's rejoicing over the fact that as he has trusted what God has said and has made him more and more wise. Verse 8, he says the precepts of the Lord are right. Rejoicing the heart. He's excited. His heart is filled with joy because he knows what God teaches as far as how we ought to live is exactly right and will lead to our flourishing. The commandment of the Lord is pure and lightning the eyes. So that's a second reason. Not only is the word of God his self-expression the only way we can know him and what he's really like but it is also it is authoritative and the more we submit ourselves to his authority the more we do indeed see that he's right. That he loves us and he knows us and he knows exactly how we function. Third is powerful. God's word is powerful. It's his powerful authoritative self-expression. Think about this for a second. Why does God want us interacting with his word? Because everything God does, every action God does, he does through speech. Did you know that? As we scan the scriptures what we see is that whenever God does something he does it through speech, case and point creation. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. He didn't think it into existence. He actually spoke it. Let there be light. Everything he does, he does through speech and therefore everything he's done he's done through speech and therefore when we see his power when we hear about the powerful things he has done he's done it through his speech which makes his word which makes the scriptures unbelievably powerful. So Psalm 336 says by the word of the Lord the heavens were made. Hebrews 1 verse 3 says he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And Isaiah 5511 says so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth it shall not return to me empty but it shall accomplish that which I purpose and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. This is really powerful language here God is saying that whenever people are interacting with his word something is happening whether we feel it or not. When we approach it in unbelief it may be actually hardening us even more. But as we seek to believe what God has said to take him at his word it is doing something powerfully in our lives. So if we want to experience that transformation we want to experience the power of God to renew us transform us we have to be engaged with his word learning it and knowing it and applying it. But we don't often think about that. We tend to think there's got to be something out there that will help me change. But we don't realize we have the most powerful thing in all the universe most of us in our hands when we're holding a Bible in our shelves at home all over the place. We live in a country where Bibles are plentiful. The more they think about that's where he displays his power and he does things through his word then the more we will avail ourselves of it. Some of you know from social media that I got to go to New York City last weekend and what a place. But one of the things that happened is we were walking down by the river and in the harbor there was a cruise liner and then there was an aircraft carrier, a big huge aircraft carrier, the decommissioned USS Intrepid. And you know I often I actually know I don't often think about just how powerful our military is in this country. But in that moment I was staring up at this thing which is like 15 huge buildings floating on the water and I was just amazed at how big this thing is. It has these massive weapons that had several fighter jets sitting on the deck including a stealth bomber which I totally wanted to get into. And it was just sitting there and I was just overwhelmed by the size of this thing and just the power that this thing had and it was interesting. It was a moment in which I was thinking boy I'm glad that power's on my side to be honest with you. I was like I can't believe we have anybody who would challenge the United States militarily like we should be tweeting out pictures of this ship because it's one of the decommissioned ones. It's not even one of the new powerful ones and I'm thinking man this thing is unbelievable. It's so huge it's so powerful and I'm not kidding. A sense of peace came over me thinking that big powerful thing is on my side. And the power of that ship is like you know the strength of a feather compared to the power of the word of God which upholds the universe. And we've got it in our hands. And as we read it and memorize it we've got it in our hearts. You know in first Samuel 3 Samuel is hearing God speaking to him and he eventually responds by saying speak Lord for your servant hears. John frame says if you hear God's word as young Samuel responding speak Lord for your servant hears then that powerful word will use its great power on your behalf. And just think about that the power of the word of God used on our behalf to change our lives to show us what we should do next to relieve our fears to remind us of what Jesus has done for us it's powerful. And all these things all of scriptures what's so amazing is in in the scriptures God is giving to us what we could never get on our own he's he's doing for us what we could never do on our own which points us right to the very heart of the gospel because the gospel itself is the good news that God has done for us in Christ what we could never do on our own God has sent his son to live his law perfectly which none of us can do. He has sent his son to die in the cross to pay for sins which none of us are able to do. And he said his son not only to live perfectly and then die center's death but rise from the dead triumphantly to prove that what he has done on our behalf is effective and sufficient and that through faith in him alone we really are reconciled to God which is why he wants us to know him so we need to run to his self expression which is why he wants us to be under his authority so we can flourish according to his design which is why his word has power because he wants us to experience that transformation. In this life as we wait for the return of Christ so man that's why and we can go on and on with even more reasons why we want to be making a good habit or having habits of scripture but let me talk about three essential habits so why have habits of being in the scriptures and now what what habits are essential. And I think it's one two three boom boom we want to be hearing it and we want to be reading it and we want to be studying it. Now there's more we could talk about memorizing and meditating on it and things like that but before this morning I wonder if we could all think about our habit of hearing God's word and our habit of reading it and our habit or lecture of studying it and know that God wants us to step forward in these things. That he might give more of himself and be and show us more of his grace okay so hearing we want to be sitting under the preached word of God God has always communicated to his people through the preaching of his word Paul says in Romans 10 that faith comes through hearing and we would from that not only know that faith the initial faith beginning of faith but also more faith in our lives comes as we hear his word. Read and preached and so we have this beautiful opportunity every Sunday to get together where someone is going to be preaching God's word and so we want to make a habit. There's 52 Sundays in a year last time I counted and so think about that have you thought how many Sundays are there any year and how many Sundays am I going to make a commitment to be sitting under the preaching of God's word. Shoot high shoot for 50 shoot for 51 okay let's make a habit of hearing God's word preached sitting under the preaching of God's powerful authoritative self expression reading it this is another one people get you know up in arms about this but it's only because it's hard to stay on a reading path and the best way to do that to read it regularly is to use a plan in fact I had a bunch of copies of this plan printed there on the grow table. If you want one it's the discipleship journal book at a time plan comes to the navigators ministry this is the one I'm using this year. There's a whole bunch of Bible plans available you can Google and search and find tons of them which plan you choose as far less important than your reason for why you're doing it to spend time every day interacting with God's powerful authoritative self expression. 82% of regular Bible readers describe themselves as at peace and a larger or a large percentage of Bible readers say they feel happy more of the time large percentage of Bible readers say they are full of joy more often and maybe you maybe you're you struggle to read the Bible on a regular basis because you you don't understand a lot of it and to be frank some of it seems boring it's not but it seems like it is and this is why you you want to pick a plan and then really you want to pick a plan. You want to pick a plan and then really stick with it it's where accountability can be so helpful in your community group sharing the plan that you're doing and when you get off of the plan don't feel all guilty you're we are you know it's not a sin to miss a day on your reading plan but it is a good idea to keep coming back why well I like this from John Blanchard British preacher he says this surely we have to be realistic and honest with ourselves or surely we only have to be realistic. We only have to be realistic and honest with ourselves to know how regularly we need to turn to the Bible how often do we face problems temptation and pressure every day. Then how often do we need instruction guidance and greater encouragement every day to catch all these felt needs up into an even greater issue how often do we need to see God's face hear his voice feel his touch and know his power every day. So that's why he's saying that every day spending time every day with the Lord reading his word is so important. I like this too. DL Moody says a man can no more take a supply of grace for the future than he can eat enough for the next six months or take sufficient air into his lungs at one time to sustain life for a week. We must draw upon God's boundless store of grace from day to day as we need it right in the same way we can't hold our breath and have enough oxygen for a whole week. We can't just hear the word on Sunday and then have enough for the whole week we need to be daily engaging him as individuals and as families and again the best way to do that is through a plan so I want to highly encourage you. Not because this is what good Christians do we don't we don't roll like that here but because God wants us to experience him and to know him more and more through his powerful authoritative self expression third studying. Jerry Bridges has a helpful line here he says we read the Bible for breath and we study it for depth. So when you're on a reading plan it's okay if you don't understand things at that moment you're still interacting with the most powerful thing in the universe. But then in our community groups and if you're not in a community group definitely want to encourage you to connect with one you go to the grow table for that too. In our community groups we are often studying the scriptures we're getting a deeper understanding and learning more and more ways we can apply. There's a lot of God's teaching in our lives. There's also great resources, leagueanyour.org third mill.org these are places that have free or affordable lessons that you can learn from do your own study that's amazing as well but we want to be studying it. So those are the three things and what I really want to challenge you as individuals as families even to talk about in your community groups is what are what is your habit of hearing and what is your habit of reading and what is your habit of studying. There's no judgment here. We're looking for who's doing this better. We're all saying we're all desperate for the grace of God and the means by which the primary means by which he shows us his grace is through his word and particularly what his word says about his son. So can we take that challenge? Let me in closing say this. I think that when I struggle to be in the word regularly to see it for what it is. It's usually because we don't think about this but in our fallen nature we tend to think God's word is not relevant to me. God's word is not going to help me. I need something that works now. I want something that will microwave this situation. God tends to work with an oven. We don't think we're getting something that will truly matter but we really are and think about this. So David Livingston, many of you know that name. He was a great missionary and explorer and he was in Africa from 1840 until his death in 1873 on the mission field. He was eager to travel to some of the central uncharted lands of Africa to preach the gospel and on one occasion when this famous 19th century missionary and explorer was at the edge of this large territory he came to this territory that was ruled by this chieftain, this tribal chieftain. And to tradition, Livingston wasn't going to be able to enter that territory unless an exchange happened. This chieftain required that he laid all his possessions out in front of him and the chief was going to then choose one of David Livingston's things and then give David one of his possessions in return. David Livingston lays out all of his possessions. He didn't have a whole lot. So he put his books and he put his clothes, probably not the ones he was wearing and he put even his goat which was very important to him because the water in Africa was not working well with his stomach and he was drinking that goat's milk. So he lays out all his possessions and the tribal chieftain comes up and looks at everything and he chooses the goat and David Livingston was frustrated by that. And so the chief in return, because again there's an exchange, the chief intakes Livingston's goat and he gives him this carved stick, like it looked like a walking stick. So now the exchange has happened and David Livingston does have access to this uncharted territory, vast uncharted territory, but he's upset. He's upset because he's thinking, I really needed that goat for the milk. What am I going to do with this walking stick? It's basically worthless and he was really frustrated because he thought this was a bad exchange until one of the locals came up to him and said, Mr. Livingston, that's not a walking stick. That's the chief in sector and with it you can now freely enter all and any of the villages in this entire territory. As soon as they see that, they'll let you walk right in. And he realizes that he thought he got from the chief something that just wasn't going to make a difference but he had actually received the most important thing he possibly could have gotten that moment. And it's our fallen nature that tells us what God wants to give us in his word, we don't really need. But in reality he is giving us the one thing we desperately need, himself, which is he is our only true source of joy and flourishing as well as spiritual growth and spiritual flourishing. So let this be a year that we as a church are hearing and reading and studying the word of God for his glory for our joy, let's pray. Father, we thank you for revealing to us our desperate need for your word. I know that it's easy for people to feel guilty when we talk about our reading habits. Would you help us to not deal with any of that? Would you help us look to the cross and know that we are fully righteous in Christ? And then would you help us truly internalize what your word says about your word and truly see it as your powerful authoritative self-expression that we might commit to hearing it and reading it and studying it to know you more, to see the wisdom of your instruction and law for our lives and to experience the power of your word. To change us and to change situations, to even change this world. We pray all these things for your glory and our joy in Jesus name. Amen.