SPEAKER_00 0:02

For many today, reading the Bible can feel like a chore, and listening to a sermon might bore them to sleep. How is it then that in Nehemiah 8, when Ezra preached a six-hour-long sermon, not only were the people attentive, but they all responded in penitence and grew in faith and obedience. Pastor Weihi brings our message today.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

Today's scripture reading is taken from Nehemiah chapter 7, verse 73 to verse sorry, to chapter 8, verse 18. Nehemiah chapter 7 verse 73 to chapter 8 verse 18. Verse 73. So the priests, the Levites, the gatekeepers, the singers, some of the people, the temple servants, and all Israel lived in their towns. And when the seventh month had come, the people of Israel were in their towns. Chapter 8, verse 1. And all the people gathered as one man into the square before the water gate. And they told Ezra the scribe to bring the book of the law of Moses that the Lord had commanded Israel. So Ezra the priest brought the law before the assembly, both men and women, and all who could understand what they heard on the first day of the seventh month. And he read it from it facing the square before the water gate from early morning until midday in the presence of the men and women and those who could understand. And the ears of the people were attentive to the book of the law. And Asra the scribe stood on a wooden platform that they had made for the purpose. And beside him stood Matadya, Shema, Anaya, Uriah, Hilkia, and Masaya on his right hand, and Pedaya, Meshaya, Machidaja, Hashum, Hashbadana, Jachariah, and Mashalam on his left hand. And Exram opened the book in the sight of all the people, for he was above all the people. And as he opened it, all the people stood. And Eksram blessed the Lord, the great God, and all the people answered. Amen, Amen, lifting up their hands. And they bowed their heads and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground. Also Joshua, Banai, Sharibah, Jamine, Akuk, Shabutama, Hodeyah, Masalyah, Kelita, Azariah, Josabat, Hanan, Peliah, the Levites, helped the people to understand the law while the people remained in their places. They read from the book, from the law of God clearly, and they gave the sense so that the people understood the reading. Verse 9. And Nehemiah, who was the governor, and Exra, the priest and scribe, and the Levites who taught the people, said to all the people, This day is holy to the Lord your God. Do not mourn or weep. For all the people wept as they heard the words of the Lord. Then he said to them, Go your way, eat the fat and drink sweet wine, and send portions to anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord. And do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength. So the Levites come all the people, saying, Be quiet, for this day is holy. Do not be grieved. And all the people went their way to eat and drink, and to send portions, and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Verse 13. On the second day the heads of fathers' houses of all the people, with the priests and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe in order to study the words of the law. And they found it written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should proclaim it and publish it in all their towns and in Jerusalem. Go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, medal, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written. Verse 16. So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on his roof, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, and in the square at the water gate, and in the square at the gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths, for from the days of Joshua the son of Nan to that day, the people of Israel had not done so. And there was very great rejoicing. And day by day, from the first day to the last day, he read from the book of the law of God. They kept the feast seven days, and on the eighth day there was a solemn assembly according to the rule. This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.

SPEAKER_02 6:15

Church, uh, as we are going through our book study on the book of Nehemiah, we are finally at this um last portion of the book, right? So if you remember from Ezra to Nehemiah, uh we first looked at the rebuilding of the temple, then we looked at the rebuilding of the walls, and now we are looking at the rebuilding of people, but this time not with bricks, but with the word of God. And the word of God, or in in Nehemiah, is called the Book of the Law, right? Really takes center stage here, right? And it it happens through Ezra the scribe and the priest, right? He finally comes into the scene now, uh ministering alongside Nehimah. And now Ezra comes onto uh the stage to read the book of the law. Um I kind of want us want to bring us through uh what was really going on uh through the first eight verses, verses one to eight. Uh and one goes sequentially, uh, but just to give you a broad overview of uh what was really happening here. So on the one hand, we have Ezra, right? They built a wooden platform for him. So he stood on the platform, he's uh towering over everyone so that everyone can see him, right? Um but not only that, he had various Levites and people kind of scattered in the midst of the crowd. And you can imagine, you know, we we we saw how many people, how many thousands of people, about 50,000 people were there, right? You can imagine the crowd is so huge. So they stationed different people kind of all along the crowd so that they can repeat what Ezra was saying. So now they can see him because he's standing right on top, right? But they can't hear him because he's too far away, right? Um the the previous um bishop of the Methodist Church, Bishop Emeritus Robert Solomon, um shared about this incident where uh he that there's this convention in in India, it's called the Marimon Convention Convention, right? Um and in the early 20th century, 150,000 people gathered for this convention, right? And back then they did not have a PA system. So what to do? Right? Uh if the preacher just kind of preached from the pulpit, no, nobody can hear, right? Um and so what what they did was the preacher would just kind of say one line and pause. And then someone else, maybe from from maybe uh let's say 100 meters down, right, will kind of repeat the line so that people from 100 meters onwards can hear, and so on and so on, right? Um and and this was happening even in as recently as the earlier, early 20th century 20th century, right? And so it seems that this is what this was what was happening, right? Ezra was reading the word and people had to repeat it so that those who are too far away can still hear. But their job was not just to echo, right? Um I don't think I've read that. But in verse 7, verses 7 and 8, we read that you know these people, these Levice helped the people to understand the law while the people remain in their places. So they read from the book, from the law of God, clearly, and they gave the sense so that people understood the reading. Right, and that's that's kind of the important part. They gave the sense of the text, they were expounding on the text, um, and they explained and drew insights, uh, drew out insights from scripture so that the people understood the reading of the law. And the understanding is so important, and we'll come to that later. Right? But but this was what happened here. Ezra spoke, people repeated, and also gave the sense of the text. Um, and one incredible detail we read in in this text today is that Ezra read the book of the law from early morning till midday, right? Some texts say from dawn till noon to midday, and there's a solid six hours, right? Six hours of just standing there listening to the word, the to the word being being read and preached. I have a friend who um this this is many years ago, right? He was uh pastoring in a uh a bigger church, and he said that their sermon timer is very strict. 25 minutes means 25 minutes, and he has seen before when the preacher just goes past the 25-minute mark, uh, people will start checking their watch, and some some of them will just stand up and leave the sanctuary, right? And and um some cannot even sit through uh beyond 25 minutes. I cannot imagine sitting through a six-hour uh preaching. What else was what Ezra did, right? Um and amazingly, I mean, on one hand, Ezra is willing to preach for six hours, on the other hand, do you think people will be willing to sit for six hours, right? The amazing thing is that the people remain there for all of the six hours to hear the book of the law. And in verse 3, we read that the years of all the people were attentive to the book of the law. As we think about rebuilding or reforming the people, this chapter really kind of uh shows us some very um encouraging and important details, right? If we go back to verse one, we see that it wasn't simply Ezra coming into the sea and saying, Hey, I have the book of the law. All of you now gather and listen to me. Verse 1 tells us that they were the ones who asked Ezra to bring the book of the law, right? They were coming to the pastor, Pastor, can you please come and preach? Can you please come and teach me and show me uh scripture? And in verses 2 and 3, we read that it comprised of men and women and those who could understand what they heard. We don't really know who these people who could understand what they heard, but were not men and women. But I think a good guess is older children who could understand what the adults were saying. Right? So you had even older children coming, and they were coming in worship, right? This was a setting of worship as well. Uh in verse 6, Ezra blessed the Lord, the great God, and the people answered, Amen, amen. Lifting up their hands, they bow their heads and worship the Lord with their faces to the ground. And in this context of worship, they were listening attentively to the book of the law, to Ezra's reading and to the Levites giving sense of the passage. And again, we we keep reading this over again. The people understood the reading. So one question jumps jumps out, right? What do we mean by they understood the the reading, right? How could we tell that they really actually understood the reading? Um It wasn't a matter of just memorizing the text and then write in the examination, right? Like just kind of like um uh cram cram your studies and then regurgitate out, and then next day you forget, right? Um to understand something, of course, we know the basic meaning, right? It is a uh mental grasp, it is a comprehension, knowing what uh something is saying, knowing what the the the knowing the meaning of the text, right? Um but interestingly in this case, they didn't just become learned with more knowledge, right? Something happened in their hearts, they understood it, not just with their minds, but with their hearts, and they became doers of the law. Verses 9 to 12. Uh, I won't go into it too too too much, but verses 9 to 12 um tells us as these these people who heard the book of the law were weeping impenitence, they were crying and mourning and grieving because half after hearing the book of the law, they realized that they have gone astray from the Lord. Um, of course, later on, Nahi Maya Ezra will tell them this is not the time to grieve, no, calm down. Actually, this is a time to rejoice, to celebrate, because this is a holy day. God made this to be a day of celebration and rejoicing. So stop crying. Um, you know, the the the the Bible says quiet, be quiet, right? Be quiet, stop crying, you know, and celebrate. And they did that, they they they understood all the book of the law actually, you know, kind of points to this, and so we will celebrate. The the the actual weeping and mourning will come in the next chapter, I think. But for now they celebrated. But it is important to note that they didn't just have an emotional moment, right? Like when we go for church camp and there's ministry night, or when we have some some prayer event here and we we feel ministered, right? They did not just have an emotional moment with the Lord. Verses 13 to 18 kind of tells us that there was a very evident, very visible transformation of the people. Uh, verse 13 on the second day, the heads of the father's houses of all the people, with the priest and the Levites, came together to Ezra the scribe, in order to study the words of the law.

unknown 15:42

Right?

SPEAKER_02 15:43

These were the leaders of families and clans. Uh, imagine if there's a limb family, and limb family has this uh head, the clan, the clan leader, right? Uh these were the leaders of the house uh households, they were the spiritual leaders as well, right? So all these people and the Levites and the priests, they were coming to Ezra to study the word of the law, and they were evidently hungry for God's word. Six hours of the word before, right? Just the day before, was not enough. They needed more, they needed to hear Ezra continue to expound scripture for them, and there was a genuine desire to know the Lord more through his word. And it wasn't just a hunger for the word, it is through their study that they realized, hey, there's this thing called the Feast of Booths. Right? Um not sure how many of you remember what the feast of booths is. I I think Pastor Richard uh mentioned it in one of his sermons previously, right? Um but just let me just read the the text for us and then kind of see what they did with with the book of the law. Um so they went and asked Ezra to to uh for to study the words of the law, right? In verse 14, and they found in written found it written in the law that the Lord had commanded by Moses that the people of Israel should dwell in booths during the feast of the seventh month, and that they should proclaim it and publish it all in all their towns and in Jerusalem. Um go out to the hills and bring branches of olive, wild olive, myrtle, palm, and other leafy trees to make booths, as it is written. So the people went out and brought them and made booths for themselves, each on the roof, on his roof, and in their courts, and in the courts of the house of God, in the square of the water gate, in the square of at the gate of Ephraim. And all the assembly of those who had returned from the captivity made booths and lived in the booths. For from the days of Joshua the son of Nan to that day, the people of Israel had not done so, and there was great rejoicing. Uh Ezra didn't come knocking on their door and say, Hey, hey, this there's this feast, and you need to celebrate right now. They read, they understood, and they took the initiative to celebrate. The feast of booths is um this this celebration where I mean they call it celebration. Uh if we can have the next slide, right? They call it celebration, um, where they commemorate their time in the wilderness. The 40 years that they were wandering around the desert, they were living in this makeshift huts or tents, right? So sometimes it's called the the Feast of Tabernacles, right? Or in a slightly more modern time, then they'll be they'll be building little um huts or little booths like like this, right? And just now you read you heard me read reading, like, oh, they build it here, they build it there, they build it on the rooftop, they build it in their courts, they build it at the the the gate here, the other gate there, right? In the city, they'll just kind of build this hut everywhere. And then they'll stay in the hut. Um I think nowadays they uh only have their meals, at least, at least they'll have their meals in the these booths. But in the past they will stay in the booths for eight days to remember their time in the wilderness and remember God's provision for them when they had a really, really sh flimsy roof over the top of their heads, where they had to sleep out at night in in a hut like this, right? To remember God's provision. Of course, there's celebration also because it was the time of the harvest, and they were also called to celebrate with the harvest that they bring in. But importantly, uh just think about it for a moment. They just got back from Babylon, they were just kind of staying around outside on the outskirts of the city. They don't really even have houses now in Jerusalem, right? Um, a lot of them were still outside, some were starting to move in, and now they are supposed to build booths or tents or whatever, right? Just to stay for that eight days, right? Um, it was a major inconvenience for them, right? And yet you might say miraculously, or you might say that no, God was doing something in them. For them to have this desire to observe the law and say, This is God's commandment for us. Right. We will obey and we will celebrate at this feast. And so they they observed the feast of proofs, and there was great rejoicing. Today we come to this text and we see a people whose ears were attentive to the word of God and whose hearts were attuned to him. And this is not the first time it has happened. Um if you're familiar with the story of King Josiah, I won't go too too far into it, but in 2 Kings uh chapters 22 and 23, a very similar thing happened, right? Um, this is Israel uh having backslided for many, many, many years to the point where they don't even know where their Bible is, right? Any one of you uh know that feeling, like you don't even know where your Bible is right now. Uh if you were trying to find your physical copy, uh you have to dig through your your closet or dig through your cupboards, right? They don't even know where the book of the law was, you know. They didn't even know it existed until someone found it in the temple, brought it to King Josiah, read it to Josiah, and you know, we read that he tore his clothes and all, and he was grieving. How could we not have the book of the law? And a very similar thing happened even way back in King Josiah's time, right? He read the book of the law to everyone, and everyone uh repented. And there was great reformation, they destroyed the idols, they destroyed the high places, right? There was great reformation in the people because the people's ears and hearts were attentive to God. And I would like to just draw out three points. For our meditation this morning. I think there are just three things that we can learn from the passage that are still highly relevant to us. And the first thing is the centrality of scripture. The centrality of scripture was so crucial for Israel back then. In fact, their recurring problem was their failure to make the word of God central to their purpose and to their lives. They failed at making scripture the primary authority for their living. If you're familiar with the Reformation, you know a lot of things happened during the Reformation, right? And there were a few slogans. And the chief among the slogans was this thing called sola scriptura, right? Scripture alone. And this is really like a bit of an oversimplification. But back in that time, right, church tradition was on par or greater than the Bible in terms of authority. In that sense, they will listen to the church more than they will listen to the Bible, so to speak. But the word of God is infallible. The word of God is divine and it is the only ultimate authority that contains all things necessary for salvation and for faithful living. And the the commitment to sola scriptura is really first and foremost a theological one, right? It is our commitment to say that it is the Bible that contains God's divine word and discourse. It is the Bible that contains his very words and his very self-revelation to all of us. So that God can communicate something to us. And so if scripture is God's self-revel revelation to us, then when we read scripture, we are at once confronted by God in His word. Some people read it out of interest, they like religious studies, they read it alongside other scriptures of other faiths, or we have unbelieving, we have non-Christian scholars, right? Building careers, studying and scrutinizing the Bible, they comment, they critique it, they criticize it, right? And they make a living out of it. It teaches us how to order our lives, it teaches us how to be saved and how to live our lives here, now. And so scripture must be central to our self-understanding and to our lives in its entirety. And I mean, I'm sure you know, right? In our lives, we are always kind of constantly facing the pressures of uh these other scripts around the world, right? When Israel was a fledging nation, um they saw how mighty the other nations are, right? Of course, they experienced God being powerful, brought them out of Egypt, made them a nation and all. But they were looking at their neighbors and like, wow, they are so much bigger, so much more prosperous, so much more powerful. And they began to tell themselves, uh, we want to be like them. Why are we so small? Is it because we're ruled by judges? Is it because we the people leading us are not military kings? So they asked the prophet Samuel, give us a king. Right? A way of saying, no, we reject the system that God has put in us, put for us. We kind of reject God's leadership altogether because we want kings. We want to be like the Babylons and the Egyptians and and and so on, right? We want to be like them. And today the church is no less susceptible from making worldly scripts central to our own understanding of a successful church. Right, rather than put word as center, we put kind of the world as uh the center and the guiding principle for us, right? And so many churches for a long time now only really care about, for example, increasing in numbers, right? Numbers is all that matters. We can put a KPI on on uh office stuff and see how many people you bring into church, how many people you baptize in a year, right? Um we avoid talks of sin, talks of repentance, you know, all the difficult things we don't talk about them so that people will come and they will just feel welcome and they will just feel loved. Um there is a well-known church in the US that has been known to baptize just about anyone, uh, really just about anyone, and it's almost a show. They will get the the candidate to come up and say, Hey, tell us your name and why you want to get baptized today. Right? And um this lady went up and uh she said, you know, she said her name, and she said, um on the verge of tearing up, she said she felt God calling her to be a warrior for God's animal kingdom, and that she was to lead an army of angels to protect animals across the world. And the pastors go, Wow, wonderful, and then leads her on to be baptized. Um, when when when a certain version of success becomes central to us, we'll just do all sorts of things to to get that success, right? Even to the contrary of scripture. And so many try to put on a good show on Sunday. Of course, some of these examples are really like the really, really rare few mega churches, but I have read about pastors zip lining down. So imagine we have a zip line from the roof all the way down to the stage. Uh to chance, yeah, the pastor zipped down uh over the the the congregation. Uh we have had one that um recently did this um, you know, the Super Bowl halftime, right? Um so they I think I said this before, right? They took a Bible, put it on the ground, someone like kicked the Bible, you know, it's a it's a football thing. I don't know, Rabbi, I'm so sorry. But they they basically kicked the kick the kick the Bible off into the crowd. Um put on a good show, right? Um as a musician, uh we uh we have noticed also a trend. I mean it's it's a bit better now, but at least uh maybe a decade ago, um materialism kind of just kind of seep into the church, and there was this I un this almost understanding that if you want to play in church, you you will want to chase the worship sound. If you want to get the worship sound, right, as a guitarist, your guitar should be a boutique guitar, right? 3, 4k maybe minimum. Uh you should have a whole bunch of pedals, right? Per pedal can be about 500, 600 sometimes, right? So your pedal board should cost about 200 3k also. And M. You cannot just get any M, right? You gotta get a boutique hand wired M. We add that and another 3k for, right? And so your read becomes like a 10k plus thing, right? Gear. 10k plus gear. All to play uh worship sounds for the church, right? And there was this like push, there was this push to be cool, to be new, to be, to be um to be like boutique, and and people just people are just getting sucked into this idea that like in order to serve God, I must have all this money to get all these things. Otherwise, my worship, my sounds, my musicianship is lacking. And and and there there have been some recent uh correction to this whole this was this is this this whole idea. Um, but I think it's still very rampant. I mean, there are still pastors out there dressing up um in I don't know, I sorry, I don't know, brands. A Gucci, uh some some like I don't know, their sneakers are like 1k, their belt is like $800, and the shirt is like another 2k. Uh all for what cultural relevance. You know, we want to be uh relatable to the people, so we dress like that, you know. Um and kind of I think when word of God is not central, we miss the point entirely in all our practices. Right? Um and so even then our vision of the good and the successful life. Um we we kind of take it from TV shows. Uh anyone still read magazines? Well, when I was a teenager, I always read magazines. You go buy something from fair price, you turn around, it's the magazine rack, uh let me think, uh men's health, uh, FHM, uh what other magazines are there, right? They tell you, what do they tell you? Good life is what you must you must have good body, la, six apps, la, five ways to get to get chiseled, uh, six steps you can take in a bit to make your sex better. These are all just ideas fed into our minds, right, by the world. And we're gonna just take them as truths, right? They become central, and yeah, yeah, yeah, I need to I need to get fit this year. Next January is coming. January I'm gonna assign membership to the gym, right? And we're gonna get fit, right? Um when we come back to this text, I think really the central thing is that the word of God must be the one that guides us, it must have the ultimate authority over our lives. Otherwise, we really miss the point entirely. And that's really my the first thing that we can learn from that the centrality of scripture. And the second thing is to make sense of scripture, right? Um, it is important to try to make sense of scripture. Um uh important for the people at that time to understand the book of the law, not just not just hear it being read to them, right? Um another legacy from the Reformation uh is that in the past the Bible is not accessible. It's kind of available, but it was not accessible. It was written in Latin. The church refused to let it be translated to any other language. Um, so most people, the common folk especially, they couldn't understand. Right? Um they couldn't read, they couldn't understand, they couldn't study, they did not know what God is really saying, right? Whatever they thought God is saying is really from the the priest. Um and so there was a time when the Bible was available and yet not accessible. But today, the Bible is so readily available and accessible, right? The Bible now sits in uh uh a device in the pocket right now, isn't it? Um and I guess the question is do we assess it as much as we can or as much as much as we should? Um of the uh convictions of the Reformation is that each of us should be able to read the Bible for ourselves and to study it, to make sense of it, and to allow the word of God to speak into our lives. And I think on this thing, I just want to kind of touch on two different ways that that um might not be helpful. Um one is of course um we use devotional, right? We read what other people think about scripture. And I think devotionals are helpful, right? Especially if you are new to the faith, or like uh you need to search up something, you need to you don't understand a passage and you search something up, you know, people write an article about it, or there are devotionals, right? Um it can be helpful. Uh it can be a way of of engaging us in into reading the Bible. But can I encourage you to also read scripture on your own? Right? In fact, read scripture on your own first before going back to the devotion. Let's say the devotion today is on a particular verse in Matthew, but let's go back to the actual chapter, read it first. You know, try to ask God, what God, what is it that is going on in this text? What are you saying? And then maybe go back to the devotional. Um because I think all of us need to hear the word of God personally first, right? Um I met Bev through a friend, right? Uh a friend that I didn't uh really keep in contact for seven years and at half nowhere. Hey, do you have a friend that you I have a friend that I think you'll uh it will be good for you to meet, right? And so that that's how we first met. Um it's very seldom, but once in a while, once in a while I will text this friend of mine and say, hey, you know, what does Beth like? Uh you know, what can I get for her for uh her birthday? Um but of course we have stopped, you know, we have been married for four years, right? Wouldn't it be funny if I am still texting this friend? What does Beth mean when she says she doesn't want anything for Christmas? Is it a really a no or is it a trap? Right? It'd be funny if I still have to go through a third person to ask, hey, what would she want? What is she really saying? Right and I hope you can see kind of approaching scripture that way. That all also all of us will need like a quote-unquote middle man, a third person to kind of sometimes bring more light to scripture. But I think we need to also read scripture for ourselves first, right? And have a sense of what um the Bible is the the word of what the the words are uh in its totality before we kind of approach the the devotionals and the commentaries, right? Um on the related note, I just want to kind of bring this thing, this other thing out. Um this might be more for the younger people. Um but a lot of people, especially the young ones, are asking me, hey, you do you use ChatGPT or not? Why not use ChatGPT for a sermon? Um and um I've never played around with it, but when I was preparing this sermon, I was thinking, hmm, maybe I should just try for fun. Um I didn't use Chat GPT for any of these words, by the way. Don't don't worry. Um, but that's that's not true. Uh I think it I think at the right at the beginning I said that uh we they were rebuilding the wall. Now they are rebuilding the temple, not with bricks, but with the word of God that came from ChatGPT. Right? ChatGPT is really, really scarily good, I think. Um yeah, and and it's it's I mean I wish I didn't do it now, but they can give you uh they have um a separate chat chat GPT sermon generator, right? And give you a step by step, right? Um tell them your audience, tell them what your passage is, your topic, uh, tell them what you want to say, who are you preaching to, right? You're i are you evangelical, you protestant, you Catholic, you you whatever, right? You tell them all these things, they will generate three outlines for you. Choose which one you want, and he will generate a script for you, right? Um it's it's incredible. Um I think people nowadays think, why not? I mean, you don't need to do the work, lah, just just chat GPT everything, and then like you get the work done, right? And it's just submit or just uh preach it on a Sunday. Um whether it's whether it is a helpful tool or not, I mean I leave it to you to decide. But I think my my take is this, um, and and someone mentioned this before, which is that to use chat GPT to do your Bible study or to prepare sermon or to find something out of the Bible, is fundamentally treating the Bible as mere data to be mind for information.

unknown 37:33

Right?

SPEAKER_02 37:34

Let me say that again now. You to use something like AI to kind of go through scripture is to treat it as mere data that you draw information out of.

unknown 37:45

Right?

SPEAKER_02 37:46

Because that's what it is, right? You you take you ask the compute, you ask the the the AI to kind of scan all the billions of words that have ever been said about a particular uh subject, a particular text, right? And just regurgitate all the information out for you. Without any mounting, any meditation, any experience or encounter with the word of God yourself. Right? Everything is about data, data, data. And and the irony that people have been saying is that there's just data everywhere, and yet wisdom is still lacking. Right? You wouldn't want to use chat GPT for your birthday cards or your love letter to someone, or if you if you're gonna get married, you wouldn't use chat GPT to write your wedding vows, to write what you feel about the other person, right? Um you're not trying to convey information to your loved one, you are trying to say something from your heart, from your own experience of the relationship back to the person. I think in our study, in our reading of the word, it has to be that out of our own encounter with the Lord as we understand scripture for our lives, not just treating scripture, not just treating the divine word of God as pure data. And so I understand that there are parts where the scripture is really difficult to understand. I I still don't know everything about the Bible, you know. Um, but much of scripture is actually clear, right? On matters of salvation, on matters of uh faithful living, scripture is actually very clear for us, you know. And if I can encourage you, commit yourselves to hearing the word of God by reading the word of God and trying to understand um even if some of the parts are difficult. Yeah, uh sorry. And then we we we consult the other resources that are available, whether it's sermons or uh if you are able to, uh and if you're not already in a connect group, join a connect group. Connect group leaders, no pressure for the connect group leaders, but connect group leaders are there also to uh at least facilitate uh a discussion so that everyone in the group can make sense of scripture together. Yeah, uh we so we join connect groups to make sense of scripture together, or you can join a Bible study group, right? But I think in all these things, the the the key the key for us is to um experience and encounter the word of God ourselves, right? And try to make sense of it. Um the very last part, so there's a centrality of scripture, there's making sense of scripture, and really the last part is um on the application of scripture. I will kind of speed through this a little bit. Um but we see from Nahimaya, right, that true understanding of the book of law brought about uh some kind of transformation, some kind of reformation of the heart. Right? And in the New Testament, there are at least two stories that that were that were uh very directly from word to heart, right? So uh Luke chapter 24, verses 13 to 35, right? Is this a story about these two disciples of Jesus? Jesus, Jesus was crucified, they were going back to their hometown, Emmaus, they didn't know Jesus uh rose from the dead, they were just walking away very sad. Jesus comes alongside them, open scripture, right? At the end, he said they said this did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the scriptures. Same thing uh happened at Pentecost. Holy Spirit came, filled up the disciples. Peter preached a sermon. The people who heard the sermon said this uh that they were cut to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the disciples, Brothers, what shall we do? And they repented, they were baptized, 3,000 were added to the the the church, right? And again, not just a moment of emotional response, day after day, for the next few days or next few weeks, even day after day, they met and devoted themselves to the apostles' teachings, right? Amongst the other things. They were they had everything in common. Um they were they were changed, right? There was this sudden hunger for the word, there was this sudden desire to be with the people of God and to pray together, to read scripture together, to to um do life together, right? Um John Wesley um was uh I mean his story is that he went to this this meeting at Aldersgate and he was reluctant, but he went there, he kind of just didn't really care. Uh but he heard the preface of uh but Martin Luther wrote uh a commentary on Romans, right? And he wrote a preface. And uh John Wesley heard that preface that Martin Luther wrote, and he said that my heart was strangely warm, right? Um I want to say that um I think there are these different ways, just as there are there are ways that we could tell that the people really understood the word, uh, there's this different ways that we can tell that we are being reformed, being transformed by the word of God, that we can really do, we really can feel it in our heart, right? That the word of God uh has been applied to our hearts. There's this growing hunger for God's word, there's this new actions that we previously didn't uh perform, right? There are these new actions in holiness as we obey the word of God, right? Joshua destroyed the idols, uh the elders in Nehemiah 8 um initiated the feast of booths, and today we may not have all these things because we don't celebrate some of these uh feasts, but it may be something else, right? It may be um having a greater commitment to keep the Lord's day, right? Maybe uh a growing desire to honor your parents, it may be uh a sudden. Conviction to tithe. It may be something else, right? Reading scripture in a more disciplined way, or and so on, right? But I think as we read scripture and encounter God in scripture, God transformed us and reforms our hearts, right? So these are the three things, right? Centrality of scripture, making sense of scripture, and the last is the reformation of the heart. And I want to end with the parable of the sower. I know I don't have a lot of time left. So I'm just gonna kind of quickly go through the parable of the sower. It's from Matthew chapter 13, right? So Jesus kind of tells us a parable about this sower who goes out and sows seeds. Sun fell on hard ground, right? Very hard. The birds come, take it away. Some fell on uh rocky ground, right? Where the the the seed can grow, right, but the roots don't go deep enough. Sun comes out, burns the burns the plant, withers and dies. Third is uh sun fell on thorny grounds, right? And the thorns kind of hold the the plant so that the plant cannot grow. And the last fell on fertile soil. Um and and Jesus gives an explanation of the parable of the soil, right? Um and this has sometimes been known as the the parable of the four soils, right? The the four different types of conditions of our hearts. And I would say um that when Jesus taught this parable, I don't think he meant it like uh you are now you are hard ground, now you get out of the church, right? Not that you're stuck as a particular soil. I think it is a way of Jesus to kind of open scripture to us and kind of uh reveal the condition of our hearts and ask, will you work towards becoming a fertile soil? Will you turn your ears to be attentive to God? Will you attune your heart to his word? And so it's speaking on the condition of our hearts, and that we need to come to God with a certain uh humility, a certain uh broken and contrite heart, right? Um but I want to end off with this uh other point about the parable, which is um Jesus in you know you know how sometimes it's called the parable of the four soils? Jesus in verse 18 calls it a parable of the sower. And traditionally it has been known as a parable of the sower in the church, right? So why is that the case? It's clearly about the false soils, it's clearly about how they are the condition of our hearts, right? When Jesus explained the parable, it is about the false soils. And yet Jesus refers to it as the parable of the sower. And I want to end on this note, right? The parable is not first and foremost about us, right? The parable is not first and foremost about the condition of our hearts. The parable is first and foremost about the sower. Right? If the seeds are the word of God, then the sower here obviously represents Jesus. So we think about it. Which uh good farmer will just go out into his field and just anyhow scatters? This is the road, ah, never mind, throw on the road, right? This has taunts, ah, throw on the taunts, don't remove the taunts, right? This is the rocking, ah, just throw on your rocks, ah, never mind, it's okay. Right? And I think there's a there's an implicit point here. Jesus as the sower sows lavishingly. And so some of us may be hard-hearted in certain areas of our lives, right? Some of us may be um maybe very joyous for a moment but quickly uh fade away, right? Sometimes our faith is emotional high and then we kind of fade down. Some of us may have certain worries in in our lives that are kind of keeping us from offering our our very, very all to the Lord, right? Uh Jesus is not looking just for all those fertiles, right? I plant a seed there. Oh that that that that meant that meant very good. Read scripture every day, I plant a seed there. Right? Jesus sows into everyone's heart and sows lavishingly. And I trust that whatever condition your heart is, God is still sowing his word into your lives, into your hearts today. And I pray that you know, if you have heard the word of God speaking to you today, that you may turn your ear and attune your heart to God. This day, allow God's word to take root in your heart, right? So that there may be true transformation, right? Allow the Lord to speak his word into your into your life, understand his word, and allow that to change your heart so that you may grow in holiness and abound in works of obedience.

SPEAKER_00 49:06

We pray that you've been ministered to by the Word of God today. If you'd like to know more about Ishun Christian Church, please visit our website at yccanglican.com. Have a blessed day.