Chapter 03: Abiding

[00:00:02] Chapter 3 abiding questions describe what praying is like for you. How long? How often? How do you feel when you pray? The point is not to evaluate, but rather just to notice you're not getting graded on this Are you enjoying prayer? Explain why or why not currently. What is your Bible reading practice? Not only how often or how much, but what is it like? How do you feel when you read scripture? The point is not to evaluate, but rather just to notice you're not getting graded on. This is your tendency to read scripture for information or for devotion? Write down an example. [00:00:53] The idea we are covering this week is that of abiding. [00:00:57] Abiding simply means to intentionally remain with God and grow in awareness of his presence. [00:01:03] Abiding is the foundational activity of growth with Jesus. Sometimes it's called devotions. [00:01:10] Sometimes it's called time alone with God. But Jesus calls it abiding or remaining. In John 15, he uses the analogy of a branch that simply remains connected to the vine to find growth and life. He says that we are branches and he is the vine. [00:01:26] We are to abide in Him. The practices that make up the bones of abiding are prayer and scripture reading. If these sound much less exciting or spiritual than abiding, that is okay. That's how most of us feel. I think you'll find that to a large degree, those feelings come not because abiding is boring, but because we often think of them inaccurately. [00:01:50] Let's start with prayer. [00:01:52] Prayer. [00:01:54] Prayer is a hidden struggle for most Christians. I hope that eases your mind, because it's true. Pastors, missionaries, schoolteachers, janitors, Christians of all stripes struggle with the idea of prayer. We do so for a couple of reasons. First, we tend to think it's simply a discipline that doesn't do much. [00:02:13] God knows everything, so why run down the list? [00:02:16] Second, it's boring. Stories of people praying all night seem nearly impossible because how in the world could a normal human have that much to say without another person to join the conversation? Once again, I hope that makes you feel better. You are not alone. [00:02:31] Prayer will sometimes be hard for everyone. A lot of the time. Actually, that's a good thing, because easy things don't often make a lasting impact. [00:02:42] Growth in any skill requires work. Communication, be it between spouses, families, co workers or Christians and God is a skill. But there's more. First, God has chosen to work with us in prayer. In Genesis chapter one, God gives humanity dominion over the world. The original word in Hebrew can be translated to tread down. [00:03:07] In other words, God has created the world in such a way that he desires for us to work with him to make the world good. We can affect things. He has entrusted care to us and shares responsibility with us. In Scripture, prayer is central to that. [00:03:24] He asks us to ask Him. Jesus told his original disciples in Matthew 9:38 to ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers. In his example of prayer given in Matthew 6, he says to his Father, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. In 1st Samuel 2, God hears the prayer of Hannah and gives an answer. [00:03:50] Prayer changes things. It changes our heart, and it changes things in the world. [00:03:56] James tells the church that anyone who is sick should call the elders to pray for them and anoint them with oil. [00:04:04] Prayer best understood is just communicating with God, talking to Him. Repentance is prayer. Asking God something is prayer. Singing to God is prayer. Venting to God is prayer. But first and foremost we pray because God has invited us to talk to him, and when we do so, it actually makes a difference. [00:04:26] This is the core of the Christian practice of intercessory prayer. [00:04:31] We identify the needs that we know of friends, family, church, world, etc. And go to the Lord expecting that praying, while not the only thing we're supposed to do, is making a difference in that need. [00:04:45] Second, communication goes both ways. In prayer, God can and does speak to us. We often have so much on our minds that we cannot slow down to hear God whisper to us in the stillness of our hearts. But he does speak. He brings comfort, guidance, and healing, as well as conviction, correction, and instruction to us as we still our hearts and listen to Him. [00:05:11] We can ask God what to pray and then pray the things he brings to mind. As we still our hearts and listen to Him. We can simply sit in silence with him the way two old friends sit together with no need to speak. [00:05:24] We can simply enjoy his presence as we remember that he loves us and we don't have to earn that love. [00:05:30] For most of us, there is a deep longing we don't even realize is there that finds its fulfillment when we are finally able to simply sit in silence with the Lord. [00:05:41] Prayer does not get easy, but in it we can find joy. It takes practice. These practices have been historically called spiritual disciplines. When you hear that, don't think of discipline as getting grounded. As a child, think of discipline like learning the discipline of martial arts, or better yet, like its root word, disciple. It is a practice that takes a concerted effort and is at times uncomfortable, but forms our hearts into the likeness of the thing to which the practice points us How? Because the Holy Spirit meets us in the practice Scripture. Like prayer, the practice of reading the Bible is a space where the Holy Spirit meets us. That being said, studying Scripture can be overwhelming. There's a lot of information and variety in the Bible and a lot of misconceptions about what it even means to study it. Here's the first thing to remember. The Bible is not a book, it's a library. It contains a wide variety of genres written over a couple of thousand years by 40 or so authors. [00:06:48] What links it together is that it is the story of God's faithfulness in response to human sin and that it is inspired by the Holy Spirit. [00:06:56] The Bible is from God for the people of God to be saved, grow in the knowledge of God, grow in personal healing and righteousness, and live out their purpose in the world. It is a work that can be read devotionally by anyone, but also requires study to be deeply understood. [00:07:16] As followers of Jesus, we live in a tension of reading the Bible for personal development, growth and encouragement, and studying the Bible for deeper understanding and knowledge. We read it on our own so that the Spirit ministers to our hearts. We listen to it taught for the sake of growth, challenge, depth of understanding and receiving ministry. We also read and study it with others to learn together and be formed as a community. [00:07:44] But in all cases, we sit under the authority of Scripture. We submit to what God has given us in Scripture. We do not make the Scripture submit to what we want it to say. [00:07:55] With that in mind, this next statement is crucial. The Bible is complex and is not designed to give clear answers to every question. [00:08:04] It is to be studied, wrestled with, learned from, meditated on, even at times debated over. [00:08:13] The Bible can handle your questions. God isn't afraid of our doubts, questions or frustrations. If he was, he wouldn't have let the confusing passages stay in there. The preeminent issue is not that we never ask tough questions or find something hard to believe. [00:08:32] What's important is our posture. [00:08:35] We come to the Bible ready to grow, learn, wrestle and ask questions. But we also come to the Bible knowing that whatever answer proves accurate is what we submit to. Even if we don't like it. We can say, this doesn't seem like the right way to interpret this verse. And we can discuss and even debate it. But we cannot say, I don't like what this verse says, so it must mean what I think it should mean. [00:09:01] Following Jesus means being people who are committed to the Bible. The Bible is not God. We do not serve or worship the Bible. But the Bible is God's word and contains his revelation to the world. [00:09:14] We follow Jesus through the Bible as the Holy Spirit awakens our hearts to the truth. Here's one more thing to take note of before we go any further. [00:09:24] The Bible has undeniably withstood the highest level of academic criticism that any text, ancient or modern, has ever been put through. It has survived everything from the Crusades to the Enlightenment to David Hume to Richard Dawkins. No one has proven it unreliable when it is properly understood for the claims it is actually making. The Bible can be trusted spiritually and factually. You do not have to turn off your science, academic rigor or intellectual veracity to trust the Word of God. [00:09:59] Devotion There are two ways to approach Scripture. Both are crucial to our development. [00:10:05] The first is in prayer and listening. We'll call it the Devotional reading. It is an adaptation of the ancient practice of lectio divina. [00:10:14] This is the daily approach many Christians take. You might think of it like gold mining. The goal is to find the nugget that speaks to your life today. [00:10:24] It might be a word of comfort or encouragement. It might be a challenge or conviction of something wrong. Or it might be a thing to do. We pursue this approach by beginning with prayer. We ask God to quiet our hearts so that we can focus on His Word. We pick a passage of scripture and we read until something jumps out at us. We trust that the Holy Spirit will guide us into the truth we need today. [00:10:48] When something stands out in our minds, we reread it. [00:10:52] We ask God to show us what it means for us today. [00:10:55] We consider how this affects the way we think or act. [00:10:59] We ask the Holy Spirit to apply this to our lives. Then we thank God for His Word and consider what has been brought to mind as we go through the day. This is a simple outline for devotional Bible reading. There are many beautiful and formative practices that have been used by Christians for thousands of years. [00:11:18] Many of us at New Life use apps like Lectio 365 or abide in our devotional practice. A key word that has deep Christian roots but is often overlooked in Christian circles is meditation. [00:11:31] Centering one's heart and mind on the Word of God and allowing the Holy Spirit to speak in that stillness is key to devotional reading and is the essence of Christian meditation induction. [00:11:45] The second method is called Inductive Bible Study. This method is crucial to the life of any believer. For this reason, we need to know what Scripture means for us. On this specific day. [00:11:57] We need to know what this means to the people who heard it first, and we need to know what it means to all people everywhere. [00:12:05] Think of it like this. Inductive Bible study is like learning about nutrition and health. Instead of learning to not eat ice cream, not eating too much ice cream is part of health. But there are many situations where that information, while true for someone in a different circumstance, isn't relevant to me. But if we learn to discern health based on nutrition, then we'll learn something that is true in every circumstance, even if the application changes. Inductive Bible study is the process by which we engage in a deep learning of Scripture. [00:12:39] It empowers us to expand our knowledge of the Bible, which means the transformation brought to our hearts through the Holy Spirit as we engage in the Word expands as well. [00:12:50] Inductive Bible study can be done on your own, but is bolstered by preaching, Bible study groups, and discussion with fellow believers. When we study Scripture with others and when we listen to teaching from others, we acknowledge that God is beyond our understanding and that the Bible is for the people of God, not just one person. [00:13:10] We need one another to grow, and we need the opinions of others to challenge our own. This is the foundation of our life group's structure here at New Life. [00:13:20] An approachable way to begin the inductive method of Bible study is by applying three simple steps. The first is observation. You begin by noticing everything you can about a text. What happened before? What happened after? What words are repeated? What statements seem odd? Who are the characters? What do we know about them? Is there something being referenced here from another part of the Bible? [00:13:45] Is there anything that seems like it might not make sense to a modern American but might be normal for an ancient Israelite? In what order were the things said, or did the things happen? [00:13:55] The observation stage is just noticing everything you can about the text. [00:14:01] The second step is interpretation. [00:14:04] Now that you've noticed all of this, what does it mean? This is a great time to look at a study Bible with notes or a commentary from a scholar. It's also a great time to talk to a mentor, life group leader, or pastor. The goal here is to ask what this meant to the original author and what this means to us today. Here's why asking both of those questions is important. [00:14:26] Sometimes the Bible is saying something that is specific to the original time period, but based on a larger truth. [00:14:34] Take First Corinthians 11 as an example. Here the original author, Paul the Apostle, instructs men to uncover their heads when they pray and women to always cover theirs. It also talks about godly haircuts. If we only ask, what does this mean? We might make women wear hats when they pray and never let a man grow his hair out. [00:14:54] But there are other places and characters in the Bible, like Samson from the Book of Judges, that are told to never cut their hair short. If we ask what this meant to them and also what this means today, then we'll see the bigger picture. Paul is talking about taking a respectful posture in prayer, specifically respectful to the people around you. In that culture, for a woman to pray with her head uncovered was making a very provocative statement. [00:15:22] Just a few verses earlier, Paul said, I have the right to do anything you say, but not everything is beneficial. 1st Corinthians 10:23 NIV in other words, just because God doesn't care what you have on your head when you pray doesn't mean you can offend people at will. [00:15:40] The last step is application. In this step, we once again stop to pray. We re engage the devotional Bible study method to take the deeper level of understanding we have gained through this inductive process and ask the Holy Spirit to highlight how this truth is best applied to our lives. [00:15:58] Both of these methods are necessary in the life of a Christian. If we never engage in inductive study of Scripture, we risk taking Scripture out of context or allowing confusing and difficult passages to become roadblocks instead of stepping stones. If we never engage in devotional reading, we risk turning the Bible into a textbook that we can master instead of the word of God that shapes and forms our hearts through the guidance of the Holy Spirit. [00:16:27] As you make time alone with God a part of your daily life, include both of these practices. Devotional reading is an important daily practice. Inductive study might not be a daily practice, but it should be engaged in consistently. [00:16:41] It will become more natural as it is practiced more often. Prayer and scripture are both essential parts of abiding with God and are both spiritual disciplines. Hopefully by now you can see that they are nearly impossible to separate. When you do one, you almost inevitably wind up doing the other in one form or another as you take time to regularly grow in intimacy with Jesus. [00:17:06] Take prayer and scripture reading together as the core practice of abiding with God. This prayer comes from author and theologian Henri Nouwen on becoming aware of God's presence with us Dear Lord, give me eyes to see and ears to hear. [00:17:23] I know there is light in the darkness that makes everything new. I know there is new life in suffering that opens a new earth for me. I know there is a joy beyond sorrow that rejuvenates my heart. Yes, Lord, I know that you are, that you act, that you love, that you indeed are light, life and truth. [00:17:44] People, work, plans, projects, ideas, meetings, buildings, paintings, music and literature can only give me real joy and peace when I can see and hear them as reflections of your presence, your glory, your kingdom. [00:18:01] Let me then see and hear. [00:18:03] Let me be so taken by what you show me and by what you say to me that your vision and hearing become my guide in life and impart meaning to all my concerns. [00:18:15] Let me see and hear what is really real, and let me have the courage to keep unmasking the endless unrealities which disturb my life every day. [00:18:26] Now I see only in a mirror. But one day, O Lord, I hope to see you face to face. Am.