Mindset: May It Be Like Honey

Hi family. How are you so glad you're all here this morning or joining us online. Thank you for choosing to spend some time with us. We're going to do this right off the bat. We have some volunteers that are going to come forward. So go, you guys, go ahead and come do this. They're going to pass out honey sticks for you. Those are going to make a whole lot more sense in a minute. Don't worry. They are 100% COVID free. So those are going to be passed out to you. We're starting into this new series called Mindset. We're going to be tackling kind of the mindset of the people who wrote the Bible and how that changes us. But before we get there, a couple of things that I need to talk about, one of them is we're going to have to have a family meeting. 

Don't get scared. But first one is this. If you're looking at the stage going, what's different? It's kind of like when you see somebody who just colored their hair and you know, something's different, but you're like, what is it? The big, long center screen is gone. Did you notice that? Yeah. Here's why-- because Big Momma is coming to town. Am I right? Am I right? Here's we got big changes coming up for our, stage. And I am so, so excited. Like give me this one thing in COVID like this one moment of happiness. We are upgrading our video equipment and our video equipment 20 years old. It was in, especially in light of all the things that we do with maps and pictures and those kinds of things, it's actually really significant for you to be able to actually really see what we're doing. And so we are in the process of upgrading that stuff -- that will be coming over the next couple of weeks. We've actually been working on it since March. Like when the church shut down, we were like, hey, this is a great opportunity. And then they opened us back up. And so we're in the process of doing that upgrade. And if you go out into the lobby, you'll notice that the TVs are different. You can actually see them. And that's encouraging because they have really important information on them. But I wanted to let you know about that. Here's what we need to talk about. We've talked about this before, how the rabbis in their yoke, they stacked the commands, right? So because the 613 laws and Torah, you can't obey all the commands all the time. What that means is sometimes in a situation you have to violate one to honor the other. And, and so then you have to prioritize which ones do you choose to violate? And which ones do you choose to uphold? That's the stage for what we're about to talk about right now? Okay. This next sentence is chosen very, very carefully. So hear me. There is nothing, all caps, bold underline, underline, exclamation point exclamation point. Nothing that we do that is more important than worship. There is nothing that we do that is more important than worship. And I know that for some people that will say prayer is more important than worship. Prayer is important. It is critical, but it's not as important as worship. It's not. If you're like, well, what should be a little case for that revelation for John's vision of the throne room of God, what happens in the presence of God, all the time? Worship. And so the closer you get to the presence of God, the more you're going to worship. When you get to heaven, guess what you're going to be doing. You're going to be worshiping. There is nothing more important that we do no more show. Okay. Now, a few weeks ago, our state went under a mask mandate. And I said, then that in a month, we would know if this was going to work or not. Here's what I can tell you. This is just the raw data. It is the numbers of the numbers. When we went into the mask mandate, our daily confirmed infection rate was about between seven and 800 people per day in the state of Colorado. As of yesterday, it's running over the last week or so between 150 and 300 cases per day. 

Here's what that means. The masks are working. Like, like them are not there. It's bringing down the infection rate. And I know that for some of us, it's like, cause I refuse to go out anymore… still working, still working. So I get it. Like, I don't like the masks I don't, and I don't like wearing them. These are my two positions. There's nothing more important to me than nothing more important than we do. The more show and the mass, we have this mass mandate. So here's, I want to say we're stacking the commands in this, but I want us to -- the last couple of weeks, I don't even know how to say this really clear, but the last couple of weeks for me, I have this, like, I can't really worship, like I want to, because I can't breathe. And I know that the oxygen levels, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That's not the point. The point is every time I take a breath, the thing hits the back of my throat and I gag. So here's what I want to say. I think you should wear a mask because they're working. If the mask is getting in the way of you actually really worshiping God, we're not going to police who wears a mask and who does not in this room? Now listen to me, listen to me. Here's why -- we are in this incredible place in history where each one of the individual components of what's making things so crazy are big deals, but all put together like we're at a pivot point for the future of the kingdom of God in a way that I don't remember experiencing. And if you don't think that's true, you've been living under a rock, not the least of which is the election coming up in November, which I don't care where you stand politically on that, we all would admit that this is a pivot point for our country. And we need more of the presence of God. Not less of it. Worship is the doorway -- worship is the access point. And so I want us to worship. And if for you and I -- the mask is getting in the way of it -- then while we're worshiping, take it off. Now, this is not an anti-mask campaign. Yesterday I was on a call with 268 faith leaders and the governor and from the state of Colorado and one of his chief medical people. And they asked her point blank, how long is it going to be before we see this being done? Here's what she said, six months. I will not ask you to do this for six months. So here's what I'm going to ask of. Let's treat it like a restaurant -- when you're coming in or leaving, please have your mask on. But when you're in this space, if it helps you worship, you can, we are considering ourselves actively eating. Now back to the honey, it's cheesy. It's cheesy. I know it. I see what I did. They're making all these food jokes, just like a dad. In a very real sense,  Jesus, himself said, I have food that you don't know about. My food is to do the will of the father. There is a real component to this. I just want to give that to you, make your own decision about it. Just know that we're not going to police it. And if you feel like man, I should wear a mask, please do, please do, please do. You're free to do that. You're free to do that. We're just not going to police it in here. Okay? So that's all we have to say about that.

Now let's talk about those honey sticks in the Jewish world. Before the advent of computers, they used to bring slates to school and the little chalkboard slates. And on the first day of school, before it had a bunch of chalk on it, they would smear it with honey. And then they would make the student lick it off. And the reason is because they wanted to teach right off the bat, that the word of God that they're going to be writing on this slate is to be sweet to you like honey. Now, with the advent of computers, what they do is they put a drop on their finger and they lick it off, which is much more sanitary. But they put it, they put a drop on their fingers and they lick it off. May the word of God, may it be like honey, to you. This is the rabbinic blessing. And so I given you honey and you have a choice with this honey right now, right in this room. As we move forward, what you can do with that is you can just open it up and just down it, you can do that. Or you can take that honey, stick home and put it where you have your daily devotions, just as a reminder, that the word of God is to be sweet to you like honey. And you're free to do either. One of those things today, what we're going to look at is a hope, some things that make the word even sweeter. We want to look at some connections that as we enter into this Mindset series on what is the mindset of the people who wrote the Bible that gives us insight into maybe what they were thinking and what they were doing, or when you read something and you're like, what even is that? Like, why are you, why are you wasting my time with that information? I want to offer this to you. There are no unimportant details. Paper was way too valuable. There are no unimportant details in the Bible. So when we read the Bible and you come across the detail where you're like, why do I need to know that -- what I want to do is begin to open up to you some things that might help you understand how to go about finding that and this isn't going to be like, you're not going to walk out of here crying with conviction, but this is going to be a sermon that I hope sparks an interest for us to get deeper into the word. Cause anytime that you say I got that passage figured out, your God is too small. The Bible at one level is so simple that a three year old can understand it. But at another level it's so deep that the smartest minds in the world will never find it depths. There is always a fresh word for you and I in, in the Bible.

And so I want to begin with this text graphic. This is developed by a friend, Brad Grey. There you go. Awesome. And this is his kind of way of helping us understand, like what goes in to understanding the context around the Bible. And a lot of people ask me this question, like, where do you get your information? Or how do you find it? Or it's not even so much that the resources aren't there. It's just asking questions of the text from a specific space. If you look at the center of the text, that's the Bible, but around it are all these things that are influencing, what's being written. And these things are written with an assumption that you would know these things that the Bible wasn't written to 21st century America, it was written -- the specifically the new Testament -- was written to first century Israel and Asia minor. And so all of these cultural assumptions, they understood them, right? They understood just like we have cultural assumptions. If you were to go back in the first century and say, hey guys, be careful of COVID. They would have no frame of reference for that. Right? You and I are never going to forget it because there's some cultural implications to it. Okay. Same kind of thing. So with the texts, there's cultural pieces to it, like is this, is this written to upper-class? Is it written to the slave class is written to shepherds, is it written to Keens those kinds of things, the geographical place, because geography holds memory. And that matters like, think about this. When you go home to your childhood home, you still elicits emotional response because the memories attached to it, right? Some of those memories are good. Some of them are not good. The visual -- are we in the mountains? Are we in the desert? Are we in a grape vineyard? Are we, where are we? The linguistic influences? Is it Greek? Is it Hebrew? Those kinds of things change it. The literary, what genre of literature is it? Is it history or is it poetry? That changes? Is it apocalyptic literature? Is it -- all of that stuff influences how we understand it. The historical piece, what are the historical pieces that are going on? All of these things converged to create the context around the text. And I would suggest that none of us like to be taken out of context and the Bible is also the same way. It doesn't like to be taken out of context. And so it needs to be read from the perspective of the people who wrote it and the first readers, and that helps us to get at what's going on in the passage. 

So I want to wrestle with three different topics to kind of illustrate for you this morning, kind of what that means. And we're going to move through them relatively quickly. There's lots more that we could do with this, but we only have so much time. So here we go. Number one, we're going to wrestle with this. Who's John the Baptist and not only who is John the Baptist, but why in the world does he wear camel's hair and a leather belt? And why do I need to know all that detail? I don't have any of Jesus's wardrobe choices in the scripture. Like, nobody's talking about -- and here here's Paul wearing a Toga from Rome, you know, here's Jesus with a light blue sash. Like we don't have that. Hair parted down the middle, long, blue eyes, obviously Euro Jesus. Like we don't have any of his wardrobe choices. Why do I need to know that he wears camel's hair and leather belt? So we're going to wrestle with that today. And what's going to happen is cause here's, here's the thing. I was a preacher's kid. So I got lots of, I got lots of baggage with that, but I heard preachers debate this for years. Like some of them were like camel’s hair, man, I had a camel's hair suit coat. It was so comfortable and it was amazing. And I was like, my thought was who in the world thought, you know what we could do with all this camel's hair? Dress clothes -- it'll catch on. I'm serious. And then I had other guys, I heard other guys that were like, man, camel's hair, it's really stiff. And it's thick. And it's really uncomfortable, it’s terrible. And that John the Baptist actually is the birth of the Hasidic monk movement, which are the monks that used to beat themselves and not take baths for months, which is not making them more like Jesus. Just for the record, not taking a bath, doesn't make you more like Jesus, like shower up. What's going on there with all of that. Well, we're going to begin with Matthew 3:4 just this, this statement it says, now John wore a garment of camel's hair and a leather belt around his waist and his food was locusts and wild honey. Now locusts is not the bugs locusts. Just like in English, Hebrew has the bug locusts and then it has the locust tree. John is an Essene. There's no way that he would have touched anything dead -- he just wouldn't have done it. It's against the Essene code. The locust is the locust tree that has a pod on it that has beans inside that they use to make a chocolate substitute called carob. You heard of it. Yeah. Now here's the other interesting thing about those beans. They're so uniform in the same size in all the beans and all the pods. They're so exactly the same size that they're used as a form of measure. It's called a carat. You familiar with that all my ladies? So, some of you in the room were like, I'm not familiar with the carat am I, honey? I'd like to be. I don’t have enough time for these kinds of jokes. Okay, here we go. So what is going on with him? Malachi 4, here we go. Here's what it says: for behold, the day is coming burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and all evildoers will be stubble. The day that is coming shall set them ablaze, says the Lord of hosts, so that it will leave them neither root nor branch. But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings. And if you remember a while back, we talked about that passage. What does that mean? The woman with the issue of blood. You shall go out leaping like calves from the stall. And you shall tread down the wicked, for they will be ashes under the soles of your feet, on the day when I act, says the Lord of hosts. Remember the law of my servant, Moses, the statutes and rules that I commanded him at Horeb for all Israel. Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the great and awesome day of the Lord comes. So, Elijah has to come before the Messiah shows up. Okay? The prophet Elijah has to return before the Messiah shows up and it says, And he will turn the hearts of fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, lest I come and strike the land with the decree of utter destruction. Okay. Now, let me keep moving quickly. Jesus, in Matthew 11 is talking about John the Baptist and here's what he says: Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force. 

By the way, that sounds really un-Jesusy on the surface, this is really another conversation for another day because we don't have time for it. But that's one of the most Jesusy things that could have been said. Trust me -- for all the Prophets and the law prophesied until John, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. So, Jesus says that John the Baptist is this returning of Elijah that prepares the way for Messiah to show up. Are you with me? Now? The question becomes, if you were Elijah, how would you make that point known? Hey, I mean, if you were John the Baptist, how would you make the point known that you're Elijah? Okay. In our world, what we would do is we would come with our treatise. I am John the Baptist. Here's five reasons why now let's take a vote and decide. Are you with me? Or again, me, that's, that's how we do it. In their world, They believe that that is insulting your intelligence. There's this really interesting story in the book of 2 Kings 1 where Ahaziah the King is walking through a hallway. And he leans out a lattice to look outside our window that had lattice on it to look out and down, outside in his courtyard. And the lattice gives out any falls out the window and hurts himself. And he's laying in his bed trying to recover. And he has one of his generals -- he says, Hey, go to Baal-Zebub, the God of Ekron. Yes, that's a problem. And ask him, am I going to live or am I going to die in this bed? Well, while he's on the way Elijah comes and kind of cuts off his path and looks at him and says, is it that there's no God in Israel that you go Baal-Zebub, the detestable god of Ekron? You go tell that wicked King that he will not get out of that bed. So the general goes back. And the King is like, why are you back so quick? And he says, well, when I was on the way, this guy cut me off and told me to come tell you, you weren't going to get out of bed. Okay. Not something that the King wants to hear. So let's pick up the story in 2 Kings 1, here's what it says: And he said to them, (the King said to them, the people that went), what kind of man was he who came to meet you and told you these things? They answered him, he wore a garment of hair and a belt of leather about his waist. And he said, It is Elijah the Tishbite. Why does John wear camel's hair and a leather belt? He's telling the world who he is, but he's doing it in a way that's very Eastern. And you have to know that. Hwould never insult your intelligence by just giving you the treatise in five points. Oh. And by the way, they get it. They understand exactly what he's doing. So, this is John the Baptist.

Now let's look at another one. This is a fun Matthew's genealogy, which I know that you have all memorized. It has brought you to tears many times, mainly because you had to read it, right? You're like, ah, this is the only -- could the Bible be worse than Leviticus? Genealogy. Like this is what's now here's the thing. What you have to understand is that Matthew is a Jewish guy writing a Jewish gospel to a Jewish audience. And if you don't know that, then we don't understand how that truth can shape what he's saying or the stories that he chooses or the stories that he leaves out. As opposed to like John who's writing his gospel to a group of people in Asia minor, very different culture, very different needs. Now these stories all happened, but they're using the stories to make different points because they have a different audience. Mark is writing to Rome, it's written to a whole different subset of people. And so they shaped the stories, not making them untrue, but they use the stories to prove who Jesus is to the audience that they're writing to. In the first century, the number one title for Messiah was the, Son of David. David was the warrior King. David was the one who restored peace to Israel. And this is by the way, it's in the Bible prophesied that that the son of David would be the Messiah. And so this is, this is exactly what they needed. And so Matthew goes about writing the genealogy. In fact, Matthew 1:17. Here's what it says: So all the generations from Abraham to David were 14 generations. And from David to the deportation to Babylon were 14 generations. And from the deportation of Babylon to the Christ was 14 generations. Woo. Why do I need to know that? Why do I need to know that detail? Well, so here's, let's look at a graphic here. So, Abraham to David 14, David to Babylon 14, Babylon to Jesus 14. Now on the surface, well, we could look at that with just a little bit that we know about numbers in the Jewish world is each 14 is two sevens. Right? So that would be something to pick up on. Yup. Yup. Yup. Yup. Okay, good. But there's something else going on here that I find just stunning and here it is, next slide. You guys are like, Whoa, right? This is David in Hebrew. So left to right in English, right to left in Hebrew is David. And here's the thing about, I get paid to speak for a living. Did you see that? How I got ahead of myself and my mind? Here's the thing about letters in Hebrew -- letters have a numeric value. Check this out. Next slide. David in Hebrew equals 14. So what is Matthew saying? That Jesus is the son of David. Now why does he need to do it three times? Because Leviticus says a matter will be confirmed in the presence of two or three witnesses. I know right, too much. Oh, just wait. This is one of my favorites. This is one of my favorites. This next one. So Matthew was saying who Jesus is through a genealogy. Well, we didn't even want to read it or not, but now it matters. Not only that, but it's got women in it. Like it's not just who Jesus is as son of David, but it's what the son of David is actually really liking who he gives value to. It's beautiful.

Number three, there’s a woman caught in adultery, this is probably the number one question that I get asked about the Bible. Why in the world does Jesus write in the dirt? And what is he writing? Especially with Jesus, anytime that you read something and you're like, what is that? Or why is that going on? The answer 99.99% of the time is always going to be this it's in the text. It's always in the text. What's he doing? So let's read John 8 and then we're going to pull some pieces out here. So here's what John 8 says, but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. Early in the morning he came again to the temple. Okay. Now remember always the most stunning piece of any passage is that it comes right after one passage and right before another passage. So the most stunning thing about John chapter 8 is that it comes right after John chapter 7, John chapter 7 is the Hoshana Rabbah the last and greatest day of the feast. What feast? The feast is Sucote. And you need to know that because it's important. The last and greatest day of Sucote, and that's where Jesus stands up and says, if anyone comes to me then springs of living water will flow out of him, right? Why? Because it's Sucote. We pray for rain, living water. Okay? You need to know that. So Hoshana Rabbah is the last and greatest day of the feast. So on the next day, the next day, Jesus went to the Mount of Olives early in the morning, he came again to the temple and all the people came to him and he sat down and taught them. The scribes and the Pharisees brought a woman who'd been caught in adultery, by the way, where's the man. Can I get a witness from my sisters? I have to say that so that I can survive. They brought a woman had been caught in adultery and placing her in the midst, they said to him teacher, this woman has been caught in the act of adultery. Now in the law, Moses commanded us to stone, such women. So what do you say this? This they said to test him, that they might have some charge to bring against him. And Jesus, in a brilliant move, bent down and wrote with his finger on the ground. And as they continued to ask him, he stood up and said to them, let him who is without sin among you be the first to throw the stone at her.  And once more, he bent down and wrote on the ground. But when they had heard it, they went away one by one beginning with the older ones, and Jesus was left alone with the woman standing before him. Jesus stood up and said to her, Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you? She said, no one Lord. And Jesus said, neither do I condemn you; go and from now on sin no more.

Okay. Let's step out of that story. And I want to give you some details, some historical details that will help us put a framework on what's happening here. Okay. In the Mishnah, Yama 8:9, if you're interested, here's what it says, Yom Kippur (the day of atonement) -- hang with me; all these pieces are going to tie together -- the day of atonement, atones for a person's transgressions against God. But it does not atone for his transgressions against his fellow man, until he appeases him. So day of atonement, I can get forgiveness from God, but you don't have to forgive me until I make it right to you. And the things that I don't make right with you, you don't have to forgive. Here's what David Stern says in the Jewish New Testament Commentary. Here's what he says, Hoshanna Rabbah was understood to be the absolutely final chance to have one’s sins forgiven, sins for the year forgiven. So Hoshanna Rabbah, which is the last and greatest day of the feast, that's the absolute final chance to have your sins forgiven. On Roshashanna, which is the new year, one asks to be inscribed in the book of life and on Yom Kippur, which is the day of atonement, one hopes to have the inscription sealed. Yet in Jewish tradition, there remained opportunity for forgiveness up to Hoshannah Rabbah . Okay? You're like why in the world does that matter? Let's look at some pictures. Here's the first graphic Sucoteis always done on the 15th day of the seventh month, which is somewhere between mid September and mid October. And here's why, the rainy season is mid October to mid April. And then there's a dry season and it does not rain from April to mid October. And the problem is if they don't get rain in its season, it doesn't just mess up the next year, it messes up seven to 10 years after that. Like, the way that the water table falls there, it's just incredible. And you really do have to come to Israel to understand it, but it's, it's really baffling. And so the rain for them is super critical every year. And they have gone about as long as they can go with no rain. And then they have Sucote where they pray for rain. Next graphic. These are the festivals in the seventh month. First is Rosh Hashanah at the beginning. And then seven days later is Yom Kippur, which is the day of atonement. And we talked, we were reading about that, right? Then seven days after that is Sucote, which is a seven day feas and on the eighth day you have the Hoshannah Rabbah, the last and greatest day of the feast. Why does this matter? Because Yom Kippur is where we get forgiveness from God. But we have,up until Hoshannah Rabbah to get forgiveness from other people. When do they bring the woman to him? The next day? Why? Because now she cannot be forgiven. She has to be held to account. And you're like, that's a jerk move. Yeah. Yeah, it is. And what I love about Jesus in this moment is that Jesus, the son of God stands between her and her accusers and says, take a hike. And I love that Jesus stands between me and my accusers and says, take a hike. Whether or not it's true is not the point. You don’t treat people this way. Forgiveness should always be the goal. And he draws in the dirt. Why? Why is he drawing in the dirt? Here's why there are two passages that deal with living water. So during the festival of Sucote, while we're praying every day for living water, these two passages are being read every day. Every day they're being read over and over and over. What are they? First one is Jeremiah 17: Oh Lord, the hope of Israel, all who forsake your name shall be put to shame. Those who turn away from you shall be written in the earth for they have forsaken the Lord, the fountain of living water. So why does he write in the dirt? Because if they've been reading this passage all week, that whole first use written in the, what are you doing? Writing in the dirt. You think we forsaken the Lord? You think we're the ones you think …me? Remember. There was that second passage, which goes to this question. So why then in the middle of writing in the dirt, does he stand up and say he was without sin? Let him cast the first stone and then go back down and write, because there's this one other passage. 

Jeremiah 2:  for my people have committed two evils. They have forsaken me, the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns for themselves, broken cisterns that can hold no water. And you go, well, what does that have to do with saying that he who has sin, let him cast the first stone? Well, if you keep reading in Jeremiah 2, it says this: how well you direct your course to seek love! So that even the wicked women you have taught your ways. Also on your skirts is found the lifeblood of the guiltless poor; you did not find them breaking in. Yet in spite of all these things you say, I am innocent; surely his anger has turned from me. Behold, I will bring you to judgment for saying, I have not sinned. Totally puts them in a position where they can't throw a rock. Cause if they say they haven't sinned, they're bringing judgment on themselves. By the way, Jeremiah is the first prophet to really connect in a major way idolatry and spiritual adultery. Who do they have standing in front of them, an adulterous woman. Like, there's all these layers to what Jesus is doing. That is just like, Oh my word, my head hurts. It's so brilliant. Here's, here's what I hope. What I hope is, that in the process of pulling these things apart, that you can start going, wow, there's a lot more going on there than I realized. Here's why Micah 6:8 -- He's shown you oh man what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? Act justly, love mercy and to walk humbly with your God. Walking humbly with your God means this, it means we're constantly wrestling with the question, what piece of God do I actually have completely figured out? And the answer to that better always be nothing. Because as soon as you have any part of God completely figured out, your God is too small. We should carry our doctrine and our theology closely. We should guard it closely, but we should also hold it with an open hand, believing that at some point, God may show us something else, either in his word or through other things that is going to blow that all up. And that doesn't mean that we compromise. It doesn't mean that we give up our convictions. What it means is that we hold those things carefully, believing that God has permission to change my life, that the Bible should be controlling my doctrine, not doctrine controlling what I see in the Bible. And that's really, really significant.

So I have some implications for us. Number one God's message to us is so much richer and more meaningful when we understand it in our, in its context. And what I would say is I think that the Bible moves us as we understand context more and more. We move from like black and white to high definition. If you have somebody that only ever experienced black and white television, and then you try to describe for them what is high definition? What does it look like? Why is it so much more awesomer? A phrase I made up for the sermon. It's really hard to have a frame of reference for them until they just kind of experience it. And then they go, Oh, my word! That's what context does for the Bible. It moves it from black and white to high definition gives us meaning and depth and texture and beauty and color and richness that was not there before. And it actually gets us excited to get into the word.

Number two, we must be careful when we think that we have the Word of God figured out, God always has fresh words for us. In his words, in his word, he always has fresh word. It's funny that you read the Bible -- it is always exactly what you need. No matter where you're reading in the Bible, the Holy spirit is so faithful to take the living word, it lives, it's got life like it has breath and it, God uses it through his Holy spirit in a way that speaks to me, right where I'm at always.

Number three studying the Bible should always lead to humility. And this is actually really, really important because what happens over time is people start to kind of get the majors knocked off in their life. The kind of Christian doctrine majors, you know what I'm talking about? The main, like don't drink, smoke, cuss or chew or hang out with the girls that do -- those kinds of things. Whatever-- they get those figured out. And then they kind of start figuring out how to live in the Christian subculture, which is its own subculture, right? But they're not, they're not being challenged and changed by the Holy spirit. And so it becomes a posturing game just like the world is, it's just in the church. And I think it's infinitely more destructive. It's definitely more destructive. Look at what 1 Corinthians 8 says, it says, now concerning food offered to idols: we know that all of us possess knowledge. This knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Studying the word of God shouldn't lead to knowledge only. It will give you knowledge, but that knowledge should lead to love. It should always find its expression in love. Always, always, always, always, always, always.

Last implication. Regardless of the scriptural tie, the Bible consistently proves who Jesus is and how much he loves people. That then must also be our message. If the message of the word of God is how incredible Jesus is and how much he loves you -- and he's our rabbi -- we gotta be just like our rabbi. And I just wonder if the average person on the average street and the average town in America would define the church that way, or would they define the church by other things. Right fighting, truth bullying. This is not the heart of Jesus. 

And so as we move into communion time, we're given this picture of reflection and what it looks like to take on the heart of Jesus, this laying down of our life, not a pressing of our agenda, but a loving of other people, making sure with all of our energy that the people around us know how much God is for them. And so this morning, as we prepare for communion, I would just invite you to spend some time with the Lord on that. How are we doing at representing Jesus for who he really is? Let's take a minute to think about that. 

On the night Jesus was betrayed. He took bread and he broke it. And he said, this is my body, which is given for you. So whenever you eat this bread, do it in remembrance of me. And the same way after the dinner, he took a cup and he said, this cup is the blood of the covenant, which is shed for you. So whenever you drink this cup do it in remembrance of me. Let's pray, God, thank you, thank you for your word and how it just, as we spend time with it, it just keeps giving and giving and giving and giving new life, new perspective, new opportunities to know you. And thank you Lord, for all the ways that you, continue to reveal yourself to us. Lord help us to be people who are constantly challenged by what we read in the scripture, unsettle us through your spirit, with what it means to be a part of your kingdom. We love you Lord in your name. Amen.

So good. I hope that this week we're inspired to maybe dig a little deeper, ask a few more questions of the text. Here's the thing I can promise you. There's a lot of people who've asked a lot of hard questions of the scriptures over the years. God's okay with your questions. He's okay with your questions because in the process, you really get to know who he is and that's the point of it all. Isn't it like maybe we find in the scripture, new life, living water, and in the midst of that, may God meet you there. Have a great week and thanks for coming.