from the desk of . . .
Rande Wayne Smith
D.Min., Th.M., M.Div.
LIVING THE BIBLE
… based on James 1:22-25
I’ve told this story before, but it works perfectly as an introduction to today’s message. I used to love to run, & up until 20-25 years ago, I was a very competitive runner. When I lived in Key West I would run around the Island every morning. I also love bananas, & there are trees in Key West that have bananas on them! I’m a country boy from PA … so that was kind of amazing to me. Now bananas are great for runners, so I decided to get my own banana tree, & then when I finished my morning run each day,
I could grab a banana off my tree & eat it as I cooled down.
I bought one & planted it in my front yard. The tree was guaranteed to produce bananas within 18 months. I babied that tree just like it was my own child. And since the side wall of the sanctuary was glass sliding doors,
& my house was just down the sidewalk, the congregation had a perfect view of it. But as time went on, 6 months, 12, 18, 19, 20, 21 …
not only weren’t there any bananas, there wasn’t even a hint of one.
So, some of my congregation began to razz me about it …
“Did you put a banana on your granola this morning?” ha-ha-ha
So, one Saturday morning I went to the Winn Dixie grocery store & bought a bunch of bananas, & still with the Chiquita sticker on, I duct taped them onto my tree. The next morning during the announcements I pointed over at the banana tree & proudly said, “Look!”
What good is a banana tree that doesn’t grow bananas? And what good is a Bible that’s not being used? Now when I’m referring to the Bible being used, I’m not talking about reading it, or listening to a sermon about the Bible, or even studying it in a Bible Study. When I talk about the Bible being used, I’m talking about it being put into practice in our life.
Listen to what James has to say as he tells us just how important it is to apply the Bible to our lives. Within our hearing comes the Word of the Lord.
Do not deceive yourselves by just listening to the word; instead, put it into practice. If you listen to the word, but do not put it into practice you are like people who look in a mirror and see themselves as they are. They take a good look at themselves and then go away and at once forget what they look like. But if you look closely into the perfect law that sets people free, and keep on paying attention to it and do not simply listen and then forget it, but put it into practice – you will be blessed by God in what you do.
(James 1:22-25)
Jesus said, “How happy are those who hear the word of God & obey it!”
(Luke 11:28)
May the Lord grant that we may engage in contemplating the mysteries of His Heavenly wisdom with really increasing devotion, to His glory and to our edification. Amen
James is giving us an analogy. He says there are 2 ways to look in a mirror.
We can either just cast a sideways glance as we’re walking by,
or we can stare into it. And when we stare into a mirror, most of us are going to make some adjustment.
We fix our hair or make sure there’s no lettuce leaf on our teeth.
James says it’s the same way with the Bible.
There are 2 ways to look into the Bible. We can simply give it a cursory glance … or we can look deeply into it in order to make some changes in our life. We can look at the Bible & do nothing … or we can look at it & do something. James stresses we ought to do something.
This is the 4th & final message in this Bible series.
We’ve talked about how we know the Bible is God’s Word…
what the Bible story is … how to interpret it, & this morning, how to apply the Bible to our lives. What we’re going to learn today are things to put into practice as we read the Bible on our own. I want to help you apply the Scriptures, so that whenever we read it or study it or hear it taught, we’ll be ready to put it into practice. And in order to move from reading & hearing & studying to actually doing something,
I’m suggesting 3 questions to ask about whatever passage we’re dealing with.
But 1st I want to identify some obstacles that must be removed in order to be ready to apply the Scriptures to our life. See if any of these hit home.
Obstacle #1 … failure to read the Bible.
This is so obvious I hate to even mention it …
but we can’t apply the Bible if we don’t read the Bible. It’s that simple.
“Voice Of The Martyrs” is a ministry that I’ve followed for years.
It serves persecuted Christians around the world.
There was a story awhile back about distributing Bibles in Pakistan;
long lines of people were waiting to get their 1st copy ever.
We line up for new cell phones, tickets at the Music Center, etc.
There was an elderly man, & when his turn came, he walked up, took off his sandals out of reverence, & as he took the Bible, tears filled his eyes.
He hugged it. He kissed it. And he told the “Voice Of The Martyrs” folks, “I’ve waited 80 years for a Bible of my own.”
And the ironic thing is that the man was illiterate, he can’t read.
Family members read the Bible to him. Boy, does that challenge you like it challenges me? What’s our lame excuse for not reading the Bible?
Here’s another obstacle, & this one may sound a little strange …
an unhealthy, preoccupation with Bible knowledge. I get concerned when someone tells me about how many Bible studies they’re in.
Or about some noteworthy Bible teacher,
& how they’ve done 4 or 5 of her “deeper study” workbooks.
When I read James … he’s not talking deeper … he’s talking doing.
He’s saying that the most important thing is putting Scripture into action.
I remember my Pastor saying long ago, “it’s not how much of the Bible you get through … it’s how much of the Bible gets through you.”
When I pastored a church in central PA one of the members played football on the Penn State team. One evening Doug & I were talking football. I was telling him about some of my favorite players on the Pittsburgh Steelers. And suddenly I realized he wasn’t participating in the conversation. In fact, the more I talked about the N.F.L.,
the more I recognized that Doug didn’t know much about the current team.
So, I said to him, “you’re a football player & you don’tseem to know anything about football teams.” Doug smiled, “I’d rather play than watch.”
My question for us this morning is … are we content in watching the Bible (reading it)? Or are we ready to put it into play? The knowledge has got to be translated into action. We can’t be just an “observer.”
The 3rd obstacle … no sense of urgency.
We don’t sense that application is something we’ve got to do.
I’m sure that you’ve all flown in an airplane. You know that before takeoff the flight attendants stand in the aisle & go through all the emergency procedures. Who in the cabin (besides Kathy) listens? Nobody.
But now imagine we’ve come to the end of the flight, we’re almost at our destination, & we can tell from the sound that the pilot is trying to lower the landing gear & it’s creaking & groaning & making awful noises …
it doesn’t sound good. And suddenly the pilot comes on the P.A. & says,
“Ladies & gentlemen, we have a small problem with the landing gear.
It’s not going down. But we’ve called ahead to the airport & they’re foaming the runway & we’re going to attempt an emergency landing.
The flight attendants have some instructions for you, please listen.”
Now who’s listening? Everybody! We’re riveted to what’s being said. God’s Word, the Bible, contains critical life instructions.
We need to “listen” to it; & then put it into practice.
I love the way Moses puts it.
He’s talking to the people just before they enter the Promised Land about the importance of God’s Word in their lives. He tells them, “Be sure to obey all these commands that I have given you today. Repeat them to your children, so that they may faithfully obey all of God’s teachings. These teachings are not empty words; they are your very life.” (Deuteronomy 32:46-47)
The Bible gives “instruction for right living.” (2 Timothy 3:16)
Here’s another obstacle that keeps us from applying the Bible …
resistance to God’s authority. Now we may never say this out loud …
but some of us don’t like God telling us what to do.
We prefer to view the Bible as a book of suggestions … not commands.
That’s how Naaman viewed God. Naaman was a military commander in the Syrian army. One day he discovered that he had leprosy, which was a horrible disease. But he also knew that Israel’s God sometimes did miraculous things. So Naaman went over to Israel & asked the Prophet Elisha … “can your God heal me?” Elisha told him, “Here is a word from God.
Go & wash 7 times in the Jordan River, & you will be completely cured of the disease.” (2 Kings 5:10) Scripture reports that Naaman stomped off in a rage … the Jordan was a filthy, dirty, river. He couldn’t believe that God would “suggest” (& to Naaman it was a suggestion), something so stupid.
So, he refused. Until one of his servants went to him & said,
“What do you have to lose?” “So Naaman dipped himself in it 7 times …
& he was completely cured.” (2 Kings 5:14)
So, do we view the Bible as simply suggestions? Are there things right now that we know we’re not doing, that the Bible says we need to do,
but we’re not treating them as commands? The Bible says not to gossip,
(The Proverbs 16:28), but we’re really into hearing the latest scope about so-n’-so.
The Bible says, “love your enemies” (Matthew 5:44) & we do, generally,
but that can’t include you know who, can it? The Bible says we must forgive one another, (Colossians 3:13), but you don’t know what that person did to me.
If we have this attitude that we can cherry-pick,
that we can do what we want, & dismiss what we don’t like …
we’ll never correctly apply the Bible to our lives.
Here’s a 5th obstacle … we just don’t know how. Nobody ever showed us step-by-step how to take what we’ve read & make a personal application out of it … until today. So, this is what we’re going to learn … 3 questions to ask ourselves that will take us from reading the Bible to applying the Bible.
Are you ready? (yes, Rande, we’re ready!)
Question #1 … what does this passage say?
I had a professor in college, Vincent La Barbera, who taught news journalism. The 1st day of class he gave each of us a picture, told us to look at it,
& then write down what we saw. And we could leave when we were finished.
The next time we went to class he gave us the same picture & told us to write down what we saw … & once again, we could leave when we were finished. This continued for the 1st 4 class sessions … until we finally caught on … he was teaching us the discipline of observation. That we look,
& we look longer, & we look harder, until we see everything there is to see.
This is what we’re talking about when we come to Scripture …
we’re talking about observation … what does the passage say? It doesn’t do any good to fly through the Bible like we’re reading a John Grisham novel. Read Scripture carefully so we can answer that question … “what does this passage say?” So, what are some of the things we should be looking for?
Let me suggest 4.
#1 … what’s the theme?
After reading a section of the Bible, imagine summing it up with a word or 2, or a phrase. Ask the question, “if I had to give this passage a title,
what would it be?” That forces us to summarize the contents.
Now when I 1st did this years ago, the Bible I used didn’t have titles over every section like some translations do today.
So, if you’re using a Bible that does, you can cheat … what’s the theme?
Here’s a 2nd thing to look for … repeated words or phrases.
Is the same word or phrase used over & over?
If it is, we can assume that it’s something God wants us to pay attention to.
Here’s a 3rd thing … is there something striking, something that hits you?
I don’t know how to describe this other than to say every now & then when I’m reading Scripture something just “jumps” off the page at me. And I’m sure if you read the Bible with any regularity it happens to you as well.
I’m wrestling with an issue, & there it is. It’s exactly what I’m dealing with.
One final thing, this is God’s Book, & even if God isn’t mentioned by name in a passage, there’s always something about Him.
So, ask the question … “Is there a truth about God here that I can learn?”
Okay, now we’re going to implement this by looking at 3 Scripture passages this morning. We’re going to do this quickly, but it’ll give you a sense of how to get the most out of reading the Scriptures.
We’re looking at 1 from the O.T. & 2 from the N.T.
Let’s apply what we just talked about to each of these passages.
Listen to the 51st Psalm …
Be merciful to me, O God, because of your constant love.
Because of your great mercy wipe away my sins!
Wash away all my evil & make me clean from my sin!
I recognize my faults; I am always conscious of my sins.
I have sinned against you – only against you – & done what you consider evil.
So you are right in judging me; you are justified in condemning me.
I have been evil from the day I was born;
from the time I was conceived, I have been sinful.
Sincerity & truth are what you require; fill my mind with your wisdom.
Remove my sin, & I will be clean; wash me, & I will be whiter than snow.
Let me hear the sounds of joy & gladness;
& though you have crushed me & broken me, I will be happy once again.
Close your eyes to my sins & wipe out all my evil.
Create a pure heart in me, O God, & put a new & loyal spirit in me.
Do not banish me from your presence;
do not take your holy spirit away from me.
Give me again the joy that comes from your salvation,
& make me willing to obey you. (The Psalms 51:1-12)
Okay, what’s the theme of this passage? (confession of sin)
If we were going to give it a title it might be something like “A Clean Slate” or “Getting Right With God.” That’s what the passage is about.
Do you see any repeating words or phrases?
I’m looking here & I see “sins” … “sin” … “sinned” … “sinful”. See how many times they pop up. I think God’s trying to get our attention.
There are a couple of other things that hit me.
I’m struck by the fact that David, who wrote this Psalm,
recognizes that he was a sinner from day 1, from the moment he was conceived. That’s about as early as we can get. He’s a veteran sinner.
I’m also struck that when I sin it has an impact upon The Holy Spirit in my life. That’s a repercussion I honestly don’t want to deal with.
Sin does something to the presence of God’s Spirit in my life.
Okay, what do I learn about God? … I can’t even get past the 1st sentence. God is merciful & loving. On the other hand, by the time I get to verse 4,
I see that God judges sin … & that’s a little uncomfortable.
Do you see how I’m doing my Dr. LaBarbera thing?
Let’s go to the 2nd passage … Matthew 22.
This is one of Jesus’ parables. As I read this, listen carefully.
Think theme, repeated words, where does God fit in?
I want you to make as many observations as you can.
Jesus again used parables in talking to the people.
“The Kingdom of heaven is like this. Once there was a king who prepared a wedding feast for his son. He sent his servants to tell the invited guests to come to the feast, but they did not want to come. So he sent other servants with this message for the guests: ‘My feast is ready now; my steers & prize calves have been butchered, & everything is ready. Come to the wedding feast!’ But the invited guests paid no attention & went about their business: one went to his farm, another to his store, while others grabbed the servants, beat them, & killed them. The king was very angry; so he sent his soldiers, who killed those murderers & burned down their city. Then he called his servants & said to them, ‘My wedding feast is ready, but the people I invited did not deserve it. Now go to the main streets & invite to the feast as many people as you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets & gathered all the people they could find, good & bad alike; & the wedding hall was filled with people.
“The king went in to look at the guests & saw a man who was not wearing wedding clothes. ‘Friend, how did you get in here without wedding clothes?’ the king asked him. But the man said nothing. Then the king told the servants, ‘Tie him up hand & foot, & throw him outside in the dark.
There he will cry & gnash his teeth.’’
And Jesus concluded,
“May are invited, but few are chosen.” (Matthew 22:1-14)
What’s the theme of this passage? … (a parable of a wedding feast)
Now you need to understand that the wedding feast in an analogy for an eternal relationship with God. God’s throwing an eternal party,
& inviting us to come. That’s what this parable is all about.
Any repeating words or phrases? …
(wedding feast, wedding clothes, invite, invited)
Is there anything that strikes you from this passage? …
I’m struck by the fact of how many people turned down the king’s invitation to the party. A lot of people say “no”.
And I’m struck by how dramatically the king deals with their rejection.
I’m also struck with the guy who gets thrown out because he’s not wearing wedding clothes.
What’s going on there? We’ll come back to that in a moment.
What do I learn about God? … I learn that God wants everybody to come to His party. Go & invite “as many people as you can find?”
God wants everybody to come (2 Peter 3:9) … that’s His preference.
But I also learn that if we reject God’s offer … bad things happen.
God is going to deal severely with people who turn their backs on Him.
Are you following this?
We’re looking at 3 different kinds of literature …
a Psalm, a Gospel, & now let’s go to an Epistle.
But it was very good of you to help me in my troubles. You Philippians know very well that when I left Macedonia in the early days of preaching the Good News, you were the only church to help me; you were the only ones who shared my profits & losses. More than once when I needed help in Thessalonica, you sent it to me. It is not that I just want to receive gifts; rather, I want to see profit added to your account. Here, then, is my receipt for everything you have given me – & it has been more than enough!
I have all I need now that Epaphroditus has brought me all your gifts.
They are like a sweet-smelling offering to God, a sacrifice which is acceptable & pleasing to him. And with all his abundant wealth through Christ Jesus, my God will supply all your needs.” (Phillippians 4:14-19)
What’s the theme here? … (it’s the generous giving to Paul’s ministry)
If I were to give it a title it might be … “God Rewards Those Who Give.”
Repeating words or phrases? … It’s not necessarily the same word that keeps popping up, but do you see how many times “give” & “gift” & “share”
& supplied” are there? We get the sense of what’s taking place.
Is there anything striking in this passage? … Here’s what strikes me.
Paul has just received a monetary gift from them in support of his ministry,
but that’s not what he’s most concerned about. He’s not interested in them giving for his benefit … he’s interested in their giving for their benefit.
Paul’s saying, “I don’t want you to miss out on the reward that God gives to those who are generous.” Paul’s concerned about people becoming givers because he knows God will reward them. (The Proverbs 11:25)
And that leads to the final point … what are we learning about God here? … God rewards those who are givers. (2 Peter 3:9)
Now when we’re reading a passage we don’t have to look for all 4 of these things … but at least look for 1 or 2. In order to go from reading to applying we need to make an observation, & zero in on something.
Now to the 2nd question … “what does the passage mean?”
Now when we’re talking about what the passage means we’re talking about what it meant to the original audience. We can’t apply something from God’s Word to our lives until we understand what God intended to say when He originally said it. We’ve talked about this the past 2 weeks.
The #1 rule of Bible interpretation is we must understand the (context).
The 1st is the most important … the historical setting.
When we’re reading a passage of Scripture, we need to know who wrote it, who received it, & what the situation was.
Then there’s the literary setting.
The Bible contains different kinds of literature, & each must be interpreted according to its’ genre. So, the laws of Moses are different than the Psalms of David, which are different from the stories of Matthew, which are different from Paul’s epistles.
And then, the theological setting. What is God teaching here, that is consistent with other passages of Scripture. Remember I said that the best tool for interpreting the Bible is the Bible.
And finally, we need to look at the immediate context.
What does it mean in the section where it appears?
Again, quickly, let’s look at these 3 passages.
The 51st Psalm … the theme was confessing sin.
What did Psalm 51 mean to the original audience?
Let’s start with the historical context.
David wrote this after his friend Nathan confronted him about his affair with Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 12:1-3)
That gives us some idea about what we’re reading, right?
The historical setting makes a big difference for understanding the Psalm.
What about the literary setting? This is a poem.
We said that poetry in the Bible uses figurative language; it’s emotional.
The theological setting … the passage is about confessing sin,
so what else do we find in Scripture about confession? If I go to the Index in the back of my Bible & look up “confess” it refers me to 1 John 1:9.
“If we confess our sins to God, he will keep his promise & do what is right: he will forgive us our sins & purify us from all our wrongdoing.”
That’s a great verse,
& it gives us a theological understanding of what confession is all about.
Matthew 22 … Jesus’ parable about the wedding feast.
The historical setting … we want to understand what this meant to His original audience. Jesus is addressing a group that is largely made up of self-righteous religious leaders.
(We know that by looking at the verses that come just before this parable.)
These guys think they have an “in” with God. So, we keep that in mind as we read the parable … those who get invited but don’t come.
Another historical insight … the man wearing the wrong clothes.
We’re wondering why he was kicked out? In those days people would “dress-up” to go to weddings, just as we dotoday. (Isaiah 61:10; Ezekiel 16:10) In the case of last-minuteinvitees, the host would provide suitable clothing. So, this man shows up having rejected the generous offer of the host … “I’ll just wear my own clothes.” That gives a little more understanding, doesn’t it?
What’s the literary context? This is a story, & one of the rules of reading a story that we talked about is, is it descriptive or prescriptive? We know that this is prescriptive because it’s a parable,
& Jesus’ parables always end with a moral.
What about the theological setting? There’s a balance between God’s grace & God’s wrath. There’s evangelism … inviting others to come to God’s party. (Matthew 28:19-20)And if we look at other passages of Scripture that deal with clothes, 1 of the things we’ll discover is that when a person comes to faith, it’s described as “putting on new clothes, putting on forgiveness,
(Colossians 3:12-13), putting on the righteousness of God.”(Ephesians 4:24)
When we get invited to God’s party, & He says,
“let me give you some new clothes, let me give you my righteousness, let me give you forgiveness” & we say, “no thank you, I’ll stay in my sinful ones.”
Now do you see why the man got thrown out of the party?
The immediate context … we learn from chapters 21 & 23 that Jesus is talking to religious leaders. These are men who think they have an “in” with God, but they’ve ignored His invitation to come to His party.
And they’ve rejected His Son who’s come with the invitation. (John 14:6)
Philippians 4 … the generous support of God’s work.
The historical setting … the Philippians, who were so generous,
were dirt poor. Of all the people that Paul wrote letters to, the Philippians were by far the poorest … & yet they were the most generous. What does that tell us about giving to the Lord’s work? Is it that we have to wait until our income improves before becoming generous? I don’t think so.
What about the literary context?
This is a letter, & we learned last week that we need to read the letter from beginning to end before we attempt to understand a specific passage.
The theological setting … we might want to look at what Scripture teaches about giving to the Lord’s work.
Do you see what I’m doing here? … What does the passage say? What does the passage mean? And then, what does the passage challenge me to do?
A Bible teacher once told me that if I’m having trouble finding the application of a passage then I need to put on my SPECS.
S-P-E-C-S is an acronym.
S - is there a Sin in this passage that needs to be confessed?
P – is there a Promise to claim?
E – is there an Example to follow?
C – is there a Command to obey?
S – is there a Specific attribute of God to be praised?
So, there it is, & the question now, what are we going to do with it?
What good is our Bible if it’s not being put into practice?
MARANA THA
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