Welcome to the club, right?
That happens from time to time.
But we're gonna start a brand new series this month,
the month of January, talking about the holy habits
of Jesus and looking at some of the habits
that we see Jesus having in scripture
and how we can adopt those on a very practical level
into our life.
And that's really what we're going to be talking about tonight.
I came across the story of an elderly teacher.
He was mentoring a young man
and they went out in a walk on the woods,
a walk in the woods,
and they came across some plants growing
and there were four different stages,
very clearly four different stages of this plant.
And the elderly teacher said to his mentee,
the one he was mentoring,
hey, would you pull up that smallest one out of the ground?
Of course, he went over and very easily with two fingers,
just pulled it up out of the ground.
He said, hey, would you go to that second one
and I want you to pull that one up out of the ground?
Of course, he went over there, grabbed it,
as it was starting to blossom and branch out,
was able to just give it a nice tug
and he pulled it straight up out of the ground.
He pointed to the third one and he says,
I want you to put your test to that one.
Of course, that one was starting to become
a good size bush.
So he wraps both of his arms around it,
bends down real tight and pulls up using his legs.
Was able to wiggle it free out of the ground.
Of course, he points to the fourth one.
The fourth one was a very blossoming tree
because I want you to pull that one up.
And of course, being a good follower,
he just kind of wraps his arms around the trunk,
gives it a good bear hug
and of course, was not able to pull it out.
In fact, he wasn't even able to shake any leaves off of it.
And the elderly teacher looks down to his student
and says, this my son is what happens with our bad habits.
When they're young, we can remove them readily,
but when they're old, it's hard to uproot them,
that we pray and struggle ever so sincerely.
Now, some of us would probably be honest and say,
yeah, we have some bad habits that we need to get rid
of this coming new year.
Maybe there's some good habits that we want to address
and to get better.
That's really kind of the idea of this series
is that we want to be able to help in this process,
looking at scripture and what are some habits,
spiritually speaking, that we can see
from the Lord Jesus himself as our prime example.
But first of all, before we kind of just jump right
into this first one, which is scripture engagement,
I want to kind of help set the tone a little bit
for our series in that kind of defining what a habit is.
What is a habit?
What kind of habits are we talking about?
How can we define and understand them
so that they apply to us?
Here, I want to give you three thoughts very quickly
when it comes to habits.
What are habits?
What are the habits that we're talking about?
We're talking about when we say habits,
we're talking about the rhythms of our life,
not the sporadic things that happen.
So these are constant rhythms that we have in our life,
not the sporadic off and on or the blossoming
right at the beginning and then of course fizzling out.
We're talking about things that are restful, not frenzied.
So when we talk about the idea of it being restful,
we'll talk about it being a part of our life that's normal,
not something that we have to work really, really hard at
or try to do when we have free time.
We're talking about something that we normally do,
something that will become like breathing to us,
something that we will do
and we don't really have to think about it.
The other thing that we talk about when we talk about habits
is that it's ranked and not trivial.
So when we're talking about a habit,
we're talking about something that's important to us,
something that we have a high prioritization on,
something that we rank very highly in our lives,
not just something that we think,
well, I'll take it or I can leave it.
We're talking about things that should be rhythms
in our lives, something that should be so natural
to us that we don't really have to work hard at doing them
and they're also very important to us.
If you think long and hard of it,
you probably have some of these already in your life.
Luke chapter six talks a little bit about the importance
of these restful ranked rhythms in a way,
talking about it being something that we store up
in our life.
Luke chapter six says it this way,
for a good tree bring forth not corrupt fruit,
neither does a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.
For every tree is known by its fruit,
for of thorns men do not gather figs,
nor of bramble bush gather they grapes.
A good man out of the good treasure of his heart,
bringeth forth that which is good.
And an evil man out of the evil treasure of his heart,
bringeth forth that which is evil.
For out of the abundance of the heart,
the mouth, mouth speaketh.
Here the scripture is talking about a good person
producing good things from the treasury
of the things that have already been stored up in their heart.
In other words, what flows out of you,
your mouth, your actions will be connected
to what you've already put inside of you.
Healthy habits like these spiritual practices
that we'll talk about this next month
are a way of investing good things
into the soil of your life,
so that you can produce good things on an ongoing basis.
That's the idea of it being rhythms rather than sporadic.
So what are the patterns of behavior in your life
and what are they producing?
Well, hopefully as we go through this series,
there'll be some of these things
that we'll be able to adopt,
maybe to tweak a little bit,
but to make ourselves more like Jesus in his holy habits,
which leads us to our very first holy habit,
the habit of engaging with scripture.
So if you have a copy of your Bible, I hope that you do,
would you open up to Luke chapter four?
Luke chapter four, we're gonna look at the habit
of engaging with scripture or scripture engagement.
Now, when we talk about the habit of scripture engagement,
to be honest, this habit on its face
is not so cut and dry of a supposition
as we would be thinking of it
when we think of Jesus and the scripture.
Other than today's passage in Luke chapter four,
and maybe a few fragments here and there
throughout the New Testament gospels,
we don't really have a rich text
that shows us Jesus deep in Bible study.
We don't really see a point in time where Jesus is sitting
and he's alone and he has all of his concordances out
and he has all of his dictionaries
and he has all of his theological journals out
and all of his sermon podcasts that they're ready
and he's ready to enhance his time with the Father, right?
We don't really find that in scripture,
specifically with Jesus.
One could pithily say, well, Jesus was the word, right?
In the beginning was the word, the word became flesh,
so Jesus was the word.
And I agree with that statement.
However, I think it's important to temper that statement
and that theological truth with the fact that Jesus,
while he was here on the earth, was also 100% man.
And in becoming man, he, through his genosis,
through his setting aside of his godly attributes,
had to do things just like we did.
As a man, Jesus had to memorize the word.
He had to read the word.
He had to know the scripture,
just like you and I must do in our human capacity.
Jesus wasn't the one born in a manger
and he was, as he's sucking on his bottle,
pops it out and says, Isaiah 9.6,
for unto us a child is word, unto us a son is given, right?
He's not saying that in the manger, right?
He's growing in wisdom and in stature
and in favor with God and man.
That didn't just come because he was Jesus
and God in the flesh, that was because he put the effort
and work into knowing the scriptures.
Jesus, as a young man, as a blossoming adolescent,
living in the first century,
as a first century Jew, Jesus would have learned the scriptures
just like every other boy in his town.
He would have gone to the synagogue
and he would have been able to hear the scriptures being read.
He would have heard his mother singing the Psalms to him
and singing scripture to him as a young man.
He would have rehearsed and put into memory
like all the other Jewish boys would have done.
Most likely he would have attended the Beth Sephar
which is the house of learning
where he would have learned the very first principles
of the Torah.
Then he would have been promoted to the Beth Talmud
and maybe even the Beth Medrash
which was the very common houses of learning.
In the Jewish culture,
young boys would be sent to these schools
beginning at a very young age
and then would advance through them
and they would advance based on their knowledge
and based on their capacity to handle and teach scripture.
He would have sang the Psalms,
he would have memorized other passages
through sacred recitation and through prayers,
both personal and corporate.
And even the very letters of the Jewish alphabet
that he would have learned at a very young age,
he would have learned the sacred meanings
to each of these letters
which pointed back to the truths of scripture
with the intention to imbune their children
in the Jewish culture and adults
with the very words of God.
Which is why we can find in the book of Luke
that at 12 years old Jesus being left in Jerusalem
had immersed himself in the Torah
and the prophets so much so
that he was able to reason and debate
with the Pharisees and the scribes,
most likely those of them who were teachers actively
in those schools of learning in the Jerusalem city.
So much to a degree that it says in Luke chapter two,
verse 47, that they were astonished
at his understanding and his answers.
Now yes, theologically I would believe with you
that he was the word,
but as a human he also studied the word.
He also engaged with scripture.
And although we do not see it cataloged
Jesus's daily habit of scripture engagement,
even though it's not explicit in the gospel narratives,
I believe it's implicitly found
throughout the entire foundation of Jesus's ministry.
Throughout his entire recorded ministry,
we see evidence of a man utterly captivated
by what is written in the scriptures,
in the text of the Bible.
Let me give you some examples.
It comes out in almost all of his interactions
as you look through all four gospels
when Jesus is teaching,
when Jesus is working with his disciples,
when Jesus is doing miracles,
we see him recorded over and over again
saying phrases like, thus saith the Lord.
It is written.
Is it not written?
Have you not heard?
Well did the prophets say?
And his constant quoting of scripture over and over again
can lead us to believe that Jesus had an intimate relationship
with the Father and that his engagement of scripture
was at its core.
And like Christ, we would do well
to make our own words, the Bible, in the Bible,
to be the leading edge of our own
seeking to draw near to him.
That our engagement with scripture
would be such a rhythm of our life,
such a restful time of our life,
such a prioritized time, a ranked time in our life
that it would be part of who we are as Christ followers.
So what I wanna be able to show from you, from scripture,
and specifically Luke chapter four tonight,
is that we can engage with scripture
and we can pick up this holy habit of scripture engagement
by adopting three action pairs exemplified by Jesus.
So if you have your copy of your scriptures,
we're gonna be in Luke chapter four, beginning at verse one,
we're gonna look at the first action pair
and that is retreat and refocus.
If you're taking notes, those action pairs
are retreat and refocus.
If we're going to adopt the habit of engagement with scripture,
we need to first retreat and refocus.
Let's look at chapter four, verse one,
beginning at verse one, it says in Jesus,
being full of the Holy Ghost, returned from Jordan,
and was led by the spirit into the wilderness,
being 40 days tempted of the devil,
and in those days, he did eat nothing,
and when they were ended, he afterward hungered.
Now what we're gonna see here is that Christ
will have a rhythm.
We will see not just in Luke chapter four,
but we see it in all the gospels,
and over and over again, Christ withdrawing himself,
Christ going into the wilderness,
Christ going into a desolate place.
And this often became his momentarily sacred space
where he got away from people.
He got away from the pressures of the ministry.
He got away from his disciples,
and he was just alone with God.
This is one of those times.
He would regularly escape the noise
and the frenzy of his society,
and he would just focus on being alone with the Father,
so that he could give his full attention
and undivided heart to the Lord.
For Christ, this often meant retreating and refocusing.
Examples of this habit we see in the gospels,
both before big events and even following after big events.
For Jesus, this wasn't just an exercise
of clearing the mind and letting off steam.
This was a sacred time, mostly filled with communication,
prayer directly with the Father, seeking the Father's will.
And the reason why I say it that way
is because sometimes we can look at something like retreat
and refocusing, and we can secularize that.
We can say, oh yeah, this is just a time for me
to just let off some steam,
just kind of center myself, just kind of let go of things.
That's a okay way of looking at it, I suppose,
but that's not the point.
That's not what Jesus is doing here.
He's not just getting alone
so that he can kind of come unwound a little bit.
He's not getting alone so that he can just
have a little bit of quiet time,
have a little bit of me time.
The point of Jesus's retreating and refocusing
was to dedicate himself to hearing from the Father,
to prepare to hear and to communicate with the Father,
specifically seeking the Father's will.
For us today, this may be very well
the most challenging habit to build into our life
because it requires in an incredibly distracted,
connected society, it requires us to unplug,
sign off, shut down, and come apart.
And those are difficult things in a society and in a world
and maybe even a home where there is constant noise.
There is constant distraction.
For some of us, that would mean putting the phone down.
For some of us, that means making time
when we feel we have none, right?
Because we live our lives with no margin.
We're busy from sunrise to sunset.
That might mean for some of us getting the kids to bed early
so that you can have that time to retreat and refocus.
For some of us, that might mean deferring tasks
off your tax list that may be important,
but they're not as important as hearing from the Lord.
For some of us, this might mean trying something new.
And for some of us, that might be a scary thing.
Trying to spend some time retreating and refocusing
ourselves solely on what the Father
wants to say to us through the Word.
This is an important action pair
because the habit of scripture engagement
isn't just a task to complete.
It's an intimate conversation with the Father.
And when we speak to God through prayer,
the Father speaks to us primarily through His Word.
But we'll never hear what God wants to say to us
if we don't first focus on what He wants to say to us
by retreating and refocusing.
I wanna point out to you the key resource
that's highlighted twice just in the very first verse.
Let's read it again.
It says, Jesus, being full of the what?
Holy ghost returned from Jordan
and was led by who?
The spirit into the wilderness.
Twice, both here in the first verse,
as if Luke is trying to point out to us
the key resource in what we're searching for
in this retreat and focus time
is that's hearing from the Holy ghost.
In our discipleship groups that we have,
we emphasize a Bible method study called the Hear Journal.
It's an acronym, H-E-A-R, highlight, explain,
apply, and respond.
And while this acronym really contains
the way we do Bible study,
it points to the whole reason
why we do the Bible study in the first place,
to hear from God.
It's not so that we can deepen our knowledge of scripture
so that we can become theologians.
It's not so that we can understand the scriptures more
so that we can walk around and wear our awards
on our vest and say, I know what the Bible says.
It's so that we can know what the spirit wants us to do
so that we can be more like Christ
both here and out there.
Bible study is about life change.
For a believer, the very first gift
that is given to us at salvation
is the gift of the third person, the Trinity himself.
And one of the jobs of the Holy spirit
is to guide us into the truths of the word of God.
In Jesus' own words, in John chapter 16 to his disciples,
verse 13, he says, how be it when he,
the spirit of truth has come,
he will guide you into all truth,
for he shall not speak of himself,
but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak,
he will show you things to come.
Now Jesus says this in the context of discipleship.
He is ready to teach his disciples more,
but they're not ready.
And so he says, he will send the comforter
and he will guide them.
He will continue the journey of discipleship
for them and with them.
And he will engage with the scripture
that he will inspire out of those faithful men
who will then record it,
and the disciples will then be able
to share that scripture with the world.
Jesus spoke these words in the context of discipleship
and continued learning with his disciples.
The Holy spirit would be their teacher.
What's incredible, and Pastor mentioned this
in his last point, and sometimes this truth escapes us
over and over and over again,
which is why we say it over and over and over again,
but we hold in our hands a miracle,
the completed revelation of scripture,
brought to pass explicitly by the Holy spirit.
And he is at the ready to be our teacher and our guide,
to connect us to the Father's will for our life
and for our family.
But that requires us getting away,
retreating, refocusing, getting out of the world
and into God's word.
This is one of the reasons why things like youth camp
are so explosive in the life of a young believer,
because something like youth camp puts them in a place
where they're retreating and refocusing constantly
over and over and over again,
not just by going to another location in our state,
but by each day, spending time retreating
and refocusing in God's word over and over and over again.
And in doing so, they hear from God.
The Holy spirit does his work and speaks to them
through his word.
He can do the same thing in your life.
You don't have to go to youth camp to hear from God.
You can hear from God in your own home.
Helen Keller in the movie, The Miracle Worker,
anybody ever seen that one came out in the 60s,
black and white, probably not the most popular movie
of our generations, right?
But it's an incredible illustration
of what actually happened between teacher and Sullivan,
and Helen Keller.
Before Anne arrived, Helen's parents and family
constantly spoke to Helen Keller.
And if you don't know the story of Helen Keller,
she was both blind and mute.
And so, and sorry, Anne deaf.
So she wasn't able to communicate with the world around her,
but she could hear the vibrations of them speaking to her,
but there was no true connection.
They would try to get her attention,
even shouting at times, and there was no connection.
She could physically detect some of what was going on
around her, but there was no understanding,
there was no meaning to any of it.
The turning point came at the water pump,
which is pictured up on our screen, on April 5th, 1887.
The Sullivan had been fingering, spelling the word W-A-T-R,
water, W-A-T-R, into her palm using sign language.
Helen merely imitated the motions
without grasping the meaning.
She was hearing, but not listening.
Helen could hear the teaching through the touch,
but wasn't truly listening or understanding
until one moment, as Sullivan pumped the water
over Helen's hand repeatedly, spelling out the word water,
W-A-T-R, W-A-T-R, W-A-T-E-R, sorry, I'm showing it wrong.
Something clicked, something clicked,
that was an old English spelling, W-A-T-R,
something clicked in her mind.
Helen would later write in one of her memoirs,
suddenly it felt, I felt a misty consciousness
as if something forgotten, and somehow the mystery
of language was revealed to me.
I knew that what W-A-T-E-R meant,
the wonderful cool something that was flowing over my hand.
That very day, she learned 30 new words
because she was moved, not from just merely sensing,
to truly understanding.
She went from hearing to listening.
She had been physically receiving information for weeks,
but in that moment, she began truly listening
and comprehending, and that's the key that gets unlocked
when we retreat and we refocus.
We go from seeing Bible study as just something to do,
something to check off our list to a intimate time
with us and the God who created us,
but we must retreat and refocus.
Secondly, if you're taking notes,
the second action pair I wanna highlight in today's scripture
is memorize and recite.
Memorize and recite, if we're going to have
the holy habit of scripture engagement,
it must also include the idea of memorization and recitation.
We're gonna look at just a few verses highlighted here
in this story, we won't have time to look at all of it.
Look down in verse four.
During this time, Jesus is in the wilderness,
he's being tempted by Satan,
in each of the temptations, Jesus responds.
Look in verse four of chapter four.
It says, Jesus answered him saying,
it is written that man shall not live by bread alone,
but by every word of God.
Look down at verse eight of chapter four.
It says, Jesus answered and said unto him,
get thee behind me Satan, for it is written,
thou shalt worship the Lord thy God,
and for him only shalt thou serve.
Look down in verse 12.
Jesus says, and Jesus answering, said unto him,
it is said thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.
After Jesus' time of getting away
and refocusing on the will of the Father,
there is a time of temptation with Satan personally.
And we see here in verse four, eight and 12,
three attempts recorded of Satan specifically trying to tempt.
Now some have pointed out that these three coordinate
with the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes
and the pride of life.
But in each moment of temptation,
we see a very specific approach taken by Jesus,
drawn from the second pair of habits,
memorize and recite.
Now remember, Jesus didn't have a pocket old testament
that he could just whip out and turn to the page and read.
It's specific to understand, an interesting thing
to understand, and it's one of those things where,
when I looked at it, I was like,
well, that's a dull moment for me,
but Jesus didn't have his own personal copy of scripture.
That's why we say it's a miracle.
He didn't have in pocket old testament,
he could just pull out and start reading passages.
Jesus' habit of scripture engagement had from his childhood
onward, been one of memorizing and reciting
the very words of God.
Verse four, it is written.
Verse eight, for it is written.
Verse 12, it is said, at the very moment of temptation,
what overflows from his cup of life,
his life cup is scripture.
Now, I wouldn't, I wouldn't say that.
I wouldn't say that, but I would say that's true.
Now, I wouldn't advise you to get your theology
from Christian radio.
Most of the time when I hear things on Christian radio,
I'm like, that's probably either dumb or just not true,
right?
Sometimes that's the case, but as I was on my way back
to Ohio from our Christmas vacation,
I was listening to the Christian radio in the car,
and they said something that at first I was like,
that's just pithy and stupid,
it kind of makes sense, I like it.
They kind of told the story of a guy who had a full cup
of coffee, and as he was drinking the coffee,
he got bumped, and he spilled the coffee.
And they asked, they had this conversation,
why did you spill the coffee?
Most of us would say, well, it's because somebody bumped me.
But this guy responds with a different response.
He says, well, the reason why I spilled the coffee
is because there was coffee in the cup.
There was coffee in the cup.
Now don't let this escape you,
because that's the moment where I was like,
that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard.
In order, this is on Christian radio, right?
This is what, this is the profound truth,
that I thought was like, you know what, I like that,
it makes sense.
The meaning was is that there's always moments
of upset in our life.
If we have a cup of life, right?
There's always going to be moments
where someone knocks into us.
Something gets us upset, something moves our life,
and what's in our cup comes out.
If you have coffee in your cup,
that's what comes out when you get bumped.
But if you have anger and malice and anxiety and hatred,
when you get bumped, that's what comes out of your cup.
For Jesus, he had so much of God's word in his cup
that when he is tempted, when that moment of anxiety
and that moment of pressure filled temptation comes,
what came out of his life?
Scripture, Scripture, Scripture, it is said, it is written,
it is it not written.
Out of the cup of life came Scripture.
Why?
Well, because Jesus was the word.
Yeah, I believe you.
We're agreeing on it, we're agreeing theologically on that.
But the reason why Scripture came out of Jesus
was because Jesus had put Scripture in in the first place.
That's the same truth that we can adopt,
the same habit we can have,
that when we memorize and recite Scripture,
when we put Scripture in, Scripture will come out.
I'd like to point out that each of these specific temptations
that we see both in verse four, eight, and 12,
and the verses above it,
Jesus quotes Scripture that speaks directly to the situation
he's being tempted in.
Turn rocks to bread, Jesus, you're hungry,
turn the rocks to bread.
He says, man should not live by bread alone.
Satan says, worship me and I'll give you all the nations.
Jesus says, we worship God alone.
Satan says, jump off this pinnacle.
The angels will catch you because your God's holy anointed one
and everyone will see that you are God.
God, he says, don't tempt.
That word tempt is test.
Don't tempt the Lord.
Don't put God to the test.
It's evident that Jesus' memorization strategy
wasn't just, I'm gonna just memorize random verses,
I'm just gonna memorize giant passages.
I'm gonna remember all the begots in the Old Testament,
but specific to the need and to life.
And the cool thing about Scripture today
is that Scripture still speaks to every instance
of our events and life.
That there is a Scripture that we can point to
that gives us guidance, that gives us God's wisdom,
that gives us God's plan for how we should handle
the situations that come up in our life.
And if we're going to memorize and recite Scripture,
I think it would be a wise strategy for us to memorize Scripture
that is specifically speaking to where we are
in life, specific to our needs,
specific to where we are in life.
I also want to point out to you
what something that should be obvious is
that Jesus recites the Scripture.
This wasn't just memorization to pass the test.
Those of you in D groups probably know
what I'm talking about, right?
It wasn't just, hurry, hurry, memorize, memorize,
okay, what's the verse?
La-la-la-la-la-la-la, right?
What's the verse next week?
I don't remember, right?
That wasn't Jesus's memorization strategy.
His strategy was to dwell and to memorize scripture
till he was able to recite it in the midst of being hungry,
in the flaming hot Israeli desert.
It came out of him.
Jesus's strategy wasn't shove it in, shove it in, shove it
so I can dump it out and get the passing grade.
His strategy was one of meditation and recitation,
reciting scripture over and over again, not for a test,
but for his life.
And in the moments of temptation,
I wanna challenge you to let the word of God
come out of you, recite it over and over again,
in the moments of temptation, frustration, anxiety.
When someone cuts you off in traffic,
memorize a scripture for that and say,
be kind one to another, tenderhearted,
forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake
has forgiven you, right?
That sounds like a strange thing to us, right?
Wow, you're kinda weird.
You're gonna like say Bible verses in the car.
Yes, because when you do that over and over and over again,
what's going to come out of you in the times of temptation
is what's in your cup.
And if what's in your cup is anger and malice and anxiety
and swear words, that's what's gonna come out
when people get you off in traffic.
Everybody's kinda, their eyes got real big.
But if you put scripture in that cup,
in those moments of anxiety and depression and anger
and malice, you know what's gonna come out?
Scripture.
When we get like that, we're adopting the habit
that Jesus had, memorize and recite, memorize and recite.
But the first step, the first step is to get it inside of you.
You've got to get God's word, not just in your head,
but in your heart.
And know it's so much that it goes from here down to here.
For a sake of time, let's move on to the third habit
we can find, the third action pair.
If you're taking notes is read and share.
If we're gonna have the habit of scripture engagement,
we must first come away, we must retreat and refocus.
We must have the habit of memorizing and reciting,
but we must also read and share God's word.
Look down in verse 16, the situation changed.
The narrative changes here in Luke's gospel.
We come out of the desert and Jesus returns back
in the power of the spirit into Galilee,
into a region that he grew up in Nazareth.
And the verse 16 says he came to Nazareth
where he had been brought up.
And as his custom was, he went into the synagogue
on the Sabbath day and stood up for the read, for to read.
And there was delivered unto him the book
of the prophet Isaiah.
And when he had opened the book,
he found the place where it was written,
the spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor.
He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted
to preach deliverance to the captives
and recovering of sight to the blind
and to set at liberty them that are bruised,
to preach the acceptable year of the Lord.
And he closed the book and gave it again to the minister
and sat down.
And the eyes of them were all in the synagogue,
were fastened on him.
And he began to say unto them,
this day is the scripture fulfilled in your ears.
Now of course the scene changes here.
Jesus returns to Nazareth.
He has given the opportunity as most traveling rabbis would.
He goes to synagogue as his was his ethos,
was his custom, was his habit.
And because he is a visiting rabbi,
he has given the opportunity to read the scripture
and to give his interpretation of the scripture.
So he's called upon, he reads the book of Isaiah.
As it is rolled open, he finds the place,
which in our Bibles we can also mark
Isaiah 61 verses one and the first part of verse two.
He reads it, closes the scroll,
gives it back to the leader of the synagogue and sits down.
And as everyone is on pins and needles
waiting for this visiting rabbi to give the interpretation
of what he was about to, of what he had just read,
there is two habits that are revealed.
Jesus reveals of course his deity,
the fulfillment of this prophecy.
It doesn't go so well for him in that town
if you continue to read.
But for Christ, the two habits that we see
are reading and sharing.
For Christ, these habits were not just done
in the context of synagogue,
but we can see it throughout his entire ministry.
There's an ingestion of God's word
and then there's an expulsion of God's word.
There's a taking in and then there's a giving out
when it comes to Scripture.
And this is an important distinction
between what some of us may normally see as doing devotions.
There's ingestion and then there's expulsion.
There's taking in and then there's giving out.
Because for most of us,
I know this was my case for a very long time
and something I still am working on.
I haven't arrived in this area of holy habits.
But our habit of Scripture engagement
sometimes becomes characterized by intake.
And we become silos.
We become repositories of knowledge.
And what does the Scripture say?
Knowledge puffeth up.
My point is that our Scripture engagement
needs to be a rhythm of life giving,
of a life giving habit of intake and expulsion.
Scripture in and Scripture out.
Like breathing, it should be breath in by reading
then breath out to others by sharing.
I don't know if you've ever had the opportunity to do that,
but it's transformative.
To not just have a time alone hearing from God,
but then to turn around to your spouse or to your child
or to a co-worker or to a friend and say,
can I tell you about what God has showed me today?
Can I tell you about what God is teaching me
in my devotion time with Him?
The Hebrew word, ruach,
it's the word we into English translate spirit.
It appears nearly 400 times in the Old Testament,
but it also has some other meanings.
It also means breath.
It also means wind.
And when God breathed into man the breath of life
in Genesis chapter two, verse seven,
he wasn't just starting Adam's pulmonary system.
He wasn't just breathing into Adam's lungs air.
He was imparting his very spirit, his ruach,
making humans unique among all creation
as the bearers of his image.
This divine breath continues through scripture.
When Jesus appeared to his disciples after the resurrection,
John tells us that he breathed on them
and he said, receive ye the Holy Spirit, John 2022.
This wasn't just a symbolic thing.
I believe it was a deliberate echo of creation
showing Christ's power to bring new spiritual life,
just as God had brought life in the beginning in the garden.
And today we can think of scripture
as God's breath captured in written form.
That's what 2 Timothy 3.16 says, doesn't it?
All scripture is given by inspiration of God.
That inspiration, God breathing out.
Just as we constantly need physical breath
to sustain our bodies,
we need the breath of God's word to sustain our spirits.
We can't survive spiritually by holding our breath
between Sundays any more than we can survive
by holding our breath between breakfast and dinner.
The image of breath also reminds us
that scripture isn't meant to be stored away,
but it's meant to flow through us constantly,
filling us and then flowing out of us to others
as natural and necessary as breathing can be.
That's what I mean when we say rhythms rather than sporadic.
Jesus shows us how this holy habit of scripture engagement
can be adopted when we retreat and refocus,
when we memorize and recite,
when we read and share.
My challenge tonight to you is,
what part of this habit do you need to start?
What part of it do you need to adjust?
Maybe what part of it do you need to completely overhaul
to be able to adopt these holy habits of Jesus
so that we can have the holy habit of scripture engagement
like Jesus did?
I want to give you, just leave with a few actionable steps,
some practical ways for you to maybe start that this year.
In the area of retreating and focusing,
some practical steps that you may need to take
is that you may need to schedule your time with the Lord.
All of us live busy lives.
I get it. I've got two kids.
I've got a boss.
You can't imagine the guy that I have to work with.
Just kidding. I have the best boss.
I have hobbies, just like everybody else does.
I like downtime.
Believe it or not, pastors don't just wake up,
read the Bible, go to work, do Bible things,
come home, eat Bible messages,
and then do Bible stuff with their kids
and then dream about Bible.
So I get the idea of we have busy lives.
I get it.
So for some of you, the idea of retreating and refocusing
needs to be something that you may need to put on your schedule.
You may need to look at your day and objectively say,
what is a specific time that I can schedule
and that this is my time every day with God?
You might need to do that.
Secondly, I would say, prepare your space.
Make it consistent every day.
Find a place maybe in your home
or maybe at your workplace.
Maybe it's a place away from home,
but it's a place where you can consistently go
and it's always there. It's always ready for you.
Your tools are there. Your copy of Scripture is there.
If you journal and do hear journaling,
your pen or your notebook, all those things are there.
You're ready to go. Your space is prepared.
That way, you're not constantly looking for,
oh, where am I going to do it this time?
But you're prepared and you have a time ready
to retreat and refocus so that you can hear from God himself.
In the idea of memorizing and reciting,
I would challenge you to create a list.
For those of you who are in a discipleship group,
we provide a list for you.
But we can't live in discipleship group forever.
If you've been through our discipleship groups, great.
Keep going on that memory and reciting journey.
If you never have, I want to challenge you to create a list.
Maybe think of the things that you're dealing with
specifically right now. What is the temptation?
What are the problems?
What are the areas where you seem like you're failing most in life
and find Scripture that speaks specifically to that
and go for a wide rather than for deep,
go for a deep rather than go for a wide.
And what I mean by that is memorize the Scripture.
If it's the same Scripture every day for like three months,
that's okay.
Memorize God's word until it comes out of you in that moment
when you're tempted the greatest in that specific part of your life.
I would also say use a tool.
When I was in discipleship group,
I was with a few different people, and Dave Fawcett was one of them.
He came every Saturday morning and out of his pocket,
came a 3x5 card.
He had a Scripture written on that 3x5 card.
Maybe that tool is for you.
It's just writing it down on a card, putting it in the mirror,
putting it on the dashboard, putting it by your computer screen at work,
and you see it and you're memorizing, you're constantly thinking about it.
For some of you, maybe you're like me,
and maybe you want to use all kinds of incredible apps
that you can use to memorize Scripture,
even some of them that we've come across even recently,
they're not new, they're new to me,
but you can actually just, you can press it
and it'll reveal the word if you forget.
It'll have all these blanks, and you just go through the blank,
I forgot what that word is, it'll open up, it'll show you.
There's some great tools out there that you can utilize for memorization.
Finally, read and recite, or so I read and share.
What I want to encourage you to do is,
by way of doing that, and practical, is to plot a course.
And what I mean by that is, don't go,
God, what do you want me to read about today?
Oh, great, it's numbers again.
But plot a course.
I'm going to read through the book of Ephesians,
or I'm going to read through the Proverbs, or the Psalms.
I'm going to see what Jesus did in the Gospels.
Have an idea, plot a course of where you're going.
And when you find that you're at the end of that course, start again.
Plot a course, and be consistent in your reading.
Finally, follow the Holy Spirit.
This one, I cannot give you any kind of practical way,
other than to say, follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
That when you spend time with the Lord,
and it's time to not just read, but to share.
If the Lord stirs in your heart to share with a coworker,
or share with a friend, or share with a sibling,
or with a spouse, that you follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit.
And say, hey, can I tell you what God taught me today?
Follow the prompting of the Holy Spirit,
and you'll be able to both read and share,
memorize and recite, and retreat, and refocus.
And let us all be good stewards of the Word of God,
and have the Holy Habit of Scripture engagement.
Would you bow your heads with me as we finish?