Welcome And Series Setup

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church. Each week, our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

SPEAKER_01 0:27

Well, hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast. Pastor Ryan joined as always with Pastor Tim, and we are in week seven of our sermon series Signs and Glory, where we are walking through the Gospel of John and uh taking some pretty big steps. Um we've made it all the way in seven weeks to chapter five, uh, which sounds like we're not maybe taking as big of big a steps as I thought we were. But we are uh we're moving through John's gospel and um getting challenged every week. And this one, uh this one was no exception.

SPEAKER_02 1:02

Well, you know, most theologians say if you have the gospel of John in Romans, you know, you can make it. Right. You know. I uh I don't I don't know. I don't know if that's true or not, or we would just have the gospel of John and Romans. But the uh the truth is that John is uh looking over his life with Jesus and is teaching us the things that uh proved Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God to him, his divinity, his position, uh all those things. And they're not they're not the things that you would think. You know, okay, he fed five thousand. Oh, that's a pretty big thing, that's a godlike thing. He stepped out of his uh program to do something for his mom that was miraculous. That's what John is looking for. Right. You know, he's looking for no, this is a God who loves me. And that's what I am the one that Jesus loved. That's what he calls himself, and that's his sign that this is truly God. Not that he can heal people or it's why he did it, what he did before he healed them. Like this week, he tells the guy, Do you want to be healed? And the guy's like, I'm laying in front of this pool. I've been laying here forever. What do you think I'm doing? You know, right, right. But he doesn't say yes, which you brought out in the sermon, which is which is an odd thing.

SPEAKER_01 2:45

Yeah. Especially because Jesus just goes ahead and does it, you know. Um, I mean, I implication there, I think, is definitely this guy wanted to be well. Why why would he be here? Um but what you're driving at is what I was I tried to get back to um because I don't know if I did it two weeks ago, but um as I opened up this week, I was like, man, I want to go back to the point of John's writing because it's real easy to get into this, because I mean there's there's some incredible things happening. He's talking, laying out you know, seven different signs, which I was a little disappointed in our church on Sunday. Like, how many signs? And everybody looked at me like, were we supposed to be keeping track of that? Yeah. I think there's a couple that got it right. Seven, seven signs in God. Seven signs.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

He says in his book that Jesus did so many things we can't write them all down. But I am going to focus on these seven and tell you how he proved himself the son of God to me.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

And that's so that's the point. Every time we read it, he's like, This is this is the proof. This is this is so that you may believe, and by believing, you may have life in his name. It's it's real easy to approach, I mean, any

Why John Chooses Seven Signs

SPEAKER_01 3:55

any book, um, this is kind of just a narrative, you know, something that we would read, just a normal book, um, where you just start on page one, you read through, and you get a story. John is, I mean, he just laid it out. This is why I wrote. So every time you open John, every chapter, every paragraph that you come to, what it he's very, very intentional with the stories he picked. I mean, again, you just said I I could have written about all these things. There, there's not even the pages in the world could not contain all that he did. Right. And John had to narrow it down to seven. So if you if you don't think he was very intentional about the seven he picked, you you're wrong. I mean, this guy thought through it. These are the seven things. And some of them you read, and we've talked about it on the podcast already. Well, what does that have to do with anything? Right. What does turning water into wine do in the grand scheme of God's plan? But he's like, Man, I saw him, like you said, step out of his program to do something for his mom. And I think for John, that mattered more than the water in the wine. Right. He's gonna see all kinds of amazing things. Water into wine's like, well, that's a cool party trick. You know, what meant something is, man, here's the son of God, creator, who just said, you know what, I love my mom, and I'm gonna do it for her. You know, it it impacted him. And so he starts there, and so everything he writes is for this singular purpose.

Do You Want To Be Whole

SPEAKER_01 5:23

And so we got uh this week we finally made it to sign three of seven. And this is a sermon, especially if you grew up in church, I'm sure you've heard. Um but man, I don't know if it gets any easier to honestly wrestle with it. Jesus shows up, there's this guy laying there for 38 years. And man, in antiquity, you were lucky if you made it to 38 years. Um, that lifespan wasn't all that long, and this guy's laying there uh lame, paralyzed for 38 years, and Jesus asked that question, do you want to be made well? Or I think the King James says whole. Do you want to be whole?

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Well, the word there, if I'm remembering my Greek correctly, is sudzu. And um it's not healed. Do you want to be healed from whatever your affirmity is? And that's used in the U Testament a lot. I don't remember that name, but this one was whole. And uh the church Jesus could have used healed, just in the physical sense of the heal.

SPEAKER_01 6:24

He could have used that, it wasn't like he didn't know the word right.

SPEAKER_02 6:26

And the word whole, as we uh as we all can um articulate, except for me, is do you want it all done or do you just want to walk? You know, and now I've heard that preached uh over and over again. Jesus is in the wholeness build business, he is not in the healing business. And uh so you when you're coming to the Lord to be healed, he's gonna want to know if you want to be made whole. He's he's that's the question he's gonna ask you. That's what he asked this guy. Do you want to be made whole? Everything spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, do you want to be made whole? And uh so that's a great that's a that's a great sermon. And um you had a lot to talk about, and uh so you moved on from that one. But I think it's a uh great uh that you brought up that um what's his name? Something Vaughn. Theo Vaughn. Theo Vaughn. He um he's struggling with that too. Do I do I want to be made whole? Do I want to? And I I went home and I listened to that, um, listening to his his struggle. Uh you gotta listen to the whole thing. You can't listen to the little clip. Um it's not as Christianized as you're imagining from that clip, because you've been raised in church or you've been in church a long time or whatever, but it is a a struggle that a lot of people who struggle with addiction struggle. There's something in me that wants this, and I'm praying to God, God take it away from me, but I don't really want to take it away from me. I gotta pray for the desire.

unknown 8:14

Right.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

And it's one thing we from this lesson in uh or this miracle in John chapter five, sign. I gotta get my terminology right, that we preach here at A Fresh Win all the time. God, you need to ask God to change your want-tos. Yep. And uh not just you know, stop my behavior, but change my want-to, my want-to-do that. I I need God to change my want-tos. And uh, and this speaks right to it. One of the things that John grabbed a hold of um was that Jesus was talking to his soul. He wasn't just talking to his legs or his him being paralyzed.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

Scripture tells us that God's gonna sanctify us through and through, right? So that our whole spirit, body, and soul, uh everything's gonna be blameless. That's what he wants to do in our life. He wants to make us whole. What's interesting to me about this story, and we don't really ever know the outcome. Jesus asks the guy, Do you want to be made whole? He never actually says yes to that. Yeah. He just starts with this list of excuses. Jesus tells him to get up, pick up his mat, and walk, which he does. But does that mean he ever found wholeness? I don't know. Because Jesus finds him in the temple and says, Hey, see, you're well, you be careful that something worse doesn't happen to you. Right. Which is this warning. So I we don't really know what happened from here. Right. Um it was also interesting, interesting to me. I didn't even bring this up in the sermon, but when the Pharisees are like, you know, who who did this? And he's like, I don't know. And then Jesus comes back to him and talks, and he's like, hey, it's that guy over there. Yeah. Like, wait a minute, hold on, dude.

SPEAKER_02 10:06

Um you're walking around and now you're throwing me under the bus.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Right. It's uh I don't know what that angle is either. Um, you know, there's other people that were, you know, the guy who Jesus heals, I think it's John 9, um, he's blind. And when the Pharisees are questioning him, he's like, Oh, do you want to be his followers too? One of my favorite line lines in all of the Bible. I'd like to know that guy. Yeah. But it's uh, this is a this is a tough one. Do I want to be made well, whole, all the way through? And so in that clip that I saw from Theo Vaughn, and man, I'm I'm really praying. Seems like a guy who's who's searching, um, and and I don't know a lot about him. I don't know a whole lot about his story and you know who who his influencers are for him. You know, I know he's an influencer of himself, but uh, or he is an influencer, but I don't know who he listens to, you know, um, and what kind of doctrine theology they have. I don't know any of that stuff, right? But he seems like a guy who's broken and searching, and I'm praying the Lord would meet him all the way, like he said, into the mortar. And I thought, man, that's that's such an incredible picture, especially coming off of last week's sermon about Jesus meeting the woman at the well and offering her living water. And I was like, So we already got this kind of well motif going on in the back of our minds from last week, and then this this uh podcaster saying, I need them to come into the well, into the water, I need them in the the mortar between the bricks, and I was like, Man, that's we need them all the way there. We do.

SPEAKER_02 11:42

Yeah, and it's it's um I I think it's telling that someone can come up with that. No, a lot of people who uh are in recovery, they talk about this stuff a lot, you know. And one of the things they say in recovery is you love your addiction more than you love your family, or you wouldn't be doing this. And that's uh one of the things that they have to face. They have to face that. And once they face it, they can uh start to be recovered. The problem is the the humans, all of us are the same way. I want a band-aid so that I can function in a way that I can have peace and joy and happiness. I don't want surgery.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

That's what I brought up in. I I think I only got that in the second service. Um it's one of the things about getting to preach a sermon twice is you preach the first one, you're like, man, I didn't that didn't come across quite the way that I want to. So if you come to the 11 a.m., you get a sometimes a little bit more refined message, more nuanced.

SPEAKER_03 12:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

Um but this idea of like, I think a lot of us when we come to church, we come to the Lord, we're like, I want to, I don't know that I want to be well, like to truly answer that. I want to be happy, you know, like I I don't want to feel the way that I'm feeling right now. But I don't necessarily also want to give up these things that I've I've grown to love. Um, and sometimes that's your anger, sometimes that's your bitterness, sometimes it's just that pet sin, you know, whatever, um, some addiction, you know, it's it's those things, and it's like I don't I'm not I don't want to give that up, but I also don't want to feel the way that I do. And that's what this wholeness thing really drives at is man, do I am I willing to give those things up if it means that I can be whole? And I talk to a guy, he's like, Man, I don't I don't even know what wholeness looks like.

SPEAKER_02 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

And and uh how how do I even get to that? You know, do I want that and the work that it's gonna take to get there? It's scary.

SPEAKER_02 13:49

It's scary. Yeah, and uh so that's the thing uh that that first part of the sermon deals with, and we're all dealing with it, and uh, we don't have to hit you with the sledgehammer. Jesus deals in wholeness, he wants you to be made whole. Uh, it's part of sanctification. And uh, he's not in the band-aid business, but it to me it looks like he put a band-aid on this guy so that he could later be made whole. Um I don't know if that's true or not, but he just said, get up and walk. He didn't see say, you know, you've been made whole or anything like that. He just said get up and walk. We see that um in a couple different situations in other gospels where the ten lepers, remember the ten lepers, and only one came back, and he told him, You've been made whole. Right. Um, the other ones were all healed, but they didn't get made whole. So that's that's the other time he used this word. So it's uh it's pretty interesting. Um I don't know, I wouldn't call it theological, but a mental uh exercise. What was happening with this guy? And we got three lines of scripture that tells us the story, so it's hard to speculate and not read into. But there's one thing true. Um Theo Vaughn seems like he's run flat into it. Um I'm not sure if I want to be healed. I'm not sure if I want to be made whole.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Like I said in the sermon, my prayer for Theo and my prayer for our church and all of you listening today is that you God will change your want-tos. You would want to be made whole, that you would discover more in Christ than whatever it is you're you're currently pursuing and getting wrapped up in there's more in him. Um make you whole.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

That's one guarantee we can make. If you pursue Jesus, he will make you whole.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yep, there's more, there's

A Miracle That Offends Religion

SPEAKER_01 15:51

more. And so this healing takes place on a Sabbath, and religious leaders are upset. Of course they are. Um, here's this guy, you would think everybody would be going nuts. This man is walking, he's laid here for 38 years, and they're like, uh, today's the wrong day for that. You don't get to pick up your mat.

SPEAKER_02 16:11

It's really odd that um in our culture, in our church culture today, and I know it's completely different than the Jewish culture of the time, but healing would take precedence over scripture, over anything else going on. Hey, God healed that person. Wow, you know, that's that's awesome. Every put everything else down, you know, this is amazing. And they automatically, I'm is it demon possession? What would make them say no? That's weird. Um, it makes me think that people got healed all the time, but they didn't. There's no record of that kind of stuff happening um before Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

And look at the scale. I mean, it wasn't like, man, my knees have been hurting. Oh, now my knee doesn't hurt. Yeah. Nobody really knows. You know, like, was your knee really hurting? How bad was your knee hurting? Right. Exactly. This is a guy who's been laying beside this pool for 38 years. Everybody knows this dude's in in a bad way. And now he's up walking, and they're like, No, no, we're not happy about this.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

There for 38 years. This is not um, I think psychologists call it conversion hysterical neurosis, where you know, you can't walk, you're in the wheelchair, but the doctor's like, there's nearly nothing wrong, and then lastie's locked in the barn and you get up and let her out. You know, that is uh that's not what we're talking about here. This guy's laying on his back for 38 years. So it's it's pretty just think he had to look like a skeleton, no musculature, there was no therapy back then, you know, to keep his muscles toned or anything like that. He must have been a wreck and then he was walking around. And this is a I I don't ever want to get to be that person, especially a religious person, who can see the miraculous and not be awed by it. You know? It it should have shook them to the core. And I'm wondering if it's just two bozos in a group of hundred that said, Hey, this is a Sabbath. Because there's always two bozos in a group of a hundred, you know. Better be careful, it might be you and I said. Um I don't I don't know. That's it's that's shocking to me. I know we read right over it and we don't think about it, but if you stop for a second and say, How can you not be freaking out?

SPEAKER_01 18:51

Yeah. I the the response is it goes against anything that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 18:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

If you were to like pull everybody, what how how would you respond in this situation? I guarantee nobody's like, I'd be upset that that guy picked up his mat. But that's the one thing that they're fired up about. And so then it starts this whole thing with Jesus, and he comes in and just I mean, he hammers them. Um, my father's working, I do what he says, and you know, I'm gonna be the one that, you know, I give life to people, and the dead are gonna rise at my voice. I mean, he just goes to town. I think uh I went over seven different claims he makes, and you're like, hey, uh Jesus, they they weren't real happy about that. Maybe you should tone down the rhetoric a little bit, and he just goes after it. And so, you know, one of the things I said in the sermon was this whole idea of Jesus never claims to be God, John chapter five just blows that up with an atomic bomb. He does not leave that option open. Um I'm God, I deserve the same glory as him. When you glorify me, you glorify the Father. Uh, we are one. He tells me everything. I do what he says, he just goes after it. And it's it's striking. So they move from, hey, we're we're upset that this happened on the Sabbath, and they go all the way to this guy needs to die.

When God Breaks Our Boxes

SPEAKER_02 20:23

I have a personal testimony that kind of goes right through this. Um how do I share this without making myself sound so bad? There is a comfort, a anchor, um a solid rock to stand on when you're convinced that God would not do something like this. Okay? They were convinced that God would not have that guy pick up his mat because they that was the law. And they were convinced that if anything happened outside of the scripture, that it had to be something nefarious. And they were convinced you take that conviction away, and then you're not everything you believe is based on this one thing. And um so one of my favorite phrases in college um was God doesn't work that way. And he spent the next twenty years working that way right in my face. And I uh it was um God is working and just like Jesus said, God is working, I'm working. I'm gonna work this because I love people. And if I can't get to them except through that crack over there, I'm gonna come through the crack, you know, and and make them face me. And this is this is what he was doing, he was making those men who love the law, but not the spirit of the law, just the law, and and coming through the crack and saying, Why wouldn't God do this? Um there's another passage that talks about and Jesus says if there's a if there's a horse in a ditch, I think it was an ox in a ditch uh on the Sabbath, you would get it out, you know, and here's this is an ox in a ditch, and I got him out. And this is um one of those things that we can if we're not careful, and it's happened through the years that we can really grab a hold of scripture and make it our foundation um in a way that's not helpful to us, and if that makes any sense. That don't make much sense. But here's here's what can happen to you you could read the scriptures for the scriptures themselves and forget about the one who wrote them, the one whose name is the same as the scriptures, the word of God. And we have uh we've done that over and I know I do it in my life. I get up in the morning, I gotta list. Everybody's got a list, I gotta list, I gotta go hang on that bar so I don't lose my shoulders, which my doctor said. So I gotta go down in the basement and hang on this bar for 30 seconds. I can't even do it for 30 seconds yet. That's crazy, but I gotta hang on that bar, I gotta read my scriptures, I gotta, you know, I gotta pray, um, I gotta go over my five things of prayer and I gotta get them done because you know, so-and-so's coming over, or I gotta watch the kids later or whatever, and I just do it. And there's no it's just reading the scripture. It's um exercise. You know, part of my cleaning of the garage, reading my scriptures, same thing. And man, that that's what can happen to you. That's what can happen. It's what's happened to them. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. God wouldn't work that way, is what they were saying.

SPEAKER_01 24:24

What's interesting is so that they're citing this law, right? It's the Sabbath. Sabbath forbids you from from doing any work, so you can't pick up your mat. You can't walk with your mat on the Sabbath. That's work. And then they they're upset at Jesus for going against it. But what's interesting is is this is a man-made thing. So they have they have constructed this wall. Scripture never said that you couldn't pick up your mat.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

No, that's that's that's a very good point. They have interpreted this to mean all kinds of stupid stuff. Yeah, and uh, and we need to we need to talk about that a little bit. The Jews at that time, the Pharisees at that time had made laws so they wouldn't break the law. So, in other words, if that's the line, we're gonna make ten more lines, and if you're back here, you're you'll be safe. But they they decided to say, well, those ten lines are the law, too. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01 25:25

So it was meant to provide a line of safety just added on to the burden. And that's what Jesus got so upset. He said, You guys have forsaken the teachings of God for your own religious traditions. Right. You you put all these burdens on other people, and Jesus was so upset at them for it. And so when they're mad that you know Jesus tells this guy to pick up his mat, Jesus never broke the scriptures, the scriptures never said this guy couldn't pick up his mat. Scriptures said, honor the Sabbath, keep it holy, you know. But they're they have taken their own religious construct, just like what you were saying, God doesn't work that way, and they have put these limits in place, and Jesus is like, We're gonna blow those up. And so he he does it, and and they go from man, we're upset that this happened all the way to this guy needs to die over this. And imagine like what has to be going through your mind when you watch a guy who is paralyzed for 38 years stand up and walk, and your response is we need to kill the guy, kill the guy who did this to him.

SPEAKER_02 26:31

This takes a little historical context here. The Pharisees rose up during the time of the Maccabees when God heroically used the Maccabean family to um liberate uh Israel from the Seleucid Greeks. And that was um that was a big deal. So they looked the Pharisees looked at themselves as the lineage of that, you know, God work through us. Because, you know, my dad and my dad's dad was a part of that thing, and you know, we uh that's who we are. So there's this thing, we're right, look what God did through us. And man, it that can that can happen to you. You know, look what God did to me. I'm I've got the answers here. And then you know, God comes down and says, Hey, let's uh let's focus on me, let's not focus on who you used to be, because you're not that guy anymore.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

We've had entire domin denominations created around, you know, God did this this way, so this must be how it's always done. Right now. Um He just showed up and did something. Yeah. Um here's here's a group of people that are are so upset because this is how God does it, and God uses us to do it, and we're the protectors of this thing, and and now this man has to die over he healed this guy on the Sabbath. It's it's wild. Uh you mentioned, you know, is it demonic possession? It almost seems like there's gotta be something here, right? Because it's just not a natural human, even a natural human, not even a religious person, would see someone stand up and walk and go, Whoa, that was cool, and and not these guys. And so Jesus starts, I mean, he just lays into them and he gets into this whole whole thing. Um, I think it's towards the towards the end. Um he says, Man, you you guys, you you open this the scriptures and you look and you study them, but but you missed the point. All of that is about me. All of this was to lead you to me. And so the the very things that you you turn to and that you champion and that that you're all about, and you can recite and you can stand up on you know the street corners and get on your box and you can pray these long, eloquent prayers, all those, you can do all of it, and it sounds great, you're missing it. You missed the point because it was all about me.

SPEAKER_02 29:09

And I think this is the shocking point. This is the you know, the shotgun blast in the chest when he says, You pour over the scriptures, they're about me. They knew exactly what he was talking about. Yeah, they knew he was just flat out saying, I'm the Messiah. I'm not some guy out here healing people, I'm the Messiah. And they they they lost it. Yeah, they lost it.

Jesus Claims Equality With God

SPEAKER_01 29:42

They're they're fired up, and so Jesus, you know, he calls four witnesses up to the table to prove it. You know, there's John the Baptist, there's the Father who's who spoke, um, the works that Jesus does, and then there's the scriptures, and he says, all of these things point point directly to me. And man, verse 40 is so tough because he says, but you're not willing to come that you may have life. Right. And it's almost like there's an invitation here to the Pharisees. And I mean, these are a group of people that Jesus seems like he's always got a problem with. And he's like, if you would just come, you could have life. I would give it to you. And you hear the heart of Jesus in this. I want to give you life, I want you to have life, but you refuse to come. You will not come to me. And if you won't listen to the witnesses, if you won't listen to what Moses wrote, you know, all how are you ever gonna listen to what I say?

SPEAKER_02 30:38

It's in it's in well, let's not pigeonhole them all. When Nicodemus came to Jesus, so did Joseph, Joseph Amerithea. They were Pharisees and they recognized him as the Messiah. Uh, it's easy. Oh, they're a group. Let's slap a they on them and hate them, you know. Um so I think there's probably some conversions in in the Pharisees, but uh this made them angry. In uh, you know, that there was not one that came up and said, Hey Jesus, this was great, man. Uh that was awesome. If anybody knew it was him, but man, we probably shouldn't be doing it on the Sabbath, right? You know? Um it does it just seems like no, this is this line is the line. And then for Jesus to say the old testament is about me, the one you've been planning on coming, that is me made them make a decision right there and they went the wrong way.

unknown 31:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 31:41

And uh and it created a I don't I don't even know how to say it, a supernatural, spiritual hatred for him that spread among them. And that's why I'm saying there's gotta be some kind of demonic forces. I'm sure they were all around everything Jesus was trying to do, but man, they they went opposite of what we could even imagine. And uh so I think it's important that we just cover a few things about when we go into the scripture, because these guys they had the Torah, at least the first five books or the Pentateuch, the first five books memorized, most of them did, um, or they couldn't become a Pharisee. So uh it's important for us to go when we go to the scripture.

SPEAKER_01 32:31

You need to understand just what he said. I mean, Genesis is what 50 chapters long, right? Like these aren't small books, right? And they didn't know generally about them, they were memorized, right? You were talking even before the podcast, the apostle Paul, when he writes, you know, he would cite all these Old Testament passages. He wasn't carrying around, you know, an old testament pocketbook, right?

SPEAKER_02 32:56

Like this with cross-referencing, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:58

Like, no, you would have to go get a scroll from the local synagogue if you wanted to read that. Right. People didn't just own copies of the old test, you couldn't afford it. And so when they're writing these things down, Paul's doing that most likely from memory. Right. I have memorized. So that's who these people are, they know the scriptures.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Yeah, we we cite Paul and what a great Christian he is, he knows the scripture like that, but these were haters of Christ, and they knew the scriptures too. And that opens the door for us when we go to read scripture, and we want to cover uh just a couple things about this before we shut this down. What a great passage of scripture, John chapter five.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Yeah. Oh man. Good stuff, man. Um I don't know what we'd do if we didn't have the podcast to kind of jump on the all this other stuff that we miss in the sermon. So I'm grateful for this too, man. This is good. Uh, we'd write a book about it.

SPEAKER_02 33:49

We would.

Read Scripture With Jesus Present

SPEAKER_02 33:52

So I I think the um the crux here for application for us as a church is when you go to the scriptures, go with him. Don't go about him. Don't go um looking to learn more about Jesus, but go with him to the scriptures.

SPEAKER_01 34:16

Yeah, you need to hear what we're not saying, and and hopefully I didn't communicate it this way at all in the sermon. We're not, this is not an attack on on Bible reading, you know, like these people had the scriptures, and Jesus was upset because he said, You won't come to me, and all the stuff that you're reading, it's about me. He wasn't upset that they were reading the Bible. We're not upset. Read your Bible, read it daily, read it twice a day, read it slowly, read it out loud, read it with your kids. Um, we are not in any danger as a culture of overdoing scripture reading. You know, that that is not what we're saying. Um, we want you to pour into the scriptures, but we want you to to do it with him. You know, take him along on that. It's about him.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

Now, here's here's the nuance here. Uh, we go to the Bible and we pray, Lord, help me understand. And that's great. When I that that's the call of your life. I want to understand these scriptures. Most people say, Man, the scriptures are hard to understand. So the first prayer is help me understand. Your first prayer should be, Speak to me. Speak to me. Um, speak your words at me. Let me hear your heart, what what you're saying here. That's good and and that changes the posture of your prayer. You're when you do that, when you say, when you go to the scripture and say, Lord, speak to me, you are basically confessing him as your savior and Lord. You're saying, You're the Lord. I don't need um, I don't need a commentary, I need you.

SPEAKER_01 35:55

It says, Lord, I'm not here just for information, right? Which is help me understand that leans more, Lord. I want I want to learn something. And that I don't have any problem with that. I want you to learn. Um scripture says, study to show thyself approved. We need to learn. We need to learn the scriptures. But when you say, Lord, speak to me, it says, Lord, I'm not here just for the information. I'm here for you.

SPEAKER_02 36:16

Words of life. We I want the life that you got.

SPEAKER_01 36:19

I want you to communicate to me. And so I've set aside this time so that I can hear directly from you.

SPEAKER_02 36:27

And I think we should look for Christ number two, look for Christ in every text. I think sometimes uh, you know, you get caught in the begets in your reading through the Bible, and uh so-and-so begets so-and-so, and so-and-so beget so-and-so, and and and um you're like, okay, really nothing here for me today, Lord. We're gonna push through. I'm gonna mow the lawn and listen to it in the background. Um, but we need to look for Jesus in every text, even in those obscure Old Testament passages, we just need to say, where are you in this? Like Genesis chapter three, the seed who crushes the serpent's head. You know. Is that you? What did you mean by that? When are you gonna do that? Did you already do it? What you know, what's going on here? And uh when we begin to do that, we we find Jesus all over the scripture.

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Well, you talked about the serpent lifted up um was that two weeks ago you were talking about that. Again, an old testament passage, the serpent was lifted up, uh Moses lifted up, and all these people, you know, they that's how they're healed when they look, and you're like, man, what the heck is going on there? Yeah. And then you connected it a couple weeks ago, and it's like, oh, this is a sign, this is pointing to to Christ Himself. And so, yeah, all over the Old Testament, you're gonna start to find it. And that's one of the things I try to bring out in the sermon Sunday was people were were upset with Christians saying that they were reading back all of this, you know, Jesus the Messiah stuff into the Old Testament and you know, changing the Old Testament and twisting it, yeah. And then when they found the Dead Sea scrolls and everything was there, same exact way, they're like, Oh, sorry. Yeah. Maybe, maybe they maybe they were onto something here.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Uh Jesus, what did Jesus say on the cross? He said, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And everybody, man, Jesus, did God forsake Jesus? That was he was quoting Psalm 22. He was saying, I'm that guy.

SPEAKER_03 38:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 38:37

And, you know, people miss that because they're not looking for him. Isaiah 53, the serpent, the serpent, the servant who was pierced. He's everywhere. Everywhere. Everywhere in the Old Testament. Even when you're talking about the tabernacle, he is all over the tabernacle and the court and the linen cloth that they made, uh, the big square around the tabernacle, that was him too. He he is everywhere. And when he said that, all that was about me, um he's saying that to us too. You know, when you're reading scripture, think of me. In the New Testament, it's easy because they focus on them uh the whole time. In the Old Testament, you gotta look for him. And uh and that makes that makes it exciting because if you go with him to the scriptures, then you're like, is that you? Is that is is that what you you know we're referring to? And uh and when you dig in to do a little study like that, um, when you get done reading the scriptures, you can say, Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 39:40

Well, and that's uh that's kind of the third thing we were gonna point out here is you can convert reading into this conversation. When you take Jesus along with you into the scriptures, you can ask him those questions. Hey, is that you here? What what was that about? And then if you come across a verse that you find comfort in, man, Lord, thank you for that. Thank you for showing me that. Um, if it's confusing, you can ask him, hey, what was that about? Why did you say it like that? Or or how come this you you wanted this decision made here? And you can allow the Holy Spirit to teach you the deep things of God because you've invited him into the process with you.

SPEAKER_02 40:18

Right. And it's not just the super spiritual stuff. Don't get the because you guys know me. I'm always on the weird stuff. Like, hmm, Lord, is there really giants? I mean, was he six foot five or nine foot ten? What, you know, really, really, and then our, you know, show me if that's true. Did the sun stand still or did the earth stop rotating? What did you do there? You know, what's going on in this battle? Um, you know, the the guy shoots three arrows, and so he only gets three. God, what Lord, what could you give him a heads up? You know, shoot all your arrows, dude. Don't shoot just three. Um, so there's all kinds of questions and conversations you can have with Jesus as you're reading the scriptures, and and you should have. You should have. You should ask him all the time. Am I getting that right? Lord, this is what I'm thinking. Is that right? And um, he'll lead you to the scriptures, he'll lead you to uh some book where some obscure guy uh explained it really well, and you know, he he's he is very faithful in that. And sometimes he'll say, I want you to stew on that a little bit and see how that fits in your heart, and and then I want to know what you're gonna do about it. And and that's that's the kind of reading of scripture we're looking for, not the oh, it's chess day, I gotta read Matthew. You know, so I we you need to go to the scriptures with him.

SPEAKER_01 41:56

Yeah, that's that would change a lot of it, man. Um, and thankfully, Lord has put us in community, so when we get to places that are tough, um, we can go and we can ask other faithful followers um of Jesus, hey, what does this mean? What do you think about this? Um and scriptures iron sharpens iron, you know, so we get to we get to do that for one another. And on top of that, man, we've got a long lineage of church history now. Right. And I mean some really incredible minds who have who have studied and poured over the scriptures. And so you know, we've told you guys repeatedly on the podcast, um, Good Study Bible CSB or the ESV study bible, um, those will help you go a long way. But but don't use those in place of inviting Jesus in. Read it with him and Lord, speak to me, and what's going on here? Why would you do that? And man, you will begin to to commune with your father, and it's it's sweet.

SPEAKER_02 42:56

My daddy used to say all the time, you can't play in mud without getting it on you, right? And you can't jump in the scriptures with Jesus without it affecting your life. Um, he tells us that in Hebrews that the Bible is a two-edged sword. Two-edged. That means you can fight with it, but you can also cut yourself pretty bad with it too. Uh, and it's always looking into the morrow of your bones. And uh so when you bring Jesus into the Bible with you, um, it can get uncomfortable at times, but that's that's what we're talking about in discovering more in Christ. You want to know what God wants more of you, uh, when he wants more of you. Hey, this is uh this is where I don't think you're treating your family very well. And um, I want you to I I don't want to take that away from you. Don't make me take that away from you. You know, so that's that's one of those things that um you don't get if you don't bring him with you, right? You know, because that's how he's That's how he's going to speak to you.

Memorize And Share What Hits Home

SPEAKER_02 44:03

So memorization of scriptures number four. You need to memorize scripture. Let me make this easy for you. Find the scriptures that rock your world and memorize those. Okay. So I've got to memorize Romans. Okay. That would be great. But if you're not memorizing scripture that's really not speaking to your heart, it's just going to be more difficult. It's like you don't know songs that you don't like. Do you sing songs that you don't like? No. You sing the songs that you like and and and the words just come out of your mouth. So look for those. Um we got a big scripture uh memorizers um Dave Meyer. He loves to memorize certain psalms that speak to him and and and it's great. And you're like, well, I don't I don't know um which ones speak to me. Well then get in the word of God and you'll you'll you'll see that. And I I think um I started working on Jonah one time. Uh I wanted to memorize Jonah. And and I was like, I I just love this. I had just read a book about Jonah and and all the nuances that go on in that little book of the uh Old Testament and um if if I hadn't read that book, I'd have probably memorized it. But I was kind of like this is old stuff for me. You know, so grab a hold of a verse like the love chapter, you know, first Corinthians chapter 13 and read and memorize about love. Uh memorize um uh John chapter three, you know, and I mean Jesus lays it out. This is who's in and who's out. You gotta be born again to get in. You gotta be born, and that's a great passage of scripture uh to memorize. So when someone says you should memorize scripture and you're thinking, Okay, which book do I start? No, no, no, no, no. Go to what you love, go to those things you think about all the time and get them locked in.

SPEAKER_01 46:13

Well, all scripture is useful for teaching, correcting, rebuking, and training in righteousness. So it's not one's better than the other, right? And so start start with the easy one, start with the ones you love that speak to you. Memorize those. David said, Lord, I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Um, as you start to memorize those scriptures and plant those things deep in your heart, um Lord's gonna bring those up and and you're gonna love him more. And anything that you know, David said, that I might not sin against you. You're it's like, Lord, I anything that would come between us, I don't want to do. I I I love this intimacy, this sweetness that we have so much that that I don't want that sin or I don't I don't want that bitterness, I don't want that jealousy, um, that envy to get in the way. And so I'm gonna hide these things in my heart that I might not sin against you. And then when you get in those situations, the Lord's gonna bring those verses to mind. Um, you know, we talked about uh building those walls around emotions. Uh you're not the boss of a series. This is part of that, you know. You you hide those words in your heart so that when those things come up, the Lord's got them there. And and you can you can build walls against those things. And so um start with start with the ones you love, make it easy on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 47:30

We it doesn't have to be painful, and then and then you know, spread out the context of let's say you're gonna learn the love chapter, spread out the context. What why is this here? What's in chapter 12? And then you move up to chapter 12, and you realize how Paul got to the love chapter, and you can memorize that one too, and and it kind of just spreads uh through the whole scripture. The last thing is uh the whole point is that make it easy on yourself, you know, memorize the stuff that's hammered you hard, even the the tough ones, you know, uh where I I started that preaching that um the first part of the series with uh the wedding. I've I've started memorizing that man studying that just it was beating me to death. It's like, why don't you pray? I will a I love you. I'll answer your prayer even if it has nothing to do with the kingdom. You know? So that that one really spoke to me. So I'm I'm trying to invest my time so I can tell that story uh perfectly from the scripture. Um and I won't need to open a Bible to do it. I want to do that. And I want to. I don't, it's not a oh go, I'm gonna do this. It's a I want to know this thing backwards and forward, because that's how much it spoke to me. So listen, and when you're in a sermon and a verse punches you in the face, you know, grab a hold of that and say, outline it in your Bible and say, I want to learn this one. This one spoke to me. And then you can, when you're sitting with someone else, you can share those scriptures. And that's one reason I love the forge, is I can read a scripture and I can get ready to talk about it at the forge, and then when I get to the forge, someone has a completely different view on that scripture, and I'm like, Well, I didn't even think about that. And it makes me uh get deeper in. And here's the best thing if you want to learn scripture uh with Jesus is share it with your kids and try to make them understand it. You know, you think, well, I I I got this, and your kids looking at you like, what are you talking about? And now you have to explain it in a way that they can understand, and that will really with your kids is great.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

Um if you don't have kids. Really, anybody who's who's searching, if there's a new believer, if you know you got grandkids that come over to your house, whatever it, if you there's very few things that'll make the Bible come alive, then talking about it with someone, especially someone who's searching, a new Christian or you know, young believer, your kids, when you start to show them, man, this is the word of life, and here's Jesus all over the place, man, it is like high octane fuel on your faith. And and and you just see, God wasn't kidding. His word never returns void. Right. You know, it is it is useful. And so I think if you if you would do these these five things, it'll keep us from falling into that trap where we just go to the Bible because it's you know, it's leg day, you know, right. Gotta get this thing done. And you start inviting him into the process, you have a conversation with him, you're asking them questions as you go, uh, memorize the things that that stick out to you that you love that meant something to you, and then share those things, and you'll start to see this man, geez wasn't kidding, this is all about him. It's always been about him. And he says, if you'll come to me, I'll give you life. That's what I want to give you is life.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

So I got this book based on my Ministry 101 course, and and I put in there, um, you got to be ready for ministry. Here's the the things that you got to get in every day. And I I put a statement in there, you can do these within 20 minutes a day. And I I put that kind of limit on it to give people, okay, if I spend 20 minutes a day, I can be ready for ministry. I'll have the Lord speaking to me every day, and that's that's kind of the way I meant it. But when you start reading scripture with Jesus, 20 minutes is not enough. You you see those guys at work who got their Bible open during lunchtime, because they're going, what are you talking about in here? You know, I'd read that this morning, it's been bothering me all day, and now I'm eating my lunch, and and I I gotta open this thing. I gotta figure it out what's going on. When you read scripture with him, you do that 20 minutes that I talk about in that book with him, and not for him, but with him, um, you'll get stuck. You'll get stuck in the mud. Your wife will be like, You're gonna be late for work. And he said, I just gotta read one more, I gotta figure out what this means. It'll be that's the kind of discovering more in Christ we're looking for here at A Fresh Wind. That's right. You know, and when you when you go with him, as Ryan said, not leg day, but when you go with him to the scriptures, it'll change you. It'll change you. And uh 20 minutes won't be enough.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

And even when you got to put the the book down, because you gotta get to work, you know, you keep chewing on that thing, right? You know, and and that's still time in the word. You're still thinking about that verse and meditating on that verse, and what does that mean? And and what were you trying to say, and and how does that apply to my life? And what am I supposed to do with this thing? You know, you you keep chewing on that, and then you get to lunch, and you are, man. You're fired up. Okay, I gotta get my Bible out, or I gotta open the Bible app, you know, I gotta, I gotta dig back into this thing. Because you're you're going with him, and it'll change it. It takes it from that, I gotta check this thing off, into man, I love being with him. And and that's where we want you to be. Your dad loved being with the word, right? Got up before every morning and did it. And then after that stroke, you know, God said, Okay, this is this is what it looks like to actually be with me, spirit to spirit. Right. And I'm sure when he could read again, he didn't stop reading the Bible.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

No, he went right back to it.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

He just approached it in a new way. Man, now I I get to do this with him. I'm not just reading about him, he's right here with me. And I mean, it sounded like it changed the way he prayed, you know, listening to you guys in the truck, and you constantly wonder, are you talking to me? Yeah. That's that's the relationship we want you to have with him, guys.

Prayer And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_02 54:11

Um, it's not just about him, it's the words of life. And when he's the one reading it to you, and you're just not reading it for yourself, it'll make all the difference. So take him with you into the word of God, and uh, don't let us end up being pharisetical like those guys back then. You don't want to be those two guys out of a hundred that were like, hey, you can't do that on Sabbath. Um we want to be we want to know the word of God, and more than that, we want to know him. That's right. We want to know him and uh his love for people, his love. Um you'll figure out why righteousness matters in your life, you'll figure out why um having the gospel ready to speak, um, being uh praying without ceasing, you you'll realize what that stuff is all about when you go with him. And now we beat this dead horse. You want to take another whack at it or do you want to pray?

SPEAKER_01 55:18

Let me pray. Father, I thank you so much uh for your word. I thank you for for John chapter five. And Lord, you just lay out who you are. And Father, you I think it broke your heart that they wouldn't come so that they could find life. And Lord, let that not be true of us. We want to be a church that comes and finds you all over the scriptures. We we know that you are the word. In you is life. And we want us, we want to hear from you and speak to you. And so, Father, I pray that um we would invite you along as we read the word, and we would hear your voice all over that. We would see you all over uh every page, that it you would just glow. Um, and we would see you there in the work that you're doing. And Lord, we ask that your Holy Spirit would teach and reveal us uh the deep things of God as we do it. Lord, make us mature, uh grown up as we discover more in you. Amen. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen and amen.

SPEAKER_00 56:17

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas to podcast at a freshwind.org. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.