back to index2018-01-23: Wed Bible Study Lesson 3
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Heavenly Father, we thank you for your grace. 00:00:07.000 |
God, we thank you for the challenge that's in your word. 00:00:10.000 |
I pray, God, that every single one of us would have really moldable and fertile soil in our hearts. 00:00:17.000 |
God, that we receive your word and be challenged by it. 00:00:20.000 |
We thank you so much, Saint Christ, and we pray. Amen. 00:00:38.000 |
Okay, if you turn to your handout, I just want to give a really fast -- oh, sorry. 00:00:52.000 |
Give me a moment as I turn this TV on real fast for our viewers at home. 00:01:03.000 |
Okay, so real quick, giving some Bible study tips. 00:01:08.000 |
Pastor Peter went over in week one the overall inductive study. 00:01:12.000 |
Today, all I'm going to do is just say, just remember that as you do your Bible study, 00:01:17.000 |
it's always important to follow the flow of thought by following the syntax. 00:01:27.000 |
If you notice, he connects his thoughts together. 00:01:32.000 |
He'll give illustrations from the past, et cetera, et cetera, and you want to identify those relationships. 00:01:41.000 |
And what I want to say is that from both paragraph to paragraph and then sentence to sentence, 00:01:47.000 |
clause to clause, word to word, you want to find and identify what kind of relationship is this. 00:01:54.000 |
And one helpful tip that I found was just to understand what kind of relationships are there 00:02:02.000 |
So, for example, even within our text, here we have this idea for this reason, right? 00:02:11.000 |
And when you see that, you should be writing or at least jotting down on the side that this is some kind of causal relationship, right? 00:02:22.000 |
So, with that said, other markers of relationships show you purpose. 00:02:27.000 |
For example, verse 10, "So that," da, da, da, da, and it shows you purpose. 00:02:32.000 |
Other times, certain prepositions show you the context, show you what kind of relationship it has. 00:02:39.000 |
And so what I like to do is when you take a text like this and read it, 00:02:43.000 |
sometimes you aren't able to immediately see the relationships that exist. 00:02:48.000 |
But what I did for you here is just to show you the different kinds of relationship markers that are present in this passage. 00:02:56.000 |
And what I did is take this and put it into an outline form using specifically these words. 00:03:05.000 |
Each one of those identifying markers that I saw, or at least the relationship words, 00:03:10.000 |
I used that to break off that segment of the passage into an outline form. 00:03:15.000 |
But what I'm going to do now is just read it with you guys, and then after we read it, we'll walk down the passage together. 00:03:21.000 |
So, it says, "For this reason also, since today we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you 00:03:29.000 |
and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will, in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, 00:03:36.000 |
so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, 00:03:42.000 |
bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, 00:03:46.000 |
strengthened with all power according to His glorious might. 00:03:50.000 |
For the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, joyously giving thanks to the Father, 00:03:56.000 |
who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in light." 00:04:04.000 |
So, as we take a look at that, what I want to show you is this. 00:04:09.000 |
By looking at these specific terms, I'm simply able to say, okay, this is clearly a transitional section asking the cause, right? 00:04:21.000 |
"I identify the main independent clause, 'We do not cease to pray for you and to ask.' 00:04:27.000 |
Here is the content of your prayer, that you may be filled. 00:04:30.000 |
Here is the purpose, so that you would walk in what kind of manner or how in a manner worthy of the Lord, 00:04:37.000 |
and what intended result for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience." 00:04:43.000 |
So, I went through that pretty quickly. Let's slow down and go through verse by verse. 00:04:47.000 |
So, if you would take a look at the handout for today. 00:04:51.000 |
If you guys don't have a handout, we do have some extra at the table in the back. 00:04:57.000 |
As we take a look at this verse, where it says, "For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, 00:05:02.000 |
we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask, that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will 00:05:13.000 |
Now, just as in the previous weeks, I'm going to go through this fairly quickly. 00:05:17.000 |
At any point, if you guys do have questions, I know it's a big room and stuff, 00:05:20.000 |
you can either text me or you can raise your hand and ask. 00:05:23.000 |
But as we think about this, we do have to answer the question, "What reason is this?" 00:05:27.000 |
And if you recall, last time that we studied, he said, "You know what I heard about you? 00:05:32.000 |
I heard that you guys had..." This is the audience participation part. 00:05:43.000 |
And Pastor Peter called it the trifecta, the general characteristics of Christian faith. 00:05:49.000 |
So what Apostle Paul heard that these individuals actually already exhibited 00:05:55.000 |
That many people in the congregation had already expressed and maybe even borne fruit 00:06:03.000 |
But upon that, I want you to think about this, Apostle Paul then was even more inclined to them pray. 00:06:13.000 |
That his heart is to pray that these saints would not simply be, 00:06:20.000 |
But rather he was praying for them unceasingly. 00:06:23.000 |
And then it's a challenge for us as a model for us, like, 00:06:29.000 |
the burden of the mind of wanting to have fullness of the Christian faith. 00:06:34.000 |
That it does not simply rest on, "I heard the gospel in its simple form, 00:06:40.000 |
Rather it's actually, he says, "That you may be filled." 00:06:43.000 |
The content is that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will 00:06:48.000 |
and in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. 00:06:55.000 |
if the content of his prayer is to be filled with this knowledge, 00:07:00.000 |
How does it relate to these terms of knowledge, wisdom, and understanding? 00:07:04.000 |
So those are probably some questions that you guys had. 00:07:07.000 |
Why does he use three synonyms for the same concept? 00:07:10.000 |
Well, typically when you see that, it's a point for you. 00:07:13.000 |
This is like a slow down, take a look, and understand what he's trying to say. 00:07:19.000 |
That a high, high priority for every single one of us as Christians 00:07:23.000 |
is that we would be ever growing in the knowledge of God. Amen? 00:07:27.000 |
And what's more, the relationship that you see 00:07:33.000 |
what kind of relationship do you see among those three terms? 00:07:38.000 |
Did anybody discuss that in your groups and want to share? 00:07:43.000 |
I just want to know what you guys talked about. 00:07:45.000 |
So for those three terms, what is the relationship that you see? 00:08:09.000 |
He had a nice voice that carried, so you guys kind of heard that. 00:08:12.000 |
Any other thoughts about how the concepts here relate to one another 00:08:18.000 |
as what he is praying for for the congregation? Yes? 00:08:54.000 |
The prayer here is that all of it, all of God's will, right, 00:09:00.000 |
that God reveals, Apostle Paul is praying that you guys would all have, 00:09:07.000 |
In terms of the church receiving it, you're absolutely right. 00:09:10.000 |
There can't be this, "I know that it's there in my Bible on my shelf." 00:09:20.000 |
You have to receive it, and of course you have to apply it. 00:09:23.000 |
And so as you think about that, Apostle Paul is praying, 00:09:28.000 |
Knowledge in terms of its doctrines and facts and truths. 00:09:32.000 |
The actual wisdom, wisdom typically means skill to use it, 00:09:39.000 |
The understanding comes from perception, like you've not only simply read it, 00:09:44.000 |
but now your mind is actually changed by it because you actually understand it. 00:09:49.000 |
It's become a part of your understanding, right? 00:09:52.000 |
So in this way, Apostle Paul wants so much more 00:10:06.000 |
If a group of people believes like, "We're better because we know," 00:10:10.000 |
but that knowledge is external to them on pieces of paper, 00:10:16.000 |
But it's when actually the knowledge becomes a part of us because we received it, 00:10:20.000 |
because we've applied it, and with wisdom, with understanding, 00:10:24.000 |
we can see how it operates, we can see how God is wise, right? 00:10:30.000 |
And just as another point, there has always been that classic, classic versus 00:10:37.000 |
We don't want to be overly emphatic about doctrine. 00:10:41.000 |
We don't want to go overboard on that level." 00:10:43.000 |
That's kind of a false dichotomy when people say, 00:10:50.000 |
Apostle Paul is very clear. You can never do too much of the truths of God. 00:10:58.000 |
The issue is, but have you actually wisely applied it? 00:11:07.000 |
So as we talk about that, Apostle Paul, his prayer is that we would be full, 00:11:13.000 |
we would be filled with the knowledge of God. 00:11:18.000 |
That then becomes the base by which he says the next part, 00:11:27.000 |
He says, "So that you would be filled, so that you will walk 00:11:36.000 |
Man, if you just take a moment to think about a manner worthy of the Lord, 00:11:41.000 |
immediately it's like, "Oh my goodness, that standard is so high." 00:11:45.000 |
But then Apostle Paul describes, I don't know if you guys saw it this way, 00:11:50.000 |
there was a rapid fire succession of short clauses to please him in all respect, 00:11:56.000 |
bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God, 00:12:00.000 |
strengthened with all power according to his glorious might. 00:12:04.000 |
So let's take a moment to think about that a little bit. 00:12:08.000 |
If I was preparing a sermon, I would just do it this way and say, 00:12:12.000 |
"The challenge and command is you need to walk, right? 00:12:15.000 |
You can't have your theology just in your head. You need to walk. Apply it." 00:12:18.000 |
And then we'd talk about, "Hey, but these are the character traits. 00:12:22.000 |
This is the categorical description of what that worthy walk looks like." 00:12:27.000 |
And then we'd go down the list. Boom, boom, boom. 00:12:29.000 |
Now for the sake of time, I'm going to lump those into two categories. 00:12:33.000 |
One, let's just talk a little bit about being pleasing to him in all respects, 00:12:41.000 |
where you're bearing fruit, you're increasing, 00:12:43.000 |
and you're strengthened with his glorious might. 00:12:53.000 |
You need to discern what is pleasing to God and what is not. 00:13:02.000 |
We have to be experts at this is the standard of God, and this is substandard of God. 00:13:09.000 |
If there's anything we're pro at, where we could become really, really sufficient at tasting, 00:13:15.000 |
"This is going to be pleasing to the Lord. This is not pleasing to the Lord." 00:13:18.000 |
It doesn't even have to be an explicit direction or prescription from the Bible, 00:13:23.000 |
but even the atmosphere of it, you know, "Ah, I don't think he's going to like this." 00:13:31.000 |
As we spend time with the Lord and we're aware of his will, that's what we need to be. 00:13:36.000 |
And, you know, it actually so happens that many of you guys, 00:13:42.000 |
a lot of times when you go shopping or something like that and you have a close friend, 00:13:46.000 |
you pick up a shirt and you're like, "Dude, this would look perfect on her," 00:13:49.000 |
or, "This would look great on him. This is so his style," right? 00:13:53.000 |
You should be the first one when you see something, it's like, "That is so God's style," right? 00:13:58.000 |
And on the contrary, if you see something clashing, we should be the first one to be sensitive to that, right? 00:14:04.000 |
Now, on the next half of the description where it talks about bearing fruit, increasing, and strengthened, 00:14:15.000 |
But I want to just simply give some challenging words here because right now, okay, 00:14:22.000 |
I don't want to be ignorant of the fact that we do live in a generation where this topic of strength, 00:14:30.000 |
whether we're growing and bearing fruit or not, is actually kind of a hot topic. 00:14:37.000 |
There are these spokespeople who go out and college campuses talk about, "This is male masculinity," right? 00:14:45.000 |
And then you have opposing sides like, "No, that is toxic." 00:14:48.000 |
And then you have individuals who talk much about, "You know what? We are a generation. We're so insensitive. 00:14:56.000 |
And then we have other people who are like, "No, you just need to do the right thing. Suck it up." 00:15:01.000 |
Like there's all this debate going on right now, and the climate is really, really hostile. 00:15:06.000 |
Well, one of the discussion questions I'm going to ask you is, 00:15:10.000 |
Apostle Paul says, "A manner by which you should walk is that you should be bearing fruit, growing and increasing, 00:15:18.000 |
and you should be strengthened with all power." 00:15:23.000 |
And there has to be an evaluation of us like, "Hmm, where am I? 00:15:28.000 |
Do I have a mental vision of what it means to be empowered by Christ? 00:15:35.000 |
Do I have a mental vision of what it means to be empowered by knowing God's will? 00:15:41.000 |
Do I have a vision of what it means to be empowered supernaturally by the gospel? 00:15:51.000 |
We're talking right now about a way that is pleasing to the Lord, 00:15:54.000 |
and we have to ask, "What is pleasing to the Lord in this description?" 00:15:58.000 |
Well, in this description, what's pleasing to the Lord, it is an individual who is not passive, 00:16:04.000 |
but he's actively applying his faith and is bearing fruit. 00:16:07.000 |
He's not giving excuses. He's not grumbling, but rather his increasing in wisdom, his increasing in knowledge. 00:16:15.000 |
And I think if this would be a controversial statement to make, 00:16:18.000 |
it is displeasing when the individual is perpetually weak. 00:16:24.000 |
Did I say it the wrong way? Did I say it the right way? 00:16:26.000 |
I want you guys to think about that, and then you guys can discuss within your groups. 00:16:32.000 |
How do we balance? Because I will be the first one to confess. 00:16:35.000 |
I have many weaknesses in my life, and 1 John says, "If I say I didn't have it, 00:16:39.000 |
then I would be a heretic and a liar," right? 00:16:42.000 |
So do we have to acknowledge that we are weak? Yes. 00:16:47.000 |
But what's also clear is we do not lower the standard of God. 00:16:51.000 |
As Christians, we are to strive for the strength that is found in the person of Christ. 00:16:56.000 |
And there is a supernatural power for believers to go above and beyond what is natural, 00:17:02.000 |
what is just simply explicable for the rest of the world, right? 00:17:08.000 |
So that's what I'm going to leave for your discussion. 00:17:13.000 |
All right, so I hope you guys kind of understand the way I'm outlining here, 00:17:17.000 |
that I'm seeing those all as descriptive characteristics of the manner worthy of the Lord. 00:17:23.000 |
And then as we follow along in the next passage, what we find is that as he goes from a walk 00:17:30.000 |
in the manner worthy of the Lord, it goes through all of this, right? 00:17:34.000 |
When you walk in this fashion, and it's based on the truths that you understand about the will of God, 00:17:40.000 |
that is going to be for, it has an intended purpose or actual intended result that he expects within you. 00:17:47.000 |
The whole process of growth, I like the way that you guys described it, 00:17:52.000 |
From God revealing, us receiving, us supplying, 00:17:56.000 |
that process of growth should result in steadfastness and patience with joy. 00:18:02.000 |
What's more, it should result in thanksgiving to the Father. 00:18:06.000 |
It should result in thanksgiving to the Father. 00:18:10.000 |
So, this is really important because as you guys remember the context, 00:18:18.000 |
Apostle Paul is so overjoyed that the fruit of the gospel, 00:18:22.000 |
the power of the gospel that's been going forth is bearing fruit in them. 00:18:26.000 |
But he also sees from out there and over here, there are attacks coming. 00:18:30.000 |
There are the attacks of the legalists, there are attacks of the Gentiles, 00:18:34.000 |
there are attacks of the self-deprivation guys, 00:18:43.000 |
Okay, thank you. I can't say the word for some reason. 00:18:47.000 |
There's a bunch of people who believe in self-deprivation, 00:18:50.000 |
don't touch this, don't do that, and you deprive yourself. 00:18:53.000 |
It's a hard word to say for some reason, I can't say it, but you guys know what I'm talking about. 00:18:57.000 |
Later on, we'll see that there's these attacks inundating the church. 00:19:01.000 |
And so Apostle Paul says, "I want to have this full process be evident in all of you, 00:19:08.000 |
so that the result will be not only that you're going to be like, 'Oh my gosh, it's here!' 00:19:13.000 |
But there's going to be strength inside of you, and there's going to be steadfastness, 00:19:17.000 |
there's going to be patience underneath that, and it's going to happen joyously 00:19:24.000 |
As I say this, if you guys remember, several, several weeks ago, 00:19:29.000 |
it might have been some time ago, I preached a passage called, you know, "Raising the Bar," 00:19:34.000 |
because God really raises the bar on us with this. 00:19:38.000 |
The expectation, yes, it's clear, God expects us to have a growing knowledge and content of faith. 00:19:47.000 |
But if you think about what He is thinking of as a result here, 00:19:51.000 |
He's thinking about much more than saying, "Oh gosh, I'm hurting and broken, 00:19:56.000 |
I just wish you would, you know, comfort me and understand how bad it is." 00:20:01.000 |
No, He's actually designed for us to have such a strength. 00:20:05.000 |
He's praying for us that we would be so rich in the knowledge of God 00:20:10.000 |
that we would come out of those trials, of course, not stoic and robotic, 00:20:21.000 |
Okay, so we went through the passage there, and I hope that was an encouragement to you. 00:20:28.000 |
Is check my messages for questions you guys had. 00:20:32.000 |
So you know what? Actually, there's some that came in. 00:20:38.000 |
I do want to answer just a couple because I'm pretty sure many of you guys had it. 00:20:41.000 |
Oh, this is a good one. There's about three people who asked this question. 00:20:47.000 |
If you guys look here, it says, "For the attaining of all steadfastness and patience, 00:20:50.000 |
joyously, aka with joy, giving thanks to the Father." 00:20:54.000 |
These are the moments when it's good for you to check different passages, 00:21:03.000 |
The NIV will actually put it, "With thanksgiving," and say, 00:21:08.000 |
The NSB kind of did a weird thing where they put a semicolon right there. 00:21:11.000 |
And the reason why is because remember that in terms of the numbering of the verses 00:21:17.000 |
came 1500, 16th century, and it wasn't like original to the text. 00:21:23.000 |
And so sometimes the verse pointing is also kind of like, 00:21:26.000 |
"This is where the punctuation marks are. I think this is where it stops." 00:21:30.000 |
It's just that in the original manuscript, I believe, "With joy" is "meta caras," 00:21:38.000 |
So I take it like it should be actually tied with steadfastness and patience, 00:21:42.000 |
that your steadfastness and patience has your attitude of joy with it. 00:21:48.000 |
You bring that attitude of joy to your suffering, that kind of mentality. 00:21:52.000 |
But whichever way it goes, it's kind of the same idea here. 00:21:55.000 |
You're either in suffering joyously giving thanks to the Lord, 00:21:58.000 |
or through the suffering too, you're expressing joy to the Lord 00:22:01.000 |
as He's carrying you through those situations as well. 00:22:08.000 |
Then, are there any other questions that you guys have of the passage for tonight? 00:22:18.000 |
Then, just want to conclude with going over some of the discussion questions with you guys. 00:22:28.000 |
A couple of discussion questions with you guys. 00:22:30.000 |
Please take time now to discuss with your group. 00:22:34.000 |
Number one, as we discuss the various characteristics of a worthy walk, 00:22:45.000 |
Pleasing to God, bearing fruit, increasing in knowledge, and strengthened. 00:22:51.000 |
As you read those things, what elements are challenging and inspiring to you, 00:22:58.000 |
Also, that question of weakness versus strength. 00:23:03.000 |
If you guys didn't get a chance to talk about it, talk about it. 00:23:06.000 |
What does it look like for a Christian to have power? 00:23:10.000 |
Does it mean I have beams coming out of my hands? 00:23:20.000 |
How do you balance that with the expectation of the Scriptures 00:23:23.000 |
where God calls to live by the might of the Lord? 00:23:27.000 |
And then, the next question is just a personal assessment to you. 00:23:32.000 |
I know you guys are sometimes feeling like, "Oh, man, this question is getting really personal." 00:23:37.000 |
Well, if you guys feel like, you guys can go to a different room. 00:23:41.000 |
As you evaluate your life, is there any area that you are already aware of? 00:23:47.000 |
You can only tackle the stuff you're aware of 00:23:50.000 |
where you have settled for a standard less than God's. 00:23:53.000 |
You know this isn't pleasing to the Lord, but you've settled for it. 00:23:57.000 |
It's something to confess and talk about with each other. 00:23:59.000 |
And then, the last part is, because the main clause is Apostle Paul praying, 00:24:09.000 |
how does that challenge your prayer content and your prayer practice? 00:24:13.000 |
As you compare what Apostle Paul is constantly praying for, 00:24:17.000 |
and as you compare what you're constantly praying for, 00:24:21.000 |
Okay, let's pray, and then you guys can break up to your groups. 00:24:27.000 |
and we thank you, God, again, that your word is so challenging to us. 00:24:32.000 |
Father God, we thank you that, Lord, you are changing us. 00:24:36.000 |
And who we are in our natural state is not who you're going to leave us be. 00:24:41.000 |
But, God, that your Spirit is working us, your word is at work in us, 00:24:47.000 |
you are at work in our lives in so many different ways. 00:24:50.000 |
And I pray, God, that we would continue just to humble ourselves 00:24:54.000 |
and continue to surrender and submit and to follow your lead. 00:24:58.000 |
We thank you, Lord, it's in Christ's name we pray. Amen.