Leadership #6 - Study & Sermon Preparation

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   So, I wake, and spend my days loving the one who has raised me up. Here at your feet again, everything I am reaching out. I surrender. From death to life, from wrong to right, you're making all things beautiful cuz you delight in showing mercy. Welcome all of our students this morning, those here, those watching, those who will watch later. Uh this is leadership and um in our second semester. So, uh this morning we've entitled this study and sermon preparation. This is probably at least going to be two parts, um maybe three. But this is very important um to leadership. And and really, even if you say, "Well, Pastor Jan, I don't feel like I'm called to the five-fold ministry." Uh still, if you ever teach a Bible study or Sunday school class or anything like that, you still need to you still need to do this. You still need to understand some of these basic principles. And today, too, we're going to talk about the laws of hermeneutics, or which is the law of Bible interpretation. And these are going to be the basic laws that you really need to follow so that you don't end up getting into error or teaching error uh even by accident. All right. So, anyway, uh just a few little tools there that might help you. I I I would suggest everyone get a Strong's Concordance. Um and I mean the actual book because if you're uh you know, if ever we are separated from our electronics, which I believe will probably happen, uh you actually need to be old school. And uh you know, old school and low-tech is going to what be what's working. So, you're going to want to have uh good strong's concordance with a Greek and Hebrew dictionary in it. I think you can buy the big book for about 10 bucks now. And um you know, good Bible atlas. Um just you know, there's all kind of little tools, but a good Webster's dictionary. It'd be great, too, if you could have an old Webster's, the oldest Webster's dictionary you could find and a newer one, both, so you can check out what words really are supposed to mean, all right, in English. Um but let's keep going here. Um here's your first verse for today. We're going to start out with this one, Proverbs 15:28. Um remember, if we do verses like this, you need to know them. Uh but this says, "The heart of the righteous studieth to answer, but the mouth of the wicked pourth out evil things." This verse has always stood with me. The heart of the righteous studies. Why? So, we can give an answer. So, we can say and tell people, "Hey, here is what the

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   Bible says, here's what it teaches in uh context, and historical context as well, grammatical, whole nine yards. Now, let me just say this at the outset. Um we come from the school that we believe all scripture is inspired by God. All right, that's uh 2 Timothy 3:16, "All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for doctrine, for instruction." All right. So, we believe every every word of the Lord in the in the Bible, and when I say the Bible, I'm talking about Genesis to Malachi, and Matthew to Revelation, the 66 books of the canon. I believe are the inspired, infallible, and errant word of almighty God, but must be kept first and foremost primarily in context and we're going to talk about that. That is one of the one of the laws of biblical interpretation or hermeneutics but this right here shows the motivation. The reason we should be very studious as believers in Jesus Christ is because we should desire to have an answer for every man. And you know, we covered this in apologetics last semester. Uh 1 Peter 3:15 ought to be a verse you ought to know by now if you've been if you were a first semester student this year. Um you know, be ready always to give an answer to every man of the reason of the hope that is in you with meekness and fear. So, I remember what motivated me to study when I first came back to the Lord and fully repented and was just on fire and filled with the Holy Spirit. I knew I wanted people to have what I had. I wanted them to find the Lord Jesus like I had. I wanted them to find the forgiveness and peace and joy and the power of the Holy Spirit and uh the truth. I wanted people to to know the truth and to find the truth that I'd found in the Lord. So, I knew that it wasn't going to be good enough for me to try to just give them the answers from my head. I needed to know what the Bible said. I needed to know how to point them to the scriptures that they needed to know. So, the only way I could do that is I had to study so I could give an answer. So, really as a Christian you never quit being a student. If you do, you are lukewarm. You've become lukewarm. You've kind of settled for I'm I I've got enough. Remember Remember what Jesus said about the lukewarm church. He said they said I have need of nothing. The lukewarm church got satisfied where they were. Whenever you get satisfied is what you think you know or how much you know or what you've experienced in the Lord, you get satisfied you think I don't need to seek, search, study, dig, pray, fast, ask God to show me things

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   that I don't see. Well, if you ever get to that point, you are lukewarm. You're a lukewarm Christian. Um cuz there should be a hunger. Remember, blessed are they that do hunger and thirst for righteousness, they will be filled, Jesus said in Matthew 5. So, do you hunger and thirst for righteousness? And it says, "The heart of the righteous studyeth to answer." So, very important verse there. We're going to keep going here. I love this passage. This is 1 Timothy 4. 1 Timothy 4, 13 through 16. And this was Paul's instruction, the Holy Spirit inspired him to write this, and he was also writing this from his wisdom that he'd received from the Lord and the direction God was giving him to give instructions to Timothy, to leader, you know, Timothy was uh served Paul uh as a son in the faith, but he also became one of the leaders of the church. He was sent out, he eventually left Paul and became a pastor and leader, and this was instruction that Paul gave him as a leader, as a pastor. And this is our leadership class, so this is very important stuff. 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, um this is just these clear Holy Spirit practical instruction to leaders, ministers of the gospel. But Paul said this, he said, "Till I come, give attendance to reading." The word attendance means put your mind on it, pay attention, be diligent, do it. Um but he said, "Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to doctrine. Now, the word exhortation means to call people near to Christ. To And that means either by rebuke or by instruction, either way. So, he's going to he was saying that. And you can look that word up if you want to. But he he he notice what he put first, though, reading. Listen, if you're going to be a leader, if you're going to be a teacher, a preacher, minister of the gospel, you're going to have to be one given to reading and study. So, pastor, you I don't like reading and study. Well, you better change that right there. Cuz uh if not, your sermons are going to be threadbare, as John Wesley used to say. They're going to be quite shallow. Um and listen, if uh the more you put in yourself, reading the Bible, reading good, you know, books from other ministers and preachers and teachers, that's solid stuff, the more stuff you put in you from uh reading, you're going to have a more to draw from. And that's going to be very important. Um but so he's saying, "Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine." What is doctrine? Systematic teaching

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   of the Bible, systematic teaching of truth. Now, doctrine's a little different. Like a doctrine would be, let's say the doctrine of divine healing. All right, when you're going to teach a doctrine, what do you do? Do you just say, "Okay, we're going to turn to First Timothy and we're going to teach First Timothy, that's a doctrine." No. When you're going to teach doctrine, you're going to take the subject of healing and you're going to go from Genesis to Revelation and you're going to study out the subject of healing before you preach it or teach it. Okay? Doctrine. That's what that is. So, till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy with the laying on of hands of the presbytery. Uh I believe this was his gift to preach and teach, the anointing to be a minister that was passed on to him um by the Apostle Paul and the Holy Spirit, you know, trans you know imparting that from Paul. And then he says this, "Meditate upon these things." Give thyself wholly or completely or totally to them that thy profiting may appear to all. So, what he's saying here very clearly, very important, meditate. Now, the word meditate in the New Testament does not mean blank out your mind and chant repetitive prayers. All right? It's not yoga, it's not Hinduism, it's not Buddhism, it's to continue to think about the scriptures and to speak them and to uh you know, to sit there and ponder them. And actually, the word meditate, one of the definitions of meditate uh the Greek definitions, it's to study. So, this is not um this is not passive meditation, this is active you know, or like memorization and and and speaking it and thinking about it and breaking it down and looking at it. Um but he says, "Meditate upon these things and give thyself wholly or totally, completely to them that thy profiting may appear to all." And then he says this, "Take heed unto thyself and unto the doctrine. Continue in them." Continue in what? Sound doctrine. Not false doctrine. Sound Bible doctrine. Continue in them for in doing this, thou shalt both save thyself and them that hear thee. And see, this is really important. Um I didn't put this verse this passage on the PowerPoint, but I'm going to turn to it here and just read it to you and you guys here and those watching, you can turn. But go to Second John. This is how important This is why he says, "You better pay attention and continue. Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. For doing this, you will save yourself and them that hear thee." And the scripture Second John,

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