In this lesson, Pastor Joe Babij overviews and then models the proper Bible study process.
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the word of God do for us that you may not want sin against God right sin against God so the word of God will help us to see our sin so we can repent of it confess it and put it to death and so we don’t have to uh worry about those things anymore but we we learn how to deal with them properly and then Psalm 119 38 what else does the word of God do all right it produces reverence for God all right it’s going to teach us who God is and we are saved to worship God and to worship properly you have to know who he is right and really when you become a Christian you don’t know who God is you think you do but you don’t the word of God adjusts all those things helps us helps us to uh understand him with the revelation we have to be able to worship him and then some Psalm 119 105 uh what else does it do all right it lights our path right right it illuminates where we’re going it it it helps helps us to put one foot in front of the other breathe in it breathe in and out and do the next thing the right thing right that’s what the word of God helps us to do all right and then over to um D memorize it that’s where I kind of ended last week uh Deuteronomy 11 8 what did you get for your answer there Deuteronomy 11 8.
all right you keep the you keep the word in your heart and in your mind right so it’s really what you’re learning you’re thinking about right that’s meditation or you know that’s thinking and that’s really important for a believer in other words you don’t fill up your little thimble and then by time you get to the parking lot you spill it everything you learned and then you don’t know what to do no you keep it you think about it you know while you’re driving like it says I’m doing wrong you know the father is to be teaching your kids not in a formal Bible study but while they’re walking by the way while they’re going in and out of the house while they’re working during the day you’re talking about the Lord you’re you’re referencing things about the Lord and that’s how you not only learn the Theology of it but you learn the practice of it this is how we’re supposed to live right and they did they were doing normal things they were farming right they were gathering things they were making food they were doing all those things a regular life uh that’s what a Christian Life is and you just do it in a way that honors God all right due to Deuteronomy 11 19.
what is the father supposed to do all right teach the children right all day to teach the children all right and then let me see if there’s another thing there um let me see what page that is be letter e on meditate that’s number three down there it says do you think God’s word can affect your speech and actions and of course that was from Luke 6 45 do you think now of course there could be a variety of answers to that but what would your answer be the answer would be yes in what ways all right and the Heart meaning what I write the mind the emotions the will all right so so the word of God is going to affect everything it’s going to affect your volition what you actually do but it doesn’t start there it starts with you changing your thinking right and then changing your desires to want to live for God and not live for your old life or the old fleshly things that you did all right that’s what the word of God so that means the word of God is the most powerful book that you and I can ever have contact with on this side of Eternity and it will do all the things that it says it will do because God is the one who’s given it right he’s the source of it all right saying all that uh let’s uh now go to well we’re kind of left off last week I did talk about let me just go through these real quick uh that seven compelling things about knowing the word of God is to keep me from sins to build me up it’s to live and not be ashamed it’s to know the truth it’s to know where I’m going is to have understanding it is to know uh knowing the right right from wrong all right and then secondly we looked at the of course this passage of scripture always comes up because it’s it’s all scripture is able to teach reproof give reproof correction training and righteousness so we can be adequate for every single thing God uh would have us do on this Earth that’s that’s for all of us and then of course how to know the Bible of course we saw last time to hear it to read it and study it and then we want to read the Bible so we can prevent truth Decay uh not tooth decay of course that and then of course here are some of the things that we ask when we are studying it and we’ll look at those again uh and then a definite we have a definite plan for study that is to study words uh and an example of that was if you study on the heart you’ll notice that in all these passages of scriptures that mentions the heart it doesn’t mean that every one of these passages are related to each other or that the definition of the heart means the same thing that’s what you have to study so sometimes word studies can be a dangerous thing especially if you’re connecting the definition of the word heart for every passage that you’re reading and not looking at the context and how it informs that definition all right so that’s what we kind of I mentioned last week and then um a definite plan that will include not only words but doctrines we have been studying doctrines along the way uh in preaching many times I tried to give you some Doctrine too not just uh other things because we we have to learn Doctrine we have to learn where where it all fits Systematic Theology uh and then of course we are studying in chapters and books going through books of the Bible verse by verse verse by verse all you know all the way through you know whatever book we’re in that’s what from the verse one to the last verse of the book that’s what we’re going to do that’s how you learn because we want to learn the word of God and its totality all right and then um and memorize it uh meditate on it and that’s where I kind of left off last week all right so today we are going to start the Bible study process and of course we want to start with this big word hermeneutics right and the definition of I’ll give you the definition of hermeneutics uh and it’s it’s pretty much this it’s really it’s the formal um rules and of studying the Bible which goes by the name hermeneutics and the objective of hermeneutics is to allow the text to speak rather than reading into the text something that you think or you feel so hermeneutics considers the historical grammatical and cultural nature and context of the passage being studied in order to understand what the original writers meant to say to the audience they were writing to right that’s really the job that we have when we are studying the word of God and especially that of teaching the word of God it really doesn’t matter what I think it matters what the word of God says and that to communicate that to people so the spirit of God can actually use it in our life to make us people that are going to be people who are going to uh grow in the knowledge and wisdom of the word of God all right now that brings us to the process and there’s five steps uh and the five steps are going to be affirmation I’m going to come back and look at those briefly look at a scripture that may uh back that up secondly is preparation thirdly is going to be observation fourthly is going to be interpretation and then fifthly is going to be application and in the book uh there was also um I added one and um in the book there was also a fifth one which would be a sixth one for me and that is the sixth one would be repeat the process all right and be that’s what happened that’s what you do every time you’re studying the word of God these these things whether you’re you know saying okay I’m doing affirmation now not this that that’s how it usually happens once you get into the routine of things but you do know when you are observing what’s going on in the text right and then once you do that you’re looking at an interpretation of it and then an application of it now in the book they did um give the first example is in Matthew but Matthew 6 33 we’re going to look at that in a second but let’s go back now and look at observation right so when we when we look at affirmation affirmation is going to be what is that actually affirmation is that you have to come to the word of God and believe that the word of God is inerrant and is infallible that this is not the word of men this is the word that comes from God yes written by holy men that were moved upon by the Holy Spirit to write so we can have the word of God uh we have to believe that the word of God is can be dependent on in its totality for example Hebrews chapters 11 verse number six it’s when it’s talking about faith it says and without faith it is impossible to please him and then it says this for he who comes to God must believe that it is what he is right he is who he says he is and then that he is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him right so that is kind of a promise to us too that listen God wants us to seek Him and actually gives us the desire to seek Him and we have to affirm when we come to the word of God that this is the Bible right this is God’s word and so that means the Bible is is definitely a different book than any other book I’m going to read it’s not just any old book right so I come to it with reverence too right reverence and uh it’s not like the Bible is is some kind of special thing where you have to put it in a special place even though when I was over uh in Jordan one of the things that was important to the Palestinians or the Muslims is that when you walk into their house the first thing you see is the Quran and it’s open right and so they did have respect for the holy books including the Bible and so if you put your Bible like on the floor or you marked your Bible they they would think that would would be irreverent and um so but my mark in your Bible is not irreverent to them it is but and if you’re in their culture you may have to respect that because you don’t want to offend them if you want to give them the gospel right it’s like you know so in in any case the Bible is though is very special and I treat it as a special book because um it is and um because it’s what the Lord’s given me to study it and then the next thing that would happen is uh in the well let me just go back it the preparation phase before we get to the observation is is confessing our sin right we’re coming to the word of God asking the word the Lord to open it to us to illuminate our mind and we’re examining ourselves confessing our sins so we come to the Lord with a heart that is uh as it says in James 1 21 therefore putting aside all filthiness and all that remains of wickedness and humility receiving to receive the word implanted which is able to save your souls all right so we confess so we can receive the word of God right and that also means too you want to be alert you want to be ready I mean the worst thing to do is to study anything and uh you know be half like asleep you’re not going to learn anything and and also I think part of it’s knowing who you are some people are morning people some people are evening people some people are early evening or morning people you know where it seems like they come alive at two in the morning you know grits Greg uh hoe he texts me at two in the morning and because you know all the kids are asleep and that’s just time to do things so uh but I’m a morning person I I gather things and remember things in the morning after 10 o’clock at night I don’t remember anything you know and my wife always answers asked me questions about 10 o’clock at night I says you know I can’t answer that you know and the right so anyway you got to figure out who you are and then use that to your advantage because when you do you can be alert when you’re studying the word of God when you’re praying so you don’t fall asleep right uh and that you are ready to receive the implanted word so that means that the question is how are we to approach God’s word or to approach God’s word in Purity and humility the holy spirit is the Divine Illuminator when we come to the word of God and so that’s the difference between somebody who’s a non-believer and says they read the word of God and someone who now is a Believer and reads the word of God and I don’t care how smart a unbeliever is they don’t have the spirit of God to illuminate the word of God to them so they’re not going to understand it and they may understand looking at it and reading it like a regular book but they’ll never come to the same conclusions I mean I read Catholic theologians all the time because they’re really good at doing language study but they their conclusions are always like off the wall you know and uh it’s it they never conclude like the Bible says uh and so so you know you can learn from people but you got to be very careful when you’re reading things even when you’re reading Christian books just because somebody claims themselves to be a Christian don’t mean what they’re writing actually they know the word of God enough to be able to write on something and be uh accurate according to the word of God so you always got to read things that quote unquote are Christian with uh some you know discernment right so you don’t get duped by somebody who’s because there’s a lot of people who are claiming the Christians and wouldn’t even walk into Christian bookstores I don’t even know are there Christian bookstores anymore uh but I guess there are but usually the people that are as soon as you walk on the door on the front shells are not people you want to be reading you know you’d want to be reading TD Jakes you know you don’t want to be reading people like that who have we know have aberrant uh theology that is wrong you know so you want to be careful about those things and if somebody hands you a book you want to be discerned Discerning enough to know uh to be able to if you look at the book and read part of the book to discern where the good parts and the bad parts are keep the good stuff throw away the garbage right that’s how you read a book all right so that brings us to Observation all right so we’re looking at a text and we’re going to look at you might as well turn there now Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 we’re just looking at this one verse now that was the ver that was the verse in your book but of course observation is going to be some of the basic facts about the text right some of the basic facts about the text to identify in other words um the type of literature that you’re reading okay if we’re reading Matthew chapter 6 if we’re reading Matthew what type of literature is Matthew if you go back to your lesson one you should find that out what type of literature is Matthew all right it’s a narrative but it’s a gospel right it’s a gospel narrative all right so that means it’s and it’s usually about what person it’s about Jesus right now the main the main theme of each gospel is different the main theme of Matthew is what Jesus is what now that’s mark right Jesus is King I write Jesus is king So that means if that’s the theme of Matthew when you’re reading through Matthew that theme is going to permeate all the things that he’s writing about in Matthew and uh when you’re reading Mark you’re going to find that if Mark is the main theme is Christ as a servant then everything in Mark is going to be colored by that theme and so those are the things that should be in our mind when we’re reading a literature like a gospel all right so another thing is that you’ll learn You observe the larger context in which the text is given now if you notice Matthew 6 33 is only one passage right so when you come to asking questions about that particular passage you’re not going to get all the answers in one verse right so that means I have to read the verses that come before and the verses that come after to be able to even understand that Passage all right and so when we do that then we can get a good handle on what it actually says so we can now apply it to our life now another thing in there is that we ask the questions who what when where why these are important questions we ask basic questions about what’s going on in this particular passage of scripture now that would lead us to The Next Step which would be the fourth step and that would be interpretation right now you can have interpretation until you do all the other things right that that’s so interpretation is really something where you’re gonna identify now this doesn’t always come quickly believe it it doesn’t um you identify the theme of the whole book and we already gave you the theme of the whole book and that Jesus Christ is King right of Matthew but there may be themes within that particular section of scripture in Matthew because Matthew is a large gospel it’s a very complex gospel and it has a lot of stuff in the that a lot of topics it deals with in uh Matthew for example deals with the Temptation uh before Jesus ministry it also gives us the Sermon on the Mount which is an incredible sermon by Jesus it gives us uh the 12 going out to reach to preach the gospel and the Lord gives them what they need to go out to do that and the things that happen when they do it gives us the woe the stumbling blocks of church discipline and an unforgiving Spirit it tells us about the woes of the scribes and the Pharisees now these were the teachers of Israel and so all these things the Olivet discourse is getting given in there Matthew 24 and 25 about the end times so there’s a lot of stuff in Matthew all right and so you you can’t you have to when you’re reading through the whole book and you’re dealing with all those things or if you’re studying through or preaching through or teaching through a whole book there’s a lot of stuff to know all right so we we I come to a passage and I think to myself I don’t know anything that’s going on here so I go through the process and then I start to see okay now I see what’s happening you know and so what happens is that it actually you get pulled into the original author’s intention see and then you know what you kind of become a friend of Matthew wow I’m getting to know Matthew you know or I’m getting to know Mark or I’m getting to know Paul in Colossians you know are you really get a sense of I I’m seeing what Paul is preaching to the people that’s where you want to be all right because that’s going to give us now the right type of interpretation and then it’s going to give us the right uh parameters of application and for our own life so identify the theme also you may want to make a summary statement of what the text says about the theme in other words what’s going on in the text you write it down your own words um and you get a sense of what’s going on there you know the flow of the logic of the text is what is being meant that and of course if you do that then you can make an outline of the text some people who are good at uh English um or any language can diagram the sentence or the sentences in that paragraph if you’re good at it that is something that has very been very helpful to me I think that I I see I like seeing it’s like if you build something you have it in your mind I’m going to build let’s say I’m going to build a desk or I’m going to renovate a room or a bathroom right well in your mind you have a good idea what you want to do right and then you begin to maybe draw sketches and then you begin to say okay I have to order this and I have to order this and then in your mind you know how it’s going to look but now it’s a mess it’s a wreck right now we get demolish everything but then when it’s done you step back and say all right I saw it in my mind as a sketch but now I see it in reality in the in a very real way that’s that’s what’s going on in the text in a very real way it’s like there’s a lot of words there’s a lot of things to think about but then once you start getting pulled into it then you start seeing the picture of what’s being written and then you begin to see it all come together right and then you see the importance of it in your own life as you uh now can make an outline of it all right and then the next thing could be um you identify how the meaning of the text connects to the larger context now of course this is going beyond what we’re going to do this morning but the last thing you want to do in anything that you do is you want to test your interpretation when you get to that right and how do you do that well you’re asking questions some of the questions could be would have made sense to the original audience of what I’m concluding here right is this what they would have gotten another question could be is it consistent with other passages of scripture in other places in the Bible right does the line or am I like way out there and like you know I need to get re get reeled in because I’m like you know I’m a heretic so you have to ask those questions and then uh how have other Christians interpreted the task text now that does bring me to some books that you can use I mentioned last week Strong’s exhaustive Concordance is a book that you should have it has every single word now mine right here is about for the nasb Bible because one is for the King James one is for the there’s one for the NIV there’s one for there’s one that Young’s exhaustive concordance youngest for the young strongs is for the strong all right and uh but not every word in the Bible is in here so um now of course like now you can just put your go in your phone and put the word in and it comes out right but I think that’s that’s cheating that’s G you want to you want to get used to books right there’s something about books the way they smell the way they feel there’s something about books so strong who’s often exhaustive concordance is something you should have also I mentioned last week Haley’s Bible Handbook it just has it’s a handbook on subjects in the Bible you look it up and they’ve done some research on it and one thing I like about it it’s it’s very concise it’s not I don’t read through six pages to find out what I want to know all right sometimes you don’t have time to do that right and so that’s a good one to have this one Wycliffe Bible commentary it’s um it’s a really good Bible commentary I’ve been using this for years and it really it’s another way it’s very concise this is the Bible content ever the whole Bible it doesn’t give you a whole lot but what it does give you is good nuggets all right it gives you a good sense of what you may be looking for and as far as the passage of scripture is concerned so that’s good one and of course um the MacArthur uh New Testament commentary uh is another good one to have very reliable um has done his homework as far as exegesis and Exposition so very reliable so but you don’t want to look at these first you want to look at these later right you want to get a sentence first on what you see in the text that’s that’s how you study and then okay I want you to study the past all let me see what old Johnny Mac says you know oh I didn’t get that you know that that’s what you can learn and then of course Unger’s Bible dictionary a dictionary a Bible dictionary will give you a lot of good information about all kinds of topics and they will go into detail about them even give some history on where this came from what languages came from what culture it came from really good book and this is done by Moody press so these are some of the books that I I Earl had early on still use them and are going to be very beneficial for uh testing your information to see okay what what do other people say about what I’ve just studied hopefully what I study lines up with them so I’m I know that I’m not off the wall right and I’m getting pretty close to what it says and then of course you want to are the major and minor uh problems unsolved or unresolved uh and need to have more research so sometimes when you’re studying a passage of scripture like let’s say you’re studying on the Sabbath right which is a complex subject and you want to say well you know I don’t know a whole lot about that so you want to look up things about the Sabbath and what people are saying about them now if I read one person if I read a Seventh-Day Adventist they’re going to say what the Sabbath is like you that’s the day of worship right well then if I read somebody else who’s not a sabitarian they’re going to say no Sunday’s the day of our so what’s the day of worship right and so those are the kind of things that there’s going to be problems that you have to solve when you come to a particular topic and even when you come to a text all right so saying all that let’s look at the text this morning all right and if you notice my little man up there one thing he he’s says to us is that um listen if you want to know the key to Bible study is to ask questions right to ask questions that’s the key to Bible study and here are some of the questions uh in the Bible study is who is speaking and then um to whom is the passage written all right the why don’t we answer some of those questions we can’t answer all the questions only some of them but when it comes to Matthew chapter 6 and verse number 33 first of all let’s why don’t we just read the passage uh and it says in Matthew 6 33 but seek first the kingdom and his righteousness and all these things shall be added to you all right now is that enough to read is it enough to read that now what what should you what should you be reading you should be reading the whole chapter right now hopefully you read from chapter one to chapter six and even Beyond it’s really really good to read through a whole book before you even start studying it you know and uh now if a book is small enough you can you can read through it like I’m reading through the Colossians every single week a couple times during the week uh but I it’s very hard to do that through Matthew so I’ll take it in chunks you know and one way you can do that is it does have different chapter divisions or subject divisions okay it’s dealing with this subject like the Matthew 20 24 and 25 the Olivet discourse right I can take those two chapters and really study them and then go back and forth in in the whole book of Matthew to see okay am I you know is it connected to the the broader context or am I off the wall on something all right so Matthew 6 33 uh let’s ask her ask some questions all right the first question is who’s speaking all right Jesus is speaking right here in this particular passage of scripture and then to whom is the passage written all right the disciples um any Christian who’s going to read it it’s written to right but the original audience would have been because the disciples are going to be the ones who are actually writing the material but they were Witnesses right so these Witnesses are writing so they give a layout of the life of Jesus right that’s what they’re doing in in the gospels all right another question is though um what do you think the main idea is of this passage okay faith in God what’s that okay priority putting God first what else God’s provision structure right instruction right instruction all right instruction and what okay righteousness okay now we have to ask the question what’s righteousness right so see just in a one passage like this the questions naturally come up all right now I don’t want to put my own definition of righteousness in this right I don’t want to do that that’s what I don’t want to do I want to find out what does righteousness mean in the gospel of Matthew and then what does righteousness mean throughout the rest of the Bible all right now you know you can see how vast the Bible study can be and uh and how long it may take for you to actually study past a group of passages in any particular book to get a sense yourself about what it says all right another question is uh what does the chapter teach concerning Christ does it teach anything in Matthew chapter 6.
uh concerning Christ now we may like I said we may not be able to answer all these right now because we’d have to read and look at the whole text that’s not the purpose this morning is to give you a sense of some of the things that you and I are going to ask when we are actually reading the Bible now in chapter 6 it the first part of it’s concerning uh alms and prayers right the second part is concerning fasting uh and then the third part would be the cure for anxiety which is the part that from verse 25 to the end of the chapter is going to be something about not worrying about things now we can even say okay when it comes to uh what does it teach about Christ now it may not directly teach something about Christ in these chapters but it is teaching us if Jesus is the king what does it teach anything us to do believe the king seek the King right trust the king all right those are all kinds of things so yes it is talking about Christ but in an indirect way uh and so another question could be well let me go back to that another question could be um is there an error for me to avoid I’m gonna wear all right all right did anybody have a problem with worry how many in here never worried at all if you had never worried I want to talk to you after class because I want to know what your secret is no I think all of us even when we understand this passage there’s something that comes up what causes anxiety and worry right of course now I can go to Philippians and what does Philippians tell me to do with anxiety cast my care my anxiety on God why because he cares for me right and and when I do that God says he guards our heart and mind with his peace so we don’t have to worry and what does that mean we trust him and then we can go do what we’re supposed to be doing without because you know one thing about worry worry cannot in your mind there’s not a whole lot of things that can co-exist in a normal way when you are worrying about something because worrying is like a loop tape it goes around and around and around and around and then you work yourself up into a frazzle right and then you’re all can’t stop you can’t think about anything else right you’re you’re barking commands and things that other people right you’re you’re irritable right and you know what when you really think about it you couldn’t have done anything about it anyway right so that’s stupid to worry like that right instead I give my care to the Lord because he knows who I am he knows what I’m going through in this life and he’s provided everything for us not to live a worry-filled life but to live a peaceful joy-filled life right you can’t have both but we’re always dealing with it you know as soon as I have a victory over worry something else comes and slaps me in the head right and I’m now oh man I’m back in square one but I come back to the same principles and I use them again right and then what happens is that the more I do that the more I the I worry less and the more I depend on Christ right that’s what happens and you know what and the more peaceful you are at night when your your head hits that pillow bam you’re out and pretty soon because you’re not worried about anything but when you’re worrying can you go to sleep no you toss you turn you get up you go to the bathroom you read a book you do to write all that and then also before you know it instead of seven hours you got four hours and then you’re no good for the rest of the day right and that’s what worry will do and so if we read the whole context we find that worry is a stupid thing right but something we still realistically have to deal with all right another question could be there um is there any Duty for me to perform or a command to obey all right is there any is that a command yes it is it’s an imperative in the Greek right all right it’s an imperative so I’m commanded by God now remember the commands that are given to Christians are not you must do this or else no that’s not the commands that are give to Christians it’s this is the command God gives you do it in a way that pleases the Lord and honors the Lord and you’ll reap the benefits right God doesn’t want people who has he has to twist their arm to do things all right no he wants people that are willing to do it and that’s what happens when the spirit of God is leading us he’s leading us to the place to I really want to do this you know I really want to study the word of God I really wanted these things it doesn’t mean there’s not going to be obstacles and things aren’t going to be hard but you’re able to do it because the Lord is doing that in our life all right all right so there is a command to obey seek right first the kingdom all right and then uh is there a sin to confess what will be the sin to confess there now we already kind of always talked about that would be would be the same worry right we’re not trusting God worrying right and um and then of course now one of the things could happen is that when I first looked at a passage scripture like this when I was just a branch man I didn’t even think worry was a sin I would think how could worry be a sin you know and then I found out no word is a sin and the factly it’s a debilitating sin it’s an enslaving sin right why do I wanna why do I want to live like that I don’t want to live like that I want to live and empower the spirit of God where I’m seeking God first right and I’m seeking his kingdom and his righteousness and in doing that I’m gaining the ability to trust God in every situation that happens in my life especially those who are going that is going to bring a good level of anxiety I’m going to be able to deal with it because I’m going to be able to think more clearly about what is happening uh in my life all right so uh last one I would be there is there a promise uh for me to claim is there a promise for me to complain uh to claim here what is it all right now when you brought that up the question is going to be what things yeah right what things are going to be added to me now what are they all right so in the passage what are those things all right it’s going to be what everybody else worries about and what do they worry about in the passage all right look at verse number 25 it says for this reason I say to you do not be anxious for your life as what you shall eat or what you shall drink nor for your body as to what you shall put on is not life more than food in the body than clothing verse 26 look at the birds of the air that is kind of a rebuke here that they do not sow neither do they reap nor gather into Barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them are you not worth more much more than they verse 27 and which of you by being anxious can add a single Cuba to his lifespan verse 20 8 it says and why are you anxious about clothing observe how the Lily Lilies of the Field grow they do not toil nor do they spin yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory did not clothe himself like one of these but if God is so so raise the grass of the field which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace will he not much more do do so for you now owe you a little faith right so there’s in the context it’s worrying about what am I going to wear am I going to have enough food clothing to keep warmer to you know am I going to have enough food to eat you know am I going to have a place to live the Lord is saying there when you seek first his kingdom is righteousness I will make sure you have those things right I will why look outside and see the birds you ever see the birds worry or arguing I hear the birds singing all the time right and and what are they doing they’re singing they’re working they’re they’re finding seeds they’re feeding their young they’re doing everything and why God’s feeding them right and he’s providing for them and then if you look at the flowers the lilies about how adorned they are how beautiful they are the complexity of it who did that God did that if God can do that don’t you think he can Adorn your life with beautiful things all right see do you see how this a Bible study like this can actually can completely change how you think it will completely change how you think how you deal with life right and um you know how many people are in counseling because of anxiety and taking drugs because of anxiety a drug will never solve your heart problem ever you must deal with what’s way down deep in your heart that’s where the problem is Right a drug can get you through maybe a short period of time it can be a Band-Aid uh on a on a wound but if you don’t take care of the heart problem it’s just going to fester and get worse and get infected and you’ll have no victory at all in it but here we’re going to have a victory over our anxiety we’re going to trust God for the very is is clothing and shelter the simple things of life yeah it’s just the everyday things of life you know how am I going to pay my bills right now of course this is also um you have the ability to pay your bills right and that you’re not using money unwisely some of the things as you may have to say you know what I have to change things because I can’t fulfill this best of the scripture because I’m I’m not Frugal with money I’m not uh wise with money I’m spending money on things I don’t even need right so but it apart from all that it’s it’s teaching us the very basics of um what a Christian does who now is a child of the king of kings and how he that person responds to the King Jesus right in a way that I can I can step back and I can live my life trusting God restful peaceful uh knowing that he promised he would take care of me but what is my job my job’s to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness right now I got to find out what does it mean by the kingdom of God what does it say in your book about what it means by the kingdom of God all right isn’t that one of the questions yeah what does the word kingdom mean what’s the answer well the answer is it is a sovereign rule or dominion over a specific realm or region all right so in other words who’s the king of the Kingdom Jesus is the king of the Kingdom right so if I am to seek versus righteousness right and of course maybe that The Sermon on the Mount really does Express what that righteousness is so I’ll have to go beyond Matthew chapter 6 to fill in what he means by righteousness all right and of course Matthew chapter 7 is going to be a very key verse and then going to The Sermon on the Mount and all those kind of things that help me understand what this righteousness is all about but the basic uh the basic meaning of righteousness would be to live right and honorable before God as the king would want me to right so that would be a very basic definition and of course the Bible will fill in more of what that actually means all right so um moving on that’s what we just looked at if you want to diagram it if you’re good at diagramming which I like to do when I’m studying the Bible is that for example if you see this is a diagram Matthew 6 33 the word but in the Greek and then of course if you see Sikh is an imperative which is going to be a command under seek is first and then of course you see that that branches out what am I to seek I’m to seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness all right and then uh and this and then it says here’s the promise in the sense these things then the all these things will be added to you all right and of course the last word is a verb will be a future passive that if I do these things there’s a promise that is going to come to me if I put those in the practice and that’s going to come in a future way all right so that would be a diagram of Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 now you don’t have to do that some people do block diagramming uh some people just don’t have to do that because they’re really good at English structure I’m not good at that kind of stuff I kind of like butchered The King’s English but anyway it is helpful for me to see the structure that that like I said before you’re building something and now you see it I see how it’s all the sentence is all built you know so that’s how it helps me to do that all right and then um so here the process the Bible study processes affirmation preparation observation interpretation and of course application so how would we specifically apply this passage of scripture now we’ve been talking about an application the whole way right so how would we have how would our other things that maybe we didn’t mention that we could apply this passage of scripture unless we exhausted the application I think we we talked a lot about application all right so we so all these things we’re we’re seeing that we can actually apply this this passage to our life right and we’re only dealing with one’s passage looked at the whole context ask some questions uh what do these words mean you know what’s the theme of the book and then you can get a sense of what it’s being taught here right and that’s what you want to do and you do want to start doing Bible study you really do because it’s going to be something that’s going to help you more than anything else is uh doing Bible study all right let me just say if we have a few more minutes let’s let’s look at something else um Let’s uh just consider this passage of scripture Philippians and the reason why I kind of brought this up is because that when I ended last time in a Christian should be memorizing and meditating on the word of God you’ll find it right here in Philippians if you notice uh what it says there it says Rejoice the lord always again I will say rejoice let your Gentle Spirit be known to all men the Lord is there be anxious for nothing here’s that word again but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving let your requests be be known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus right so another in other words Philippians is actually backing up and connected to Matthew chapter 6 right verse 33. it’s helping us it’s informing us it’s giving more giving us even more information and that’s what the the Epistles will do the Epistles will give us more information about other things in the Bible all right but I want you to notice where it says finally and what’s that word what’s finally mean all right that means coming to the end of what he was saying throughout the Book of Philippians and he is saying this brethren whatever is true whatever is Honorable whatever is right whatever is pure whatever is lovely whatever is of good repute if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of Praise what are we supposed to do dwell on these things now what what is dwell on these things meditate all right so in other words if we go back up to the word anxiety what’s going to be the cure for my anxiety of how I think and what I’m what am I thinking about right because I tell you what if you’re thinking about oh man I don’t know uh where I’m gonna get the next you know dollar to pay for this or that or I don’t know if my car is going to last another month I don’t know if we’re gonna be able to stay in this house right if we’re if you’re always thinking about those things forget it you’re going to be in bondage but now the Bible says wait a minute here’s a way to think here’s a way to defeat the anxiety and how do you do that well first of all he says what’s what’s ever honorable that means whatever is serious whatever is respectful what is whatever is dignified in Reverend it’s not cheap mindless stupidity that I’m thinking about it’s serious things and then whatever is right that means what it whatever is scripturally right to do in compliance to duty to God and to man so Believers are really not to spend time thinking about sinful or dubious activities or worrisome activities also a Christian must think about what is whatever is pure all right that means what is morally and morally pure and ethnically correct meaning that the people of God are not to have soiled and shabby and smutty thoughts so these are things that we are these are the things that we are thinking about these are the things that we should not be thinking about so so you have to ask yourself what am I thinking about what’s going through my mind today what are the largest times during the day when I’m thinking about one particular thing or so if it’s going to be things that are not pure then it’s not going to help you to overcome the things that um will cause anxious thoughts and not to trust God and then a Christian starts to think on whatever is lovely that means believes are uh to assume of mindset of kindness and forgiveness and and of god-like love that’s what Christians are to do and so we go through the whole passage of scripture and then we come to the last one let your mind dwell on these things so here is the redeemed mind the mind that is now bent towards God’s will right that’s that’s the mind we have as a Believer now now what is that we’re we’re continually going to be transformed and bent towards Desiring dwelling on and discovering God’s Will and then when we do that the Christian is going to be able to stand up against the temptation of sin and also to stand up against the devil I’ll end with this quote from a man named James Usher he said this set apart some time for meditation the word may be engrafted in your heart if the meat that you eat is not digested it will be no good you see the necessity of Labor to retain the word of God to digest it to make it your own that you may be transformed by it and as a person’s is turned in their mind these will turn into nourishment so the word of God being digested will actually nourish you so that’s an old quote from an old Puritan and so thinking about that we realize hey this is something that um is going to be beneficial for me but I gotta chew on it I gotta swallow it I gotta get it to the stomach my mind and I gotta think about it and when I do I can reap the benefits that the word of God often promises us and gives us on how to live a successful stable Christian Life which is filled with Thanksgiving and overflowing with joy towards God right there’s not and then you know what then you look at the birds and as they’re singing You’ll sing along with them let’s pray Lord thank you for these simple truths Lord make us people that really get into the word of God and take it seriously treat your word as coming from you the king speaking to his subjects we being your subjects so Lord we can listen and we can study we can make observation and interpretation and application of your word in our daily life so we can benefit from what’s there Lord don’t allow us to spill it before we get to the parking lot Lord help us to retain it and then all during the week think about it until it transforms us our our mind so we would not only desire but know the good the acceptable and the perfect will of God and I