Learning for Life

Tom Shrader continues his series on navigating a confused world by teaching the second principle: developing a lifelong passion for learning. He emphasizes that learning is the mark of wisdom, essential for fulfilling the great commandment to love God with our minds, and necessary for spiritual growth. Shrader challenges believers to discipline themselves to study Scripture using proper tools and methods, arguing that we cannot truly love God without knowing Him through His Word.

“The more I know Him, the more I'll love Him. The more I get into His Word, and I understand all of a sudden that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for that.”

— Tom Shrader

Series: How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World (2001)

Recorded: February 01, 2001

Duration: 42 min

Themes: learning, wisdom, authority, scripture, discipline, growth, knowledge, direction, confused believer, seeking direction, new believer, student, struggling with doubt, young adult, parent, teacher

Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:16, Proverbs 9:9, Matthew 22:37, Philippians 3:7-10, 2 Timothy 4:2, Ephesians 5:16, Acts 17

Theological Themes: biblical authority, hermeneutics, spiritual formation, sanctification, biblical literacy, scripture study, spiritual maturity, discipleship

Full Transcript

We have today the second week, second week in what I think is 12 weeks of this series called How to Stay Straight in a Crooked World. When we're talking about how to stay straight in a crooked world, what we're talking about is not a world that's crooked, meaning corrupt, although it is. But we're talking about how to stay straight in a world that's lost its direction, in a world that really can't navigate its way through the complex issues of the day. In a world that can't point you to true north.

Now we've got a real problem in that. How do I stay straight in that crooked world? Well, here's what we came up with. Here's the first point we covered last week: You must establish the Bible as the final authority in your life. If you move away from that, you are in real serious trouble.

We quoted last week from Martin Lloyd-Jones, who accurately described the world. The world's looking for answers. The world senses there's a problem. The world senses there's something, someone out there - a great mind, a great architect, something behind all of this. It's not until we go to the Scripture that we find the answer.

The Danger of Rejecting Biblical Authority

This morning, I had C-SPAN on before I left, and William Murray was on there. William Murray is Madeline Murray O'Hare's son - one of her sons, I think there were three sons. This, to me, is a fascinating discussion. The question was, who was your father? And he said, well, I don't know who my father was. He said all of us had different fathers. My mother was just a very promiscuous woman, and just a very immoral person. He said really, when you look at dysfunctional, whatever that is, we are it. We're poster children for dysfunction.

Then he went on. He said, I don't know what the time frame would be - 40s? My mother, with this lifestyle, wanting to embrace it, had nowhere to go. She wasn't just an atheist. She was pushed out of the church, because the church had nothing to do with her, and she landed - she had to construct, and by the way, this is what sinful man does. They either construct God in their own image, or destruct the idea of God. So she said, I'm an atheist.

Here was his next line, and man, I thought this was incredible. He said, yet if that was today, she'd have no trouble finding a church that said, I love the sinner and the sin. What a magnificent comment on the state of the church today.

The Problem with Compromising Churches

When people try to look - and we get every once in a while, because some of you are in some mainline denominational churches, and there's some good ones in there. There must be a remnant in every denomination. But in the process of this, so often people are going, oh, the denominations are shrinking. Oh, the denominations are blowing away. And we say, isn't that a great deal? That's terrific. You know why? Because they're not worthy of support. When you look at the fallacy, it goes right back to when they said, Scripture's not the Word of God. It all goes right back to that point.

Here's the point we made last week. When somebody says, the Bible contains the Word of God, don't start applauding. That's an awful statement. It's not that the Bible contains the Word of God. It's that the Bible is the Word of God. If I say the Bible contains the Word of God, then all that does is open up all sorts of challenges. What part is real? What part is false? How do I know? Ultimately, it makes you the final determinator of truth.

We don't say the Bible contains the Word of God. We say, no, the Bible is the Word of God. When I hold in my hands this Bible, Old and New Testament, when I hold this in my hands, I have the Word of God. I don't have to go through here looking for loopholes, as W.C. Fields said. I go through here understanding that this is true. All I have to do is mind this. I have to understand this, and then I apply it to my life.

Testing Every Message Against Scripture

That's always been a standard for me. So when I go somewhere and somebody speaks, I ask the same three questions I ask you to evaluate me or any other speaker by. Somebody's speaking, I ask three questions. Number one, what did he say? Number two, is it true? Number three, so what? What's the difference?

That was my Easter message last year. Jesus rose from the dead. So what? So what? Let's even assume it's true. So what? What difference does that make? That really is important to us.

When you're looking for the so what to life, when you're in the midst of the drive downtown today and you say, why am I going through all this again? When you've got a spouse that says to you, you know, I don't know if it's really worth hanging in there. You've got a kid and you're just in the middle of all the so what's of life. Here's where you find encouragement. Not out of Oprah. In God's Word. This is the truth. This is where I'll find comfort. This is where I'll find encouragement.

What Scripture Says About Itself

Here's what we said last week. It's what the Bible says for itself. Second Timothy 3:16. The Bible says all Scripture inspired by God is good for doctrine, reproof, correction and training in righteousness. It's good for doctrine. It tells me the content of doctrine.

It's good for reproof. You know this. If you go into the office today and somebody's living together and you say, you know, you ought not be doing that. They're going to say, who made you God? Why are you king? Who are you to talk to me that way? Well, we don't ever want to get in a judgmental basis on these peripheral issues. But we need to judge away on sin. I can't even begin to deal with church discipline if I don't judge. Make no mistake about it. We're called to judge as God judges.

It means to restore to its proper condition. In extra biblical literature, it was used to describe a base that had been knocked over and to return it to its proper position on a pedestal. And then it's good for training. So we know what that means. The Bible tells us what's right, what's not right, how to get right, how to stay right.

The Bible is the final authority in our life. We have to start there. So often when you meet somebody today—it's a good egg, you're going to have coffee at 10 o'clock, you're going to just talk about life issues. And you're just talking away. All of a sudden, you're not getting anywhere. They're talking about Jesus, and you're talking about this, and they said, "But that's not how I see it." And you're just going back and forth. There's like nothing. You drive away and you say, "Boy, we didn't connect." Almost always, it's because we didn't come back to the Scriptures, the Word of God. So now it's just your view, their view, whatever they think. Let's take a poll.

So that's the distinction there. The Bible's the final authority in our life. When the Bible speaks, that settles it. From that, we're trying to draw answers. What does it tell us that we must do? What must we avoid? What are the principles for the balance of our life? That was the first point. I think there's like 10 of them in this series.

Develop a Lifelong Passion for Learning

Here's the second point. You've got it on that little handout in front of you. Develop a lifelong passion for learning. Now, just to give you a sense of what we're doing in this series, we're going to build off these different principles with a foundation that the Bible's the final authority in our life. Now we start to build on this. How do we live? Well, here's what we need to have in our life. We need to have a lifelong passion for learning.

Somebody asked me the other day—this is an embarrassing question—they said, "What school are the girls going to?" And I couldn't answer them. I said, "I'm a little embarrassed I can't answer you, but there's an explanation here." The reason is, one of the classes they need, I don't think they can get at this school, so I think they're going to this other school, and they were right literally in the transition. One of them needs—Sarah needs a class on how to give an IV, how to give a shot, and all this stuff. They can't get it at the one school. She's got to go to another school, and all these different things. So I had an explanation for it.

But she came home the other day with a little catalog, and on it, it said, "continuing education." And there's a side of me that says, that's redundant. We are continually educating. Education by its very definition is continual. I never arrive. I never get to a point where I can say I is educated. I can't get to that point. I may have a degree, but that educational process is never over.

Now, when I say to you in this group, establish the Bible as the final authority in your life, and develop a lifelong passion for learning, you immediately think, that must be the Bible. And the answer to that is, yeah, but it's even broader than that. Obviously, we're concerned about the Scripture, and that's what we'll talk about. But I'm talking about the world around you.

The Information Explosion

Let me give you—I love these kinds of things, so let me just share with you. I have no idea if they're true. I presume they are, but I don't know. Somebody has said this: the weekday edition of the New York Times, not the weekend, the weekday edition of the New York Times, contains more information than the average person in London, living in the 17th century, would see in his or her entire life. Now, when I pick up today's New York Times, I've got more information than a person in the 17th century in London would see in their entire life.

We're talking about information. There's been more information in the last 20 years, discovered, than in the previous 5,000 years. And it is doubling every 5 years. If we were to measure it statistically, I like this—if we were to measure it statistically, if we took all of the information, just all the stuff we know, and we were to take it and we were to stack it, we were to go from a time from the beginning of history until 1845, we would have a stack one inch high. If we went from 1845 to 1945, we would add two inches to it. If we went from 1945 to now, that stack would be as high as the Washington Monument. That's just the scope and size of information. That's just information that's out there, things that we know.

I can't remember the date that was attached to it, but I was reading the other day that we have more information now about a leaf—just take a leaf off a tree. We have more information about a leaf than we did that it existed in the entire world at like 1820 or something like that.

Technological Advancement

Let me just keep going. I love this stuff. If you take the first computer, and generally it's a computer that was built in 1944. If you take that first computer, its size was the size of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer, weighed about the same as 17 Camaros. It ran on 144 watts of energy, and it calculated about 5,000 equations a second. Today, that whole thing runs on a chip that weighs less than a pack of Sweet and Low, and does literally millions and millions and millions and millions of equations a second.

I'm not even getting into mobile phones, cell phones. Somebody the other day was telling me there's a new—and you guys are probably more into this than I am—but a new cell phone that's coming out. If it's not out, it's out in the next couple of weeks, where the touchpad flips up and it's now a Palm Pilot, and so naturally now you're entirely wireless. You can do your emails, you can do everything off of this one thing. If you take a credit card, you're in Paris, you

want to buy a shirt. For me. That would be a good thing. You're in Paris, you want to buy me a shirt, a Hawaiian shirt. By the way, we are like 12 weeks away from Hawaiian shirts. This is not bad. And so you want to buy me a nice shirt, and you swipe that credit card. I think that information travels about 46,000 miles through wires and computers and satellites. It takes a total of about three seconds.

As you start to put all of this stuff together, you look at it, and you go, this is incredible. You go to a birthday party today, and you get one of those cards, you open it up, there's a little thing that goes, happy birthday to you, that little chip thing in there. When you're done, you're cleaning it off, you take it, you throw it in the wastebasket. You throw away more computer power in that little chip than existed in the entire world before 1950. You have more computer power in your laptop than they had total in NASA when they sent Neil Armstrong to the moon.

The first mechanical industrial robot generally was introduced to the marketplace in 1961. By 1982, there were 30,000 of them in use. Today, they assume that there's 30 million of them. When George Herbert Walker Bush left office in 1992, there were 55 websites. Today, they estimate, now that the presidency has been recaptured, they estimate that there are about 26 million websites. Now, I don't know, who counts this? I don't know. Somebody knows, I'm sure. A guy came up to me after church Sunday, because I was talking about that statistic, and said that, and he's a computer guy, and everybody's a computer guy, and they all think they, and I'm sure they're all right. But he said, of those 26 million, 80% of them are porno sites. Now, I don't know if that's right or not. Man, I don't know. But I know this, here you go, here's the bottom line. Things are changing all around you. Things are changing everywhere.

The Cycle of Change

Now, somebody said this, because we don't like change, generally. Somebody said this, the certainty of misery is better than the misery of uncertainty. You and I live at a time where things are changing. So, what we have with all this change, is this change produces for us problems. Problems require solutions. Solutions, to be effective, have to be implemented. And as you know, if you're in any organization, or any family, or any relationship, once you implement solutions, you immediately create change. And the whole cycle begins. We live in a time of change.

If you're one of these people who says, you know what? I just can't handle change. I'm just going to stay away from change. I just don't want to know any change. Let me just tell you, your clock has stopped, and you will be irrelevant like that. And it's not that you are irrelevant, it's that you've chosen to be irrelevant.

Staying Connected in a Changing World

One of the most fascinating responses I got last week, was when I was talking about the 13-year-old boy. I see him, he's laughing, he's smiling. I said, you're so happy, what happened? And he said, I just got an email from my grandpa. And there's a grandpa in that instance, who understood and said, I want to stay connected with this kid, and it was having a profound impact on him.

It's funny, because I live in the same house with my girls, and I find some of our most interesting communication is, we email each other. We will send emails. And there's something about seeing it. There's something about it being there. They love to open those things. It doesn't mean we don't talk, and it doesn't mean we don't communicate. They came in last night when they were done with their thing, and sit in the bed and talk, and all that kind of stuff. That stuff happens, but there's something about it. They love it. And they like to ask questions and communicate that way. Boom. I love to do it.

By the way, the same thing is true in your spiritual life. You've got to understand the culture you live in. I'm not saying you have to understand it completely and get a Ph.D. in sociology, but you better understand the world you're living in.

Paul's Example in Athens

You want a great example of how that affects your faith? Acts chapter 17. Paul comes into Athens. He comes strolling into Athens. He's there, and he's waiting for his guys to show up. And as he's waiting, he looks around, and he's struck by how pagan this city is. Remember this story? And finally, there's this group of really erudite, that would be smart, smart guys that get together, and they talk about philosophies, and Paul goes right into it.

And remember what he's saying? I've observed you're a very religious people. I even saw a statue with an inscription to the unknown God. Somebody has said that at that time in Athens, it was easier to find a god than a man, that they worshipped about 30,000 different gods. But then there was this one statue to a god. Basically he said, if we miss them, this statue is to this. And here's what Paul says. I'm here to proclaim to you the truth of that previously unknown God.

So all of a sudden, I'm guessing if these guys are sitting there, and they're going, gee, here's another guy. What time's the game on? All this stuff, and all of a sudden, he starts to talk, and he says, I want to talk to you about that unknown God. Bam, there's a connect. How did he get it? Well, he walked around the city, and he looked around, and he understood the culture he lived in.

Understanding Culture to Communicate Truth

See, you have to have, and it's got zero to do with age, you have to understand the culture. Not because you want to be hip like me. It's because you want to understand so you can communicate this stuff. Here you go. So that you can go into a world that says, you know what? Everything seems to be up for grabs. I talk to my teacher, and they say one thing. I talk to my dad, and he says another thing. I talk to my other dad, and he says this. I talk to my sister, he says this. My boss says this. I guess nothing's true. And you can go, oh, no, no, no. I know what you're saying. Here's where we find truth. You can go into them.

Two weeks ago, someone asked me if I'd heard Bobby Stoops' comment after winning the national title. I said no, and then I got an email about it. I hit the key, and there it was. I printed it out, and now I've got Bobby Stoops' comment after the Sooners won the national title, basically saying all the joy is in the pursuit. The joy is not in the winning of the game. All of a sudden, I've got the perfect illustration that connects the next day with people who say I'm accomplishment-driven. That just comes from understanding the culture.

Here's what we're saying to you: you've got to develop a lifelong passion for learning. The first thing is understanding the culture and all those things. The preeminent thing is, I need to understand the Word.

Learning is the Mark of a Wise Person

Five points. Learning is the mark of a wise man or a wise woman. Proverbs 9:9 says this: "Give instruction to a wise man, and he will be still wiser. Teach a righteous man, and he will increase his learning. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding."

Here's what He's saying: you take somebody that's wise, and here's what you do with them. You instruct him. You give him instruction. You give him this Word, and you'll make him even wiser. A little bit later in this very proverb, we're challenged to store up knowledge. What He means there is not get it and hoard it, but store it up, cherish it, value it.

Let me say it to you again. When you look at people, they're very confused in life. They're very confused about what's right or what's wrong.

Understanding Right and Wrong in a Confused Culture

I was watching last night part of my President series. I was going back over it, and John Kennedy is talking about a couple of interesting things. John Kennedy's talking about the Soviet Union. You contrast what he said with what Ronald Reagan said, and it's a very interesting contrast. Basically, John Kennedy, even though you've got 13 days and all that, is basically saying, "Can't we get along?" And Dutch is saying, "No. It's an evil empire." Kennedy's saying, "We can't disassociate with these people. These are basically good people in there." Really an interesting spin.

He's talking about civil rights. Here's what John Kennedy said: "Civil rights is a moral issue." I can't fathom a guy today getting up and talking about any moral issue. You can go to the marketplace of ideas and say you want to talk about moral issues. Civil rights is a huge issue. When I watch that, I look at that and say, if I was black in the South in that environment, I've got to believe I would be out there in the streets saying, "How can you not let me vote? How can this guy go to the restaurant?" There is a moral issue.

But how about the immorality of the 40 million babies that have been killed since Roe versus Wade in 1973? That's a moral issue. Where do I find the moral high ground? How do I begin to get my arms around this?

God's Standard vs. Human Confusion

See, you and I may look around, and our philosophers and politicians may say, "Oh boy, this is tough stuff. This is hard." And God looks at it. You think God's in heaven going, "Oh boy, I'll tell you, that abortion one, that's a toughie"? No. God says, "This is right, this is wrong."

Well, how do I get that mind? How do I start to think like God? Well, I have to know His Word. And then I apply that.

Learning Allows Us to Fulfill the Great Commandment

Here's the second thing: when I begin to learn, learning allows me to fulfill the great commandment. Matthew 22:34. There are a group of Pharisees that are there, and they hear Jesus speak. And then there is within the group a lawyer who asks a question. The Scripture says not really to find information, but to test Him, to try to trap Him. And he said, "Teacher, what's the greatest commandment?" And Jesus said, very simple: "Love God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind."

See, you can't begin to fulfill the greatest commandment to love God unless you use your head. When we became Christians, we did not take our brain and check it at the door.

The Example of Jonathan Edwards

The Encyclopedia Britannica says that the greatest mind, let me make sure you understand what I'm saying, the greatest thinker that America has ever produced, and when you look in the history of the United States of America, the greatest mind we've ever produced is Jonathan Edwards. Well, if you brought Jonathan Edwards in here today, first of all, a couple of things. Number one, he'd be very old and he'd be smelly. But if you brought him in today, and I said, "Hey, we've got a guest today, Jonathan Edwards," you'd go, "Jonathan Edwards? I think he plays on the PGA Tour." We don't even have a sense of who he is. And they're saying he's the greatest mind America has ever produced. That may be a problem.

In the midst of this greatest mind, and what's so incredible is if Jonathan Edwards came in today, he would say to you, "This is the infallible Word of God to be believed from cover to cover." He would expound to you the very doctrines of grace that we talk about so often in here. Greatest mind. This isn't Christianity Today, but this is the Encyclopedia Britannica. The greatest mind that America ever produced.

The Connection Between Knowledge and Love

Here's what he said. He wrote a book called Religious Affections. Again, that wouldn't work for us today. We'd need a title like Love God or Loving God. And here's what he said: He said, "If I'm going to have religious affection for God, if I'm going to love God, I've got to know Him. I've got to know His Word. I'll never love Him if I don't know Him."

R.C. Sproul says this: "God has made us with a harmony of heart and head, of action and of thoughts. The more we know Him, the more we're able to love Him. The more we love Him, the more we seek to know Him. To be central in our hearts, He must be central in our minds. Religious thoughts are a prerequisite for religious affection and obedient action."

Real love. Jesus says,

You've got to love God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind. You're never going to love God until you know Him.

I remember the first time I saw Susan. I was living in apartment 202. 201 was vacant. I was out on the patio on a Saturday. Up came this kind of chair - all I could see was a chair. Then as they came up the steps, I just saw this little torso and legs sticking out, and they went into apartment 201. I thought, "Oh wow, we've got somebody new moving into 201."

Then she came back out, and when I saw her, I was gripped with lust. Unbridled lust. The only thing stopping this lust from being unleashed was Susan herself - she kind of said, "I don't think so." But other than that, everything else was in place at that moment. I could not wait. The next time, I'm not a moving kind of guy, I'm not into this kind of stuff, but I found myself saying, "Do you need a little help?" She said, "Well, no, we'll get it on our own." I said, "What's the deal?" She said, "Well, we're just moving in. We're just going to be down here a year." All of a sudden, boom, I began to pursue.

From Attraction to Deep Love

Here's what happened. We got married, and probably after that, fell in love. Now I know her better than anyone on the planet. In fact, all the time I'm telling her, "I know exactly what you're thinking. I know exactly what you're going to say. I know what you're going to say before you say it. I know you better than you." She'll go, "No, you don't." I'll say, "Yes, I do." And she'll say, "I knew you were going to say that."

My point is this: I have in me now for her a love that I did not think I was capable of having. The original thing that drew me to her was that she was a size 2 and that she was a young, vibrant girl. She is not a size 2, and some of that vibrancy is gone. But the very thing that drew me to her, though it's gone away, my love is deeper than it's ever been for her because I know her. I know who she is and what she is and what she's all about.

That same principle is true of anything or anyone, but it's true especially of my relationship with God. The more I know Him, the more I'll love Him. The more I get into His Word, and I understand all of a sudden that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. While we were God-haters going, "God, I don't want you. Get away," He died for us. The more that begins to sink in and the more I contemplate that and the more I think about it, the deeper my love grows for Him.

The Real Holiday

I'm glad, and I don't mean this in a crass way, but finally we got Christmas out of the way. That's good. We got Christmas done. Now we can get on to the real holiday. Now we can get on to Good Friday and Easter.

I will tell you at our church, on Good Friday, there are more tears shed on Good Friday than any other service or any other time in the entire year. It's not because people are manipulated. It's because in that service, that service is designed to do one thing: to help you understand that Jesus Christ died on the cross and that the motive behind His death was His love for His people and that while we hated Him, He died. When you come to grips with that, and then conversely, when we start Sunday morning, it's probably like every church - you walk in on Sunday morning and boom, it's dark. The idea there is we want to pick you up right where we left you off. All of a sudden, bam! Those lights come on and in comes that band and out comes the vocal and boom, there it is. We go, all of a sudden, "He's risen."

When I begin to understand, wait, He's really risen, my life begins to change because the more I know Him, the more I'll love Him.

Learning is Essential to Spiritual Growth

Three more points quickly. Learning is essential to spiritual growth. Martin Lloyd-Jones, something very similar to what R.C. Sproul said, makes this observation: "Let us never forget that the message of the Bible is addressed primarily to the mind, to the understanding." I've got to know to grow.

Philippians chapter 3 - Paul is laying out his pedigree and he's going to talk about coming to Christ and knowing Christ. But he begins by saying if anybody was going to put confidence in the flesh, I more than anyone. Here's what he says: "I was circumcised on the eighth day." Now, what he's saying here is he's eight days old. He's not saying, "You know what, on the seventh day I said, 'Mom, we've got to get this circumcision done.'" No. His mom is a religious mom. His family is a religious family and they understood that.

He's laying out his pedigree: "I'm of the nation of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law of Pharisee." I'm going to use this term and I don't mean it at all in a pejorative way - he's saying, "I'm a super Jew." You take all the components of Judaism and you lay them out, baby, I got them. I got them more than anybody.

Now he goes on and he says, "As to zeal, I was a persecutor of the church." He said, I just didn't know this Scripture. I just didn't give mental assent. I just didn't study it and get the equivalent of three or four PhDs. Here's what I did: I knew what the truth was and I did something about it. I was convinced that the church of Christ, that Christianity was a threat to Judaism. So I said, "I'm going to wipe it off the face of the earth and I'll do it single-handedly." Remember, when he's on his road to Damascus, he's basically going there to round up more Christians, to get them together for the purpose of killing them because he's basically accomplished a pretty good job of that in Jerusalem and left it to the second guys.

He said, "I'm a persecutor of the church as to the law, blameless. But whatever things were gained to me, those things I now count as loss for the sake of Christ." He's saying this...

was everything to me and in this world of Judaism, it was everything to them. He said, it's loss. More than that, I count all things to be lost in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, to whom I've suffered the loss of all things and count them but rubbish in order that I may gain Christ.

He said, if you take all of this stuff, all of these things that I knew, all of that knowledge, all of those things, and you put them over here... In fact, here's what the King James... The King James doesn't call them rubbish. The King James calls them dung. That is but dung compared to what? Knowing Christ. Knowing Christ that I may be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own derived from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection.

Paul says if I'm going to really understand life, if I'm really going to have something that's valuable in life, if I want something that's of pristine cleanliness and primary importance to me, then what I want is I want to know Jesus Christ. Paul said, I've seen Him work. That's what Job said. Boy, all the testing, all the suffering that Job goes through, and then at the end, here's what Job says, God, before I heard about You, now I've seen You.

Learning Takes Time

See, when you say that learning is essential to growth... I'm going to give you a little bad news in the midst of this. What that means is time. It's going to take time. Everybody I know is trying to find somewhere on their body that switch that you can flip, and now you've got spirituality. Now you've got full understanding of who He is.

Everybody I know wants to microwave their spiritual growth, wants to jumpstart this stuff. Everybody I know is saying, I wish I didn't have to study this. I wish I could just know it. I want to know it so bad, I want to know it now.

The Classroom and the Laboratory

Well, when we talk about knowledge, let's talk about two things. The classroom, that's what we're doing in here, and the laboratory, that's what's going to happen to you out there. And you don't truly know something until you know it intellectually, that's the classroom, and now you go put it to work, that's the laboratory.

It's one thing to say, perfect example, it's one thing to say, I disagree with abortion. It's one thing to say, all human life is valuable. It's another thing, and we right now have a couple of these, just finished one of these episodes in the church, where a young lady went to her doctor at about 15 weeks, and the doctor said, you've got real serious problems with this baby. It is a time, I like this phrase, for a therapeutic termination.

We need to do some tests to really understand the extent of what may be the damage to this baby, and we're going through it again right now, same thing. And the parents said, we don't need a test. It doesn't matter what that test is. This is our baby, and we know if we kill this baby, it would displease God. And one of them adds this, how are we ever going to see God work if we intervene in every situation?

And the one that we just had, the baby was due on Christmas Day, and two days later, the baby was born and died. It didn't have a great happy ending to it. It had to it exactly what the doctor said was going to happen. But you know what? This mom and this dad understands that they were obedient to God, and that God will take care of this stuff. That God will begin to deal with this.

What an extraordinary testimony they've had to their friends and their family members, and they happen to be very high-profile people, not just in our city, but around the country. And people are seeing this conviction, and they now have a platform to share Christ that they never had before. See, this time is essential for my learning.

Learning Requires Discipline

Two more things in three more minutes. Learning most often comes from discipline, not by accident. Learning requires diligent preparation. In 2 Timothy 4, Paul writes to Timothy, and just after he said, all Scripture is inspired by God, he said, prove yourself a teacher of the Word. Be sober. Be diligent. Be a workman. This is going to take some time and some effort on your part. You're going to have to work at this. It ties right into the last point.

Learning Takes Place in a Variety of Ways

Learning takes place in a variety of ways. Somehow, you've got to take this Word of God and you've got to get it into your mind. Not so it'll stay in your mind, but so it'll get to your heart. Now, there's a lot of different ways to accomplish this. There's a lot of different things that we can be doing, but somehow you've got to understand this Word.

If you don't have it, and to some of you it's a no-brainer, and I don't mean to insult you, but for other people, you're saying this is brand new. You need a Bible. Now let me tell you how you get a Bible. What's sad is you'll spend more time getting your new pink irons fitted than you will getting this Bible fitted.

You need to go to the Christian bookstore. You need to tell them who you are and what you're about, and you need to sit down with them and let them help you find the right, here you go, study Bible. And you need to take some time to spend in the right, the right Bible, the one that's going to work for you, with the tools that you can use.

Essential Study Tools

You need a variety of other tools. You need a commentary. Some of you probably never even heard of this, but there are guys who devoted much of their life to studying the Word, and they have pulled out of this some jewels, some gems, that will help you in your understanding of the Word. Now, they're not infallible. We know that. But boy, are they helpful.

You need a concordance. You need to be able to explore the tools. You can go on the Internet right now and just start to navigate your way through it, and you will find extraordinary tools that will... Blue Bible, I think it is. You get into this tool, or you get into pbc, peninsulabiblechurch.org, pbc. And you start to get into that, and you navigate your way through there. They're going to take you into some

Bible Study Tools and Resources

Bible tools. There's a book called The Treasury of Spiritual Knowledge. This treasury is so valuable, but it's very hard to use the book. You get into this Bible program, and it just opens things up for you.

In Ephesians 5, verse 16, Paul says... You're driving around, wasting a lot of time listening to KFYI, listening to KPR. All you're going to do is get home. Every time I get home, I'm just frustrated. I'm angry. Who's this idiot? Why is this on? Pop in a tape. Or at very least, listen to some solid praise music. There is no reason for you to not be learning.

Overcoming Excuses About Learning

"I'm not a reader. I'm not a reader. I'm not a student." I'm telling you I'm not a student. But you know, you can read. I don't care how poorly you read. You can read a book in a month. That's 12 books a year. That's 120 books in a decade. Thirty years from now, you've read 360 books. It's incredible the way that expands with just a little bit of discipline. The more you study this, and the more you study, the more you become proficient at it. You have to continue to learn.

Three Great Questions

So the three great questions are what we have listed for you there. Number one, are you willing to discipline yourself to learn? You're not going to get it just by coming and sitting here on a Thursday and having a cup of coffee. You're not going to get it by just going to church and listening. You're going to have to discipline yourself.

Number two, where are you going to start? What's the plan? Because if you don't have a plan, you'll quit. To me, it's like going to the gym. If I just went in and I just sat down and looked at that gym and looked at all that equipment, I'd never get in and out of there. I wouldn't even know where to start. I know when I'm going up the stairs, I know exactly what machine I'm going to. That one that the guy's on right now. That's the one I'm going to.

Here's the last thing. When are you going to start? I really want to challenge you this morning.

You Can Understand God's Word

Once we've established the Bible as the final authority in your life, now, if that's the final authority, you better figure out what it means. You better understand what that word means. And you can do it. You're bright people.

In fact, let me just say something. You don't even have to be very bright. There are so many tools and so many things that are there. But if you can go out and get a Ph.D. and be number one in your field, it seems to me you ought to be able to understand the Word of God.

What Comes Next

Now we've established the Bible as the final authority of your life. Now we understand we need to continue to learn. It seems to me that there's another part of that equation. Now we need to do what it says. We'll talk about that next week.

Father, help us see this. Help us see the truth of this. Help us understand that this is Your Word and in it is truth. God, thank You that You preserved Your Word and presented it to us. We thank You for that. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Have a great week. We'll see you next week.