Enjoy Him: The Call to Commune with Jesus

0:00 Father, thank you for the opportunity to spend these moments with these brothers and sisters in Christ. Thank you for these testimonies. Thank you for the way at which you're at work at the U of M and surrounding campuses here and among young adults, especially college students. Father, would you pour fuel on the flame. I pray that your Holy Spirit would descend in great power on the campus and burn with the flame of your word and be fed by prayer and the fellowship of bodies like this. Thank you for salt. Thank you for this church. And would you bless our few moments here tonight. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. While I was at Furman University in Greenville, South Carolina, maybe one of the most significant passages for me in orienting my approach to God and to the Bible and to prayer and to church and Christian fellowship was Isaiah chapter 55.

1:03 and I would love to just linger in the whole chapter but I just wanna start with the first few verses of Isaiah 55 and what I hope here is to talk about a way that we would approach God's word and a way that we would approach prayer that has the mood or the tone of Isaiah 55. So Isaiah 55 starts like this. At this point, it's an amazing thing. God is playing street vendor in Isaiah 55. You ever seen a street vendor? They gotta have them at the U of M, right? Somebody's calling out like, you know, get your Coca-Cola, get your cookies, get your water, whatever. They're calling out. I remember this one guy outside the fair, Minnesota State Fair a few years ago. He said, you gotta thirst, come to me first. I'm your water guy. I said, I like that. He rhymes. If I'm gonna buy water outside the State Fair for a dollar, I'm gonna buy it from a guy who's a poet and knows how to rhyme.

2:00 And Isaiah's also a poet. Here's how he says it. He says, come. He's speaking for God. He's speaking God's voice here like a street vendor. Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. And you who have no money, come buy and eat. Come buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money on that which is not bread and your labor on that which does not satisfy? but listen diligently and come to me and delight yourself in rich food. Isn't that amazing? That the God of the universe would stoop to play street vendor and that when he does, he would appeal to your thirst and say, I wanna satisfy your thirst.

2:54 I gave you thirst so that I, the living God, would satisfy your thirst. I made you hungry, not just with a physical appetite, but with a soul hunger that I might feed you with the bread of life. I couldn't help but hear that. In some of these testimonies, as you would say, you had talked to somebody and they're basically talking about their spiritual thirst without using that language. I'm thirsty. I'm looking for something. I'm hungry. My soul is hungry. And the living God in Isaiah 55 says, I made you like that for me. I put that hunger in your soul, that thirst in your soul for me. And so you may say, hey, that's great. I want it. How do I get it? What is it like to feed on God? How do I feast on him? And so we need to think practically about what the Bible says. Does the Bible give us any direction on where we might go?

3:56 How is it that God gives himself to us as water for our thirst or gives himself as bread to us to satisfy our souls? And one effort to get at that answer, if we're talking about the various habits and patterns of our life, I love to call this habits of grace. Juliana mentioned that book. Sometimes people talk about it as the spiritual disciplines. That's not my favorite term for it because sometimes spiritual can seem kind of vague. Is this lowercase spiritual? Is this kind of like vaguely religious? I like capital S spiritual. This is how the Holy Spirit works. The Holy Spirit has some means that he blesses, that he tells us where we should go to get God's grace. disciplines like I said put the accent on me with habits of grace or with the old language from the old theologians was means of grace the God of all grace means to keep giving us his grace and he appoints certain means he tells us how he's going to keep giving us grace and so then what we do in our Christian lives, in terms of our habits or patterns, is posturing ourselves, adjusting our perspective, moving ourselves into the places where he tells us his grace is going to be coming.

5:21 And my summary for it, sometimes you can make a long list of spiritual disciplines. I remember this in college. I remember reading a book on spiritual disciplines, making a list. I was like, well, there's 12. And then I realized there's three more. And it's like, next thing I knew is like, there's 20 of these. I'm looking at the list going, I see why people became monks centuries ago, because if I did all 20 of these things every day, it's going to take most of my time.

5:46 And so what I've pressed to do is try to get at what are the principles in the many practicals that can help you, what are the principles of God's ongoing means of grace in your Christian life for your ongoing feeding on the bread of life, your ongoing drinking of the living water. My summary of those is like this. Hear God's voice in his word, have his ear in prayer, and belong to his body in the fellowship of the local church. Committed Christian community. You got word, prayer, fellowship, church. Committed Christian relationships. Hear his voice in his were. You're not just reading a book, checking a box. You're hearing the voice of the living God in the book and praying to him. It's not just offering prayers into the ether. You are responding to the God who's spoken to you in his word with the response he wants to hear. The God of the universe stoops. He says, pray. I want to hear from you. Hear from me in my word. I want to hear from you in prayer. And then he says, I don't just make you a Christian by yourself, but you're part of a body. So belong to his body in the fellowship of the local church. There's my little summary.

7:12 Now let me give a disclaimer about the approach here this evening. They told me, they said, these students, these student leaders, they're really good at fellowship. And you know what? It looks like that. I've been here for a little bit tonight. I've seen you guys interact. I hear the stories, and I remember life on the college campus. The college campus is so great for Christian fellowship because you're at your campus, there's other students there, you've got events like this, and like salt meetings, and like Sunday morning church. You have some rhythms in life of togetherness, and so the college campus can be a really fruitful time for fellowship. And it's also a great time to learn about how to feed yourself for a lifetime in God's word, and what it means to respond to him in this relationship called prayer. That's our focus here tonight.

8:04 How to read the Bible, how to pray. Very simple. And yet, if God would be pleased to give us a little tweak, a little insight, a little change in perspective, it might be multiplied over the next week, the next month, the next year, and the rest of your life. And the main focus that I wanna give this tonight, if I had one word that I would want to leave with you and have you remember, it's the word enjoy. That's the verb, the verb enjoy. I wanna help cultivate a perspective like Isaiah chapter 55 where you would come to this book and unapologetically, shamelessly, you would say, I am here to enjoy the living God. I'm here to enjoy his word and enjoy him and his word.

9:01 I wanna enjoy God in prayer. These are not duties to check the box on. These are not mainly obligations. These are opportunities for spiritual joy, for feeding the hunger of my soul. And so that's the main approach I wanna bring tonight as we talk about word, talk about prayer, is the angle of enjoyment. The Isaiah 55 angle. There's a feast to be enjoyed. You don't eat a feast out of obligation. Come to a feast to enjoy it. Delight in it. Feed on it. Now let me give you a quote from Jonathan Edwards as he talked about how we posture ourselves toward God's means of grace. If God tells us, I'm gonna keep being gracious to you through my word, and through prayer and through Christian community and fellowship, then how do we respond to that?

9:58 And here's Edward's approach. It was a long time ago. This is 18th century, 1700s. He says, see if you can track with it. It's old language. Persons need not and ought not to set any bounds to their spiritual and gracious appetites. Get that? You must set bounds to your physical appetites. It's an amazing thing. God made the world in such a way and the human soul in such a way that he says he doesn't say there's any bounds to your spiritual appetite for enjoying God, delighting in God. Rather, he says, we ought to be endeavoring by all possible ways to inflame our desires and to obtain more spiritual pleasures.

10:53 Endeavor to promote spiritual appetites by laying yourself in the way of allurement. In other words, find out where God is pouring out his grace. Where's the waterfall of his grace falling? And lay yourself there. position yourself to go on receiving his grace so the ongoing grace of the christian life doesn't happen usually this is very rare i want to seek god's grace so i'm gonna go out in the wilderness and walk around and maybe his grace will just go fall on me god can do that he can surprise us with his grace and bring strange encounters to us i'm not expecting it but he also tells us the ways that he means to keep pouring out his grace.

11:49 And if you know that God wired the room for the light to turn on when you flip the switch, or he did the plumbing such that the water comes out when you turn the spigot, turn the faucet, then you engage his means. And God's told us about his means. I've spoken, he says. I gave you a book. and I stoop to hear with my son as the high priest in the very throne room of the universe to hear you in prayer, and I have brought you together in the fellowship of the local church. So we're gonna talk here about enjoying God's word and listening with enjoyment in prayer. Sometimes the early questions, I know, spiritual disciplines, I go back 20 years talking this with college students. I hear this regularly, get questions. People are gonna ask a question.

12:41 Let me just ask, I'll ask a few up front quickly. then we'll get into the main arc I wanna share with you of three points. How often? My answer is God's word rewards daily attention. I think in a room full of leaders, you're not gonna be surprised by that. When, I'll just put my cards on the table. There is something about starting your day with the voice of God. There's no Bible verse that says the command, Like, you must have devotions first thing in the morning. There is a pattern of prioritizing important things in the early morning. There is wisdom that comes from what you engage first shapes the trajectory of your day. It puts you in a certain perspective. So I think it's wise, ideally, it doesn't always happen.

13:37 College campus is crazy, I know. ideally first thing in the morning that you put his voice first this is one of the things i try to do i'm married got four kids so i have five very important voices in the house with me and then there's all those other voices in the world that come up on this thing and my resolution or daily commitment like as far as it can happen as far as i can do I want God's voice to be the first voice I hear in the morning. Now, sometimes it might be my wife. Good morning, honey. How you doing? You got the coffee going yet? But when I'm up, I'm making a beeline. I wanna linger in this book. I want God's voice to be the first voice I hear in the morning. And that shapes the day. It shapes the trajectory.

14:30 All right, here's my three-part arc. This is mainly what I have for you here in these next few minutes. and what I'm doing in sharing this is giving you my daily approach to coming to God in his word and in morning prayer and I won't pretend it's for everybody. You know the story of David and Goliath and Saul says, put this armor on and David tries to put it on. It doesn't fit him. He's not gonna work. You don't need to wear Saul's armor. You don't gotta do it just like me but I wanna be real with you in how it works out in one guy's life and see what you might glean from this. See if there's principles here that are transferable to your situation. And there's different seasons of life. There's freshman year, there's senior year, there's life after college, there's life in your 40s and your 60s. There's different seasons of life. And if you get some of these principles, you can think through, all right, what does it mean in this season of life to have my life saturated by God's word, to have rhythms of private and corporate prayer and then to belong to a community of believers who are committed to each other, typically in the local church.

15:42 So here's my little arc. Number one, begin with Bible. I'll give you the whole arc, then I'll come fill it in. Begin with Bible, move to meditation, and then polish with prayer. So that's what I'm seeking to do in the morning. I got my coffee, sitting down at my table with this book. I brought the real thing for you. I've been reading this version since I was a, fall of 2001. This is the fall of my sophomore year in college. This paper Bible. This is my communion with God, personal Bible for the mornings. And I come here, I begin with Bible. I move to meditation and polish with prayer. And I'm gonna move through those. I'll spend the most time in meditation. Beginning with Bible, polishing with prayer will be briefer. So number one, begin with Bible.

16:37 This is not just a book. This is God's library. And not only are there 66 distinct books in the God-inspired library, but the book of Psalms, we just quoted Psalm 127, verse 1. The book of Psalms has 150 different Psalms. That's kind of like 150 books or songs within a larger book. The book of Isaiah, 66 chapters, all of them worthy of your reading and of your meditation. So when God gives us a book, sometimes we can just think, oh, a book, come on, a book? You're going to have me read a book? I don't need a book. That's not going to change my life. I'm not just saying this is a book. I'm saying the voice of the living God speaks through his library.

17:30 He wants to tell you about the creation story. He wants to meet you every place you are emotionally in the Psalms, in your highest days, in your lowest days. He wants to give you four accounts of the life of his son in the flesh among us. He wants to tell you what it all means in books like Romans and Hebrews. And he wants to tell you how Jesus wins. and he wins over and over again to saturate your perspective with the book of Revelation. So beginning to end, this book provides richness. It is a feast. It is a banquet. And there's a lifetime's worth of discovery in this library. It's a long banquet table. Learning to read the Bible is best done by reading it for yourself. and you can go study over here.

18:24 What do I do? I do these things, learn these things, do the training wheels, that's fine. The best way to do it is to read it for yourself and to do it for a lifetime, which is why it's so important to talk to college students about these things. This is not about what you can do this year only or these four years only. You are at a time, a trajectory setting time of life where you can begin to orient with enjoyment on the riches of this book and learn to feed yourselves and be the kind of person who can feed others through the riches of this library. So the Bible's a library. But then you gotta choose a plan. You gotta have a plan when you get up in the morning. You just end up reading Titus over and over, Jude over and over, 1 Peter. I'll see if I can do all five chapters of 1 Peter. Maybe you know what I'm talking about.

19:16 You've lived a college life like me. What am I gonna read this morning? I'll do another short epistle. So I learned after a while, it's helpful to have some kind of modest plan that when you come to the Bible in the morning, you've got a plan. The plan I have, anybody know how long it takes to read the Bible? A normal reading pace, how many hours does it take? Anybody know?

19:41 A little more than that, that's good, that's close. It's about 70 hours, 70 to 72 at a normal pace. All right, you can start doing some math here. All right, 70 hours. Okay, I did not mean to do that. I have 15-year-old twin boys. It's all 6-7, 6-7. I have teenagers, I know. Let's get teenagers in the back. You can see where the teenagers are.

20:14 That was not on purpose. All right, here we go. Let's go math here. 70 hours times 60 minutes. Divide that by 365 days. You know how long it takes to read the Bible? About 10 minutes a day. is not a lot. Most Americans watch more television or little tiny television that we all carry around in a matter of two weeks or three weeks. You add that up over 70 really quick. It is a big book. I'm glad it's a big book because I'm gonna discover riches for the rest of my life in this big book. Praise God it's a big book. But you know what? It's also manageable. 10 minutes a day of reading to get through this book.

21:08 One thing I have learned over the years that I love and blesses my soul is to find multiple places to read in the book. So when I spend my 10 minutes a day reading, it's not just like Genesis 1 on January 1st and I'm just reading straight through 10 minutes a day. I got these four bookmarks. I found this plan years ago. It's called the Discipleship Journal. reading plan. I think maybe now it's called the Navigators Bible reading plan. There's other Bible reading plans. A lot of others do this format. This old Scottish minister named Robert Murray Machane. He came across this. He made it popular. He's like, when I read in four different places, it's amazing how God blesses me through a Psalm or the gospel or the epistle or the Old Testament reading. So there's a lot of riches in not getting lost in just one kind of book in the library, but having a few little spots. So I'll tell you about this morning. This morning, I'm assigned to read from Luke chapter 24. It's the resurrection. My day started this morning reading about the resurrection. That's a good thing. So I usually start with this gospel reading.

22:19 Then I flip to the epistle, and the epistle was the end of Hebrews chapter 11. That's that great faith chapter, Hebrews chapter 11. Like, come on, this is a good day going on. Next, the reason I started with Isaiah 55 tonight is because that's where I was this morning. So next was reading Isaiah 54 and 55. I was like, oh, this is so good. I love Isaiah 55. If I could bring any burden to these students, it would be that they would approach God's word and prayer like Isaiah 55. with a thirst to be quenched, with a hunger to be satisfied. Then the last one was the last part of Proverbs chapter 28. Close out with some Proverbs. My typical plan. I've worked through those four. And that usually takes just 10 to 12 minutes to just straight read. All right, that's not a lot of time for just straight reading.

23:16 One thing I love to do, I want enough space set aside that I'm not rushing. this is probably the biggest thing that I want to communicate within this column of Bible reading is we live such hurried life I know that the life on the college campus can be a very hurried life and you guys are young you're able to keep up with the pace and you often live very full and rush lives and you come to the Bible and there's a normal kind of pace of life there's a pace at which you read these screens and the screens teach you the pixels teach you this f pattern of reading through how you can scan. You guys are really good scanners, probably. You've grown up with these devices. You know how to scroll and scan. This book rewards a slow, unhurried reading. When they wrote this book, there was no internet, no keyboards, not like people just punch out some keys and publish it on the World Wide Web. It was expensive to put together a book. You needed ink.

24:21 You need an expensive paper. You need to copy it multiple times and no printing press. Then you send it far and wide to distribute it. It was an expensive endeavor. They wrote this book very intentionally, not to be read quickly like news articles or tweets. They read this to be enjoyed slowly, like a meal. So begin with Bible. Number two, move to meditation.

24:48 This is the new thing. This is the strange thing, perhaps. You're expecting Bible, you're expecting prayer. What's this thing in the middle that sounds Eastern? Meditation. We talk about clearing out your mind. Why are you gonna clear out your mind in the middle of reading the Bible and praying? Because Christian meditation is not clearing out your mind. Christian meditation is different than the popular version of meditation. Hebrew meditation, different than Eastern meditation. Christian meditation means filling your mind with God's word and then lingering there, chewing on it, mulling it over, letting it go around a little bit. It's like you put something on your palate and instead of swallowing it immediately, you enjoy the taste. Keep it in your mouth for a little bit. That's what meditation is doing. It's pausing to linger over what you've read. I told you, you can read faithfully, productively in just a few minutes of God's word.

25:48 glorious amazing truths that are way too precious and sweet to just read and then move on you need to linger a little bit over it. Give it some time. Try to enjoy it. Chew on it. Enjoy the juices. And often, the reason that we can't remember later on in the day what we read that morning is we just read it like a webpage. So quick. We didn't move to meditation to linger over what we had just read. That middle part. And that's really where communion with God begins to take shape. His word is not just going in your ear and out the other, but it's beginning to go down in your heart so that you feel the significance of his word. It's one thing to run it through the mind. It's another thing to run it down into the heart and then to be able to respond to him in prayer.

26:42 That's where communion with God happens when we linger in his word in meditation and then respond to him in prayer. So meditation's the Old Testament word for it. Joshua chapter one, verse eight, talked about meditating on the law of the Lord. Psalm one, maybe the most famous. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the Lord. And on his law, he meditates day and night. So if you delight in God, you're gonna wanna linger in his word. And as you linger in his word, seeking enjoyment of him, it's going to increase your delight in him. This is an amazing relationship here between delighting in Jesus, lingering in his word, and having your delight reinforced, deepened, focused, made solid through meditation. In the New Testament, the language is often set your mind.

27:43 Maybe you've heard some of these texts, like Colossians chapter three, verses one and two. You can look that up. Romans chapter eight, verses five to nine, where the apostle Paul talks about, hey, your mind can be set on things. You're not an animal. Animals just respond to stimuli.

28:04 Humans have this amazing capacity to think, I'm gonna put my thoughts on that. I'm gonna put my mind, I'm gonna set my mind somewhere. and your mind is going to, as you drive through university, all the advertisements all around town, you got the billboards, you got stuff on your phone, the ads are popping up. You can endure all sorts of stimuli coming at you if you have set your mind on an enduring, solid, powerful place, mainly the voice of Jesus in his word. You become ready for the day when you've set your mind and you reset your mind. Now, I know you can't only think about heavenly things all day. Now, you live on earth, you've got a calling here as a student and in your ministry, but in meditation, you can set your mind on the things of God.

29:01 Anyway, let me, I'll finish here with the polish to prayer and then we can do some Q&A. I wanna save some time for that, see where you guys wanna go with this. I do think there's an order here of beginning with Bible, moving to meditation, and then polishing with prayer. I remember when I was on campus years ago, I'm sure you guys don't use this language anymore because the whole reality of phones has so changed. But sometimes we'd gather in a prayer meeting, be like, who wants to dial up? Isn't that funny? Dial up means who wants to pray first? it was a little naive or misinformed that we thought we were dialing up god you don't dial him up god always dials us up he speaks first like that's why we have this book and the nature of the relationship with him is that he's god he's creator he's initiator he's speaker and we hear from him. And then amazingly, he wants us to respond. So when you pray, you're not starting something up. You're finishing something off. He has spoken. You hear from him in the book, the living God, by his living Holy Spirit, speaking to you in this book. And then he says, don't just hear me and go away. I want to hear from you. Pray to me. Pray to me about what you just heard from me. And as we pray, my main exhortation for you about praying. If the exhortation for how to read the Bible was to hear from him without hurry, slow down in meditation, With prayer, it would be respond to him richly.

30:57 And what I mean by that is we all very naturally, as humans, as creatures, as needy people, we all pretty naturally express needs to God. Give me this, give me that, I want this. It's very natural. Unbelievers often find themselves doing this. Very natural to wanna ask the divine for things. Give me things. Somebody gave me life. Can you give me something more? But for the Christian, informed by the riches of this book and the richness of Christ Jesus, who he is, what he's accomplished for us, there is richness with which we respond to the richness of our God. Let me give you these four summary ways. I'm assuming several have heard of these, if not all of you. But it's one way to think of multiplying the richness of a prayer life.

31:49 So it's the word acts, A-C-T-S. And A means adoration, praise, worship. C is confession. T is thanksgiving. And the last one, S, supplication. That's asking for things. Asking for things for me, asking for things for my wife, my kids, my friend, that unbeliever I want to come to Christ. We do S really well. and it can open up riches for your prayer life when you realize that prayer is also for adoration.

32:25 Praising him, worshiping him, enjoying him, beginning your prayer time with expressing praise over what you've meditated on in his word. And then when you see his bigness, his glory, his wonderfulness, his majestic power, and you confess, I'm a sinner. I'm needy. I want help. I'm thirsty. I'm hungry. And you thank him for his grace. And many today will talk about the need of expressing thanksgiving, rehearsing gratitude. Well, Christian's been doing this a long time. We've got a book full of thanksgiving and gratitude. And working through adoration, confession, thanksgiving, prepares our heart to respond to him richly and then ask. So as I close here, just a reminder on the main charge. I want you to come to this book. I want you to come to prayer to enjoy Jesus.

33:20 Enjoy him. Come to feast on him. Come with a thirsty soul to drink. Come with a hungry heart to eat. Commune with Jesus through his self-giving word and through giving yourself to him in return in prayer.

33:40 And the end of these means, I said at the beginning these were means. Means, you're college students, you know this. Means have an end. They have a goal. And that goal is knowing and enjoying Jesus. The end is a person. And so Jesus himself prays in John 17, this is eternal life, that they, that's us, that we know God, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom he has sent. And the apostle Paul says, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. That's what we're after. Surpassing value of knowing Jesus. So let me pray that. Father, I pray that you would do that afresh in hearts that already seek enjoyment.

34:37 For hearts that already come to your word, already come to prayer like hedonists seeking delight. I pray you drive it deeper. And if that's fresh, if the idea of enjoying your word or enjoying prayer is fresh tonight, Father, I pray that that would find place in the heart. I pray it'd be multiplied over the next week and month and years. You do, Father, mean to be enjoyed. You mean to be delighted in and you've given us these glorious means of enjoying you and enjoying your son. And so would you make it real in these lives and then through these dear brothers and sisters to many more. In Jesus' name we pray, amen. Okay, guys, let's give it up for David. That was so good. Wow, oh my goodness.

35:31 Oh, I love the part when you were like, we don't dial God, he dialed us. Oh my goodness, that'll preach. That is so good. Awesome. Yeah, do you guys want to set these up here for us? We're going to transition into Q&A. Corin, there's a slide in the drive for the Q&A. And the slide will have a phone number. And you can just go ahead and text that phone number. It's actually my phone number. So if you guys already have that, you guys can just text it already. So that's also just helpful for you guys to know that's my phone number. So don't go crazy with it. great okay well if someone actually while we're waiting for corn to um to put that slide up does someone have a question right now we can get started yeah If someone tells you, I'm not a big reader, should they just like audio book the Bible? How do you deal with someone being like, I'm not a big reader?

36:25 Yeah, that's a great question. So if someone just says, I'm not a reader, do we just put them toward audio book or video, other means? There are angles beyond simply reading. And the New Testament says, faith comes from hearing and hearing from the word of Christ. So there is something really powerful about hearing. So if you would actually, to spin this around, if somebody would say like, I'm not an audiobook person, I would say, well, Jesus might want you to be. Maybe you should try it. You know, try listening to the Bible. So, I mean, and this is what we do in preaching. We are representing the word in audio form, and it goes into the ear and down into the heart and hopefully brings about faith. There's a beautiful image in hearing with faith. because when you read, and these stools are so swivelly.

37:20 Kind of swivelly. It takes energy to read, right? You open this up and you're using your eyes. It takes more energy to read than simply to hear. And I don't know how doctors know this, but they say the last sense to go is the sense of hearing. So if somebody's in a hospital bed and maybe they're not responding, maybe they're on their deathbed or after an accident, they'll tell you like, you can speak to them. They'll be able to hear you. One of the easiest things, takes the least effort is simply to hear. And there is a picture in that of God's grace in the gospel. He comes to us when we're not putting in the energy to come to him. That's an amazing thing. So put hearing on the radar, big time. And then he also, he had his word written down by prophets and by apostles. And so we have this book. And so Christians, the world over for 2000 years have been the kind of people who typically became readers and started schools and printed books and wrote books.

38:20 And so the Christian faith can be a kind of bookish faith. Now, it shouldn't only be bookish, but because of the very nature of how God revealed himself, first and foremost in his son, and then in the message of the gospel, and then he saw it that it would be appropriate to capture it in the objective external nature of writing so that people didn't mess it up as we played a game of telephone. And Jesus said this, and Jesus said that, and Jesus said that. We have a place to check it right here. So I would say there are avenues for feeding on God and feeling your faith in audio that are important. And if you're not using any of those, I would recommend audio Bible. man let's bring audio preaching back I'm all for that back in the early days of the internet people were listening to mp3s is what it was called before you guys were born they would listen to mp3s listen to a lot of sermons and video came along and now the video is the pixels and all that captured us with video and there's there's good that can be done through watching video through listening I would encourage you to devote you call it this diversify the portfolio of how you receive God's word into your heart. If you're not a reader, I would say, work on that. Add reading. And if you're not doing any kind of audio, I'd say, think about how the Holy Spirit may have some blessing for you in hearing with faith. Great question. Great. Great question. Thank you. One of my favorite chapters in your book is actually about memorizing scripture. And so I would love for you to just talk about memorizing scripture and how that like benefits us and that's helpful for us.

40:01 Thank you so much. I mean, in the book, and still believe this fully, I really made memorizing scripture to overlap with the idea of meditation. So that middle of like reading Bible, meditating on God's word, and then prayer coming out of meditation. I really put memorizing here in meditation and the power of memorization, of memorizing scripture, is not simply that you have it stored away for the future. I know sometimes we talk that way and it's like, if you don't memorize it now, you're not gonna have it 12 years from now when you need it. And just to be honest with you, I'm not really motivated by, well, someday maybe I might need it. That doesn't, I got too many demands today to like give a bunch of time to someday maybes. I mainly am interested in, I wanna know Jesus today.

40:58 I wanna delight in him today. I wanna feed my soul today. I wanna feast like Isaiah 55 today. So if scripture memory can serve meditation today, I'm seeking the light in Jesus today. I came across a verse that was so good, I didn't only meditate on it with it written in front of me. I was like, I should just memorize this. Then I can just chew on this all day. So I would encourage you, let your memorization be inspired by some really sweet text. You come across in your devotional readings, like, man, the Lord met me in half a verse. And I could memorize that half verse in 15 seconds and rehearse it throughout the day and keep enjoying Jesus in that little God-inspired memorized statement from scripture. And so I would say use memorization as a way to feed meditation.

41:52 And also, I mean, in campus ministry, sometimes it is a wonderful thing. when you memorize scripture together. So when you can do it as a community, hey, we're working on this together, we're enjoying this together, memorize it. And I would say, as you memorize scripture, don't just check the box, like, I got it done. Like, I can say it rote. That's not the point. The point is, now you got something to enjoy. And most of us, we tend to forget scripture memory precision over time. And sometimes it's like, oh no, this is a problem. Such a problem. Like I memorized Romans 8 and now I don't know it precisely. And it's like, oh no, what a loss. I wasted time. And I would say, no, no, no. That's an opportunity that you don't know it perfectly still. Hey, that's great. Now you can go back to it, enjoy it some more. Work on it some more. Sharpen it up. Feed your heart.

42:44 So if scripture is memorized and you forget it, that is not a loss. That's actually an opportunity to do some more. But I would wanna emphasize, how can you enjoy the living God and Jesus Christ right now in lingering over scripture long enough that it gets put to memory? That's so good. I'm so glad you said that because I remember reading that chapter for the first time and so much of like, when we talk about memorizing scripture, it's like, oh, this is for later, but you actually like flip it of like, it actually could like benefit me right now. Like there is like a benefit and it's helpful to just meditate on it right now as I'm memorizing. So I love that. One question that came in is, how do you re-remember your time in the Word throughout the day intentionally? Great question. The first thing I would say is, if there's that space, that bridge. Sorry, I'm laughing because I got a funny question.

43:38 Okay, all right, let's do the funny question. That bridge between Bible reading and prayer, if I linger there, if I spend some time there, What I'm seeking to do, I'm seeking to drive that moment into my psyche, into my consciousness, make that be my perspective on the day. Something I say more about is I threw out that number 10 minutes, that if you read the Bible 10 minutes a day, you'll read it in a year. So here's one way you could approach this is during that 10 minutes of reading, now you get done with the reading. It's like, huh, what struck me from that reading? Was there like a particular verse? It could have been half a verse. It could be a word. The word, it's not simply a word, but the word represents a concept in which God is communing with you. He's speaking to you that day.

44:32 You were struck by something. And I would say, so what if you have, you got to 10 minutes of reading. Now what if you take, I'll throw out another number. What if you double that time? I'm gonna take 10 minutes and I'm gonna linger over that thing that struck me, the thing that stood out in my reading. I might even journal some thought. This could be a place for journaling. This could be a place for memorization. So one way to take it with you is, if it's short, just memorize it right there. Rehears it throughout the day.

45:02 My generation, we still use paper, or at least I do, right? I brought my notes here on paper. I read a paper Bible in the morning. One thing about paper, it just slows you down. A screen tends to make you, you read a little bit faster on a screen. Scientists have studied this. When you read papers, you get these precious milliseconds that it slows you down. You might think a little more. It might go into the heart. And sometimes I'll jot a note. I have a little notebook I keep with me. I'll jot a note on paper. If I have written it down or if I've prayed it, this is where you can write out prayers. It's a beautiful thing. pick something from your reading that really struck you, write it out. And then when you do pray, pray about the way in which God was speaking to you through his words. I mean, if you're reading for 10 minutes, you're not going to pray over everything you read in those 10 minutes. You may pick a light bulb or two that went off. And as you move through thinking on that and then praying on it, hopefully you're putting it deeper into your soul, at least for that day. And you're going to forget probably in a week, like three days later, a week later, hey, what was your sweet thought about God last Monday morning? It's like, I don't know, but I still believe.

46:25 It fed me last Monday. I got through the day. And I think if you spent long enough feeding on it, you're probably going to remember it later that afternoon. All right, you get the funny question? Yeah, we don't have time for that another time. Is it from down here? Yeah, you know who you are. Okay, I'm just gonna read this off for you. Okay. When reading scripture, some chapters can be super hard to understand. Should I immediately look to commentary or do I go back to it again? Oh, that's a great question. This is both, I know initially it's a frustration, but let me tell you, as somebody who's been reading the Bible now, since, because they convinced me in college. Like I sat in groups like this and we talked about reading the Bible. And so 25 years ago, I learned to just make the simple habit, simple habit.

47:17 And it is amazing how it compounds over time. And so while it may be a frustration in your 20s, you're gonna be so thankful in your 40s and your 50s that you didn't just get it all the first time. So you really should have some modest expectations for Bible reading. When I say, you know, you're reading 10 minutes or whatever it is, there is no pretense. You're going to understand or understand well everything. But especially when you get deep into the prophets. Like I've been reading Isaiah this month. I got on the docket for next month, Ezekiel. Like this is some hard stuff. This is one reason to get multiple places in the Bible. So I'm also reading in the gospel. And usually the gospel is pretty immediate. Or the book of Psalms is often more immediate. So starting with a psalm or with the gospel can help. And then, hey, you're making your way through the Old Testament text.

48:09 And sometimes something pops from the Old Testament. It is clear as day. It is amazing. You linger over it. And often you're building up a reservoir. You're learning to read the Bible for a lifetime. And I would say when you can, do some study. When something rises to the level, you triage this different as you age, all right? If you're reading the Bible through for the first time in your 20s, And just to say, there's gonna be a lot of stuff that's difficult, that's foreign, that doesn't immediately fit for you. And so you gotta decide what you're gonna study. You won't have enough time to look up every question you could ask. If you're curious and you're astute, you can ask way more questions than you can answer. But as you keep reading, day after day, year after year, pieces come together, pieces come together. Not in such a way you ever are mastered by this book.

49:03 You are seeking to be mastered by it. And so by putting yourself under the Bible's authority day after day, the Holy Spirit, he's gonna find some ways to feed you. There's some simple things here, simple for children, simple for teens and 20s and 30s and 45-year-olds like me, and some other things that take scholars that they work on in their 60s and 70s.

49:26 The Bible's like an ocean that a child can wade into and an elephant can drown in, right? And so have that perspective in mind. And as you come to a question like, I wanna look that up. I've got time. I've got margin this morning. I'd like to look it up. There's some excellent study Bibles out there. The ESV study Bible's very good. There's other study Bibles. A study Bible can get you quickly to a meaning without flipping through a lot. Also, there's commentaries out there. There's amazing resources online. I would recommend desiringgod.org as one place where you can look up questions. And you learn to pray for the Holy Spirit's guidance, that he would give you wisdom in triaging among the many things that you could ask questions about and learn to know which one is for today. One of my favorite phrases is, in coming to the Bible, this is from Exodus chapter 15.

50:24 I think it's from Exodus chapter 16. and the manna is given to the children of Israel in the wilderness. And the instructions are, every day, gather a day's portion. Don't get a week's portion. You don't go out and try to gather enough for a month. It's not gonna keep. It doesn't mean for you to do it. And right now as college students, there could be the sense of like, I need to gather enough for a lifetime. I gotta go, I gotta forge my theology. I gotta find out what I believe about every issue. And I would just say, gather a day's portion. What's gonna feed you today? And as you feed on the living God day after day, he's gonna answer all sorts of questions. And it's gonna be good to still have some questions. If this book is really from God, you're not gonna read in your 20s and understand all of it or close to all of it, but it's a lifelong journey. That's good, that's awesome. That's a really helpful perspective.

51:16 What do you do when you don't understand something in the Bible? I mean, triage it like that. So here at age 45, having been to seminary, I'm a pastor, I preach, part of my job is studying the Bible and writing articles and editing articles. And so I've had the opportunity over the years to look into some of these questions and study them. But daily, I come across, I could formulate more questions daily from 10 minutes of Bible reading than I have time to answer. And so I've learned that triaging. One of my favorite things for finding answers myself without going for help from a commentator or a study Bible is seeing where that concept appears elsewhere in Scripture. And sometimes, some Bibles will have this thing down the middle called cross references.

52:12 You see, mine's got it here. You get to these little tiny numbers. And as you read through, it'll refer to other verses. This is a way of letting Scripture interpret Scripture. Instead of just running off to have some commentator give you the answer, you can say, huh, so where else have I read about this concept? Or does it come up anywhere else? And if you're a first-time Bible reader, you may know very little. You can't, I don't know whether this is in Genesis and Exodus or not, but as you grow over the years, you may realize, oh, okay. So this passage, here's a little study I did recently. I came across the word refresh in the book of Philemon. Paul says, refresh my soul. That's the language he gives to Philemon. He wants him to free his slave Onesimus, who's become a Christian, so that his soul would be, so Paul's soul would be refreshed if Onesimus frees his slave.

53:11 Amazing thing in the first century. Totally culturally surprising in the first century. And so I was like, what is this language of refresh comment? So I looked it up in several different places. I don't remember, maybe they're eight or 10 times New Testament where he uses that similar kind of language. And it was remarkable how relational it was that the refreshing of souls, it didn't have like a wilderness context. It usually had a very relational context. Like I met a person that I love from far away and we spent time together and our souls were refreshed. it's like how how fellowship how community how gatherings like this are means of god's grace and so uh i didn't run to a commentator try to figure out the answer i wanted some other scripture text and it is amazing how the biblical authors speak with a unified voice you will find differences between like okay that's that's paul and that's john like john and paul they're they're different like john kind of talks in circles and some of us like that's beautiful I love that.

54:13 It's really helpful. And Paul's like, he's always in a straight line, really logical. Here's the reason for it. Here's the implication for it. And other people are like, I really like Paul. And God means for us to be blessed and benefit by both of them. But then at the end of the day, their concepts come together in this amazing unified whole. And you will find this from Moses to David and Solomon and to the prophets and to the gospels and the epistles, that they're these unifying themes throughout the Bible, that it is this library, even though 66 books and all these different authors, the library is telling one whole story. And those pieces come together in a beautiful way. And so you can explore those themes, not only in that author, but the other biblical authors. That's awesome. How do you fight through seasons where it feels like reading your Bible is a chore? Good question.

55:05 and I would say a couple different things I can say. One is it is worth continuing to expose yourself to the place where the grace is coming and is gonna come. So if you were to say, Okay. what do I do when I'm not thirsty? And I would not tell you to turn away from the waterfall and dig into the ground and try to like put the dirt in your mouth.

55:49 You still need to orient toward the waterfall. That's where the life-giving water is gonna be. your thirst needs to adjust to the objective truth of the water. And that happens to all of us, okay? We're sinners, we're finite, we're sinners. When we don't have a taste for God's word, if we don't want him, if we can't even like thought of enjoying him or delighting in him is so foreign. Maybe the best I can do is that I want to want. But ultimately, that's not a problem with God's word. Like, that's a problem with me. It's a problem with my sinful heart. And that's okay. Be honest about that. If your heart's there, you be honest about it. That's not a big surprise. We're all like that. We all have that. But don't pretend that the problem's with the Bible and that my desires are the fixed, objective, unchangeable thing.

56:43 No, no, no. This is the fixed, objective, unchangeable thing. And I need to have my heart adjusted. So I wanna pray for that. This is why fellowship is so beautiful, that you're not just on your own. To be around other Christians, to have contagious love for Jesus spoken about, to have somebody put a word in his ear. Sometimes people's desire is so low, it's like, I can't go through the energy of reading this book. And that's a beautiful place where somebody can put a word in your ear that would feed your soul and help shape your desire. And another thing I would say, I wish somebody would have told me this in my 20s, that you can teach your heart over time what to focus on. As you get older, you can learn. Not everybody does.

57:35 Modern life doesn't teach people to do this. This is very countercultural. You can learn how to manage your heart a little bit. I'm saying manage with quotes because John Owen, a great Puritan talked about managing. And as you spend day after day, week after week, year after year, beginning with Bible, moving to meditation, one thing you learn about as you seek to meditate, to linger, to set your mind and heart on the things of God and his word, you learn about your heart. You learn about the kinds of things to focus it on, the kinds of attributes of God, the parts of the story, the beauties of Jesus. You can learn how to take riches from this library. This is not a simple, flat little book. This is a rich library, and there are amazing resources to help all sorts of hearts. And that's one thing that we learned to do over the years. Now, there's no pretense that if this is your first time reading the Bible through, that you're a master at that. I'm not a master at that at age 45. But I would tell you that after a few years and after a few decades, you learn to kind of turn this thing.

58:49 You learn to say, heart? Why are you acting like that? Trusting God, hoping God. That's how the psalmist talked. Are you downcast? Trusting God. No pretense that it goes away magically. But there's some ways you can learn where to set your heart, where to focus. And I really think that over time, as you're formed and shaped, in your faith, by this book, by the Holy Spirit, that sort of experience often becomes less frequent. And take heart. If that's an experience you feel like, oh, I'm so up and down right now, you know, that's true. Be honest about it. And that doesn't mean it's going to be that way the rest of your life. Like, as you are spending time with the living God in this book, Like, he's shaping your soul.

59:43 Change is really possible. You are going to be a different person in 10 years. And the battle will not be the same. It'll be less frequent. That doesn't mean we're any less desperate. At the end of the day, it's the Holy Spirit, and we are desperate. And he means for us to grow in him, and he shapes us along the way. Awesome, great. Okay, this is our last question. I know, guys, there are so many good questions. It says, I often find myself treating God Like he is a vending machine and like I'm throwing pennies into the pool instead of talking with someone who actually loves me. What specific truth would you give this person?

1:00:21 That sounds of whatever your question is, if it's that one or another one, this is the amazing thing about what to bring to God's word. I would say when you, like I encourage you guys tonight to come with the angle of approach of enjoyment. to say, as you're opening the Bible, to say, Father in heaven, I wanna enjoy you this morning. Would you show me yourself in your glory? I wanna see what's delightful in Jesus. I wanna recognize that. Would you bring my heart into shape with what you are worth?

1:00:54 God's okay with us bringing a perspective to his word. And if your perspective is, I'm struggling with your goodness, I'm struggling to see your love, to see you as compassionate, that I would encourage you, bring that to God. As you're opening this book, pray that prayer. Say, Father in heaven, show me your compassion in this book. You know what, if you are praying to see God as gracious and as loving, this is a really good place to go because he's gonna teach it over and over. And the reason he teaches it over and over is because we need to know that. That's a good question to have. That's a very typical question. And that's one of the reasons he gave us the scriptures, to show us again and again his steadfast love and faithfulness, his compassion, his love. So have a question like that. Bring it to God's word as you read and just feel free.

1:01:51 If you come across a verse about love, about compassion, about his grace, make that your verse for meditation. Just, I mean, modern people, you can feel like this sense of, oh, I need to spend equal amount of time on all the Bible. No, you don't. If that's your question, come across the love passage. Linger there and pray that you would experience that. God means for us to experience his love, his compassion, not just read about it, that we would come into communion with God himself in the realities he talks about in the book, not just the words of the book. The words are meant to get us to realities. Pray that way, seek it, and see how he shows up and answers. Great, awesome. Thank you guys for submitting your questions. I know there was a lot of questions that went unanswered.

1:02:45 And so, yeah, maybe we'll do something in the future about that, maybe at another leader night. So this is a fun fact for you guys and something that is, like, really exciting. As I was coordinating with David about coming tonight and speaking to us, I asked him if he would be like willing to like bring some books, like some books for you guys to actually just like purchase. Because he has some really awesome books that I would love. And it would be such a blessing for us to like purchase them. And out of his generosity and kindness, he actually got books for you guys to have. And so, yeah, I know, round of applause. That was really kind of him. And so, yeah, we're really thankful for him. I didn't buy this. It's not for me personally. It's from the Ministry of Desiring God. Yes. One block over that way. So Desiring God made that happen. Yes.

1:03:36 And so we're really thankful for that. And so you guys can grab two books on your way out. But actually, David, could you just really quickly do like a quick synopsis on each book that we have? All right. So out there, one of the books is Habits of Grace. I gave you that summary. If you want to go more into the idea of Habits of Grace, that's the book Juliana read. Habits of Grace is out there. A second one out there is called Rich Wounds. And these are just meditations about Jesus's life, his death, his resurrection. And the last eight chapters are kind of a daily meditation through Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday. So it's a book about Jesus. And this is my favorite kind of book to write. I got another one in the works on this. I love to write about the glories of Christ to just write out meditations. I'm talking about meditation. Write out meditations on the glory of Jesus. That's called Rich Wounds.

1:04:28 And then the last one is the smallest one. It's the newest one, just came out this summer, called A Little Theology of Exercise. And it is about the place of the body, the story of our physical body in God's economy and in the Bible, and then motivations for pursuing bodily movement exercise that would seek to maximize the health of our souls and our joy. And so the last part are some practical motivations. But if, whether you love exercise or hate it, I hope there's something for you in that little theology of exercise book.