Bibles Open | Dream Disciple Series

Good morning, new beginnings. So, so excited to just to join you all in the worship alongside of you all and for you all to be called now my new church family. My wife and I, we're just crazy excited. My wife's name is Nicole and we have four boys together. Yes, four boys. So Bryson, Jonah, Caden, Ezra, Bryson, the oldest is five all the way down to almost three months. So we are crazy, busy, tired at all times, but it is a glorious season, glorious, glorious season. So just can't wait to connect with you all and get to know you all. Excited as well for the Gilmer campus. Can't wait to connect with you all and get to know you and for you all to see and connect with my family. So excited to just dive into God's word with you all and to continue in our Dream Disciple series as I have the honor and the privilege to walk through this idea of keeping our Bibles open. So if you have your Bible, please go to the book of Proverbs and we're going to be in chapter 30 verses one through six, Proverbs chapter 30 verses one through six. I'm going to read God's word, pray, and then we're going to dive into the message. I'm going to start off with a couple of questions. If you have arrived to Proverbs chapter 30, say, the Bible is true. Here's a reading of God's word, starting in verse one. The words of Agur, son of Jaka, the oracle. The man declares, I am weary, O God. I am weary, O God, and worn out. Surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the understanding of a man. I have not learned wisdom, nor have I knowledge of the Holy One. Who has ascended to heaven and come down?

Who has gathered the wind in his fist? Who has wrapped up the waters in a garment? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is his name and what is the son's name? Surely you know. Every word of God proves true. He is like a seal to those who take refuge in him. Do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. Let us pray. Heavenly Father, we have gathered here to hear from you. We're not singing to man, we're singing to you, Father. We don't want to hear the words from man, we want to hear the words from you. You and you alone can change lives, can save, can heal. To re-energize our faith to pursue after you with zeal. Does anyone in this room, anyone to Dear MacCampus that doesn't know you, Father, I pray that you lead them to you and that we just learn some valuable truth by spending time in your word with our Bibles open. We love you and we thank you. Let us say together as a church family, amen, amen. Here's how I want to start off our time, just with a couple of questions. How do we know that Christianity is true? How do we know that the Bible is really the word of God? How do we know if we can really trust in the scriptures that we call holy? How do we know that these scriptures have not been tampered with or edited by some evil and wicked men seeking to have control and power over people? How do we know that Christianity is any better than any other religion or heck, how do we know that religion within itself is not just a scam? Are we just using our imaginations to dream up some supernatural reality and this supernatural reality is just really designed through our imagination to help cope with our daily confusions, our daily struggles, our daily frustrations?

God, if you are real, can you just please show me? Can you draw something in the clouds for me? Maybe visit me in a dream. I've heard of some other people who has encountered you. Can I please encounter you as well? I believe many of us in some way, we have all wrestled with these questions or entertained these questions. Some of us, many of us may believe in God, believe in Jesus, but don't really know how to answer these questions when someone who doesn't believe the way that we do, when we become face-to-face. with these individuals, sometimes we may not feel like we know how to respond and we don't know what to say. And if we're not careful, maybe we have the temptation to exalt ourselves over people who don't believe like us and criticize them and bash them and judge them. Or if we're not careful, we may actually start to wonder the very same questions. Wait a minute. What if they're right? How do I know Christianity is real? Am I only a Christian because I was raised in a Christian home and this is really all I know? Is that why? Am I really just being naive into thinking that my belief in Christianity is right over every other belief that opposes Christianity, that those beliefs are wrong? Is that not naive or arrogant? I mean, who could truly have that much confidence that they can claim to have the right answer to one of the longest debates, questions, thousands of thousands of years old? Who is God? Is there a God? Which God is the right God? These things can be exhausting.

As human beings, we have minds and we have an intellect and we have the ability to study and to think and to examine. And when we examine and process, we take our thinking faculties, our intellect, we examine, we can create all of these formulas, we can take all of these things, but when we apply it to the subject of religion, when we apply it to the subject of the supernatural realm, these things can be extremely exhausting. It can cause us to scream, God, why didn't you just make it just a little bit more clear so everyone could just believe in the exact same thing? Or why is there all of these different belief systems and why do you have to be invisible? And then there's book, man, it's just so old and it can be confusing at times. You want to know what the irony is? We as mankind, we're the greatest of all of the earthly creatures. No other creature has accomplished more than us. We have built, survived, and flourished the way that we have survived and flourished. We have the greatest minds of all of creation. No other creature has an intellect like ours and the very thing that separates us from every other creature is still the very thing that still falls short in our ability to process spiritual things. Our natural minds can't completely discover the things of God. Our ability to think and study and process and examine and these things still will not give us satisfactory knowledge of everything when it comes to God. As we engage the longest debate known to mankind, is there a God? If so, which one? Our minds, what we boast in so much as the human race, still can't give us the supernatural answers we all desperately search us. And church, here's where the word faith comes in. See, we must have the proper understanding of the word faith. A lot of people, if not careful, thinks that faith can contradict reason and intellect and that's not true at all. So some would say, if you got faith in this hand and then you got your intellect and reason

in the other hand, and if you want to be a man and woman of faith, you got to let go of your intellect and reason. Or if you want to be a man and a woman of intellect and reason, you got to let go of faith. Don't listen to that. That's not true at all. Faith, this is so important. Faith doesn't exterminate or denounce reason. Faith just puts our reason and our intellect in its proper place. It just puts it in the appropriate place. Faith doesn't say, just let go all your reason and just let go all your common sense and just blindly believe in something that you can't see. No, no, no, no. Church, faith says, since I'm about to ask you to follow something that you can't see, your intellect and your reason, it actually won't work here. It won't work here. Faith doesn't say intellect and reason is not useful. Faith tells us when our intellect and reason is useful. Here's what I mean. You can't use your reason and intellect and try to put the belief in God in a test tube and then perform a bunch of tests to see if the Christian God is true or not. That's not how it works. You don't lay out all the core Christian doctrines on a whiteboard and start from the book of Genesis to the book of Revelation and then sit back and say, hmm, this all makes intellectually sense to me. Therefore, now I'm going to be a follower of Jesus. That's not how it works. This is what's not talked about often. There was a Christian philosopher, a Christian. by the name of Cornelius Van Til,

and he was crazy passionate about this. Here's what he would constantly talk about. When we try to analyze Christianity like this, it's actually sinful, and it's deeply rooted in pride. Because what it does is it makes you the judge, and it put God's word and his truth on the stand. And then we're the ones sitting back, examining, processing, studying, and if it makes sense, we'll accept. If it doesn't, we reject. In this scenario, who actually holds authority in that situation? It's man, because we're the one that's making the decisions. It's the person who treats the true claims of Jesus Christ this way. We don't have the right to sit back and say, hmm, this makes sense, therefore I believe in you, God. This doesn't make sense, therefore I don't believe. The way we encounter the one and living God is not through our intellect and reason. So here's the question. Well how do we know? If we can't use the greatest thing known to mankind, which is our intellect and our reason, to prove his existence, then what can we do? I believe Proverbs chapter 30, verses one through six, gives us an amazing framework that we're about to walk through in a minute. But before we do so, listen very closely. God's word cannot be examined to prove its truth.

God's word must be wholeheartedly followed and submitted to for you to understand the validity of what we see here in his word. This is where we receive confidence. This is very important. God doesn't come to us and say, hey, here's the belief system that comes with following me, I wanna give it to you, and you can just go home, you can take your time, you can study it, and then get back with me on if you think this is right or not. It's not how it works. This is how it works. When you encounter the one and living God, he's gonna say one thing to you. He's gonna tell you to follow him. That's gonna be the command. Follow me. God told Abraham to follow him, and he did. Jesus told the young rich ruler to follow him, and he didn't. Abraham heard God's word, and he responded with what, church? Faith. The young rich ruler heard Jesus' words, and he responded with what, church? Reason. It wasn't reasonable for him to let go of all of his riches to follow him. And then what did Jesus say

as the young rich ruler was walking back? Man, I would've gave this guy 100 times more than what he already has if he would've let go of his possessions and followed me. But since the young rich ruler didn't take the first steps of faith to follow Jesus, he couldn't see where the true reward actually was at, which goes back to our main point. Faith says, since I'm asking you to follow something that you can't see, your intellect and your reason is actually not helpful here. So faith doesn't say just let it go completely. Faith just tells us when to use it. So when you encounter the living God, he's not gonna say, hey, you know, if it makes sense, you know, I want you to sit back and think and use your reason and, you know, if it all clicks, come and follow. No, when God blesses us with the ability to encounter his presence, he doesn't say, if it makes sense, follow me. He commands all of us as creator, as God, as judge and Lord over all, follow and surrender to his word. So let's spend the remainder of our time Proverbs chapter 30, verses one through six. And we're gonna start with the first part of verse one. The first part of verse one says, the words of Agur, son of Jaka, the oracle. Let's just pause here for just a little bit.

There's actually a debate among scholars on who this individual Agur actually is. Some say maybe this is just a nickname for Solomon. There's a lot of people who disagree with that. Others say maybe he is one of Solomon's counselors. So he's with Solomon in his royal counseling group. And this is why he has the ability to write in the scriptures. Many believe, disagree in that as well. Here's what I think is the right explanation of who this individual is. Many believe that he's a Gentile who also happens to be a prophet. The reason why many think he's a Gentile because here he uses the word, the oracle. The oracle is not common language that we see here in the Proverbs, the oracle. The oracle means words from the divine. So he is speaking on behalf of God, but he's not of the Jewish people. He's not an Israelite. But since he is a prophet, it's very clear we need to pay attention to the words that he is about to say. So, This prophet says the man declares I am weary Oh God I am weary Oh God, and I'm worn out So it's interesting. What what is making this individual so exhausting? Is he tired? Is he worn out like us Americans, right? We're crazy busy Anxious about so many things so many decisions so many emails phone calls bills to pay family drama a job searches

Which college should he attend which person should he date? Nope. I don't think that's what's driving him to exhaustion It's not our modern-day struggles. He's weary and exhausted for other reasons. Let's go to the next verse He says surely I am too stupid to be a man. I have not the right understanding of a man so the text says that he's worn out because of his own stupidity and And depending on what translation you read it says he is a brute so he is dumb he's not smart enough He's like a brute a man that lacks in intellect and reason so we need a little bit more context Why is a guard starting off his proverb like this? We don't really know too much about him But according to his own words, he's an idiot. So let's see what's actually happening. It's okay. We can laugh in church he says I Have not learned wisdom Nor I have I knowledge of the Holy One Now we see that the stupidity that a guard identifies himself in It's not really an insult to his intellect and reason. I Don't really believe he's talking about earthly knowledge and earthly wisdom He's talking about heavenly knowledge and heavenly wisdom Remember we got to understand when our intellect and reason is actually useful Intellect and reason can't tap into knowledge from heaven. You can't study it like you study scientific equations You can't observe it like you do the animal kingdom Yes, there are all of these disciplines in theology that we use intellectually to study God but if you think a theological education is what makes you wise then your theology and your education is actually not that good and so Agur is not interested in what the natural mind can discover He's interested in what the supernatural mind can give. This is what he's focused on Supernaturally speaking when we are talking about the things of heaven. He's like I'm stupid I haven't learned it. I'm a brute idiot And then he asked a bunch of rhetorical questions that if you're familiar with the book of Job, this should kind of sparks in your memory verse 4 He says who has ascended to heaven and then who's come down who has gathered the wind in his fist

Who has wrapped up the waters in his garment who has established all of the ends of the earth? It's obvious what he is saying is no human being has the ability to use their minds and use their intellect To have all ultimate understanding. There's only one individual one who is who has gone up and come down from heaven There's only one who can gather the wind with his fist There's only one who can contain all the waters and knows the end of the earth. Who is that? It's obviously not mankind and our puny intellect He's talking about God here, this is rhetorical question I obviously pointed to God the creator of everything. He's the only one with full Understanding and then he transitions to the heart of our of our message verse 5 He said at the end of verse 4 He says what is his name and what is his son's name surely, you know, and then the next verse says Every word of God proves true He is a shield to those Who take refuge in him We really need to understand and and and understand the significance of this statement He didn't say every word of God is true. That is a true statement So I'm not saying that's not a true statement, but he didn't say every word of God is true He said every word of God proves True Well, if we can't prove God's Word scientifically and we can't use our reason in our intellect How do we know if it can actually be proven true? It's not in our studying it. It's not in our debating it It's not in comparing it to other religious texts These things are helpful at times but it's not that the way that we prove the validity of the truth of God's Word It's by living it through faith Another way of saying verse 5 is every word of God has been tested See once again, we hear that word test we start want to bring out the equations. No, no, no No, that's the wrong form. Nope wrong measurements the way we truly test Yes, God's word is this.

It proves to be true by placing your faith in his word and that faith will lead you to obedience. And when that happens, you will always end up standing on the right side of truth, always, church. When we do so, we will always receive heavenly blessings. We won't always receive earthly blessings. We know that, right? Saying yes to the word of God, we actually may lose out on some earthly blessings. But saying yes to the Lord through his word, we'll always gain heavenly blessings. And with the eyes to see the heavenly blessings, far triumph any earthly blessings we can ever receive. This is what Jesus was trying to get the young rich ruler. But that doesn't make sense to your intellect, to the natural mind. This is how we prove it. Following God and his word is what actually gives you that confidence. Not sitting back, studying his word, looking for it to be right or wrong. And because this statement is true, verse six is vitally important. Verse six says, do not add to his words, lest he rebuke you and you be found a liar. The words that we add will be proven a lie. And since we were the ones that added onto his words, the text says we are the actual liars. And if this is us, we will be rebuked. So here's what I wanna do for the remainder of our message.

Let's kind of give like an overview summary of what we just walked through in these six verses. And we're gonna close with three application points that I pray really ministers and challenges and encourages your soul. Here's the first one. True wisdom is boasting in how stupid you are. You really are. Stupidity is in boasting in how wise you think you are. Thank you, brethren. True wisdom is boasting in how stupid you really are. Stupidity is boasting in how wise you think you are. What's so interesting about people who disagree with the Christian faith is, they say your belief system just makes you so arrogant. You think out of all of the religions of the world, your religion is the right one? Out of all of the ancient religious writings in the world, your Bible is the only one that gets it right. Out of billions of people who have debated this billions of time with their own unique billions of experiences, how arrogant are you Christians? You think you got this right. You just think you got all of the answers. I'm sure many of you all have heard that before. Maybe some of you all feel that way about Christians and you wouldn't identify yourself as a follower of Christ now. Church, the people who say this about Christianity, about Christians, they actually have it all wrong.

We Christians don't arrogantly think we have all of the answers. Matter of fact, the only reason why we think we're right about Jesus is because we have already acknowledged that we are wrong about everything else in life that even matters. We have to understand that we don't arrogantly think this. You shouldn't. The wisdom that we claim to have in the scriptures doesn't come through our intellect. It comes through our acknowledgment that we're actually really spiritually stupid. This is another time to say amen. We are. And our faith in Christ is actually what protects us from our spiritual stupidity, doesn't it? Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. The words of Agar basically quoting Matthew chapter five. Our spirit is so poor, it's bankrupt. It's empty of all intelligence. And only when we see ourselves that way, view ourselves that way, will you have the ability to truly see God for who he actually is. Christians should never feel arrogant because of our belief systems in Christ. Because our belief and faith in his word, it's actually centered on what we lack. Our whole Christian faith is centered on the fact that we lack righteousness, we lack integrity,

we lack honesty, we lack purity, we lack everything that's worthy enough to get us into heaven. Which is why we need a savior in the first place. There ain't no way we can walk around in arrogance thinking that we got all the right answers. Our faith is centered on the very things that we don't have, which is why we have to fight. Follow the very person who has it. This is where our faith is centered on. Yes, we think our faith is right and every other belief system is false. We say this boldly, we say this confidently, we never say it arrogantly. We never say it arrogantly. Why? Because until we truly understand how spiritually stupid we are, we won't even be able to receive Jesus Christ in the first place. That's where it first starts. I have nothing. Point number two. This is important, church. True confidence in God's word is received after we have consistently obeyed it, not beforehand through examination and studying it. This makes sense? Confidence in God's word is received after we have consistently obeyed it,

not beforehand through examination and studying it. I hope this is really clear. See, as human beings with our intellect and formulas, we like to test something out first before we like it to see if we like it. And if we do like it, then we will commit to it. We do a walkthrough before we buy a home. We get it tested, we get it appraised, we get it surveyed. We test drive the car before we purchase it. We wanna look out in the interior. We need to pop the hood, look at the engine. We need to check the brakes. We date a person before we marry them. We visit a school before we enroll in it. We try shoes on before we actually purchase them. But these things, these measurements, they don't work when it comes to the God of the universe. We don't take God on a test drive, church. That's not how it works. We don't take him on a test drive. To see if he's suitable enough for our lifestyles. That puts us in control of the situation. That puts us in the position as the judge. When you test drive a car, you only say yes if the car is performing for you the way you would want it to. Oh, that's very wicked and disgusting to look at God that way. I'm only gonna believe in you

if you're performing the way I want you to. But if we're not careful, that's kind of how we naturally wanna approach God is that way. But we're the one that needs to be performing. He tests us. We don't test him, which is why the scripture says, do not put God to the test because the one who is distributing the test, that's the individual who's in control. Which is why we're not supposed to put God to the test in this manner. Confidence in the word of God is not obtained through a series of tests and examinations. And if it passes your test, then you start to submit with confidence. No, no, no, confidence in the word of God can only be had after we listen to his word with all of our heart, mind, soul, and strength. This is why every word of God proves true. It's been tested, not on a whiteboard church, it's been tested. Go and ask someone who's been faithfully living and following his word for many, many, many years. They will tell you every time I submit to his word, I am protected from my stupidity. Every time I go outside of his word, I am smacked in the head with my stupidity. It's proven to be true. This world is broken, we are broken.

This world is confusing, we are confusing. This world is wicked. Remember church, the same wickedness that's out in this world. It's also in our hearts, which means destruction and pain and chaos is inevitable. It will happen. And you can bet your life on it when it happens. You following his word is the only way you're gonna get out of that chaotic season with peace, with hope, with any vision of the true meaning and the true purpose of life. You can bet your life on it, that's what's gonna happen. But that's the key. You actually have to bet your life on it. Because if you don't, then you won't have that confidence. Or we can just use the words of Jesus, give up your life. And then you will see that his word proves to be true. See, it doesn't work. We don't get to hold onto our lives and then study God's word to see, you know, study it to see if it's worth following. You won't gain any confidence there. We have to put our yes on on the table, which moves to our final point. Number three, adding to the words of God is the same as declaring yourself to be God. Adding to the words of God is the same as declaring yourself to be God. so to be God.

See, sometimes we add to the words of God by mistake. We use our intellect and our reason to study theology. There's a vast history of theological doctrines, belief systems, and there are thousands of really, really smart theologians who are really, really wrong about a certain thing. All of us are included. None of us can confidently say every idea that I have about God that I've studied is accurate. None of us can say this. So sometimes when we engage in theological and biblical studies, we believe in things about God's word that's actually not true. And then what do we do? We teach them to others. And in essence, we are adding or maybe taking away from God's word. This is wrong and should be repented of when the Lord reveals to us that we did not think correctly. But this is not the true heartbeat behind verse six. I don't think so. Of course, we're gonna be wrong about God sometimes. We just talked about how stupid we are. We're gonna get it wrong when we study sometimes. What this proverb is warning us is in creating rules and creating laws that's outside of the words of God, but we're treating them as if they are inside the words of God. So we say, the Bible says it's a sin

when we do fill in the blank. And then we take the word and we read through it and then the scriptures doesn't say it's a sin if you fill in the blank. That is adding onto the words of God. You are in fact doing so and God will call you a liar. And when we do this, we are declaring ourselves to be God because only God has the right, the ability, the authority to say, this is sinful. This is not sinful. This is wicked. This is not wicked. This is clean and this is dirty. Only the Lord has the ability to do so. So when we throw our two cents in seeking to add to it, we are ultimately saying, well, we actually have the right to declare something too. But we don't, we don't have that right because we are not God and God doesn't need our help. He's been doing this for a very long time. He knows what he's doing. Every time we add to the words of God, we're just seeking to elevate our own opinion and our own experiences and our own wisdom by telling other people how they should live. And this is why the first part of this proverb is so important. He introduced himself as a stupid individual. If we just took that posture, we wouldn't even, who gives a rip about what we say?

We wouldn't even care to open our mouths about that because we don't even have that much confidence in ourselves. We only have confidence in what God's word clearly teaches. So here's how I want to close our time. I wanna close it with just three opportunities to respond. Number one, maybe you're the individual in the room listening at the Gilmore campus and you haven't really thought about it, but you've been approaching Christianity and trying to put Jesus on a test drive, God on a test drive. Let's be clear. You can do a test drive with church. You can do a test drive with religion. You can do that. You can't do a test drive with the one and living true God. It doesn't work that way. So maybe you've been looking at it this way and you actually have not delivered and surrendered everything to the Lord because you're still trying to put him to the test and you're still trying to see, well, if this happens, then I'll follow you. If that's you, I would encourage you just to come up and just pray at the altar and maybe find someone to speak to and ask the Lord to just free you from the desire to hold on and to put him to the test

and just give everything to him. Maybe you're the believer and you're actually having a hard time believing that God's word really is going to protect. Maybe you feel like you're in a season where every time you say yes to God, instead of him being a shield to you, you feel like you saying yes to his word is like a magnet for chaos and destruction. You obey and then something bad happens. You feel like you're doing what you're supposed to do and you look up and there's no fruits. If that's you, I would encourage you to come and also pray because here's what's so important. Keep believing and keep obeying, even when you feel this way. Because see, this is how it works. Our faith is what leads us to obedience. And then when we obey, we kind of get excited and it can pump our obedience and then it starts to pump our faith and it just keeps going. Our faith makes it easier to obey. disobedience and then it makes it easier easier for us to have faith so then we have faith and then it keeps going our faith gets encouraged it gets stronger and then we obey if that's the truth then the opposite is also the same we can be in a season where it's like man my faith is taking a hit and then it makes it harder to do what obey so then we disobey and then it makes it harder to do what have faith and then the cycle keeps going so maybe there's someone in the season that's in that cycle negatively and you want to be energized with the lord to boost your faith so you can walk in obedience or maybe the last one

the last person in the room maybe you are like i finally listened to the lord and there were some beautiful things that happened i just want to come up here and show my gratitude to my heavenly father for protecting me from my stupidity if that's you just come up and pray and thank him the truth of the matter is god's word is true you can bet your life on it but that's the thing we got to open up our bibles and bet our life on it because whatever it is that we hold back this is where the doubts start to creep in because god doesn't let us sit back and just put them on a white board and just examine them and then make a decision oh no no no when you encounter the one and true living god he's going to tell you one thing he's going to ask you one thing he's going to command you one thing follow me and i pray that my new church family we can all do that together follow him and christianity is not anti-intellectual no but faith does tell us when our intellect is useful and when it's not so i pray that we can walk boldly in that dearly father we love you and we thank you please lead your your people to respond if someone in this room who has been feeling like they just trying to test drive you if there's someone at the gilmore campus who feels like they're just putting you through a test no god that's not how it works so you just reveal yourself to them so they can surrender everything to you maybe there's someone listening that is struggling with seeing the fruit of obedience seeing the fruit of faith can you encourage them put the right people in their life and maybe there's someone who's walking in the positive fruits of it right now they just need to come and say thank you jesus for protecting me from me whatever it is that you want your people to do lead us to respond in faith and lead us into the waters where we cannot see we love you we thank you let the church say together amen amen