Heart For His Word | Pastor Rebecca Peterson

Outside of Jacksonville, maybe you join us online and you're not connected in a church. But we want you to be connected in a local church, we believe there's so much power in and then I want us to put our hands together for all the men and women who are joining us in correction facilities all across the U.S. So many of you joining us every single week. We love you. You are our church family. I pray that today God speaks to your heart this morning. So wherever you are, lean in, get out your notes, get out your Bible. We're going to cover a lot of scripture this morning. We are continuing our series called Heart for His House. And behind this entire series, over the last couple of weeks, we've been looking at the heart of the house. And so we believe that the church is a gift. We are the body of Christ and let me remind you, right church is His house. The Bible tells us as followers of Jesus, we are His house. He lives in us. And so we want to have the heart of God as we get to build His kingdom together. We want God to work in our hearts so that we can have a heart for God and so that we can have a heart for His church. We have some theme verses we've been digging into every week. I hope you've been memorizing them. Let's look at them together. Psalm 122 says, "I rejoice with those who said to me, let us go to the house of the Lord." Nobody rejoiced. Come on. I'm going to need some rejoicing this morning. It is a privilege to be in the house of God. In Matthew 16, these are the words of Jesus. He says, "I will build my church and all of the powers of hell will not conquer it." If you build on the foundation of Jesus, nothing can stand against it. And so the challenge for this series, all throughout this series has been, you know, what is my heart aligned to? If I have a heart for God and I want to have a heart for His house, then what is my heart aligned to? Because what our heart is connected to and what our heart is aligned to will ultimately be the direction that our life will go. Whatever our heart is connected to, whatever our heart is pursuing, that is where our life will go. And so when it comes to having a heart for God, I want to talk this morning about having a heart for His Word. Having a heart for the Word of God, having a heart for the Bible, the Word of God is a gift. The Bible tells us that it is actually active and alive. It's always working, always moving, and always speaking to us. And so this morning, we're going to cover a lot of Scripture together. And so maybe you're not normally a note taker. I'm going to need you to be a note taker today. You've got a note sheet in the seat back in front of you. You've got a pin there. Some of you love that pin. You take it home. You probably have a blue pin collection at your house. But I want you to take some notes this morning because we're going to cover a lot of Scripture. We might move a little bit quickly and you might get home and say, "What was that Scripture?" And I want to say a couple of things before we jump in because as we're talking about getting into the Word of God,

some of you might already be like, "Oh, I already feel defeated before I even try." And so I want to just lay out a couple of groundwork things for us because let's be honest when it comes to reading God's Word. The Bible is not always easy to read. There is a lot in this thing from cover to cover. Sometimes you're going to read things that don't always make sense. Sometimes you're going to read something that doesn't necessarily apply to your life. And it can feel very overwhelming at times to look at this and say, "Where do I start? What do I read first? What did I just read?" That makes no sense to me. There is a lot going on. You might start to read and start to just feel very defeated. Don't start in the book of Leviticus or you're going to feel very defeated or you might start to read just some really heavy things. The Old Testament can be a very overwhelming God sometimes to read about or you might start to read about someone like Job and you get really depressed really fast. It can be hard, but my encouragement this morning is we want to love God's Word. Even if we don't understand it all, even if our minds can't fully comprehend, don't give up before you start. We commit this morning before we even jump into the message that we're going to be a church that loves the Word of God. And so I'm going to share with you in the end how we believe studying God's Word just practically, how we think that it can work for you. A simple way for you to read God's Word and when we say simple, simple doesn't necessarily mean easy or lazy. It just means simple. It means a way for us to be able to read it and comprehend it and understand it. So show a hand this morning. How many of you have struggled to read the Word of God before? If you're not raising your hand, you're a liar because we all have. Every single one of us have struggled at times. You're not alone, but it matters. And so I think that if we can understand it. I believe that it will come alive to us. And I believe that the stories in God's Word will impact our life. And so our first thought this morning is that God's Word shows us God's heart. If we wanna have a heart for God, and we wanna know God's heart, and we wanna know what God thinks about us, and what He feels about us, then we've gotta get in His Word because His Word, it's not just information, it's not just a bunch of stories,

it is God's direction, it is God's wisdom, it is God's character, it is His will for your life, it is His promises, everything you need is in the Word of God. And if we wanna be connected to the heart of God, then His Word is the path, Psalm 119, 105, says your Word is a lamp for my feet and a light to my path. His Word is our direction for our life. It shows His heart for how He wants us to live. And so we've already been reminded today that what's in our heart will ultimately determine the direction that our life goes. And so if I wanna have a heart for God, and I wanna have a heart for His Word, that I've gotta dig into His Word, and I have to wanna follow it. I have to let it be the light of the path of my life. And His Word's gotta get into our hearts because the next thought is that my heart actually determines what God's Word can produce in my life. My heart, how my heart is right now, will determine what God's Word can do in me. And so Jesus gives us a picture of this in what is called the parable of the sower. And when we read through the gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus tells a lot of parables, which are stories. And He uses a lot of illustrations as He's telling these stories

that were really applicable to the time of the Bible. And so sometimes you might read through some of these parables and think that isn't really super applied to me, but everything can apply to our life. And so we're not gonna read over this entire parable, but homework for you, your first homework assignment to get into God's Word today is to read the parable of sower. You can read it at Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8. It all tells you a different version of the parable of the sower. And so Jesus tells us a story about a farmer. And the farmer represents God in this story. It says the farmer scattered out seed onto the ground and it landed on four different types of soil. And the soil in this story represents the condition of our heart. And so it falls on four different paths, the, or four different soils. First is the path, which is a hard heart. And as soon as the seed falls onto the path, it is snatched away. And where it falls on rocky soil, which represents a shallow heart. And this is people that we receive the word with excitement, we're excitement, excited to hear the word, but life gets hard and there's no root to the seed and it's quickly, just cannot grow any longer. Or it falls on thorny soil, which is a distract, a distracted heart.

And this is the heart that the desires of this world just choke out the seed before it can actually take any root. Or it falls on the goal, which is good soil, which is a receptive heart. And this is the soil where the seed, the word of God falls in that soil. It begins to take root. It grows and it actually begins to produce a harvest. And so this is the goal for us. The seed is scattered, which is the word of God, but it does not produce the same results on every heart that it falls. Why? Because the condition of our heart matters. The seed is good. The word of God is good. This doesn't mean that the word of God is lacking in any bit of power, but it means that our heart is gonna determine whether the seed can actually grow root in our heart and produce something. So we can hear God's word and hear every single week. And that doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna produce something because of the condition of our heart. We can get up every single morning and read God's word, but if our heart is not in a place to receive it, it's not gonna take root. It's not gonna produce anything in us. And so if I could be honest with you, I have read God's word throughout most of my life.

I have journaled through it, but there have been many mornings where I have read his word. I've checked it off the list. I've journaled out my scripture for the day. And if I get to the end of the day, I might not have been able to tell you what I read in the morning because my heart was distracted. There was no root for that seed to begin to grow in. Sometimes I just was too casual about what I was reading in the moment. I was taking seriously that I was reading the word of God. And so our challenge for us today is how is my heart? What is the condition of my heart right now? If I were to open God's word and begin to sit down and begin to receive the word of God, what is happening inside of my heart? And so David models this for us. He says, "Hey, search my heart, God. "Let God search your heart today. "Let him prepare your heart so that when you read "the word of God, when you hear the word of God, "you're able to receive it and once it is in your heart, "now you're able to begin to respond to the word "and to what you've read." Because a heart for his word should produce in us a life of obedience. As we read his word, as we receive his word, it is meant to produce something in us.

God's word is meant to change us. It's not meant to leave us the same. It is active and it is always moving. It is meant to change our lives. And if we have a heart for God, we wanna have a heart for his word, that should produce a life of obedience in us. James 1.22, he says, "Do not merely listen to the word, "and so deceive yourselves." But he says, "Do what it says." I love how direct James is here. James is me. He's like, "Hey, just do what I say." This is how I like to parent my children. This is sometimes how I like to lead people. It doesn't always go over so well. I wanted to say, "Hey, do what I say." Like, this is what I said. I don't want you to ask questions. I just want you to do what I say. And parents, you know, that doesn't really go over well with your children sometimes, right? Like, what I say, doesn't always go well. It really doesn't go great in leadership either. It's very, very poor leadership skills. But James is on to something here. 'Cause he's being very direct. He's like, "If you just read God's word "and you don't do what it says, let's continue on." He says, "Anyone who listens to the word

"but does not do what it says is like someone "who looks at his face in a mirror. "And after looking at himself, goes away "and immediately forgets what he looks like." Anybody ever done this before? I wasn't feeling good this week, and I was in and out of doctor's appointments, and I walked into the house after my second doctor's appointment and I walked into my bedroom, I went to put my pajamas back on, I looked in the mirror and was like, "Dear Lord, "I'm so embarrassed at how I look right now. "And I've been around people. "Like, I was at a doctor's office with somebody "that goes here to this church taking care of me, "and I'm like, Lord, I hope that she forgets "everything she saw today. "But instead, I actually think it's probably permanently "engrained in her mind right now." But he goes on to say, "But whoever looks intently "into the perfect law that gives freedom "and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard, "but doing it, they will be blessed in all they do." He says, "The goal is not just to hear the word of God, "is to hear it, is to receive it, "and to do what God tells us to do. "Being a doer of the word means I'm gonna hear it, "I'm gonna receive it, and I'm actually gonna respond to it. "I'm not just gonna hear it, and write it down and say, "Oh, that was good.

"No, I'm gonna hear it and say, "I wanna do what God is telling me to do. "Sometimes I'll tell my little one, she's eight, "and she's wild. "And I'll say, Emmy, I seen you do what mommy is saying to do. "Did you hear me?" She goes, "Oh, I didn't even hear you. "Like, did you not hear me? "Or did you just not wanna do what I asked you to do? "Sometimes I think this is how we respond to God's word. "We hear it, and we know what God is telling us to do. "We just don't necessarily wanna do what he's asking us to do. "Anybody admit that you felt that way before that God's like, "Here's what I'm telling you to do." And you're like, "Mm, I actually don't think "that's what I wanna do. "Like, did I hear you, right, God? "And we respond to God just like our kids respond." And I was like, "Oh, I didn't know that's what you meant." And God's like, "I'm being pretty clear here with you." So James says, like, don't be foolish. Listen to what God says. Receive what he says because God knows what's best for you. And when we choose to obey and respond, that's when the word starts to move from our head into our hearts. And that's when we begin to see God's word transform and change our lives from the inside out. So read his word, journal it out, get into his word. But let it take root and make the choice

that you're gonna actually do what God's word says and believe that it has the power to change and transform your life. So let's recap. God's word is God's heart to us. And so we've gotta examine our hearts this morning to say, "God, what is the condition of my heart? "Is it in a place to receive your word?" Then we've gotta take his word. We've gotta obey what it says. We've gotta begin to do what his word says. That's when we're gonna begin to see the fruit of God's word begins to come out into our life. And once it is in our hearts now, the word of God becomes our foundation. Matthew seven is where we're gonna be in just a minute. And so this is the gold church. We need the word of God to be the foundation of our life. We don't need to be the foundation of our life. We don't need the world to be the foundation of our life. We don't need people to be the foundation of our life. All of those things are gonna let us down. But we need the word of God to be the foundation of our life. And Matthew seven, Jesus tells us another story, another parable about two people who build their houses on two different types of foundation. So let's read through this in Matthew seven. It says, "Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock."

Says, "The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against the house. Yet it did not fall." Why? Because it's had its foundation on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who builds his house on sand. The rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against the house. And it fell with a great crash. You'd say, if you were gonna build a house, you wouldn't go to the beach and start to build your house right in front of where the waves are. So that's absolutely ridiculous. I'm gonna build my house, I'm gonna lay a foundation. I know nothing about building houses. But I'm certain there's a foundation that they have to lay first before they just start building your house. They don't just put a pile of dirt and start building your house on that. You've gotta have a foundation. You have to have something that your house can be grounded and you've gotta have something that's gonna hold your house to the ground. And so we'd say it's totally foolish to do that. Yet this is what we do sometimes with the word of God. I know I'm so guilty of this. And I just read his word flippantly. Not like it's God's word, not like it is power

that has been given to me. So Matthew says, the wise man builds his house on the rock and notice what Jesus says about him. He hears the words and he puts them into practice. He hears the word of God and he begins to do what the word of God says. He hears the word of God. He lets it take root in his life and he lets it actually change and transform him. He obeys what the word of God says but the foolish man's house it says, fell with a large crash. And we've probably seen this happen in so many people's lives. You've probably seen this happen in your life. That your life was not built on a foundation of Jesus. It was not built on a foundation of truth and life got hard and storms came in your life but because your house was not built on a foundation, when life got difficult, everything just fell apart. It just felt like, what fell apart? My marriage fell apart, my life fell apart, my faith fell apart. It's because we have not allowed God's word to take root in our life. And so the wise man heard and he acted. That's the difference between the two. This is how we choose as followers of Jesus to make the word of God our foundation. This is the difference between just reading his word and doing what it says.

This is the difference between coming in church and just listening to a message and walking out versus coming into church and taking notes and digging in and letting God's word change and transform you because storms are going to come in your life. I hate to remind you. Like some of you are in the middle of them right now. Life has come and it is knocked you down and it has not been easy. And when you are in the real life chaos, you don't need a great sermon. You don't need a perfect worship set. You don't need a great day. You need a word from the Lord. You need your life to be built on truth. And you need a word from the Lord that is gonna carry you and that is gonna sustain you through this season. And if your life is built on a foundation of anything other than the word of God, it's not going to carry you. It's not going to sustain you. But when your life is built on the foundation of the word of God, when you walk through hard seasons and when life comes and those storms are battering up against you, you've got some truth underneath you. And you've got the word of God

that you are calling to mind. There are thousands of promises in God's word to encourage you in whatever season of life you are in. There are promise after promise after promise. We've got God's direction. We have his wisdom. We have his hope. We have everything at our fingertips in God's word. But I am gonna wrap up the message part, and then I'm gonna give you some practical help on how we can apply God's word to our life I was reading through Some of my Bible reading plan over the last couple of weeks and preparing for it today And I was reading through came across Psalm 119 It is a really great song. It's super long. It is actually the longest Longest chapter in all of the Bible there is a hundred and seventy six Verses in Psalm 119 and they're not sure who wrote it something that David wrote it David wrote a lot of the Psalms But it's actually not quite written like David normally wrote most of the Psalms And so most say we don't know who wrote it and this psalm is actually in a cross-stick poem And so there's 22 sections to this one chapter and there's eight verses in each of the 22 sections Which totals a hundred and seventy six verses? So these one hundred and seventy six verses are broken up into 22 sections eight verses into each section and each of them begin with One of the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and so it's this beautiful poem Written and so that might be interesting to you or you might not have understood a word that I just said that's okay I was super I was super interested in this And so his word is referred to in almost every single verse in Psalm 119 all 176 verses Longest chapter in the Bible and the theme is the Bible And so as you that's your second homework today go read through Psalm 119 And it doesn't just talk about the word it actually shows us what the word can do for us If we let the word of God become the foundation for our life

It actually shows us what God's word can do for us and so I read through this whole chapter this week And there's so many verses that we could discuss today so many different verses that just could breathe life over you But I want to close with just a few So Psalm 119 verse 49 through 50 Says remember your words to your servant for you have given me hope My comfort in my suffering is this that your promise preserves my life That when I'm walking through a season of suffering, what's actually gonna save my life What's actually gonna speak life over me the promises of God where are you gonna find the promises of God in this word? Because you're gonna open and you're gonna read promises like in Hebrews when God says I will never leave you or forsake you You're gonna read promises like in Isaiah where he says my perfect peace is gonna be with you You're gonna read promises like God gives you courage instead of fear His promises will breathe life over you and that might be the actually life sustaining thing that you need When life is just knocking you down Because when you're in the thick of it again like you don't need a pep talk You don't need a pat on the back. You need a promise from God. That's gonna sustain your life Let's read these next two verses 92 and 93 in Psalm 119 It says if your instructions hadn't sustained to be with joy, I would have died in my misery I will never forget your commandments for by them you give me life Sometimes when we are in the thick of it and we are walking through really hard seasons in our life I don't know about you, but I have a really hard time getting into God's word like I don't have good clarity in my mind I don't always know what I'm reading, but if I've been digging into God's word and building a foundation for his word When I'm walking through hard things guess what's gonna be able to come to my mind his word the things that I've memorized the scripture That I've gotten into and that's what's going to sustain me. That's what's gonna bring me joy instead of just drowning in my sorrow I Have not always built my life on a foundation of God's word But I'm telling you this when I've walked through the hardest Seasons of suffering in my life. It was his word that carried me There were a lot of things that helped a lot of really great things that will help you when you're walking through hard seasons

But it is his word that is life-giving. It is his word that is unchanging I was hadn't felt great all week and so I was in and out of a couple doctor's appointments And I was up super early one morning I was like four o'clock in the morning, which is so unlike me cuz I sleep like a baby I sleep all night. I have to make myself get out of bed in the morning on the last one out of bed on the weekend So I was up and I said I just want to be asleep right now. And I just began humming this silly little song that I learned when I was probably in preschool. And so if you grew up in the Southern Baptist Church, I'm gonna need you to help me out because I don't wanna sing this song all on my own. But it was very simple, just a couple of lines that was called "The Bible." Raise your hand if you know, 'cause I need to know if I'm gonna be left alone singing this. Okay, it says, the B-I-B-E-L-E. Yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the Word of God, the B-I-B-E-L-E, Bible, come on. I knew we had some people with some Southern Baptist roots in here this morning. But it says, I stand alone on the Word of God. I stand alone on the truth of God's Word, on the promises of God's Word, on the truth of what God thinks about me, on the truth of His heart for me. I stand alone on the foundation of His will for my life, of every story that I read in His Word, of how He carried someone, of how He healed someone,

of how He sustained someone. This is what I build my life upon. It's His Word. It is a good foundation for your life. And when you build it on that foundation, I can promise you this. I promise you this why? Because His Word tells me this, that it will sustain you. It will carry you. It will lead you through the darkest days of your life. It will lead you through the most confusing days of your life. Sometimes I'm praying. I'm like, oh, Lord, I just need your wisdom. I need your help. And He's like, I have given it to you. Get in my Word. Begin to read it, because there's so much in here that's gonna help you in going to sustain you. And so let's commit, Church. We're gonna let God search our heart. We're gonna see what the condition of our heart is. Do I have good soil to begin to receive the Word of God in my life? Let's commit this morning. We're gonna obey what God's Word says, whether we want to or not, whether it's easy or not. We're gonna trust that God, you know what's best for me. And we're gonna build our life on a foundation of His Word.

If you're with me this morning, say yes. - Yes. - Right, we're gonna switch gears really quickly because I wanna give you some practical help. I need practical help. I don't just need the spiritual. I need practical help. I need someone sometimes to grab me by the hand and say, here's a couple of steps that are gonna help you out. And so here's how we believe reading God's Word is. We believe it can be very simple. We use what's called the soap method. And so here's what we're gonna do today. I'm gonna give you a very simple Bible reading plan. If you're good and you're already locked in on a good plan, maybe you've got a Bible reading plan on your app or you're using the soap guy that we have in the lobby, great. But if you're wanting to jump in today and you're like, I don't know where to start. I don't know how to read God's Word. I'm gonna give you a very simple plan that I think is super helpful. And so let's put this up on the screen. I wish I had this to hand out to you, but I don't. And so instead, I'm gonna let you take a picture of this up on the screen. And so here's what I'm gonna encourage you to start today. We're gonna start in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This is gonna show you who Jesus is.

You're gonna read all throughout the Gospels and Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are all gonna have very similar stories. They're gonna tell you different perspectives of different miracles and different moments of the life of Jesus. You're gonna read about from when Jesus was born until Jesus died. You're gonna read about all of the miracles that he did. You're gonna read about all the parables and all the stories that he told. And so we're gonna start there, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Then we're gonna jump into Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, and Colossians. These are four letters from Paul to the church. And so Paul writes these letters and you're gonna read something different in every single letter. Galatians really talks about the freedom that we have in Christ. You're gonna get excited in Galatians. Then we're gonna read about Ephesians. It's gonna talk about who you are in Christ. Maybe you don't know who you are. You're wondering what your identity in Christ is. You're gonna read Ephesians and you're gonna feel confident in who you are in Christ. Then we're gonna jump into Philippians and this talks about being faithful even when life is hard. And it's gonna breathe some life into you

and then jump into Colossians, which is just Jesus above everything else. It talks about the supremacy of Jesus and how Jesus rules and reigns over everything else in our life. And so here's how I want you to read this. One chapter a day. So tomorrow you start in Matthew one. And then on Tuesday you're gonna start in Matthew two and it's gonna take you a while. We've got plenty of content here. And you're gonna read one chapter a day and we follow what we call the soap method. And so I have a journal and we write soap on the top of that journal. I read one chapter a day and then first I'm gonna write out the scripture, the one scripture out of that chapter that really stood out to me. that I feel like jumped off the page at me and you might have to search a little bit hard for it. Maybe you just got to pick one and you're going to write that scripture out in your journal. Then you're going to write out what you observed when you read that scripture. Then you're going to write, how do I apply this to my life? How can I apply this scripture to my life right now, to my season of life? And then you're just simply going to write out a prayer.

God, here's how I want this scripture to take root of my life. Here's how I want this scripture to apply to my life today. You're going to write out that prayer and then just simply pray it to the Lord. Like God, I read through, I read through the freedom that I have in Christ today. Thank you for my freedom, God. I actually want to walk in that freedom today. God, would you help me? Would you remind me of the freedom that I have in you all throughout my day? Help me to call to mind the scripture that I've read today. And that's it. And that's your day one. And then day two, you're going to do the same thing in the next chapter. And here's what I believe. This will give you a foundation and a heart for the word of God. We're simplifying it. We're not dumbing it down. We are simplifying it because we're not always the smartest. And we need a simple plan so that we can dig into God's word because if we make it complicated and confusing, we're going to give up. And so I believe this plan will help you. And so I'm going to invite you to stand. And I want to pray over us this morning

before we close out. And then I have an announcement before we leave. So after I pray, don't start walking out early because we've got one more thing that I want us to jump into this morning. So God, I thank you so much for the word that you have given us. Thank you that it is a gift to us. I pray that we would not take for granted your word that you have poured out for us. It is alive and it is active and it is always speaking to us. And I pray right now, God, that we would hunger for your word, that we would hunger to get into your word every single day. You tell us that your word will not return void. So when we dig into it, God, it will speak to us. It's just up to us whether we're going to receive it into our hearts. And so I pray this morning, God, just for hunger in every single one of us. I pray that we would examine the soil of our heart today and that we would open up our hearts to receive a word from you. And it's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.