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We've all had moments where we knew that if we didn't prepare for what was coming, we would miss out on something significant—perhaps one of the greatest joys of our lives, maybe something life-changing.
I'm reminded of a friend named Brian, a college student I discipled. He came to me wanting help asking a girl named Ivy on a date. Ivy was kind, godly, and beautiful. I told Brian, "You're not ready, but I will help you." When she said yes, I realized we had a bigger problem. Brian had never driven in America, never been downtown, and didn't have a car. So we prepared. We studied maps, understood the one-way streets, and I told him: "Your life—the life you want—is in this map."
Here's the point: God wrote a book. This book is a map. It's a map to the life you and I want. It's a map to everything you really want. The world says, "Draw your own map." That's ridiculous. You don't want to make your own mistakes when wise people have already traveled these roads before you. And here's the truth: you can't fix your life with the map that broke it. You need a new one.
When Nehemiah brought God's people back and rebuilt the wall, he asked, "What do God's people need most right now?" The answer was clear: they needed a new map. They had lost God's word and his wisdom. That's when Ezra enters the story.
Ezra 7:10 reveals what drove his greatness: "Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the Lord and to do it and to teach his statutes and rules in Israel." He resolved something in his heart.
There's something powerful when men and women resolve to do something. I think God doesn't do some things in history until there's a man or woman who resolves to see it done. When you make resolutions for God, you get a special power from God to do it.
I want to challenge us with resolution number one as a church: to be a lifelong learner of God's wisdom in his word. If you don't, you're going to make wrong turns, hit dead ends. Some of you will drive off a cliff. We need this map.
Let me give you three tools that have been most helpful in my life for learning God's word.
Commit to read through all of the Bible. Not just your favorite parts over and over, but all of it.
Psalms 119 says, "The word of the Lord is a lamp and a guide to my feet, a light for my path." The Bible has 800 stories of men and women just like you and me. What I love about it is that it's real. It doesn't hide people's mistakes. It shares that wisdom so you don't have to make those same mistakes.
2 Timothy 3:16 says, "All scripture is breathed out by God. And it's useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, training in righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." When I became a parent, I didn't feel equipped. But I realized knowing the Bible helped me know how to parent because I could connect God's truth to real scenarios in my children's lives.
No church and no preaching style can do this for you. You have to resolve: "I am going to be a person that reads all 66 books of God's word." It might sound overwhelming, but you just have to start.
I have two boys, and they sit on the couch like your kids, and we want them to touch grass. One day, my son Aiden just got up, put on his shoes, opened the door, and started running. He ran four laps around our neighborhood. The next day he tried to do it in 11 minutes. Now he's running 10 miles. Something happened in his brain. He just got started. He wanted a preferable future for himself.
Proverbs 4:7 says, "The beginning of wisdom is this, just get wisdom. Though it cost you all you have, get understanding." You can read the entire Bible in a year if you just read 30 minutes three times a week.
I've never finished a one-year Bible plan—I don't like being told what to do. But what I've done is choose a specific thing to track as I read through the whole Bible. Once I went through and categorized all the proverbs. Another time I tracked all the commands. Another Bible, I highlighted everything about God's heart for the nations. Then one about being real with God, self, and others. Having something driving you to read through all of Scripture helps you stay engaged.
We're going to run into people in heaven. I mean, eventually you're going to meet Adam, Peter, and you're going to turn around and someone's going to say, "I'm Obadiah." And he's going to go, "You didn't read it, did you?" And you're going to have to say, "No man, it was just one chapter."
Sometimes I treat my Bible the way I view going to the gym. When you first start, it's a delight. You see results immediately. You're like, "This is awesome." But for many of us, it moves from delight to duty. We're checking boxes, journaling, but it doesn't feel alive.
For me, it went delight, then duty, then desperation. When I turned 50, I had pain. I was experiencing the pain of feeling like a failure as a dad, as a husband, as a leader. There are seasons where you go to the Bible out of desperation. But you know what? Anger is fixable. Lust is fixable. Fear is fixable. If you will resolve to study God's word.
How many of you own a smartphone? I'm always highly aware where my phone is. I think I'm addicted to it. Even when I get out of my car to get gas, I leave the door open because my phone is in there.
I once got lost in the woods without my phone. It was 1993, and the iPhone wouldn't exist for 15 years. I had no GPS, couldn't call 911, couldn't text, had no maps, compass, or flashlight. I couldn't even post about it. Do you feel the anxiety I was feeling? That's how everyone felt back then. That's how your parents felt all the time.
2 Peter says, "By his divine power God has given you everything you need." Everything you need is not in that smartphone. It's in this book. God's wisdom is a tool that's only helpful if you have it with you when you need it. And there's only one way to have God's word with you all the time: memorize it.
I don't know any mature Christian who doesn't have many scriptures memorized and hidden away in their heart. Resolution two: commit to stockpile God's wisdom by memorizing scripture.
Deuteronomy 11 says, "Fix these words of mine in your hearts and your minds, not in your desk, not in your phone, fix them in your hearts and minds. Tie them as symbols on your hands, bind them on your foreheads, teach them to your children, talking about them when you sit down at home and when you walk along the road and when you lie down and when you get up. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and your gates."
When Jesus was tempted in the wilderness, he didn't have time to pull up his Bible app. He quoted scripture from memory—all from Deuteronomy. His parents obeyed Deuteronomy 11 and taught him to hide God's word in his heart.
Solomon teaches his son in Proverbs 3: "My child, never forget these things I've taught you. Store my commands in your heart. If you do this, you will live many years and your life will be satisfying." You want a long and satisfying life? Then hide God's word in your heart.
You might say, "I can't do that." But you have so many useless facts, baseball stats, addresses, people's names, phone numbers. I can quote almost all of Dumb and Dumber. I know songs I don't even like that get stuck in my head. If you can do that, you can memorize scripture.
John Piper says, "We memorize scripture the way an ant gathers food in the summer, knowing it's valuable and it will be needed in the winter." If there's a sin defeating you, memorize scripture around that sin. David said, "I've hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you."
If you struggle with lust, try Job 31:1: "I made a covenant with my eyes not to look lustfully at a woman." If you struggle with fear, try Psalms 56:3: "When I am afraid, I will trust in you, in God whose word I praise."
Memorizing scripture allows me to take it with me, but it also makes me slow down. There's something really powerful that happens when we slow down and think about the words that God has spoken to us. The Bible is living and active, and it begins to speak back to us.
My wife and I are in a season where our oldest just graduated from high school. A week after he walked the stage, he packed up and moved into a seven-week discipleship project. There was a lot of transition. Mom and I handled it very differently. I was relieved—he's independent now. My wife was sad and full of doubt. Did we prepare him? Did we do enough?
During that week, I was at a retreat and we meditated on Ecclesiastes 3:2: "There is a time for everything under the heavens. A time to plant, and a time to uproot what is planted." That phrase stuck out to me.
We've been populating succulents around our house this summer. And God spoke to me: "What if uproot doesn't mean death? It means multiplication. You have planted your son in God's word. You've planted him in this church. You've planted him in godly community. And now we're uprooting him. He's not dying. He's going to a bigger pot. He's going to better soil where he can multiply."
I texted my wife, and when I didn't have words for her, God had words for us when we slowed down. Christians call this meditating on God's word.
Resolution three: slow down and meditate on every word. Joshua 1:8 says, "This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night so that you may be careful to do everything that's written in it. Then you will be prosperous and you will have success."
The world is the opposite of this. My brain has almost been untrained to meditate on things. I don't like to sit in emotions very long. Swipe. Have you tried to just sit and listen to somebody lately? How much do you want to go, "Okay, let's swipe past this"? What are we missing by having our brain trained to swipe so quickly? We're missing God's voice.
I force meditation into my time in the Bible using the inductive Bible study method. It's simple: read through a passage and look for seven things—descriptions of God or man, repetitions, contrasts, comparisons, commands, warnings, and promises. This means you'll read it maybe seven to 10 times. Count things. In the book of John, the word "believe" appears 98 times. What if you began reading the Bible just looking for all the promises? Imagine having that on your shelf. Imagine what God would say to you as you slow down and meditate.
Psalms 1:2-3 says, "But the righteous delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted among the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do." Do you hear that theme? They prosper. They're secure. They're nourished. They flourish. This is the map to the life that you want.
Most of all, this is a map to God's son who kept these commands when we couldn't. It leads us to him. When we find him, we not just find someone who saves—we find somebody who speaks.
I memorized John 14:21 in college: "Whoever has my commandments and keeps them is the one who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my father, and I will love him and I will disclose myself. I will show myself to him." Jesus wants to not just save you. He wants to speak to you.
You can experience a miracle when you open this book. When you open this book, it is a portal to the voice of God in your life. It's a miracle he communicated with us at all. But to have a book of his words—it's not everything he wants to say, but it's all we need.
When Rebecca and I were first dating, we went two separate ways one summer. She was at a discipleship project in Florida, and I was 6,000 miles away in Ukraine. It was 1997. We didn't have email. We had no way to talk for 10 weeks, and I was dying. She's in Florida with all these guys. I'm in Ukraine eating borscht with Vladimir. I'm convinced she's going to forget about me.
I found one phone portal in the train station in Kharkiv, Ukraine. For me to get a hold of her, four miracles had to happen. I spent a lot of money to buy 10 minutes for this call to America. The first miracle: the phone had to work because it's Russia, basically Ukraine. I call the hotel in Florida. It rings 40 times. Finally someone picks up. I say, "I'm calling from Russia. Can you transfer me to this room number?" That's miracle two. The phone rings 20 times. Someone picks up. "This is Ashley." That's miracle three, but not who I wanted. I say, "Ashley, this is Claude. I'm calling from Russia. Can you get Rebecca?" She goes to get her.
I'm watching the clock. Vladimir's like, "This is stupid idea." Then I hear a commotion. Someone picks up. "This is Julie." I'm like, "Julie, I'm calling for Rebecca from Russia." She's like, "Oh, what's Russia like?" I'm like, "They eat fish Jell-O, okay? Not now, Julie. Go get Rebecca." She goes.
I'm watching my time run out. But then I hear it. From across my universe, I hear this high, small voice say, "This is Rebecca." I said, "Rebecca, I miss you so much." She said, "Claude, I miss" click.
I had a lot more to say. But I don't know how to tell you how important that moment was, how much I needed that that summer. Listen, God found a way. He found a way through time and eternity. He found a way through spiritual to physical because he loved you. He didn't say everything an infinite God can say, but he gave you enough for this life.
Will you resolve to set in your heart again? God, restart us. Not even from duty or desperation, but God, restart our heart back with delight. To delight in your word. Would you resolve to become a lifelong learner in God's wisdom?
Let's pray. God, thank you for your word. We've forgotten how desperately we need it. Allow us to delight in it again. You found a way not just to save us, but to speak to us what we need most. God, we want to renew our hearts to a lifetime study of your word. God, give us the resolve to fill our hearts and our minds with all of your truth. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
