RESPOND TO GOD'S WORD
Stephen Bly
Circa early1980s
PSALM 19 (NASB)
“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; and their expanse is declaring the work of His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard. Their line has gone out through all the earth, and their utterances to the end of the world. In them He has placed a tent for the sun, which is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber; it rejoices as a strong man to run his course. Its rising is from one end of the heavens, and its circuit to the other end of them; and there is nothing hidden from its heat.
“The law of the Lord is perfect, restoring the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple. The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes. The fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the judgments of the Lord are true; they are righteous altogether. They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold, sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them Thy servant is warned; in keeping them there is great reward. Who can discern his errors? Acquit me of hidden faults. Also keep back Thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not rule over me; then I shall be blameless, and I shall be acquitted of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer.
MARK 4:1-9 (NASB)
“And He began to teach again by the sea. And such a very great multitude gathered to Him that He got into a boat in the sea and sat down; and the whole multitude was by the sea on the land. And He was teaching them many things in parables, and was saying to them in His teaching, ‘Listen to this! Behold, the sower went out to sow; and it came about that as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up. And other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of oil. And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away. And other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop. And other seeds fell into the good soil and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and s hundredfold.’ And he was saying, ‘He who has ears to hear, let him hear.’”
Prayer: “Father, I do pray that we’ll have ears to hear and minds to react and bodies that will be obedient to your Word, for I pray it in Jesus Name, Amen.”
What's Your Faith Like?
If your faith was an amusement park ride, what would it look like? Maybe yours would be a brightly colored merry-go-round, beautifully painted, with ups and downs, but basically go round and round the same old track year after year. And maybe once in a while you reach out for a brass ring, but not very often.
Or maybe yours would be like the roller coaster, slowly going up, while growing and maturing at a very slow rate, then almost coming to a standstill, then dropping out of sight until you start up again on another hill. Or maybe your faith’s more like one of those rides that spin around until almost out of control and against that centrifugal force, the bottom drops out.
Some of you might be more like one of those kiddie train rides, little cars on flat tracks going barely a mile an hour, with a steady putt-putt.
It used to be at Disneyland where they had A, B, and C coupons. Using the A coupons got you on the milder rides and wilder rides required B or C coupons. What kind of coupon would your spiritual life require?
Do you need a boost to get your spiritual life going? There are some things you can do. You can remove some obstacles, expose your faith, and let Jesus lead. You do this by responding to the Word of God.
How to Respond to Word of God
First, nurture the Word that you receive.
Mark 4:8,9, “And other seeds fell into the good soil and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.” And He was saying, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”
The ground that seeds germinate and grow in doesn’t depend upon the number of seeds. It depends on the quality of the ground. And it would be a strange thing to go out into a garden with dirt baked by years of unuse and to see twelve years’ worth of seed laying on top rotting away. Some spiritual lives are that way. More seed received but falling on the seed from the week before that never planted or sown.
How we respond to the Word depends upon how ready and prepared we are to receive it, not just how often it’s received. It also depends upon what you have done in the past. Are those seeds growing? And what will you do with the new seeds? You can leave the ground foul. If you leave it long enough, it will develop a crisp crust on top and needs to be turned over again.
That’s true in our spiritual life too. If we’re not prepared to receive the present seed, nothing’s going to grow. The Word tells us we must prune back a few things to let that seed grow. That means not only our busyness, but Jesus said, “And the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful (Mark 4:19).”
Holy Clutter
But sometimes we have to worry about holy clutter. We need to lift and blast and chuck. If your heart’s full of hardpan, you need to do a little whipping or beating. If you’re spiritual life’s fallow, it needs to be turned over. Sometimes we need to dig down deep with some major reversal. That’s what happens when you’re trying to plow up that pathway and make it into farmland again. You’ve got to turn that soil over, press it and break it.
If you don’t know Christ, you need to seek and reach out to Him. If you haven’t been into the Word lately, you need to dig in and study. If you’ve been holding back from sharing your faith, you need to make a major reversal. You need to rip some things up.
Shallow Spiritual Lives
Sometimes our spiritual lives are quite shallow. We may need to blast like a hardpan farmer does. My granddad used to be proud he was a hardpan farmer. Hardpan in the California central valley is petrified dirt, hard as a rock. In fact, it is a rock. You have to dig it out. And if you’re planting something like an orange tree, you need to dynamite a hole in preparation. A shallow spiritual life may take some blasting of some kind, such as radical yielding to God’s Holy Spirit to get going.
You also may need to chop back some of the clutter to let the seeds grow. And sometimes we have holy clutter. I’m the kind of guy that likes my desk to be immaculately clean. I don’t want even loose papers strewn around. But things pile up.
One Sunday morning I entered my office and there on my desk was a stack of books that I often use as resources, plus my calendar, six music books to look at for high schoolers, a couple commentaries on the Book of James for a college students’ study, and an operational stewardship folder for a weekly meeting, some marriage counseling notes from earlier in the week for an upcoming wedding, and a marriage license because of a recent wedding. Also, there were three Bibles, and several applications for the position of Pastor of Youth Ministries, and an Isaiah commentary for a Sunday night meeting, plus two binders, a large dictionary, a thesaurus, a stack of assorted printer paper, three pens, a fingernail clipper, a coffee cup, a tape holder, and a Dictionary of Words of the American West. And somewhere in the midst of all that should be my sermon, but I couldn’t find it.
Our spiritual lives can get like that, full of clutter. Sometimes we need to chop back some things. Before church or Sunday School, before any kind of Bible study, here’s an acronym to remember: COY.
BE COY
C = Confess
We sometimes come to the Lord with so many things on our mind, He couldn’t get a word in if He wanted to. And we need confession. “Lord, I’m so busy and I’m tired and I’ve crowded you out.” Tell Him the truth about where you’re at.
O = Obey
Second, be ready for obedience. Say, “Lord, I don’t know what kind of seed you want to plant, but I’m ready to obey.” And listen to what He says.
Y = Yield
Third, we need to be yielding to Him as He brings new things in our lives. The next time you come to church, be prepared by taking a few minutes to confess, then be ready to obey, and to yield to the Holy Spirit. Do what it takes to position yourself to be fully attentive to hear. And if anyone asks what you’re doing, tell them, “I’m being coy and smart.” We need to nurture God’s Word in our lives and then extend it to others.
Mark 4:21, “And He was saying to them, ‘A lamp is not brought to be put under a peck-measure, is it, or under a bed? Is it not brought to be put on the lampstand?”
We need to expose the Word of God happening in our lives to other people. Open it up for examination. You should be able to name at least three people who know what’s going on in your spiritual life on a regular basis. Why would you want to do that? The passage above says not to hide your light under a basket.
“But what if,” you say, “I expose my light, it goes out? Or it’s not too bright? Or it offends those in darkness?”
Some Answers
It won’t. It isn’t. And it will.
First, exposure never killed anybody’s faith. If it can’t stand exposure, it isn’t there.
Second, what if our light’s not too bright? There are very few bright stars in God’s horizon. But we all have a little flicker. And when we get together, our small flickers really shine. Nowhere in Scripture are we told to outshine someone else. We’re just to let the light we have shine.
Third, what if we offend people who live in darkness? Our lights will offend. But be consistent and loving. And expose your faith to others.
Now, the more you expose your spiritual life to others, the more it becomes yours, the more you have ownership. Here’s a material example.
Just suppose you had a beautiful, very comfortable, two-tone tan pair of boots. Add a little lizard skin on top. And suppose you kept them in your closet because you didn’t want anyone to see them. Then when everyone in the family left, you put them on and wore them around the house. Then, when family members returned, back in the closet with them. You want them hidden.
Now, if those boots suddenly appeared out in the street, no one would know who they belonged to, because they’ve never been exposed to others. But suppose you put those boots on and wore them around. Perhaps you’d have the nerve to get up in front of the whole church and wear boots like that. Now, when they’re discovered out on the lawn, folks in town will know, “Hey, those belong to Steve Bly.”
The same is true with the Word of God and how you apply it to your life. As you expose the knowledge and truth to others, you have ownership.
Give God’s Word Time
Mark 4:29, “But when the crop he immediately puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”
We need to see the Word of God like a seed, not a great blast of lightning. The little seed needs to be planted and nurtured to grow. Sometimes we want things to happen so quickly. We need to give God time for the Word of God to grow in our lives. It starts small and then it eventually influences everything in our lives.
Children need to learn certain things, but slowly at their own timing. One day Aaron demanded a toy on a high shelf. He said, “I want it. I need it and must have it. Give it to me.” And I made a mistake early in the morning by saying, “Wait for Mom.” And he said, “No!” Then he followed me around the house saying, “I want it, I want it, I want it!” Meanwhile, I insisted he say, “Please.” But he refused to do that.
Of course, I got to leave home, and his mother got to deal with him the rest of the day. And he still wouldn’t say, “Please.” Later in the afternoon he thought of another thing he wanted. So, he went up to his mother and said, “Please, please, please, please!” Finally, he again asked for the original toy and said, “Please.”
Lessons Learned
Some lessons take a while to learn, including spiritual truths and their effects. We have to give God time to accomplish His best work. It’s like standing in a ravine over the Colorado River and looking down at a deep place called the Grand Canyon. I wonder how it would be when the Colorado first inched its way down, to watch it day after day, century after century, and say, “Lord, it didn’t go down very far last night. Not much progress. Looks like just a riverbed.”
And even at twenty feet, it wouldn’t look like much. The same is true as we look at His word work in our life. Maybe we can borrow a phrase and say, “I will expect no blessing before its time.”
Fourth, expect great things from God’s Word.
Mark 4:32, “When it is sown, grows up and becomes larger than all the garden plants and forms large branches; so that the birds of the air can nest under its shade.”
Jesus is teaching about that little mustard seed that didn’t look like much. Lots of seeds are small and the mustard seed is almost imperceptible. So tiny. And yet it could grow into a large, huge plant growing over everything in the field, a place of sanctuary for animals.
We have a real problem sometimes with expecting great things. You can tell if you’re expecting great things from God’s Word if you hurry to read it. If you’re excited and can hardly wait to get into it, you’re expecting a great outcome. If you often recommend it to others, you also are expecting great things to come. Just like when you try out a new product you bought and there’s good results. You tell your neighbors and friends and family.
You’ll also be quick to act on what you’ve learned. When you’ve gotten yourself into messes in your own life, of course, you figure the Bible can help some. But you don’t always expect any great thing to come.
Fifth, expect the Word to affect every area of our lives.
Mark 4:40, “And He said to them, ‘Why are you so timid? How is it that you have no faith?’”
He said this after the storm on the sea when he fell asleep, and the disciples awakened him in fear. He scolded them that after all his teaching and their experiences together on the land, they didn’t apply it to the sea. They tended to not apply spiritual truth. Jesus expected what they learned to affect every situation and setting.
Our faith should not be like a Mexican jumping bean to be put in a jar on a shelf, good only for inspection. The Word of God is like an earthquake touching every part of us, what we do and what we say every day of the week. We need to respond more dramatically to God’s Word, by nurturing it, by expecting great things, by exposing it and giving it time to work.
Suggested Plan of Action
First, go on an eight-day diet of being in God’s Word. Read two chapters in the Book of Mark each day. In order to make sure you do that, tell someone that’s what you’re going to do. Let them check up on you, to see how you’re doing.
Second, share with someone one verse you are going to implement in your life this week. For instance, you could go to Romans 12 and pick one out.
Third, commit yourself to one hopeless situation this week that you will apply the Word of God. Perhaps a relationship that’s gone. It’s shot and finished. We have trials and testing and tough times in which we say, “There’s absolutely no way out.” Pray for it continually. Volunteer to put it back together by playing it by the Book.
Depending on Scripture may seem a little harsh at times, or a little far out or radical. Maybe you want to modify it, try to do it just perfectly, but you know you can’t do it on your own. That’s never worked before. Now how about backing up and doing it the right way?
Follow the Scripture exactly like blueprints for a building, just to see what happens. In order to get your spiritual life going in high gear, respond to the Word of God.
Closing Prayer: Father, thank you for your Word and keep us honest. Help us not to make any promises that aren’t sincere, but help us keep every promise that comes from our hearts. I pray it in Jesus Name, Amen.”