Sermons

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Take and Read
September 7, 2003
Pastor Dan Baumgartner
1st in a series on“ Tough Issues”
Acts 8:26-40

Last week we finished our summer sermon series on the book of Ephesians, and so this morning we embark on a new endeavor. We’re going to spend a few weeks looking at what I would call “Tough Issues for Faith”: the presence of evil, economic injustice, the exclusivity of Christianity, sexuality…and several others. Before we do that, however, we’re going to linger for this Sunday and next on something that will help us sort out those very difficult issues: Scripture.

In the fourth century A.D., when the church of Jesus Christ was just a few hundred years old, there was a young man named Augustine who had been born in North Africa, and then moved to Italy. He was 32 years old, was quite a thinker, and was dreadfully unhappy. His life was racked in constant turmoil between what he would call the sensual pleasures of the flesh, and a desire to know God. He was torn by the power of sin, and the failure of his own will. In his own description, he had “a tempest inside…I was mad for health, dying for life.”

One day Augustine, weary in soul, found himself in a garden and threw himself down under a fig tree and began to weep, crying out to God. Suddenly, he heard the voice of a young boy or girl that sounded from nearby. It was chanting over and over again,

“Pick it up, read it; pick it up, read it.”

Augustine looked around, not knowing where the voice actually came from…only that it clearly seemed to be a command to open up the Bible and read the first passage his eyes focused on. When he did, his eye landed on a verse in Romans 13:

“Not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy, but instead put on the Lord Jesus Christ…and make no provision to gratify the desires of the flesh.”

Then, he writes,

“I wanted to read no further, nor did I need to. For instantly, as the sentence ended, there was infused in my heart something like the light of full certainty and all the gloom of doubt vanished away.”

After this encounter, Augustine came into deeper faith, became a pastor, a bishop, a theologian, and eventually one of the greatest of the early church fathers.

“Pick it up, read it. Pick it up, read it.”

When people read scripture…something happens. A doorway is opened…to encounter the Living God.

That eminent theologian Woody Allen (!) once said,

“If God would only speak to me -- just once. If he would only cough. If I could just see a miracle. If I could see a burning bush or the seas part.”

Or, he adds in Woody Allen fashion,

...if I could just see “my Uncle Sasha pick up the check for dinner.”

He speaks for many of us, doesn’t he? How many of us have longed to have a direct, unmistakable, audible, visible word from God to assure us we are not alone? What we must be careful of…is waiting so long for the Word to manifest itself in the way we want it (often a spectacular way)…that we miss what is right in front of us. We miss the Word of God in the Bible. We miss God’s most dependable, most common form of communication with us.

When we look at the whole of scripture, cover to cover, we find that between “In the beginning, God created…” and “Come Lord Jesus,” there is an amazing story. It takes 39 Old Testament books and 27 New Testament books to tell it. It takes a book put together over many centuries, and finalized in the fourth century, to encapsulate it. It takes the form of a book…a book of history and poetry and essays and doctrine and stories, a book unmistakably stamped with the imprint of human authorship and culture and time-bound, AND just as unmistakably a book guided by divine inspiration and time-less. When we look at all of scripture, we find the most amazing of stories.

And when we read it…something happens. We encounter God.

I believe that’s why most of us came in here this morning. Not to be wowed by good music or enthralled by a witty speaker, but because we have this longing to encounter God. It happens when we read the scripture.

“Long ago,” the book of Hebrews says,

“God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things... He is the reflection of God’s glory… the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.”

God has spoken. The Word of God goes out…God speaks, and the universe is created. He opens his mouth, and the world comes into being. He speaks and human beings appear on the landscape. The world is God-breathed.

God speaks through the prophets:

“Thus says the Lord: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you.”

And one day, when the time was right,

“The WORD became flesh and dwelt among us.”

The living Word of God, in a person, Jesus the Christ. When the God of the universe chose to reveal Himself most clearly…it was in human form. The Bible bears testimony to that person and story of Christ.

“All scripture is God-breathed.”

In the Bible we find most of what we know about Jesus. About grace. About salvation. About how God is partial to His people, bent towards us. There’s lots of information here. But it’s more than just giving us information. Because God’s Holy Spirit has chosen to blow through the scripture…we encounter God as we read. Often what happens is unexpected:

Ten years ago I was in seminary. I was working in a church just up the road a few miles, and the pastor had invited me to preach. I had never preached before. I am not ashamed to tell you that I was absolutely petrified. I had done plenty of speaking in business settings, but never had I preached. As I sat in the school cafeteria on Thursday, all I could think was:

“Who was I to preach? Who was I to speak out of the scriptures something about God, let alone something from God? I was unqualified, and had nothing to offer.”

I couldn’t possibly imagine walking up the steps of that pulpit three days later. I opened my little devotional book for that morning, and turned to the assigned passage for the day. It was from Isaiah 40. This is what it said to me:

“Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good tidings; lift up your voice with strength… herald of good tidings, lift it up, do not fear; say to them… “Here is your God.”

And I sat there silently, very aware that God had provided the encouragement of that scripture for just that day. When we read the Bible, something happens.

In the first century A.D., an Ethiopian leader, a eunuch (a male who was castrated to ensure safety and loyalty to the queen) was heading back to his home country of Ethiopia after being in Jerusalem. He was a powerful leader, in charge of the Treasury, riding in a covered chariot. As he rode, he read a scroll of the prophet Isaiah.

We don’t know much about the eunuch, only that he had been in Jerusalem to worship. Was he a Jewish convert? Or what we would call a “seeker?” We don’t know. Only that as he rode, he read the scripture of Isaiah the prophet…out loud, as was the custom of the day.

And because he was in somewhat of a wilderness area as he headed south, he must have been a little surprised to have this guy Philip run up to the chariot and ask if he understood what he was reading. Admitting that he did not, he invited Philip to get in, sit beside him and instruct him. Listen again to what he was reading from Isaiah:

“Like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, and like a lamb silent before its shearer, so he does not open his mouth. In his humiliation justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life is taken away from the earth.”

And the eunuch asked Philip, “Who is Isaiah talking about, himself…or someone else?” And with that opening so wide you could ride an elephant through it, Philip shares with him the good news about Jesus.

You know the story. The eunuch turns to God. He’s baptized. And if we can believe church tradition on this point, he returned to Ethiopia, and began to share what had happened. And the church of Jesus Christ was established there in Ethiopia, where it remains today…one of the oldest branches of Christianity anywhere in the world. All brought about by the Holy Spirit, beginning with the reading of the scripture by the eunuch, and by Philip who had obviously read it.

When we read scripture…something happens. When we read the Bible, it seems the Holy Spirit is never far away. And this amazing thing happens. We encounter God.

Each one of us, I believe, came in this morning…longing for an encounter with the living God. Longing to hear God’s voice. One way we hear it is in the scripture. And so the simple question for us is this:

Are you reading the scripture?

As I talk to folks about their spiritual journeys, perhaps the thing I hear most often is not a question about some weighty theological problem. It’s “I’m not taking the time to read the Bible.”

Years ago I was in a small men’s group that met weekly, and every time we met we’d share. There was one friend in the group, and every time we shared and he’d say: “Things are pretty good, but I’m not spending time in the Word.” Every week for two years! After a while we wanted to scream, “So pick it up and read!”

I talk with folks who say they’re reading a bit, but not really studying. Or some who say they’re studying, but it’s hard to stay disciplined. Some have given up altogether. But if we want to dial in to hearing God’s voice…there’s no replacement for being in scripture.

Something happens when we read the Bible.

I wish…that we would pick up the scripture, regularly, daily and read…NOT out of guilt and obligation. I wish instead that we could sit down with scripture because we want to hear God’s voice, and this is one main place we do. I wish we would read because we know, and we’ve shared with one another…that God finds these amazing ways to encounter us. It’s not always a big splashy event.

On Thursday morning, I was reading in Isaiah, the part in chapter 7-9 (often read at Christmas) where the name Immanuel, “God With Us” is used for a child to come. That phrase, “God with us” appears 3-4 times. That afternoon, I was with a dear 90- year-old lady, and we started to talk about the promises of God. What exactly is it that God promises us? Well, the main promise of scripture, I believe, is exactly what is in those words from Isaiah, “God With Us.” God promises to be with us. Good times and bad, youth and old age, life and death. We had a good talk. And the promise was fresh in my mind because I “just happened” to read it that morning.

I’m not going to talk this morning about “How To Read Scripture,” but we’ll deal with that some next week. There are a million ways to read: devotionally, exegetically, as prayer, with study guides. For now, the question is just:

• Are we reading?
• Are we reading every day?

Are we putting ourselves in the position, is the door open for the Spirit of God to speak through the scripture to us.

• Are you reading?
• A morning quiet time?
• Bible Study Fellowship?
• A Home Group?

Next week at the 10:45 hour, a new Bible Study will start to look at four of the Apostle Paul’s letters.

The only other thing I want to mention is our approach in reading. That is, what is our stance in coming to scripture? What is your attitude? I want to approach scripture in this way:

This is the written Word of God. It is here that God speaks, it is here I want to listen. My concern is to hear from God. God, keep me from bringing what I think I already know, or trying to prove what I think…and help me hear from you.

Can we expect that God will speak to us in the scripture? God has been doing it faithfully for so many years.

When we read scripture, something happens. The Holy Spirit hovers, the scriptures point to the Living Word in Christ, we are taken before an open door where we don’t know quite what will happen.

Probably you have never heard of Julius Hickerson. Julius Hickerson was a young doctor who started into practice in the United States, but felt God’s call to go as a missionary doctor to Colombia. After two years, his friends in the States still thought he was crazy, and there were few tangible results he could point to in his work with a native tribe. After two years, Hickerson was killed in a plane crash as he took supplies to a remote village.

In the wreckage, some natives found a Bible, well-used, in their own language and they started to read it. They talked about it, and shared it with others. And do you know what happened? A church started. Then more churches. After many years, not knowing this history, a missionary came to the area and found it full of Christians. When the missionary asked what had happened, the people said little…but they brought out this now very well-used Bible in their own language, and they opened up the flap, and there was a name inside the cover: Julius Hickerson. God had used the scripture in an amazing way.

Friends, the scripture can be a place of mystery. It has hard questions we must ask, and try to answer. We must use our best thinking, our most diligent study, our richest imagination and our most prayerful hearts. But if we want to hear God’s voice on a consistent basis, we need to be people of scripture.

It was true for Augustine, for the Ethiopian Eunuch, for Philip, for a young seminary student, for Julius Hickerson:

When we read the scripture, something happens. So the Word this morning: Take…and Read.

Take and Read God’s Word. Amen.