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A Heart Ready to Receive God’s Word

We are going to be in James 1:18–25. Get your Bibles open. Remember, when we’re in God’s Word, open your Bibles and put your own eyes on your copy of God’s Word in your lap.

Who remembers what we talked about last time? It was like a whole month ago, before the flood and all the displacement. Does anybody remember what our first lesson was about so many weeks ago?

“The parable of the seeds.”

Yeah, it was the parable of the sower and the seeds—really the parable of the soils, right? Because the sower was the same sower throughout. It is like I am sowing seed when I am preaching God’s Word to you. That’s how Jesus explained the parable, right? It was the same seed for everyone. Same sower, same seed. Who remembers what the seed represented? Jesus explained it.

“The Bible.” “The gospel.” Any other thoughts of what Jesus said? God’s Word. Yeah. The seed sown was God’s Word, and this is a story of the way different hearts respond to hearing or coming in contact with God’s Word.

There were three different kinds of fruitless soils. There was the hard soil, where the seed hit the soil and it didn’t get in at all. That’s the way some of you respond when you hear God’s Word preached. That’s the way some of you respond when you read God’s Word. You don’t even let it penetrate. It’s a dangerous place to be.

But there’s another type of unfruitful soil. It was the rocky soil, just a little thin layer of soil with rocks underneath, and the roots couldn’t go deep. This is when God’s Word is spoken, but you don’t get deep roots. There’s an initial response that looks good. Maybe your parents think, “Hey, they’re responding.” Maybe you think you’re responding. We’re going to find that it’s very possible to deceive yourself. The roots don’t go deep, and the fruit doesn’t endure.

And then there’s the third kind. Who remembers what the third kind of unfruitful soil was? Thorns. Yeah, the thorns. It looks like the plants come up, and they get choked by the cares of this world.

Jesus didn’t tell this parable so that you could sit back and say, “Hey, I wonder what kind of soil I am.” You might be tempted to do that: “I’m just going to look passively at my life, and I guess I’ll look and see what happens, what comes up. If I get choked by the cares of this world, I guess I’m just thorny soil. And if it just hits me and doesn’t dig in, maybe I’m just hard. That’s just the way God made me.”

That is not why Jesus told this parable. Jesus told this parable so that you would cultivate a heart ready to receive God’s Word, so that when God’s Word comes in contact with your heart, you would bear fruit. That is the only response that a Christian has to God’s Word. These other three unfruitful soils are not a valid option of response to God’s Word for a Christian.

I know many of you do want to become Christians. Every one of you ought to want to become a Christian, ought to want to be reconciled to God, to have all of the gifts that come with this good news, especially God himself. And the only way to be right with God is to respond to his Word with faith. We’re going to spend time with James 1, learning what it means to have a heart prepared to receive God’s Word.

Opening Prayer

God, I beg that right now, as I speak, as I open up your Word, as we put our eyes on the pages of your Bible, I pray that you would be active—active in my speaking, that I would be accurate; active in the listening. God, that you would soften hearts, give understanding, grant belief, change lives.

God, I pray that you would be glorified as believers respond in faith to your Word, and maybe those who are not saved hear it and believe for the first time. God, only you can do this, and we know that you are powerful to do this. So we pray with confidence, in Jesus’ name. Amen.

James 1 and the Danger of Hearing Without Doing

James 1, beginning at verse 18:

Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.

Know this, my beloved brothers: let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger; for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he’s like a man who looks intently at his natural face in the mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.

Let me warn you from what this passage warns us. Sitting under God’s Word, hearing it day in, day out—which you guys all have the privilege of doing—is a huge privilege. This is the second time at least today that you’ve heard God’s Word. It’s actually necessary to be saved. But there’s a danger there.

You can hear God’s Word, and you inevitably will understand it more and more and more as you get older. As time passes, you’re going to get better at answering Bible trivia, better at our camp games, better able to answer your parents’ questions. You might know the Bible. You might even be able to explain it with big theological words. You know your Bible stories.

And there’s a danger, because did you see what it said in verse 22? What is the kind of person who hears but doesn’t do—what does it say they’re doing? They’re deceiving who? Their parents? Are they deceiving God? You’re deceiving yourself.

There is a danger to hearing God’s Word, but there’s also a huge blessing, because we’re going to see that what God accomplishes in the life of a believer, he accomplishes by the means of God’s Word.

This is going to be very critical. The reason why we talk about this every year at the beginning of Student Ministries is because every single week in Student Ministries, and actually every single week in your life—hopefully for the rest of your life in the church—you hear God’s Word. And what do I tell you every time we’re together? I want you to be reading God’s Word for yourself every single day.

We encourage you to get on a Bible reading plan. Parents, hopefully your kids have told you about this. We say, “Hey, go to your parents and tell them, ‘Mom, Dad, do we have a Bible reading plan as a family? What should I read?’” And if you don’t, we actually have a plan at the church on little bookmarks for you. I can send them out so that you could be on the same one as I’d encourage your kids to.

You need to be in God’s Word regularly. You should be in God’s Word daily. And it works out really, really, really well when kids are reading the same thing as parents. Or at least, kids, what you read in the morning on your own, you have a chance around the dinner table or in discussions at night to talk about that with your parents. You need to put God’s Word in front of you every day.

But God’s Word in front of you is necessary, but it’s not sufficient, right? God’s Word is sufficient. It’s all that you need. But reading God’s Word and hearing it is not sufficient. It’s not enough. You have to become a doer, one who responds to God’s Word in faith, like the soil that bears fruit. So let’s go through this passage and see what we have to do, who we have to be, how we have to respond to have a heart prepared to receive God’s Word rightly.

1. Trust and Depend on God’s Life-Giving Word

First, in order to have a heart prepared to receive the Word, I must trust and depend on God’s life-giving Word. Verse 18 says, “Of his own will, God brought us forth”—and he’s talking to Christians—“by the word of truth, so that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

James is talking to believers. He says, “How did you get your start? Where did their faith come from?” It came from God. It says that he brought us forth. God is the source of the believer’s life. How did he do it? How does he bring forth a believer? He does it by the word of truth.

“Brought us forth” means he gave us new birth. He gave spiritual life. Earlier in the chapter, just a few verses before, James describes our sinful desires. We talked about this last year. Your sinful desires bring forth, or give birth to, sin. God brings forth, or gives birth to, believers, and he does that by his Word.

God’s Word is not just a big book of rules, right? We sometimes call God’s Word his revelation. It reveals something. It doesn’t just reveal something; it reveals someone. God’s Word reveals the God of the Word. And when you see God in his Word, and you see the good news about how you could be reconciled to him, how you could be made right with him, and you believe it, God makes you new. We learned at camp: he makes you a new creation.

We don’t come to God’s Word primarily to learn things—facts, theology—or know things merely. We certainly don’t come to impress our parents or check off a box like we would with maybe the way you do your homework. But we come to the Word of God to know God. Apart from God’s Word, we would never know the gospel. And apart from knowing and believing the gospel, we could never be made right with God.

We are dependent on God’s Word. So we come to God’s Word dependently, knowing that that’s the source of the believer’s life. When we come to God’s Word, it’s important that you do it with faith. That’s trust and dependence.

Have you ever come to God’s Word thinking, “Hey, I got this. Maybe if I just try hard enough, I can accomplish what I need to accomplish in reading”? Like it’s an if-then: “If I read God’s Word, my day will go better,” or, “If I read God’s Word, maybe I’ll be able to obey him.”

The reality is you don’t have the ability in and of yourself to respond rightly to God’s Word. You are dependent on God. You need God to bring forth new life in you and to bring forth obedience in you out of reading the Word. So you need to come to God trusting him and depending on him when you read his Word.

James calls the believers here the firstfruits. The firstfruits are the first part of a harvest. When a harvest is coming, it’s the ones that were at the very beginning of it. These were the first believers. This is not very long after Jesus died, rose from the dead, went to heaven. This is one of the very first letters in the New Testament. And these believers were some of the very first of what would become a very large harvest. Some of you are part of that harvest if you believe.

The very same word of truth that brought those believers in James’s day to faith, to new life, is the way that you will come to life. So you need to put God’s Word in front of you.

And then in verse 21, do you see what James calls the Word? He refers to it again there. He says, “Receive the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Receive the implanted Word—the Word that takes root in the believer’s heart. It’s been received by faith. God planted it deep. And that Word is able to keep them safe to the end.

It’s the way that you become saved at the beginning. You have to believe the gospel, which is told to you in the Bible. But it’s actually by means of trusting—ongoing trusting and obeying God’s Word deeply implanted in your heart—the Word that produces fruit like we see in that parable that Jesus told. It’s through faithful obedience to God’s Word that will actually keep you safe to the end.

When God’s Word comes in contact with soil made good by God, it will make deep roots, right? It won’t be snatched away like the birds on the first soil. It’ll endure trials, not like the shallow, rocky soil. And it’ll love God and seek to please God rather than being choked out by the cares of this world.

Think about what happened after we taught that last Student Ministries lesson. Some of you guys might have been very excited to go and be like, “I want to be the good soil.” And then the week happened, right? School, homework, friends, video games, sports, temptations, peer pressure—all of these things from the outside that are threatening what God’s Word wants to create deep inside you.

Actually, the things of life are not bad. It’s not like, “Hey, I need to get away from the world, away from all of those temptations, away from all of the things that threaten to choke out the fruit of God’s Word.” But no, it’s in school, as you play games, as you do sports, as you do your homework, as you’re among your friends facing peer pressure—in those settings—that you need to rely on God’s Word deeply implanted, if you’re a believer, trusting him to bear fruit and obeying him and saying, “What would please the Lord?” and then doing that thing.

This isn’t just a bullet point saying, “Oh yeah, trust and depend on God’s Word. Good, I got that. I know I have to do that.” But this is something that you actually do. Tomorrow, when you open up God’s Word and read it, remind yourself, “This is God’s Word that I need to trust, and this is God’s Word that I need to depend on to either give me new life”—if you’re not a believer—“or actually sustain the life that he’s given you.” And that’s why we pray.

2. Turn from Sin and Receive His Word Humbly

The God who gives you life through his Word is the God you can trust to help you live it. You can’t go to God’s Word saying, “I trust and I depend on your Word,” while you’re also clinging to sin.

We see that in verse 19. James goes on. He says, “Know this, my beloved brothers.” So he’s talking to who? To Christians. Christians who are reading God’s Word, who are hearing God’s Word. He says:

Let every person be quick to hear, slow to speak, slow to anger, for the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

We need to come to God’s Word turning from sin and receiving his Word humbly. If we’re going to have a heart prepared to receive his Word, we need to receive correction from God’s Word with a teachable heart.

Receive Correction with a Teachable Heart

This is when he says, “Be quick to hear, slow to speak.” He isn’t just saying that as a general life rule, although that is a good principle for life. But what he’s talking about here is specifically: How does a believer respond to God’s Word? God’s Word which gives him life, that brought him forth. God’s Word which will save his soul. What’s the attitude of the believer as they’re in contact with God’s Word?

You’re quick to hear it. You’re eager to hear what God says. One of my favorite commentators said this. He says James is so practical. This is a really practical book—lots of real-life suggestions, real-life commands. James is so practical that you might expect him to follow up his discussion of God’s Word with, “So read your Bible every day,” or, “Get on a reading plan.”

But what does he say instead? He points out that you can be unfailingly regular in your Bible reading and accomplish nothing more than having moved your bookmark forward. He says that’s what happens when you read the Word, but you don’t hear it, when you don’t listen carefully. Be quick to hear.

Sometimes you open up God’s Word being quick to get it done: “Let’s read as fast as I can.” Or maybe you’re in an argument with somebody at school, or you have a homework assignment in Bible class, and you’re looking for an answer. You’re not looking to hear. You’re looking to accomplish something. You’re not saying, “I need my mind molded, my heart affected by God’s Word. I need to hear what this says.”

Have you ever finished reading God’s Word and never really listened? I have. Actually, as I was writing this, I realized I did that this week. I had a busy day. I knew I needed to get in God’s Word. I read my passages, and I broke my own rule. I didn’t have my pen in hand, my pencil in hand. I didn’t answer my questions. I got my reading done, and I went on with my day, and I was unaffected.

Christian, this is a temptation every day. But you can’t have that happen when you open up God’s Word. You have to tell yourself, “Self, let’s listen to this. I need this.”

And then James goes on. He says, “Be slow to speak.” Let God speak before you’re supplying your own answers, your own explanations, or even objections. You need to understand the meaning of God’s Word dependently. You need to not be coming at God’s Word being judge over it: “Well, if you don’t explain that better than that, God, maybe I won’t believe it,” or, “How could I ever believe in a God who is like…” and then you say something like the Bible says God is.

We don’t get to determine who God is. We get to hear from God’s Word who he says he is, and then we love him. We trust him. We obey him. Not a god of our own making. Not a god who we make up or speak. You’re going to hear this all over school from your friends: “Well, I think God’s like this. I think God’s like this.” And what you need to say is, “It doesn’t matter who I think God is.” But the question that we always need to ask is, “What does the Bible say?” And we believe that. Be slow to speak, quick to hear, and slow to anger.

This is talking about a heart attitude towards God’s Word. You might be like, “Well, God’s Word never made me angry.” Have you ever been grumbling, and your parents quoted Philippians 2:14 to you: “Do all things without grumbling”? And what do you do in your heart? You get mad at them for saying God’s Word to you. Or, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord,” when you’re disobeying. And you get mad at them—mad at God’s Word because it says, “Hey, you don’t get to be your own boss. You have to obey your parents. You have to obey without grumbling.”

Or there’s a thousand other commands that God’s Word gives that will come into head-on opposition with what you want to do, who you want to be. And you have a choice in that moment. Do I listen? Do I conform my life to God’s Word? Or do I make excuses? Do I speak, or do I even get angry at God’s Word?

James is saying no. The Christian response to God’s Word needs to be slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to listen, because our anger cannot produce the righteous life that God requires.

So, question: When you’re coming to God’s Word, are you listening to it to be changed? Or maybe are you looking for a reason you don’t have to change, or justifying a thought you already have? “Yep, that lines up with the way I’m thinking, so I’m going to believe that. I don’t like that part, so I’m going to skip to something else.”

Put Away the Sin You’re Protecting

Next, put away sin that you’re protecting. James says that. He says, “Therefore, put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness.” Some of you came to Student Ministries with hidden sins, sins that maybe only you know about. And you’re listening, maybe with good intentions, saying, “I want to follow God. I want to be a good Christian. I want to know God better.”

Something’s not right, because there’s a sin that you’re unwilling to give up. Maybe a sin expressed, something that you’re doing and you’re hiding. Maybe just something in your heart, a way that you’re thinking, and you know it’s not right. You have to put that away. You are going to be unable to respond to God’s Word while hiding sin, while clinging to sin.

The word “put away” here, you can think of it like getting dressed—or actually getting undressed. You have sin on; let’s take that off and put it as far away from me as I can. Because if I’m going to come to God’s Word, I can’t come saying, “I want God. God, form me into who you want me to be, but I’m going to hang on to what I know you tell me is wrong.”

God’s Word tells you that sin is a horrible master, that it leads to death. It not only is wrong before God and earns you his wrath, but is actually not good for you. We’re all born dead in sin, doing whatever our minds and our body want to do, right? All of us, from our natural heart, our mind says, “Do this,” and our body says, “Do that.” And we’re like, “Okay, I’ll do that thing.” That’s how we’re born.

And God’s Word says, “No, don’t do whatever your mind and body want to do. Do what God commands you to do, because it’s actually better for you. It’s actually right, and it actually pleases the Lord.” You can’t come to God’s Word saying, “I’m not going to give that sin up, but I’m going to pursue you with 90 percent of my heart, God.” No, you have to put away the sin that you’re protecting.

This doesn’t mean that you have to be sinless before you open the Bible, but instead just confess your sin to God, to your parents. Turn from it. Come to God’s Word saying, “God, shine the light of your Word on the darkness of my life that I don’t see yet.” Not only give up the sins that you know about, but say, “God, find other sins in me so I can give those up too.”

Welcome the Implanted Word in Its Saving Power

Then next, welcome the implanted Word in its saving power. “Receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” Welcome God’s Word with humble submission. Say, “God, you’re God. I’m not. You are right. Teach me. Save me. I need you.”

It’s such a good spot. Some of you might say, “Well, I’m not very smart. I don’t know how to study God’s Word,” or, “I’m not doing very well at this. I’m trying to follow God, but I keep, keep, keep sinning. It seems like the more I read God’s Word, the more sin I see in my life.”

That’s actually a good place to be. Not if you sin thoughtlessly, mindlessly, not caring, but if you’re saying, “I’m trying, God. I’m trying. Will you help me?” That’s such a good spot to be: to come needy, to come hopeful, because there is hope here.

The God who saved you, who gets your life started by only believing in his gospel—not because you got it all together and you obeyed really well, but because you said, “God, I’m a great sinner who needs a great Savior”—God saves you then. And there’s great hope that if he saves you, he will keep you until the end.

So don’t grow tired of opening up God’s Word and saying, “Oh no, there’s another sin.” Confess that one and turn from it too. And then over time, more and more and more, you’ll become like the person he saved you to be. You’ll start to show the righteousness in your life that he declares that you have when he gave you Jesus’ at the moment of your salvation. That’s called sanctification. And he does that through his Word, when you welcome that implanted Word.

So then pray for a heart that receives God’s Word. This is like the psalmist in Psalm 119:18. He says, “God, open my eyes so that I can see the wonderful things in your law.” He says he delights in God’s Word, and he asks God to turn his heart toward God’s Word instead of selfish gain. None of those things are natural. Those are all things that you have to pray for. You have to say, “God, make this in me.”

Pray to Listen Understand Believe Obey and Trust

We can’t make our hearts the kind of hearts that are going to respond to God’s Word rightly. So I taught you guys a prayer. We use it a lot. Parents, you might have heard your kids say this. We call it LUBOT. It’s a little robot; it’s actually an acronym. It’s something that I pray, and I’d encourage all of you to pray every time you’re about to listen to a sermon, every time you’re about to read the Bible.

It’s a simple way to remind ourselves of what we need and what we’re aiming at when we read.

1. We pray, “God, let me listen.” We actually need to have those words come into our ears, those words go into our eyes. Have you ever sat in a sermon and checked out, and you’re like, “I have no idea what Smed just said for the last ten minutes”? Maybe, “You have no idea what I just said for the last ten minutes.” So shake your head and listen and say, “All right, I need to start listening now.” Pray. Ask God to help you listen.

   Get a good night’s sleep before you open the Bible. Older kids, or if you’re one of the kids whose parents let you have coffee, have some coffee before you open the Bible and say, “God, I’m going to do what I can do.” Go out in the sun. Turn the lights on bright. And then say, “God, help me listen. Help me to listen to what you say instead of my mind drifting, wandering.” Or maybe you’re too quick to speak. This is part of that too. Say, “God, let me listen with a humble heart rather than arguing or disagreeing with your Word.”

2. And then we pray that we would have understanding. You say, “God, help me understand what your Word says and what you meant by your Word.” I don’t want to understand what I think God’s Word says. We want to understand what the text actually means, what the original author meant for the original audience that was receiving it. We talked about this last year; we’ll talk about it soon.

   We have to listen and look for details. Say, “What does this text actually say?” Not, “How does it make me feel?” or, “What do I think I want it to say?” But, “What does it actually say? And let me understand that actual message.” We’ll get to that next week.

3. And then you say, “God, help me believe what you say, even when my feelings or desires disagree.” In one sense, you don’t have to be a believer to listen to God’s Word or to even understand it, right? You could understand the logic of John 3:16. You could explain it. You could teach it. But God has to do something supernatural in your heart. He has to become your Lord if you’re going to believe it.

   Do you remember what Jesus said to the Pharisees in John 5:39–40? He said, “You search the Scriptures because you think that in it you’re going to find eternal life.” And they weren’t wrong. But why didn’t the Pharisees get eternal life? Jesus says, “You refuse to come to me that you may have life.” They read, they even memorized the Scriptures where it said who Jesus was, and they killed him.

   In order to believe God’s Word, you actually have to read it. You have to listen to it. You have to understand it. But listening and understanding is not enough, right? That’s a listener only who deceives themselves.

4. You have to believe, then obey and trust. Say, “God, help me respond in what I think, in what I love, in what I say and what I do. Let me trust your Word.”

3. Look Intently at God’s Word and Do the Word

And now finally, our last point: Look intently at God’s Word and do the Word. I’m going to give you a phrase that is helpful to me: Do not skip looking intently at God’s Word, but don’t stop at looking intently.

James 1:23 says, “If anyone’s a hearer of the word and not a doer, he’s like a man who looks intently at his face in a mirror.” This one who listened to God’s Word, he might have even looked intently. He stared at the mirror, and he saw exactly who he was. He saw, “I’ve got a piece of chocolate right on my face, and I got a booger in my nose.” And he didn’t do anything about it, right?

He looked, and he saw all the details. He’s like, “I know I have that chocolate on my face. I know I got the booger in my nose.” And he walked away and went out to his friends and forgot what he saw there. That’s what happens if you look intently at God’s Word and you know what it says, but you don’t believe, obey, or trust it. We need to not skip looking intently, but we can’t stop there.

The Student and the Fish

I’m going to read you a story. This is a helpful story, a story of a student in the laboratory. I sort of retold it because it was way too long. He went to the laboratory of Professor Agassiz. He says:

I told him I signed up to study natural history. I was especially interested in studying insects. He asked me a few questions about why I wanted to study, what I hoped to do with my knowledge. And then the professor asked, “Do you want to study any particular area?”

“I’d like to learn all about zoology. I’m really interested in insects.”

The professor said, “When would you like to start?”

“Now,” I replied eagerly.

“Very well,” said the professor with a smile. He reached up onto the shelf, and he took down a large jar filled with yellowish liquid.

And to this guy who wanted to study insects, he said:

“Take this fish,” he said, handing it to me. “It’s called a haemulon. Look at it. I’ll ask you about it later.”

And then he left me alone with the fish. But soon he returned to give me specific instructions on how to take care of the fish. He said I was to keep the fish in a tray and make sure it stayed moist. And he reminded me to always put the stopper back on the jar tightly.

I wasn’t thrilled. Studying a fish was not what I had in mind. I wanted to study insects, but I didn’t want to complain. So I did as he asked, and for ten long minutes I felt like I’d seen everything in that fish, everything there was to see. I went to look for the professor. He wasn’t anywhere to be found. When I returned, the fish had started to dry out, so I wet it again.

I sat and I stared at the fish for half an hour, and then an hour. The fish started to seem disgusting, so I turned it over, looking at it from every angle. But it didn’t help. I was bored and frustrated. So I decided it was time for lunch. I carefully put the fish back in the jar and left.

When I came back, I learned that the professor had been in the lab, but had left again. My fellow students were too busy to talk. So reluctantly, I took the fish out again and continued my miserable task. I wasn’t allowed to use any tools, just my eyes, my hands, and the fish.

I poked its mouth to feel its teeth. I counted its scales. That seemed pointless. Then an idea came to mind: I’d draw the fish. As I started to sketch it, I began to notice details I hadn’t seen before. Drawing made me look more closely.

Just then the professor returned. “That’s right,” he said, looking at my drawing. “A pencil is one of the best eyes.” And he praised me for keeping the fish moist and the jar sealed.

“So, what have you seen?” he said. I described the parts of the fish: the gills, the mouth, the eyes, the fins, the tail. The professor listened carefully, but he seemed disappointed.

“You haven’t looked very carefully,” he said. “You haven’t seen one of the most obvious features. Look again.”

He left me, and I felt so upset. How could there be something so obvious that I’d missed? Determined, I looked at the fish again, and I spent the rest of the afternoon examining it, discovering one new thing after another.

When the professor returned and asked if I’d seen it yet, I had to admit no. But now I realized how little I’d seen before.

He smiled. “That’s the next best thing,” he said. “So put away your fish and go home. Think about it tonight. We’ll talk in the morning.”

I went home troubled. Not only did I have to figure out what I missed, but I also had to remember all the details I’d noticed without the fish in front of me. I had a hard time sleeping as I thought about the fish. As I walked, I thought about the fish. As I prepared food, I thought about that fish. My mind drifted to think about the fish. And as I thought, I began to see things I realized that I had missed even as the fish was in front of me. I couldn’t wait to get the fish back in front of me to see it again.

I went to bed thinking about the fish. The next morning, the professor greeted me warmly.

“Do you perhaps mean,” I ventured, “that the fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs?”

“Exactly!” he said, delighted. He talked about the importance of symmetry in animals, and then said, “Now keep looking at your fish.”

For three more days, I studied that fish. And each day I noticed more and more details. The professor kept encouraging me to look, look, look, and I began to understand the value of careful observation. This experience taught me more than any book or lecture ever could.

Later, the professor gave me another fish to compare with the first, then another, and another, until I’d studied the entire group of haemulons. The lab was filled with jars of fish, but the smell no longer bothered me. In fact, seeing an old jar now brings back fond memories.

Through this process, I learned how to observe carefully and think deeply about what I saw. The professor often reminded me, “Facts are important, but they’re just the beginning. You need to see how they connect to bigger ideas.”

So after eight months, I finally moved on to study insects. But the lessons I learned from that fish stayed with me. They helped me in all my future studies and have been more valuable than anything else I learned later.

Spend Time in the Word and Put It into Practice

I tell you this story because I don’t want you to spend weeks studying a fish. But we can learn a lot from this student studying the fish on how to study anything, especially important things like the Bible.

You guys remember what the student thought after ten minutes? He thought he’d seen as much as there was to see. He thought he was familiar. He thought he understood before he really understood. And then finally, he really understood something about the fish. Did the fish change? No. It was that he discovered what was actually there by looking at it over and over and over again, spending time.

Kids, one of the most important things for you to do with God’s Word is just to keep your bottom in the chair and to read it. Get your pencil out. Get a piece of paper and answer those questions I’ve given you. What does this say about God? What does the text say? What does it say? Tell the story. Do it shorthand. Look for patterns. Look for repeated words. Look for the storyline. Look for anything, things that you might not know are important. But just look, read it, think about it, ask questions—but spend time.

If there’s weeks of information to find out about a fish, I promise you that God’s Word, where God is revealed, you won’t run out of things to find. So spend time, lots of time.

And then when you go away, your time doesn’t end thinking about the fish or thinking about God’s Word. When you get up out of the chair, as you walk to school, you’re thinking about what you read. You’re thinking about the patterns. You’re thinking, “How does this affect me?” As you go to bed, you’re thinking, “Oh, how did what I learned this morning change my day?”

There might be that question that you asked, but you still haven’t figured it out. And then as you sleep, you’re like, “Aha, I can’t wait to wake up and open God’s Word and see more about it.” I promise you, if you spend time in God’s Word, your experience will be better, more formative, than this student and the fish.

So look intently at God’s Word, but don’t stop at looking intently. In order to have God form in you what he would form in you through his Word, you must look intently. But don’t be a listener merely, a hearer only, but be a doer who God blesses. Let’s pray.

Closing Prayer

God, I thank you for your Word and the inexhaustible depths of riches that are to be found there. God, I pray that we would be people—people of the Word, people who read your Word, who know it, who know every part of it, have seen the patterns, have seen the storyline, know what it says.

But more importantly, people, your children, who delight in what it says, in the God it reveals, in the commands that you give us.

God, I pray as we’re in discussion groups, as the parents fellowship, that you would help us think rightly about the way that we relate to your Word. We’ve heard some things that are helpful, and we can go away and think, “Because I wrote them down in my notes, and because I understand it, I’m going to be better.” And the reality is, God, it won’t help us unless we do it.

So I pray, God, be glorified in us as we seek to obey you and trust in your Word. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.