Where’s Waldo: Intro & Game

All right, every row has a nominee. So what I need you nominees – and everyone in the room – to do is look at the screen. “Hey Siri, give me a 30-second timer. Where’s Waldo, Siri baby!” I want you guys to look at the screen for 30 seconds. Then you’re going to turn around and no longer be able to look at the screen.

(Countdown) Five… four… three… two… one. Turn around! All right, no more looking at the screen. Everybody in the line should be looking forward. Kiki is going to be asking you questions. We’ll go one by one. If you miss the question, you move back to your row, and you lose!

(Questions about how many birds, what color the tent is, what game is being played, etc. – people move up or down the line if they get it correct or incorrect.)

All right, so we have a winner: Ellie! Ellie wins a gift card and her whole row gets some Snickers. Where are the Snickers? We’ll get them to you guys.

As soon as this is handed out, we are going to hear from Emet You probably heard Smed mention Emet this morning. Emet had quite an incident this week, and he’s going to tell you about it so we can appreciate God’s grace towards him – and towards us – that we get to still have Emet here with us.

Emet’s Testimony

(Emet comes up) Emet, can you share what happened to you this week?

Emet: Yeah. I was heading to baseball practice and was about two miles away from it. There was a curve in the road – just one lane east, one lane west – and I looked down for one second to check how many miles I had left on my GPS. When I looked up, I was headed straight for a semi-truck. I swerved at the last second, hit the front side of the truck, and spun out. Had I not looked up in time, it would have been a head-on collision. I definitely wouldn’t have made it.

(Jacob shows a picture of the car) That’s where you were sitting, right?

Emet: Yeah, that’s my seat. It could have been so much worse.

Jacob: Sobering, right? That response time – less than a second – made the difference between being dead and alive. You were telling me about some of the thoughts that go through your mind after an event like that. It’s not every day you realize how close you were to meeting Jesus face to face. Can you share a little about what’s been going on in your heart since then?

Emet: God uses trials to grow you. I don’t deserve to live, but God still allowed me to stay alive. That’s a grace from Him. I realized I don’t want to waste my life; I want to use it to glorify God. I was created to glorify Him, and I was so close to death. Yet He sustained me, so now I want to live for His glory.

Jacob: Amen. It’s so easy to go through life thinking the days will continue like they’ve always been. When something like this happens, it changes you. You wanted to share this because you didn’t want it to only affect you. What encouragement would you give your fellow students?

Emet: It’s a good reminder that my life is in God’s hands, not in my control. I don’t want to live selfishly. God sustained my life. So just remember God is the one keeping you alive. Don’t waste your life; live for Him.

Jacob: Let’s thank God for that.

Transition to Worship & Prayer

Jacob: Chris, come lead us in worship. (Prayer) God, thank you for sustaining each of us. We woke up because you sustained us overnight. We’re breathing breath we don’t deserve by your grace. Thank you that today we get to hear Emet talk about this near-miss instead of us mourning the loss of a dear friend. I pray you would use this to make Emet not want to waste his life and that you would grip some of us with the reality that life is short. We’re not guaranteed tomorrow.

Some might be planning to wait a while to repent. Show us we are not guaranteed a single hour. When we stand before you, the only way we can stand with hope is through Jesus Christ and His righteousness. I pray for these students that they would not waste their lives. May we worship you wholeheartedly now. In Jesus’ name, amen.

How to Read the Bible, Part 3

All right, we are going to jump back into part three of “How to Read the Bible.” We’re finally ready to get practical: how do you actually read your Bible? We’ve learned what the Bible is. Last week, we learned that the Bible is God’s inspired Word. If you don’t have a note sheet, raise your hand; the note sheets will be particularly helpful today. I don’t want you to have to scribble like crazy, so I wrote down some things you’ll want to know. There’s a glossary on the back, plus a quick review from last week.

We learned that the Bible is God’s very Word. Even though human authors wrote it, God used them to write exactly what He wanted. Every single part is inspired. Because it cannot be wrong, it isn’t – so it’s both infallible and inerrant. Because it is God’s Word, it holds authority over us. It has everything we need to know God and to live a life pleasing to Him. It’s sufficient; we don’t need to run outside the Bible to solve the most important questions in life. It’s also clear, and that’s what leads us to today’s lesson.

The Bible is written so that anyone who comes to it with faith and the help of the Holy Spirit can understand. You can understand the Bible on your own; you don’t need priests or a church to mediate. Pastors can help you, and we should use teachers God gave to equip us, but you don’t need them in an ultimate sense. This is so important historically because the so-called church in the past hid the Scriptures from the people, reading it only in Latin. The Reformation blew up when God’s Word was translated for ordinary people. William Tyndale said he wanted even the plowboy to understand Scripture.

Martin Luther similarly believed the Bible is not the exclusive domain of priests or scholars. The reason a person like Smed can preach so richly is he’s simply asking questions of the text, deeply studying it, relying on the text’s authority, not on tradition. The Bible is clear and accessible to all believers.

We should read the Bible for ourselves. When you hear someone teach, test what they say by Scripture. Open the Bible and find answers. That is the point of this lesson: you can read the Bible on your own. It’s a skill you’ll grow in day by day, year by year. So how do we read it? We read it, recognizing what it is, in three steps: Observation, Interpretation, Application. We observe what the text says, we interpret what it means, and then we apply it to our lives. We pray for God’s help each step of the way.

Our approach is grounded in the fact that the Bible was written to be understood. If you get a science lab assignment and jump to the application (doing the experiment) without carefully reading the steps, it’s not going to go well. The same is true with Scripture: we want to pay attention to every word, read thoroughly, then see how it fits the bigger picture, and only then apply.

Observation, Interpretation, and Application

Let’s talk about the first step: Observation. What does the text say? There’s a famous story of a professor named Agassiz who taught a student to observe a single fish for days. At first the student was bored, but as he kept looking, drawing, and re-examining, he realized how much he had missed. The same is true with Scripture: we want to look again and again. We can ask questions: who, what, when, where, why, how? Use a pencil and write down your observations. Look deeper and deeper. Push through boredom and distraction. Reading carefully is hard for our generation, but it’s crucial if we want to see what Scripture really says.

After careful observation, we move to Interpretation. The Bible was written a long time ago, in languages and cultures that are different from ours. We have to consider context, culture, language, time, and the original audience. We don’t want to read ourselves into every text immediately; we first want to see what the author meant for the original recipients. Yet God’s character never changes, so we ask, “What does this passage reveal about God?” and “What does it reveal about humanity?” This helps us cross the bridge from their time to ours. Romans 15:4 says these things were written for our instruction.

Finally, Application. We ask: What effect must this have on me? First Corinthians 10 says Israel’s story in the wilderness was recorded so we would not desire evil as they did. These Old Testament examples happened for our instruction. Application is more than “What should I do?” It’s, “How must my thinking, my heart, my actions be changed?” We can ask if there are examples to follow, commands to obey, sins to forsake, promises to believe, or principles to live by. Once we find out what specifically needs to change in our thinking and living, we should respond immediately: worship if it reveals something about God; repent if it uncovers sin; obey if it teaches a command.

On your daily note sheets, these questions appear as: “What does it say?” (observation/interpretation), “What does this reveal about God?” and “How must this affect me?” Always be specific in your application. Don’t just say “sin less.” Identify the actual sin, repent, and trust God for change.

Next week, we’ll spend most of our time in discussion groups. You’ll talk openly about how studying God’s Word is going, where it’s easy, where it’s hard, and ask questions. Your leaders are here because they love you; they know how to read God’s Word, and they want to help you. The following week, we’ll start doing Q&A with any questions you submit.

I appreciate you bearing with this long lesson, and I pray it bears fruit in your life.

Conclusion & Prayer

(Prayer) God, thank you for your Word. Thank you for making it understandable, even though it takes diligence and the work of your Spirit. I pray you’d help these students treasure the fact that we have your Word in our own language, with tools to help us understand it. We have minds and an education. Tomorrow, I pray they’ll open your Word with a renewed appreciation and desire to read well. Carry them all the way through to understanding, belief, and obedient hearts.

Your Word is truth, and it sanctifies us. Please do miracles with your Word. I also pray for our missionaries translating your Word, that you’d unleash your truth among those who don’t have it. Thank you for the sacrifice of those who labor so that people may have the Bible in their own language. I pray you’d do a mighty work among us as we read. In Jesus’ name, amen.