In this week’s podcast Brent Romisch shares with Pastor Mike some practical advice on where a new believe might start his/her bible study journey, how to set themselves up for optimal success during study time, as well as some great advice on family worship.
Harvest Detroit West
Treasures in the Field - Psalm 119:9-16
(upbeat music) - Well, good afternoon. Welcome to Treasures in the Field. This is our midweek podcast at Harvest Bible Church recapping. The sermon from this past Sunday. And my name is Mike Moses. I'm so happy to be back at harvest after a two month sabbatical. And typically I am on the other side of the table talking about my messages. But today I get to host the podcast because the sermon this past Sunday was brought to us by our youth director, Brett Romish, and did a wonderful job speaking from a portion of Psalm 119 on the majesty of God's Word. I thought you did a tremendous job, Brett. Appreciated the message. My family and I were very helped by it. And just wanted to give you a moment here before diving into some details to just recap the message for anyone who may have missed it. - Yeah, as you mentioned, we were in Psalm 119 specifically in verses nine through 16. And we were looking at the majesty of God's Word, which is the theme of Psalm 119. I believe I mentioned in my sermon in a 173 out of 176 of the verses approximately in Psalm 119, God's Word is referenced. So it's all about the majesty of God's Word. And specifically in verses nine through 16, it talks about the majesty of God's Word and that it purifies and blesses our lives. And we see that in the question posed in the first half of verse nine. How can a young man keep his way pure? And the answer is by guarding it according to your Word. We see that in the second half of verse nine. And then I argued in my sermon that throughout the rest of the Psalm, the question of, well, what is guarding my life what the Word of God looked like? That question is answered. And it looks like a wholehearted dedication to the Word of God. It looks like a commitment made to memorizing God's Word, storing it up, hiding in our hearts. It's an openness to receiving instruction and sometimes correction from the Word of God. It involves a delight in the Word of God and delighting in the things that God delights in and despising the things that God speaks out against in his Word. And then also a commitment to just meditating on God's Word. And specifically as we see in verse 15 of Psalm 119 meditating on his precepts and fixing our eyes on his ways. So just that, if we have the desire to keep our ways, pure, which I pray that we do, it requires us to guard our lives with the Word of God. And that guarding of our lives with the Word of God involves those five things. Dedication, memorization, an openness to receive instruction from the Word, a delighting in the Word, and a meditation upon the Word. - Amen. It was a very well prepared and well delivered message. And I appreciated that it not only brought forth the content of that portion of God's Word, but it was very practical as well. We've really pressed into some specifics, some takeaways that any Christian, any family can use right now in their lives. And I appreciated that so much. I just wanted to give you an opportunity to take even some bonus time here to get even more practical with the text than you had time for on Sunday. And one question I had was, we know about the majesty and the power of God's Word. It's important in the life of every Christian. If someone were to come to you and say, I know God's Word is amazing. I've actually never taken time to just read it and study it for myself. But it's a big book, where do I begin? How do I begin in this journey of being in God's Word for myself? How would you practically advise someone to get started? - Yeah, I would typically direct them to the New Testament and specifically the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John. I usually recommend the book of John, but I just give them an encouragement to really dive into the Gospels because it's there we see the life and ministry of the most important person in the Bible, the one that all of scripture, Old Testament and New Testament is ultimately pointing towards, and that's Jesus Christ. And that's the best place to start. Acquaint yourself with the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. And I do encourage people, read Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but it was just one. I would start in the book of John. And I even like then carrying that into the book of Acts, and you kind of see the beginning of the church, the early church and how that just explodes onto the scene. And you see the impact that the Gospels had on people's lives. And oftentimes new believers or people who are just getting into the scriptures can relate to that. They're kind of seeing that happen in their own lives and they're developing a love and a desire to be a part of the church. It's like, this is where it begins, is in the book of Acts. So that's typically what I like to do, is begin in the book of John. Acquaint yourself with the life and ministry of Jesus Christ. Familiarize yourself with his virgin birth, his sinless life, his atoning death, his victorious resurrection. And even in the Gospels, you see some illusions to his future return as well, you know. And then go into the book of Acts from there. - Yeah, I love that. I love that. I think that's spot on, just going right to the heart of the Bible that's Jesus himself. And I think from there, once you have that understanding of who Jesus is, what he did, what he taught, obviously we'd accomplished on the cross in his resurrection, then everything that comes before that. You can read it in light of the fulfillment of Christ and everything that comes after that. You can appreciate how all those wonderful teachings of the epistles and the doctrine is centered on the person of Christ right at the heart of the Bible. So I love that. I think that's a great place for anyone to begin. - And as you mentioned too, that does help with your reading of the Old Testament. You can go all the way back to, at the fall, where there's the promise. You know, in Genesis chapter three, I believe it is. Or, you know, then you're reading the book of Isaiah and the prophecies and you're in Isaiah 53, for example. You know, without reading it, John, you may not know exactly what that's talking about, but it becomes very clear. If you really familiarize yourself with who Jesus is, what Jesus came to do, what he did do for our behalf, that does illuminate our hearts and our minds and our eyes through the Holy Spirit, to everything else that the scripture talks about, which is so important. But we're so blessed to be on this side of the cross, right? 'Cause if you lived back in that day, you would be reading those wonderful prophecies from the Lord, but it wouldn't be clear, you know, what it's about and when it's happening and who it's happening through, and now we can read all that hindsight. It's an incredible blessing. I thought one of the secondary themes of your message, you mentioned this often throughout the message and I loved it was family devotions. And just bringing the word into your house, you know, as a father leading your family, as a mother. And I was gonna ask you just practically speaking. You mentioned, you know, you got two very young boys right now. How might family devotions look different when your kids are very young versus when they're getting older, elementary age versus when they're in middle school, high school? Or even if you have kids spread throughout all those ages, it's not necessarily gonna look the same, practically speaking. So how would you advise parents to think through particular contours of family devos based on the season that their family happens to be in? - Yeah, I'll say generally to begin, just base it all in the word of God. Again, that's what Psalm 119 is all about. It's about the majesty of God's word. So whatever you do, it needs to be rooted in God's word and it all needs to point towards God's son, our Savior, Jesus Christ. But with that in mind, and I can especially speak to, if you have young children, my two boys are three and nine months old and so what we really focus on is just core, biblical truth with our boys right now, mainly with Brooks, who's three? And so we're actually using a book. It's another resource I can recommend. I really like to recommend resources, just 'cause it really helps people. Like, yeah, I wanna do that, but how, oh, it's like, here's something you can actually do and you can actually purchase and you can actually use this. But we use a book called Truth for Toddlers. It's for kids ages one to three. It's through answers and genesis, they're the ones who put it out. It just focuses in on five core, biblical truths. God created everything. God is good. Jesus came to save sinners and there's a couple others in there as well. And with our boys from when they're one until they're three, we are just really honing in on those five core, biblical truths and making sure they have an understanding of what God has done through his world and through his word as well. And just what God has done for us through his son and Jesus Christ. So that's the emphasis that I'd recommend placing on. Like if you have young kids, I would say seven and younger just really focus, or we'll say five and younger, really focus in on some core, biblical truths, but also get the memorizing scripture as well, you know? That's why I love the Iwanah program that we have here at harvest, 'cause it's a very young age. Those kids start hiding God's word in their hearts and that's so vital as they grow to be, you know, tweens and then teenagers into young adulthood, that's something that will stick with them their whole entire lives, Lord willing. So I think that's really, really important is for young kids, focus on core biblical truths that are rooted in scripture, get the memorizing scripture, get the memorizing those core biblical truths. Another resource I'll recommend is actually one that we are doing as a church here at harvest. It's the new city catechism. You know, we're going to catechism and questions and answers every single Sunday. - And there's a kid's version. - There's a kid's version of that curriculum and I would strongly recommend going through those questions and answers with your kids and having them memorize those questions and those answers as well. So that, you know, again, that's something that will stick with them throughout adulthood. And we see in statistics show one of the main reasons why young people leave the church today is because they have questions and they don't get answers. And when we provide our children from a young age with those important questions and we give them those answers and we help them memorize those questions and memorize those answers, it's going to significantly, I believe, lessen their chance of coming to a point where they're like, yeah, I have questions and I don't have answers. And even if it doesn't answer their exact question, it does show them that you can ask more questions and there are answers God's word does provide us with all the answers we need for life and ministry. You know, so I think that's really, really important that we teach our kids the scriptures, that we teach them and focus in on from a young ageless core biblical truths and that we also provide them with answers to those very, very important questions that people have. - Yeah, love that. - So yeah, so that's where I'd start. If you have kids who are five or younger and if they're older, if they're teenagers or late teens, whatever that may be, I would really just recommend placing a strong emphasis on reading God's word. Open up a book of the Bible and spend a month reading one chapter, focus in on the chapter and read that chapter every single day. You know, so it's not as much a, it's not a, we're just reading this to read it to get through our reading tonight, but say we're really going to focus in on Romans chapter three as a family. - And get to know it. - And we're really going to familiarize ourselves with this chapter and we're not just going to read it, but we're also going to meditate on it. We're going to think about it day and night. We're going to consider how it applies to our lives. We're going to place an emphasis on like me as a father. I would place a strong emphasis on helping my children see their depravity and our depravity and our desperate need of a savior and how ultimately Christ is the one who saved us from our sins. And we have fallen short of the standard, you know, significantly short and just place that strong emphasis on our need for the savior, so. I think that sometimes just that focus on one particular chapter of God's word or one particular book, or whatever, maybe it gets neglected just for like, oh, we're just reading to check this off our list and finish our Bible reading so we can get through the Bible in a year, you know? I think there's a lot of value in doing a year through the Bible, you know? But I also think there's a lot of value in reading through the Bible at your own pace as a family and focusing on it. Again, those core biblical truths, but straight out of God's word, not a book that has pictures and things like that, not a term wrong with that, but. - I love that, I can see benefit to that as well and just taking your time because, you know, if on a particular day, one of your children, it really gets them thinking, you know, and all of a sudden a lot of good questions are generating. You can just take time and pause and engage rather than feeling like there's a schedule you have to rush through and it's got to be quality over quantity in those moments. And so I love those tidbits. If you don't mind, I'll add just one that I saw to be helpful with kids being a little bit older, seven, five and three, all of them boys, all of them very active and to ask them to just sit and be quiet, you know, and still for a long stretch of time, it's just a little harder for them. And one thing we've done is, you know, so like going through the Gospel of Mark, for example, it's a very active gospel and I've actually had them act out the scenes in Mark, so that they can kind of get that energy out. They're engaging with the word, but they're acting it out. And I'm hopeful that that's helping them to appreciate how these are real stories that happen with real people in real time, in real space, and to imagine a little bit what it would have been to be a part of that story. And it does get a little silly sometimes, I'll be honest, I, you know, the story of, you know, the demons being cast into the herd of pigs and drowning in the seed, that was a fun one, let me tell you. But, you know, my hope through that is that they would engage with the word in a way that shows them. It is living, it is acting. These things did happen to real people in the same God that they experienced, is the same God that we can experience. - That's right, that's right. - So love that emphasis and thank you for speaking to me. - And I found music to be helpful as well. And another group that I love is Seeds Family Worship because they just take scripture and they put scripture to song and, you know, my boys just love the music. They know the words, they love singing the songs and in singing those songs and then learning those songs and singing them, they're hiding God's Word in their heart. - Love that. - And I think that's another effective thing that you can do, you know, with kids, you know, even a little older as well. They still enjoy listening to the songs. We play them here on Sunday mornings in our little kids, opening assembly in a worship time. And I just get to kind of sit back and watch all these kids continue to hide God's Word in their heart. And that warms my heart and helps me hide God's Word in my heart. I'd much rather be singing a song that is straight out of the good book than singing, roll, roll, roll your boat a hundred times a day, 'cause you know, those kids' songs do get stuck in our heads. I love that they do that with scripture and that that group, Seeds Family Worship, there's other groups as well that do the same thing. But that's just another one that I know my boys have enjoyed and they get to hide God's Word in their heart and delight in it as well, which I think is. It is, I talked about it on Sunday, it's another important aspect. - It really is to show that it's not a drudgery, but then it's a delight. One last question for you, if you don't mind, speaking to one more, you know, the section you preached on has an emphasis on meditating in God's Word and you very rightly explained what meditation is in a Christian sense, it's not like Eastern meditation where you're emptying your mind, but you're actually filling your mind with scripture and meditating upon how to apply it to your life and delighting in God through it and that was a great emphasis. How would you advise someone who tries meditating on God's Word, but just finds their mind constantly being drawn away? I mean, frankly, we live in a very distracted age and I think social media has played a big part of that. People just scrolling through these 10 second video clips all day and our brains are being retrained to not focus in a sustained way upon one specific section of scripture. So if someone really wants to meditate on God's Word but they're just finding themselves, having a hard time keeping their mind focused on that. What are some practical guidance you would give? - Yeah, I do agree with you. The biggest distraction that we have is our cell phones, and it is social media or phone calls, text messages, whatever, there's a great app, or not a great app, but there is a great feature on our phones. It's called the Do Not Disturb feature, you know? And I would encourage people to use that feature when you are striving to have those moments. And so that's very practical, but like just if you, when you're in your quiet time or whatever it may be, turn that Do Not Disturb feature on and you can even set it up on your phone to where it's like, okay, well, my wife texts me or she calls me. - Sure. - That notification will come through, and others won't. You know, the sports fan group chat you're in, which blows up whenever something happens or whatever, you know. - Right, right. - But I just think like, yeah, whenever, and I, you know, even as we're doing this podcast, my phone's sort of ringing out my Apple watch. And like, that's distracting, you know? And it's like, you get those, all it takes is one tiny little buzz on your wrist. And all of a sudden, that time where you're really focusing on God's Word and you're really trying to meditate on it, that's when those other distracting thoughts are to come in, so you really have to limit them from the jump, you have to be proactive, not reactive when it comes to those distractions. - There's another great app called Leave Your Phone in the other room. - That's right, that's right. It did your watch off, it did all that stuff, you know? - Yeah, but like, go those, take those measures before you go into that quiet time, you know? And then speaking of quiet time, have a set quiet time each morning. You know, you're like, this is my time where I'm putting my phone in the other room, and the kids are still sleeping, my spouse is still sleeping, the house is quiet, you know, nobody's texting me about work things, you know, light things, this is my time where I'm gonna, where I know I'm not gonna have any distractions, where I know I can really sit here and just feast on these few verses or whatever you're reading that particular day. So have that set quiet time. - That's good. - I heard another great illustration this week, as it pertains to quiet times and having those quiet times to be early in the morning. And I don't remember exactly how it went, but the idea was this, the idea was imagine if there was a buried treasure with a million dollars that was buried in your backyard, the backyard of your house was buried, you know, six feet deep back there. And you could dig for that treasure, but you could only dig for that treasure between the hours of five a.m. and seven a.m. each morning. I can guarantee you that everybody listening to this podcast, everybody, if that was the case for them, there's a million dollars buried in their backyard, they're going to be five a.m. and seven, they would be up at 4.30 a.m. Shuffle, ready to go, nobody's gonna be distracting them, no work calls, no tax, nobody like that. They're gonna be out there at five a.m. And they're gonna be digging for that treasure. Guaranteed. - Yeah. - With God's word, we have something that is way more valuable as I alluded to in my sermon on Sunday than a million dollars buried in the backyard. And it's not buried, it's very accessible for us, right? We have this treasure in our homes, you know? And it's like, why aren't we getting up at 4.35 o'clock in the morning to dig into this treasure that's gonna be extremely valuable and beneficial, not just to us, but to our family as well, to our spouses and to our children? Like we should be getting up early in the morning to dig for this treasure that is contained in God's word, something that is of eternal value, you know, for our lives and for our souls. So I thought that was a great analogy. It's like, yeah, I'd be out there digging right away at 5 a.m. You know, I wouldn't be caring what anybody else thinks about my neighbors thinking me out there, like we have that treasure in God's word. And so we should be getting up early in the morning and committing ourselves to it. So that's another aspect, have that quiet time and have it early in the morning. So there are no distractions. So early quiet time, do not disturb up on your phone and then have a place in your house where you go as well. Like, this is my quiet place. This is my quiet space. I was reading a book on preaching one time and the guy who wrote the book, he was talking about his sermon prep and how when he does the sermon prep, he knows he needs to go to a quiet place. So like you typically think, oh, my office is my quiet place, but your office isn't always quiet. There's people coming in and going out and stuff like that. Like as we know, and that's true. And in a more practical sense, maybe it's like the bedroom, okay, it's quiet in the bedroom, you know, but still kids come in the bedroom and stuff like that. You almost need like a space within the space where you go. Like this guy in the book talks about, he had like a room in his office. So he wouldn't just sit in his office in his time of deep study. He would go in the room inside the room, you know, and that would be his quiet place 'cause he knew that nobody would distract him there. You almost need that protected space in your homes where you go, where again, all distractions are gonna be limited. And that's really gonna give you that time to feast on the word. And then you do have to commit yourself to another aspect of meditation. As we see in Joshua one verse eight, it is something that you have to do day and night. So yeah, you set yourself up for success early in the morning, but then you do need to commit yourself throughout the rest of the day that even when those distractions do come up, you do have to deal with those things. Obviously we have to work, we have to live, we have to parent and stuff like that. But even through that, we've set ourselves up for success early in the morning. So our mind still needs to be dwelling on those truths throughout the day amidst all of those distractions as well. And that's something where I would just say, practice makes perfect. - Yeah, love that. - And again, you just let the word work through you throughout the day. I said it, my sermon, it's not all about how many times I go through the word, but how many times is the word going through it? - That's right. - It needs to be all day, every day, but set yourself up for success early in the morning. - Yeah. And I love how you mentioned don't get discouraged if it doesn't go perfectly. - That's right. - First day or the first week, anything is better than nothing. That's right. - That's right. - That's what I was doing gauging with God's word. So I have a plan, but don't just quit the whole thing if you miss self-inner if you just, yeah. And yeah, I just love your passion for the word of God and how you brought that forth on Sunday and again today. And I really, really appreciate that. And of course, this has been part of a summer series in the wisdom literature of the Bible. And I'm very blessed the next two Sundays to come back into the pulpit and close out that series with a two week focus on Ecclesiastes. So Ecclesiastes is a very interesting book. I would encourage people to read through the book if they can before Sunday. Just to familiarize yourself, I'm gonna be addressing it thematically over the next two Sundays. And I'm gonna give people a heads up that this coming Sunday, I'm gonna be focusing on a lot of the emphasis of Ecclesiastes that's a little bit more down, a little bit more depressing, you might even say. And acknowledgement of how frustrating and even seemingly meaningless life can be if all we are viewing is the world under the sun and forgetting about the God who sovereignly orchestrates things toward his good ends over the sun, so to speak. And so this Sunday's gonna, you know, we're gonna focus on some very real stuff that we experienced that Ecclesiastes acknowledges. And then the following week we're gonna get into some of the more positive stuff that Ecclesiastes addresses and ultimately pointing us back toward the Lord. So I pray that'd be a blessing to folks and, you know, trust that this whole summer emphasis on the wisdom of God and the wisdom literature has been a great and practical blessing for our people. So thank you for taking some extra time to walk us through those themes from Sunday. And if you wouldn't mind closing us out in prayer. - I'd love to, thank you. Father, we thank you again just for who you are, God, and what you have so graciously given to us, Lord, as we heard on Sunday and again today, Lord, through your word, Lord, and just the majesty and the wonderful truths that are contained in your word, God, and just how applicable your word is to our lives. God, we thank you for it, God. And we ask it as we go through this week, may we be a people who commit ourselves to keeping our ways pure and blameless before you, God, and to do that, Lord, may we be a people who guard our lives with the Word of God, who dedicate ourselves to your word, who commit to memorizing your word, who we wanna be a people who are open and receptive to receiving instruction from your word, who delight in your word, and who commit to meditating on your word as well, God. So be with us throughout this week and going forward as we strive to do these things, and ultimately, Lord, as we strive to live in obedience to your will and to your way, obedience to your word, God. We thank you especially, Lord, for your son, our savior, Jesus Christ, thank you for the relationship that we're able to have with you through his sinless life, through his atoning death, through his victorious resurrection. We are so looking forward to his future and glorious return as well. God, we also thank you just for the return of Pastor Mike, Lord and his family as well. We are so looking forward to Lord having him back in the pulpit this upcoming Sunday as he just takes us through a couple of weeks on Ecclesiastes, Lord God, as Pastor Mike alluded to, there are a lot of lows, but some highs and Ecclesiastes as well, but it's a practical book that we're all gonna be able to relate to, Lord, and even through the book of Ecclesiastes, Lord, we get just a beautiful picture of your faithfulness to us, and just the good things that you have given to us that come through a right relationship with you through your son, our savior, Jesus Christ. So Lord, we again just thank you for this opportunity we've had to continue to talk about your word, Lord, may we continue to dwell on your word throughout this week, may we give all the honor and all the glory to you. Lord, we love you, we love your son, Jesus. We pray all these things in his name, amen. - Amen, well, thank you, Brad. Thank you, listener, for tuning in today. Hope you have a great week, and we look forward to seeing you on Sunday. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]