Monday, January 5th

We are kicking off a new series called Faith Essentials. Before we do a deep dive into that, think about it for a moment in broad strokes.

What are the essentials that you need for a hunting trip? For a golf trip? For a picnic with your kids? What are the essentials you need for a vacation? I guess it depends on where you are going. Going south, you are going to need sunscreen, some of you more than others. If you are going west, you are going to need bear hiking shoes and bear spray.
Which means, on our faith journey, what are the essentials? What are the essentials you need on your faith journey?

To answer that question we need to name what our faith journey is. Our faith journey is simply this, discipleship. As I mentioned at our business meeting, as well as briefly last week, we believe that everything is discipleship. But that we’ve at times thrown darts at discipleship, versus having a concentrated effort of why we do the things we do. This past year the elders have been working on defining discipleship as a whole and then using that as the impetus in how and why we are doing the things we are doing.

The definition of discipleship that we are working with is this. Discipleship is the process of loving God and loving others by being with Jesus, being like Jesus, and doing the things Jesus did. (say it with me) Which means the faith essentials, the discipleship essentials are the things that are going to help us live that out.

Right now, the essentials we are going to encourage you with, are the Bible, Holy Spirit, prayer, fasting, serving, community and generosity. Now some of you may say, what a minute, I don’t think those are essential or maybe you think of other things that are essential. Which is fine, but if we put it through the lens of discipleship, will these things help us grow in being with Jesus, being like Jesus, and doing the things of Jesus?

The first faith essential we are going to spend some time with is the Bible and we are going to take at least two weeks with this faith essential. This week we are going to talk about the what and why of the Bible and next week we are going to talk about the how of the Bible.
But here in lies the challenge with this first essential. It’s the Bible. The Bible is intimidating, it can feel daunting. The Bible is challenging for so many reasons.

In this giant book, which contains 66 smaller books, written by 40 different authors, 3 different languages over a thousand-year period and we are to try and understand it and apply it to our lives?

We typically struggle through engaging with scripture by keeping it at an arm’s distance. It is so hard to understand that we’ll just leave it up to the pastors or the people with degrees to share it with us.

Or we struggle with the fact that it is such a strange collection of writings. There’s history, poetry, and prophecy. There’s a talking snake, a talking donkey, incredible cruelty, almost all the greats of scripture have done something deplorable. Jesus’ teachings are hard, yet he’s full of grace, he offends the liberals and offends the conservatives.

I think we struggle with scripture because we see it as information only. As long as I can download as much information as possible and remember it, then maybe I might see change take place. I get it, theology is the study of God, but how much information can you garner and how can you regurgitate it?

I think the other challenge of the bible is that for some we are the judge and jury for the power of Scripture. That we have to prove or defend the bible so if any little thing or big thing is off, it’s up to us to know what we need to know and correct those who are wrong or correct our understanding of the bible. Besides the fact this was written in a different culture at a different time with a different political system and we want to put it through our American lens.

I appreciate how Mike Cosper puts it in his book, Recapturing the Wonder, “We hunger for a relationship with Scripture that leads to something deeper than head knowledge. We long for wonder and we long for communion with God, but we’re so terrified of getting something wrong that we either avoid Scripture all together or treat it as a cold, dead abstraction, unable to connect it to real life.”

What if there was more? What if, even in the midst of all those challenges, we were able to embrace the Bible as essential, essential to our journey, essential to life? That we could reawaken our understanding of the Bible. Where we want to enter its world and see it as more than mere facts or words on a page. That we can bring it to our lives, to fill our world with its presence.

No matter where you are on your faith journey, questioning, new follower or seasoned follower, my hope is that you will step into the pages of Scripture and see, in fresh ways, how essential the Bible is, not out of a have to or out of fear, but out of a sustaining power to live by.

If you want, take a moment and start reading Psalm 119, it is the longest chapter in the Bible, but sit with a few verses at a time this week, maybe a couple times a day.

I also encourage you with this song Promises