Hey leaders, as we talk this year about our six core values, i’ve got Matt Wilmington here with us, and one of the things that we want to focus on is the commitment to Scripture. And that's what we're going to be talking about today. And what a better person, Matt Wilmington, probably a better person. But what a better person to talk to us about the importance of being in God's word as we lead our life groups. Yeah, scripture is always been one of our values here. And

Thomas Road, obviously, we're Christians, we hold the scripture. >> But the question is, are we

people of the Word? The word like, is our life marked by then I was raised by Mr. Bible, Harold

Wilmington. If you don't know, he wrote a book and go Google that for you young folks. But I

was raised in a house where we, the Word of God was central. It was not only what you heard

preached, and taught in the church, but it was central at our house and, you know, in the west

and American churches, we've gotten away from that. Even in good churches, but I love what

we're doing here at Thomas Road is holding on to not just believing in that was the old days,

some good fundamentalist. We all believe the Bible. We just don't know what's in there, but we

don't ever read it. >> But, you know, we'd like to quote it out of context. And I, what I love about

what we're doing in our group life is we're digging in, Borean style to God's word and we're

handling it together. Yeah, and one of the things that we share with our leaders is that right now

media, We have access to right now media that's all good and great resources, but also really is

the word of God that we want you to go back and as you're teaching your, your group that you're

saying, hey i’m gonna, we're going to take a book of the Bible verse by verse, and spend some

time in the Word of God. What are some resources or things that you do as you prepare,

prepare to teach God's word that you could share with our with our groups. Yeah, like my

groups tonight meets on Thursday nights. And though we are right now, Chris, we're going

through this Sunday morning study, but as we dig into Scripture, we've, we've done a great kind

of turn the last few years, which I appreciate, especially in our lifegroups. I think, I think women's

groups, you've helped to set the tone for us. You YPL groups. Actually, I love what Yunus and

the team has done. I think we need to be more like you. So keep doing it. It's it's just getting the

getting the family around the wording. The reason I say that is the danger is that you look at,

well, here's two pastors. We have religion degrees. You know, I have a doctorate. Sometimes

we say, well, your, your pastors and your teachers and your educated. I'm not I run a business

or I, you know, I teach school or whatever. I don't know the word and so I have to come and

pastor Jonathan will teach us the word. Well in, in, in Scripture, yes, the, the elders, that's what

they did, they taught the word. But the danger is that the devil will lie to some of you. You think,

well, I can't handle the word. And if you're if you're a Life Group Leader, you'd better be handling

the word of God. We have, the book and the family and the spirit in in that house. So tonight,

yes, it's in my house and obviously I'm there, but we pass it around because we should all be

able to handle God's word, which very simply means you read the text in context with text. And

we pray first, Holy Spirit, what does this say? The danger is we want to go to the professionals

first. Well, what does, what does John MacArthur say about it? Or what does Wilmington’s guide

to the Bible say about it? Or, let me go read something. They never had that. You know, they

didn't have commentaries throughout, throughout history. By the way, we didn't have individual

Bibles. This Western idea of, I read my Bible by myself on the hillside. That's a 400 year old

thing. Nobody had their own bibles, the word was always read in the group. It was always

handled by the group. So when you do this, you're practicing very historical Christianity type

thing. It wasn't private interpretation like Peter wrote about. And then they weren’t always in the

presence of an elder. They were just getting in their houses, unrolling scrolls or they were

somebody had memorized it. This is what John wrote. He wrote these letters and I've

memorized these. So first of all, when we come to God's word, you simply read it. You read it in

context, not out of context. You read this chapter, for instance, we've been going through

Ephesians three. Read Ephesians three, and we always pray. Holy Spirit, illuminate me. You

inspired this. Now we're going to study this tonight. Teach us you have the author in the room

with you every time you open the Word of God. And that's just not a nice devotional thought.

You literally have the author of the book in the room with you. Just ask him, show me what this

means. So when you read it as you prepare, pray that passage. Yeah, if you know what's going

to be o, its Hebrews six, it says, Some people may fall away from Jesus. Oh my goodness, I had

no idea what that means. Then pick up some trusted resources, commentaries, conservative or

Evangelical commentaries. And we can give you those ideas, but I think you know I think you

know some of those. Ok, I've got a little idea of some background here. Then you come into the

night or to your, to the morning and you sit around that table wherever you're at, and you just

say, we're going to read this together out loud. There's something powerful about that. And

same thing in the room. We're going to pray over this. And Holy Spirit, would you teach this to

us? And then you read it? And at the end of it, this is what I do. And yeah, I have a doctorate. I

can we can do the exegesis and do all this. That's all I do. Let's read it. Let's pray it. When we're

done with Ephesians three tonight, before we leave, what is the spirit telling us? What should I,

now what? What should I do with this? And people will just respond to them. And it's simple

stuff. And now every once in a while you might have a seminarian that gets out of hand. I can

say that because I teach over there. But, you know, o my, you know, let's, let's dig into some

deep stuff, but that's, it's pretty basic. And if the whole church was doing that, it would raise, If

we were Bareans, we would all raise the church. And so when Jonathan teaches, It would be

yeah, we can take that and go somewhere with it or challenging each other, you can go deeper.

But sometimes people who were deeper are just all wet, they're not really and you are able,

Paul says in Romans 12, I'm convinced that you're able to teach one another. And so obviously

stay within the doctrine of the elders, the church which is where we're at, but we can handle the

word of God. Yeah. I love love a couple of things that you said there. One is the Holy Spirit. You

know, God's given us the Holy Spirit as we read the Word of God. You know, we don't have to

be Bible scholars. We don't have to have doctorate’s degrees. But the Holy Spirit is going to

speak to us through God's word, as well as reading it together. And I know I have a life group

that meets with some college students and we are reading Ecclesiasties and we're reading it

ahead of time. So just challenging your group. You know, if, if you're going to to read one

passage, tell them ahead of time, hey, spend time in the Word before we, we meet. So God can

speak through you as we've discussed. And then putting it into action. We can have it here, but

it's putting it into action and saying, okay, what are we going to do next after we read God's

God's word, I just want to focus just a couple of minutes because there was something that

recently came on, on Facebook that I thought was powerful. And the importance of men

spending time in God's word. And what that does and the studies showed that a day, there

wasn't much change, two days, there wasn't much change. Three days, you know, kind of go a

little higher. But when men spent four days or more, it, it, it transforms their lives to where they

were more confident in who they are. Their, their marriages and their relationships start growing

stronger with their spouses. Pornography goes down. So what, why is it that sometimes we we

take it for granted. We think like, you know, we’ll hear it on Sunday. but throughout the week we

don't spend time. And what's the importance as a leader as we spend time in God's word. And

what that does to us. I think there is this, I had to go back to the professionalization of

Christianity there is somehow, way back when we learn this idea that only the pastor can tell

me. And I'm, I'm not taking away from the teaching of the elders in the church, but somehow I

can't do that. You run a business, you run a $1 million business, or you're an engineer, or you're

a school teacher. We can do this if you can read and understand. I think it's just honestly the

devil lies to you that makes you think you're not strong enough? Can we be real honest with the

guys? Sometimes our wives are closer to Jesus than we are in our reading. And my wife

doesn't, has never asked me to be this champion of the faith. You know, like I come in and I'm

floating on the cloud, she just wants to know that I'm walking with Jesus. If i'm reading my, my

Bible and, and we have something to talk about. That's really what it means a lot of times for, for

a guy to be the spiritual leader in the house. I'm just setting the temperature, i’m just setting the

thermostat. We all read, we'll pray. It's just as easy as saying devil, get thee behind me. I can

read this word. I will make it a discipline. Just like you. You're on social media, you're reading

sports scores. You are, you are dedicated. We all dedicate ourselves to reading, studying, and

meditating. You're all doing that. What are you reading, meditating, and studying? It may be

sports, it may be your industry, your field, it may be just entertainment. You can do the same

thing with God's word. And so it's just just, yeah, I don't have time. You don't have time because

you're meditating on other things. Just shift, like we've been doing through this fast, just shift

your reading and studying and meditate time. On the Word of God and see what God can do.

Thank you, Matt, for, Just just your insight and you know, as we, as we continue to talk about

our six core values, we're going to talk about others and we're going to have guest come and

some of our leadership and just share it because we want to equip you. We want to make sure

that the six values of our church are being lived out in our life groups. So thank you and I'm

looking forward to talking again as we talk about the other core values of our church.

music by bensound.com