Making sure God's words aren't lost in us

Scripture: Deut. 31:24-26; 2 Kings 23:1-3; John 15:14
Speaker: Bruce
Date: 2.08.09

As I was preparing for yesterday’s Sunday school class, I relied on the fact that the Covenant class is such a great group that your discussion would help us reach a deeper level of application for our final study in 2 Kings. And of course you did not disappoint! What an awful way to grow up, realizing that you could become king while you were still a prepubescent. That happened to Manasseh (age 12), and again to his grandson Josiah (age 8). But it is startling that someone in Manasseh’s evil home planted in Josiah the seeds of faith that eventually grew to make him a man after God’s heart.

To me, one of the most startling things about Josiah’s story is that after less than 60 years since the reforms of the godly King Hezekiah, the people of Israel had already entirely forgotten the word of the Lord. The scriptures themselves had actually been lost INSIDE THE TEMPLE! And this after the book of Deuteronomy specifically told them where to keep the book (Deut. 31:24-26). I appreciated the thread of conversation that Garry launched with his response asking how the church of today loses the Word of God, and by extension how we lose it as individuals. You came up with some great examples, suggesting we lose it by thinking we are already familiar enough with it, or by changing our interpretations of it to fit our whims.

I loved the examples you gave at the beginning of class listing your favorite Bible verses, and their connections to your life situations at the times those verses became important to you. I think this idea lies at the heart of at least one of the ways we keep the Word of God from getting lost—by using it as a source for dealing with our problems.

Finally, 2 Kings 23:1-3 talks to us about committing to God’s commands. I often dismiss much of the Old Testament saying it is simply the old covenant, and that is has been replaced by the new covenant with it’s mind-bending ideas that are opposed to legalism. But in fact in John 15:14, Jesus gives us commands and tells us that those who love him are those who follow his commands.

The final words of the class were discussion about what we can do to ensure God’s words are not lost to us. We discussed that we all realize what a special place the Covenant class is. And we ended with the question each of us needs to answer—“What can I do to help us export the kind of spiritual fulfillment found in our class to other places within the church, and then outside the church?” So, what can you do?