Today’s message summary of January 19, 2020 from Pastor Gus Brown:
Is the Bible relevant? Does it have meaning? If it is not followed, then you are sitting on your own throne. If it is followed, then you acknowledge that God is real and you desire to experience His love for you.
The teaching of the church takes us beyond just knowledge! It takes us much further. There is greater understanding of God’s goodness and grace.
Knowledge does not lead to doing something. If God’s Word truly has meaning, it will compel a person to take action and live for Jesus.
People can have knowledge of God’s grace without experience His grace. People can have knowledge of His healing, but never experience His healing power. People can have knowledge of His power, but do they experience it?
Without the Bible, we will receive nothing.
It is the learning of God’s written will that allows you to know and experience His will for your life.
If you are learning the Word of God, at some point you will experience the living Word.
Hebrews 4:12
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
God’s Word is a living and active testimony of Himself.
God loves us through conveying His living Word to us and reminds us as to how we are to live.
The understanding of Biblical teaching is the foundation of living a Christian life. The teaching of the Scriptures is the basis for developing beyond just mere knowledge. It develops godly wisdom, awareness and sensitivity to the deeper teaching of the Holy Spirit for our lives.
This understanding is the ongoing development of a relationship with Jesus Christ.
You will not grow without yielding and listening to the Spirit of God.
Ephesians 1:16-21
I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the one to come.
Ephesians 3:14-19
For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith–that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
There must be an ongoing teaching of God revealing Himself to you, which will give you the desire to learn more about Him.
God will not withhold any good thing from you. He wants you to know that He loves you and cares about you.
If you’re not under the power of the Word of God, your faith will not help you to grow and understand His love.
Love surpasses knowledge.
It is love that moves a person to action based upon the knowledge. Love moves a person to action, and not knowledge alone.
1 Corinthians 2:12-16
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
Paul wanted them to go beyond knowledge. He wanted them to experience a love relationship with God by understanding what He had done for them. This is knowledge leading them to a deeper love relationship.
John 3:16
“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
God so loved us. God had knowledge about our sin. He did not move into action because of knowledge of our sin or our fallen state, but because of His love for us, He acted and gave His Son for us.
Romans 5:8
…but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God demonstrates His love to us. To demonstrate is to show, to present, to introduce His love for us.
Knowledge, by itself, will not bring one to act.
Love brings about action–not knowledge.
John 21:17
He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of John, do you love me?” Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, “Do you love me?” and he said to him, “Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.” Jesus said to him, “Feed my sheep.”
Peter had to learn more about his own heart. It is the love that moves a person to take action.
Matthew 15:8-9 (NIV)
These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.
Our actions will always surpass our words. Love surpasses knowledge.
John 14:21
“Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me. And he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him.”
Akron Alliance Fellowship 