Faith Comes By Hearing . . . And Hearing the Word of God!

A pastor was making a home visit to a family.  The dad of this family wanted to impress the pastor with his super spiritual life. So, he turned to his son and said, “Son, go get my favorite book. The book that I read and cherish every day here at home.”

So the boy left and came back with the Bass Pro Catalog.

Romans 10:17

Faith Comes By Hearing . . . And Hearing the Word of God!

The word Bible means “book.” Greek word “BIBLIOS”

What sets apart the Bible from other books, is the word “Holy.”

66 books.   929 chapters in the OT

260 in the NT.

1189 chapters in the Bible

If you read 3 or 4 chapters a day, you will read through the entire Bible in one year.

If you read 10 chapters a day, you will read the whole Bible in 120 days.

23,145 verses in the OT.

7,957 verses in the NT

31,102 verses in the Bible

There is no middle verse in the Bible. There are 2 middle verses.

Psalm 117 is the middle chapter in the Bible

Psalm 103:1, 2 are the two middle verses in the Bible.

How many authors of the Bible: 1

About 40 writers of the Bible, but One author.

3 types of Bible Translations:

Exact Equivalency Translations (Literal Translation)

    . . word for word

   Examples: King James Version, (Thee’s and Thou’s) New King James, New American Translation, ESV (English Standard Version)

Dynamic Equivalency Translation (functional translation)

 . .. thought by thought

    Examples: NIV (New International Version), The New Living Translation, Today’s English Version

Paraphrase Versions

They paraphrase from the English language, not fro the original manuscripts

  Examples: The Living Bible, The Message, the Amplified Bible

Here is a sample of a paraphrased version of the Bible called "Da Jesus Book  . . .     Hawaii Pidgin New Testament"

John 3:16 "God wen get so plenny love an aloha for da peopo inside da world, dat he wen send me, his one an ony Boy, so dat everybody dat trus me no get cut off from God, but get da real kine life dat stay to da max foeva. You know, God neva send me, his Boy, inside da world for punish da peopo. He wen send me fo take da peopo outqa da bad kine stuff dey doing.”

Faith Comes By Hearing . . . And Hearing the Word of God!

Why are we entering into an emphasis on hearing the Word of God.

1) Hearing the Word increases your faith.

Sometimes, we allow the voices of the world to speak into our lives.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Some teenagers listen to rap music with cussing on it, and then they wonder why cuss words flow out of their mouth so easily.

Rapper Jay Z recorded a song called “Empire State of Mind” where he uses numerous cuss words and then he says the following words “Jesus can’t save you – life starts when the church ends!”

Is that edifying to your soul?

Other questionable song titles:

If I Had Shot You When I Wanted To, I’d Be Out By Now

You’re the Reason Our Kids Are So Ugly

If you can’t live without me, why aren’t you dead?

Going to Hell in Your heavenly arms

If My Nose Were full of Nickels, I’d Blow it all on you!

I’m Sorry I made You Cry, But At Least Your face is Clean

I Wouldn’t take Her to a Dogfight Cause I’m Afraid She’d win

She’s Looking Better After Every Beer

Jesus Loves You But I Don’t

Thank God and Greyhound She’s Gone

My question is this: What are you listening to?

What are you opening your physical ears and spiritual ears to?

Television programs. 

2) God’s Written Word Opens the Door to God’s Revealed Word

Many times, people will make the comment, “I need a word from the Lord!”

God wants to speak to you – the question is  . .  are you listening?

You have heard me say time and time again that our spiritual life is not about religion, it is about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ!

You cannot have a close relationship with someone if you speak to them once or twice year. Would a marriage survive is the husband and wife only speak to each other once or twice a year?

Prayer and the Word are two primary ways to feed your relationship with the Lord.

Prayer is you communicating and God communicating to me.

Reading or listening to the Word of God is God communicating to you.

And the more you get into the Word and the more you get into prayer, the deeper your personal relationship with Christ gets.

God’s written Word opens the door to God’s revealed word.

In September of 1994, I was struggling with my calling to ministry. I was asking the Lord what His will was for me. I knew that God has a calling on my life, but I needed a job to support the family. So, I had interviewed for 2 positions in the accounting field and got turned down. So, then an opportunity arose for me to plant a new church – and perhaps we could name it Fortress Church. But, I wanted to make sure it was God.

So one night, I literally was up most of the night. I was reading the Word. I was praying. I was crying out to God. And about 6 am, I received a phone call from Trini Guerrero. She said, “Pastor, I have a Word from the Lord to you. Revelation 3:7, 8. The Lord has closed certain doors for you, but he has also opened certain doors for you. Now, it is time to lead your people.”

What happened that morning? God’s written Word (from Revelation 3) opened the door to God’s revealed Word.

God’s written word opens the doors to God’s revealed word.

Matthew 16:13-18

 ¹³When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, "Who do people say the Son of Man is?"

 ¹⁴They replied, "Some say John the Baptist; others say Elijah; and still others, Jeremiah or one of the prophets."

 ¹⁵"But what about you?" he asked. "Who do you say I am?"

 ¹⁶Simon Peter answered, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

 ¹⁷Jesus replied, "Blessed are you, Simon son of Jonah, for this was not revealed to you by man, but by my Father in heaven. ¹⁸And I tell you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not overcome it

What brought Peter to the point of being rock?

What brought Peter to the point that not even the gates of hell would prevail against him?  The revealed word of God! (v. 17)

Now, here is a unique truth about Peter.

Jesus first refers to Peter with the Greek word “PETROS” which means a small stone.

Then, Jesus refers to Peter as “PETRA” which means a large rock.

But here is a unique lead in.

Did you notice that in verse 17, Jesus refers to him as Simon, then in verse 18 Jesus refers to him as Peter. Why?

The name Simon means “to hear.”

Could it be that what launched Peter from being a small stone to a large rock was his calling to “hear” from God?

And faith comes by  . .  what? Hearing!

3) Your Hunger for God’s Word Reflects Your Spiritual Health

How sweet are your words to my taste, sweeter than honey to my mouth!  Psalm 119:103

When someone gets sick, one of the first things that happens is that they lose their appetite.  When you get the flu, you lose your appetite. When someone gets cancer, they lose their appetite and their body begins to physically waste away.

   This applies to our spiritual life as well. If you do not hunger for God’s Word, then your spiritual life will waste away.

Do you feel that you are in a spiritual drought right now?

Don’t feel bad. We all go through seasons and perhaps you have not had a good season lately.

Statistics show that a little over 50% of the people in America who call themselves Christian don’t read the Bible consistently.

Perhaps God is beginning a Kairos season for you. (God’s opportune time)

If you have noticed that you are not as close to God as  you used to be, God is calling you to draw closer to Him. This is your time. This is your Kairos season.

Principle: The level of your hunger for God’s Word determines the level of your spiritual life.

God is attracted to hunger!