Psalm 119:105 records David’s understanding of the importance of God’s Word. “Thy Word,” he says, “is a lamp unto my feet and and light unto my path.” Join Pastor Clark and the Dalton Church family as they explore the role of God’s Word in helping us to grow spiritually.

<p>Psalm 119:105 records David’s understanding of the importance of God’s Word. “Thy Word,” he says, “is a lamp unto my feet and and light unto my path.” Join Pastor Clark and the Dalton Church family as they explore the role of God’s Word in helping us to grow spiritually.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

How to Grow Spiritually

Chester Clark

Knowing Better

Leaping for Joy

Light in the Darkness

Giving Up, Giving All

Looking to Jesus

A number of years ago I had the privilege of going on a mission trip and as part of our trip we went to a part of the world where honestly I thought only National Geographic photographers went, you know, 1 of those trips where you just start to feel like you're in another world.

Much of the world feels much the same, especially after you've been to a few countries.

But this really felt like a different place.

I don't know if you can see that picture very well, but that's a longhouse.

This is in the jungles of eastern Malaysia near Borneo.

And these villages were composed of 1 or 2 of these longhouses.

The whole village lived in 1 of these bamboo and board structures, and 1 door after another after another was a room of 1 of the families, and that's where they lived.

And I remember as we were staying there, we actually, the young men in our group slept out on that front porch.

And they emptied 1 of the apartments for the ladies to sleep in that room.

And as we fell asleep that night, I still remember a wall of faces on 1 side of the porch watching us fall asleep and as you turn to the other side of the porch there was another wall of faces seeing how white people slept.

In fact while we were there 1 of the villages I remember going down is very hot day in the jungle the tropics you know and I I went down to the river and I took off my shirt and I was all by myself and I just was splashing myself down and washing myself down and cooling off a little bit.

And I looked up on that, the bank of the river up above me and there was just a wall of faces.

And 1 of our translators was walking by while this was happening and he said, you know what they were saying about you?

They were saying, look at that peeled potato.

Well that night, I remember it was a Saturday night, we left the village, 1 of these longhouse villages, and we were going to go to the next village.

We were doing some medical work, we were trying to help share the love of Jesus with these villages, and I remember we left this 1 longhouse village and we were going to the next village.

And by the time we left, it was already getting dark and we asked our guide, how far is it to the next village?

You see, they didn't have clocks and time pieces, so their measure of time was how long it took to smoke a cigarette.

Well, I had to decide after that trip they have some very slow-burning cigarettes.

Because as we made our way into the darkness, there was a little bit of a problem.

Our guide was leading us with some sort of a bamboo torch, literally.

He had something burning on the top of a bamboo torch, and he was walking through the jungle, and there was probably about 18 of us trying to follow.

The problem was very few of us had flashlights.

And as we went off into the darkness, and as the darkness got deeper and deeper, the problem became worse and worse.

Those fortunate enough to have a flashlight could see where we were going, and we were walking down a very muddy trail.

It was very vertical in some places, very steep.

It had rained, and so it was slippery and slick.

There were rivers we had to wade across in the darkness, coming up to our waist or so.

There were mountainsides, we were going through these rice paddies, and as we went down these slippery slopes, sometimes there were those who would lose their footing, and they would slide all the way to the bottom, at times taking out everyone who was in front of them.

And periodically you would hear the night air being punctuated, being pierced by a scream as someone stepped into something they didn't expect or fell into a mud puddle.

And 1 thing I learned very quickly, it pays to have a flashlight.

It pays to be prepared to be able to see where you're going, amen?

The reality is that all of us are along a treacherous path, and that's the path of life, right?

We're walking down a pathway which, to us, and in fact, to anyone but God, is yet unknown.

We're going into unexplored territory, and that's the future.

We're looking to arrive at our destination intact, but we don't know what's out there, and that's why it's good to have a light.

Our Scripture for today is Psalm 119 and verse 105, Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.

Last week we were talking about what it means to grow spiritually.

We were talking about there's a certain amount of knowledge that we need in order to grow in the Lord, in order to be a vibrant Christian, in order to be a vibrant church, we collectively and individually need to be growing, amen?

Why would someone want to be a part of a church where people weren't growing?

We need to be growing each day, each week in the Lord.

And so we looked at some of that which is needed, and 1 of the things that is needed is knowledge, right?

It's knowledge, and a couple of different types of knowledge.

And this knowledge I would propose to you this morning is found in the Word of God.

It's only in the Word of God that we're going to see the path clearly.

The path that will lead to spiritual growth.

Psalm 119, verse 130 says, the entrance of your words gives light, it gives understanding to the simple.

We need an understanding of ourselves and we need an understanding of Jesus.

You know, it's something, no 1 reaches the NBA or the NFL and decides they don't need to continue training and practicing, right?

No 1 gets there and says, I've arrived, I don't need any more of that, you know, my skills developed.

No, if you're going to be in the NBA or the NFL, you're going to have to keep working at those skills, right?

No 1 reaches medical school and decides they don't need to study anymore.

I know all that I was supposed to know, so therefore I can just stop studying.

I haven't asked my wife, but from what she's told me about medical school, that's not the way it worked.

And that's because there's always more to learn.

No 1 reaches adulthood and decides they don't need to eat anymore, right?

We know we have to continue eating, and yet for some reason, at times, I sort of feel like once we've become a Christian, we subconsciously decide we don't need to keep intently studying God's Word anymore.

The priority sort of fades away, and we stop realizing how imperative it is for us to be spending time in the Word of God.

And so we're going to look this morning at how we can know Jesus better and how we can know ourselves better.

I believe that to overcome the unconscious influences that shape our view of God, you and I need to be constantly in the Word of God.

The Word of God is how we see who Jesus is.

It'd be well for us, it'd be well for us, the book of Isaiah of Ages tells us, to spend a thoughtful hour each day in studying the life of Christ, especially the closing scenes, right?

Because there we see the character of God revealed.

In the life of Christ, we see what God is really like.

In His willingness to go to the cross, we see what God is really like.

In His forgiving those who nailed Him to the tree, we see what God is really like.

In fact, the cross of Christ is the fullest and most complete revelation of what the character of God is really like.

At the cross of Christ, the whole universe realized, listen, the devil's deceptions no longer have any influence on the rest of the universe.

After they saw the character of Satan and the character of Jesus manifest in full force of the cross of Christ, They saw that God indeed is love.

He would not coerce, He would not force, He would not try to twist the arms of His followers to do as He wished.

No, He asks us to obey Him because He loves us.

And He's willing to die for our disobedience.

And all of that is found revealed in the Word of God.

Now you might say, I've read the Bible, I know what it says.

Yes, but every day those subconscious influences or conscious influences are warping our view of the character of God, and we need every day to be letting the Holy Spirit provide that antidote that We might be able to every day not only keep our understanding of who God is, but grow in our understanding of who God is.

The second thing we need to know, and I believe this is all we need to know to be safe, friends.

I'm not downplaying any further knowledge of God or the truth of God's Word or the doctrines, believe me.

I believe that every single doctrine, if it's worth having, is simply a window into the character of God.

I believe that all we need to know is who God is and who we are.

Because once we know who we are, once we know who we are, there's 1 thing I'm going to guarantee you, at least if you're like me, once we know who we are, we're going to feel a need for something outside of ourselves, for the grace of God, because I'm not worthy.

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Series

How to Grow Spiritually

Light in the Darkness

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Sabbath Morning Worship Services

Overcoming, Victory, and the Brain

45m

Fill Me with the Spirit

50m

The Way of Love

The Way of Love- Part 5

37m

Confidence in Crisis

Confidence in Crisis - Part 8: Who Moved the Cheese?

53m

His Heart Was Different

26m

That You May Believe

52m

The Death of Legends - Part 2

45m

Misc

Entrepreneurship: Why & How?

52m

Creation- Genesis as the Foundation

53m

Love, The Only Reason Why

36m

David Guerrero Weekend

01 As It Was so Shall It Be: What Is A Christian Suppose To Do?

51m

Christ in Crisis

1h 7m

Sound Doctrine