Sunday, August 30 · Fellowship Church
Vision Series: Theological Integration
Everyone carries words about God, and the work of discipleship is letting those words move from information into the heart, the affections and the ordinary moments of life until what we believe and how we live become one thing.
The passages
Until I come, pay attention to reading, to exhortation, and to teaching. Don’t neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the elders. Be diligent in these things. Give yourself wholly to them, that your progress may be revealed to all. Pay attention to yourself and to your teaching. Continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
1 Timothy 4:13–16
Don’t be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God.
Romans 12:2
For by him all things were created in the heavens and on the earth, visible things and invisible things, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things are held together.
Colossians 1:16–17
You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe—and shudder.
James 2:19
Go deeper
How do I get what I know about God to actually change how I feel and act?
Most of us can recite truths we have never let reach the heart, and the gap shows up in anxiety, in traffic, in the checkout line. Timothy is told to immerse himself in these things, not just teach them, and the psalmist sits with one truth until it becomes his own.
Until I come, pay attention to reading, to exhortation, and to teaching. Don’t neglect the gift that is in you, which was given to you by prophecy with the laying on of the hands of the elders. Be diligent in these things. Give yourself wholly to them, that your progress may be revealed to all. Pay attention to yourself and to your teaching. Continue in these things, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you.
1 Timothy 4:13–16
I will meditate on your precepts, and consider your ways. I will delight myself in your statutes. I will not forget your word.
Psalms 119:15–16
…but his delight is in Yahweh’s law. On his law he meditates day and night. He will be like a tree planted by the streams of water, that produces its fruit in its season, whose leaf also does not wither. Whatever he does shall prosper.
Psalms 1:2–3
But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things, and will remind you of all that I said to you.
John 14:26
Why does knowing more about God sometimes leave me less loving?
Paul imagines a man with every gift and every insight who has not love, and calls him nothing. Packer's complaint is that people who can spot bad doctrine a mile away often show less of the Spirit's fruit than people who know far less. Knowledge can grow without the heart growing with it.
If I speak with the languages of men and of angels, but don’t have love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but don’t have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but don’t have love, it profits me nothing.
1 Corinthians 13:1–3
You believe that God is one. You do well. The demons also believe—and shudder.
James 2:19
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faith, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
Galatians 5:22–23
Now concerning things sacrificed to idols: We know that we all have knowledge. Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. But if anyone thinks that he knows anything, he doesn’t yet know as he ought to know.
1 Corinthians 8:1–2
What if I only ever want the parts of the Bible I already like?
The sermon describes churches splitting into tribes, the doctrine people and the justice people and the nations people, each working only the muscles they enjoy. Paul told the Ephesian elders he had not held back any part of God's counsel, and the church in Acts is shown holding teaching and care and worship together.
…for I didn’t shrink from declaring to you the whole counsel of God.
Acts 20:27
They continued steadfastly in the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and prayer. Fear came on every soul, and many wonders and signs were done through the apostles. All who believed were together, and had all things in common. They sold their possessions and goods, and distributed them to all, according as anyone had need. Day by day, continuing steadfastly with one accord in the temple, and breaking bread at home, they took their food with gladness and singleness of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. The Lord added to the assembly day by day those who were being saved.
Acts 2:42–47
Every Scripture is God-breathed and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that each person who belongs to God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.
2 Timothy 3:16–17
For the body is not one member, but many. If the foot would say, “Because I’m not the hand, I’m not part of the body,” it is not therefore not part of the body. If the ear would say, “Because I’m not the eye, I’m not part of the body,” it’s not therefore not part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were hearing, where would the smelling be? But now God has set the members, each one of them, in the body, just as he desired. If they were all one member, where would the body be? But now they are many members, but one body. The eye can’t tell the hand, “I have no need for you,” or again the head to the feet, “I have no need for you.”
1 Corinthians 12:14–21
Where do I actually practice this in an ordinary day?
The sermon's picture of integration is not a study schedule but a moment at Kroger, when the Spirit brings a truth to mind in the middle of frustration and something shifts. Jesus said the one who hears his words and puts them into practice is the one whose house stands.
But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man looking at his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of freedom and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the work, this man will be blessed in what he does.
James 1:22–25
“Everyone therefore who hears these words of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it didn’t fall, for it was founded on the rock. Everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn’t do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain came down, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell—and its fall was great.”
Matthew 7:24–27
And whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.
Colossians 3:23–24
God created man in his own image. In God’s image he created him; male and female he created them.
Genesis 1:27
Does studying God make a person humble or proud?
RD says the more theology he learned at seminary, the more he realized how little he knew, and that theology is meant to make us marvel rather than master. Job stands before God and puts his hand over his mouth, and Moses is told the ground itself is holy.
Then Job answered Yahweh: “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be restrained. You asked, ‘Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?’ therefore I have uttered that which I didn’t understand, things too wonderful for me, which I didn’t know. You said, ‘Listen, now, and I will speak; I will question you, and you will answer me.’ I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
Job 42:1–6
He said, “Don’t come close. Take off your sandals, for the place you are standing on is holy ground.” Moreover he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” Moses hid his face because he was afraid to look at God.
Exodus 3:5–6
Oh the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past tracing out! “For who has known the mind of the Lord? Or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has first given to him, and it will be repaid to him again?” For of him and through him and to him are all things. To him be the glory for ever! Amen.
Romans 11:33–36
Great is Yahweh, and greatly to be praised! His greatness is unsearchable.
Psalms 145:3