I heard about a little boy who was finishing up his very last day of first grade.

So his
teacher was saying goodbye to the kids as they were going out the door and the little boy stopped
and said, Teacher, I want to stay in first grade with you.
Thats sweet, the teacher said. But youll have new teachers next year.
Yeah, I know, the boy said. Teacher, I wish you were smart enough to teach the
second grade!
Very often in the spiritual life, people get stuck in first grade. They find comfort in the
elementary things of the faith and they never really move on. Our current sermon series is all
about moving on. Our sermon series, Grow! Is about moving into a deeper spirituality
In the last sermon of this series we discussed how important it was to read the Bible from
the heart. We talked of how Adventists are very good at reading the Bible for the mind, for
knowledge, but not so good at reading the Bible for heart transformation. I said, reading the bible
for the mind without reading it for the heart is like eating food but refusing to drink water, it will
take no time at all for you to die. It is essential that we read the Bible for our heart as well as our
mind. To help you in that discipline I gave you a four step method.
We learnt that we need to consecrate our time with God, to consider what God is saying
to us, to converse with God, and lastly to commit to living the truth. Today we are going to focus
on step 3 conversing with God. I am so excited about the sermon today. I have the privilege of
teaching you how to use the Bible to converse with God. We are actually going to learn how to
use the Bible to pray.
Using the Bible to pray is as natural as the sun coming up in the morning and flowers
blooming in spring. The disciples did it. Jesus did it. The prophets did it. And now you can do it
too.
To pray using the Bible, you follow four simple steps. You Praise, Repent, Ask, and
Yield. You simply PRAY. Kathleen has shared these steps with us several times in Sabbath
School and I am now going to show you how to use those same steps to pray the Bible.
For our example today we are going to use Matthew 6:14-15. Matthew 6:14-15
14
For if
you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.
15
But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins. This verse
will be our guide today as I walk you through how to praise, repent, ask and yield.
Our first step to praying with the Bible is to Praise. When Christ taught His disciples how
to pray, He too put praise first. Heavenly Father, holy is your name. Jesus knew how important
it was to praise God first.
Praising God has a wonderful effect on our spiritual lives. Praising God reminds us of our
proper place. Yes God is our friend but praising Him reminds us that He is also our Lord. He is
not our Buddy. He is our Creator, our Redeemer, and our Savior and when we praise Him we lift
God up to His proper place in our lives. When we praise God we become servants bowing before
our King.
There are only two ways to praise somebody and both can be found in a mother praising
her son. When a mother praises a son she may say oh He is such a good boy. He is loving. He is
caring. He helps his mama clean the house. Hes a wonderful child. Thats the first way to praise
somebody. We call that adoration. Adoration is when you praise somebody for who they are. In
this case the mother is praising the son for being a wonderful boy.
On the other hand the mother may praise her son saying Bobby thank you for forgiving
your sister. Thank you for washing the dishes. Thank you for cleaning up your room. Here we
see the second way to praise somebody. We call it thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is when you
praise somebody for what they have done. In this case the mother is praising her son for cleaning
the house and forgiving his sister. She is thanking him for things he has done. When we praise
God we go about it the same way. We can either adore God for who He is or we can thank Him
for what He has done.
Adoring God is absolutely essential for our spiritual lives. Adoring God is not for His
benefit. God is not up there with an arrogant smile as we heap praises upon Him. Adoring the
Lord doesnt change God, adoring the Lord changes us. You see when you adore God; when you
praise Him for who He is, you begin to fall in love with Him all the more.
Who of us here has seen a girl when she first falls in love? She praises everything about
her new boyfriend. She talks of how handsome he is, how kind he is, how he stands up for her,
how he holds the door for her, how he always listens to her, how is always there for her. And as
you watch the girl praise her boyfriend it looks like she is falling in love with Him all over again!
You know why it looks like that, because she is. As the girl praises the good qualities of her
boyfriend, she falls in love with Him all over again.
It is the same thing when we adore God. We fall in love with Him all over again. So how
do we use scripture to adore God? Looking at our example how would we adore God with this
verse? I would say something like God you are so forgiving. I have sinned so many times yet
you are always right there to forgive me. Before I even repent you are there with forgiveness in
hand. You are so faithful to me God, even though I am unfaithful to you. Notice I spent time
praising God for who He is! Thats adoration. And you better believe it that when I praise God in
that way, I fall in love with Him again.
The second way to praise God is to thank Him for what He has done. Following our
example again we may say, God thank you for forgiving me. Thank you for teaching me
forgiveness that I can show others. Thank you for not punishing me when I have done wrong. It
is with thanksgiving that we praise God for what He has done.
In this first step we praise God for who He is, we praise Him for what He has done. The
second step is to Repent. At this stage we repent of who we are as sinful people and we repent
for what we have done in our sin. Isaiah 30:15 says This is what the Sovereign LORD, the Holy
One of Israel, says: "In repentance and rest is your salvation ... This salvation here is not the
salvation that lets you go to heaven, this is the salvation which saves you from your sin!
You see, repentance is more than just asking for forgiveness. Repentance is more than
just saying youre sorry, thats sorrow. Repentance is saying I know that action was evil and I
never want to do it again!
This occurs in the life of an unfaithful husband. He knows he never should have cheated
on his wife. He sees the damage it has brought to his marriage. And in that hurt he says, I know
what I did was wrong and I never will do it again. He loses the desire to cheat and gains the
desire to be faithful. That Brothers and Sisters is repentance.
Repentance is a hurricane of God, sent to tear apart the sin in your soul apart; ordained to
destroy the desire to ever sin that way again. Repentance leads to life transformation.
If you read the Bible, you will find it constantly calls you to repentance. When you
encounter the words of scripture, you should never walk away the same. Every time you read
from the sacred pages you are called to make a decision, you can either repent and live the
peaceful life Christ promises you or you can continue in your sin allowing you soul to perish.
Who of you here if you were drowning in the ocean would grab a 60 lbs. rock, hoping it
would bring you to the surface. None of us would, we know that would be certain death. But we
do it all the time with sin. We are drowning in the ocean of transgression and sin is the 60 lbs.
rock we cling to for salvation. Sin will not save you. Sin will kill you. It is the Bible that will
save you. The Bible is the lifeguard that rescues you while you are drowning in the ocean of sin!
The Bible calls you to flee from the sin that is killing you. Answer its call to repentance!
Following our example of forgiveness we could use this verse and repent like this. God I
am sorry that I am so unforgiving. I do not grant people forgiveness when they say they are
sorry. I make them pay and hurt for what they have done. God I do not want to be like that
anymore. Forgive me and purify me of this sin. When you repent of your sin you commit
yourself to never doing that sin again.
So our first step to pray the Bible is to Praise God for what the Scripture reveals, and to
Repent for not living up to that truth. The next step is to Ask.
In this step we ask God to give us the strength to live out the truth we learned. Matthew
7: 9-11 say,
9
Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
10
Or if he asks for
a fish, will give him a snake?
11
If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to
your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!
God wants to bless you. God wants to give you good gifts. God wants to grant you the
strength to live out His truth in the Bible. This step of asking is really easy. We just ask Him for
the strength. God help me to forgive the way you forgive. Help me to experience your
forgiveness so I can show it to others around me. In this step we simply ask God for the strength
to live out His truth. After we ask for Gods strength we Yield to His will. When we yield
ourselves to God we commit ourselves to his service again.
Like soldiers reenlisting in the army, we reenlist in Gods army. We recommit ourselves
to serving Him that day. 1 Corinthians 15:31 says.

in Christ Jesus our Lord, I die daily.
When we say die daily we really mean to become more like Christ every day. There are
many ways to become more like Christ every day and I cannot cover them all now. One way to
become like Christ is to yield to God; to recommit ourselves to Him.
Every day we set ourselves on Gods operating table and allow Him to remove the cancer
of sin that saturates our life. Whatever the Bible teaches us, we commit to living out the truth that
day.
So, what would a prayer look like from this verse when everything is put together?
Putting all the steps together my prayer might go something like this. God you are so forgiving,
more forgiving than I even deserve. As I behold your forgiveness I realize just how unforgiving I
really am. I am sorry for my hardness of heart. I am sorry for not loving others the way you love
them. Give me the strength to forgive those who wrong me. I surrender my will to you yet again,
praying that I would be a faithful and good servant.
When you learn to follow this four step process of praying the Bible, you will always
have something to say to God. And the best part, you will always be praying in His will. 1 John
5: 14-15 says
14
This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything
according to his will, he hears us.
15
And if we know that he hears uswhatever we askwe
know that we have what we asked of him. Gods will is revealed in the Bible so when we pray
according to His word we are guaranteed to receive what we ask for.