Understanding Biblical truth is a matter of life and death. The Psalmist was acutely aware of this fact when he pleaded with God, ‘give me understanding that I may live’ (Psalm 119:144). The implication being that if he does not comprehend – if he does not ‘get it’ – then he is destined for destruction. People without understanding, after all, are ruined (Hosea 4:14).
The term ‘understanding’ is defined in the book of Proverbs. In fact, the word ‘understanding’ appears no less than forty-two times in that great book of wisdom. Proverbs 9:10 states that ‘the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding’. There it is! The cultivation of our skills in ‘understanding’ is equated with the knowledge of God. Author A.W. Tozer rightly observes, ‘it is impossible to keep our moral practices sound and our inward attitudes right while our idea of God is erroneous or inadequate’. In other words, if we don’t know God and do not know about God, we will never understand how it is that we are to live. It is, in fact, a recipe for disaster. A similar term to understanding is the word ‘discernment’. If there’s one thing that people lack in today’s world, it’s discernment. This word can be found in Philippians 1:9-10:
And this I pray, that your love would abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may be able to approve the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ.
The Greek word there in verse 9 for discernment is ‘aisthesis’, which means a high level of Biblical, theological, moral and spiritual perception (definition from John MacArthur’s commentary on the book of Philippians). It implies also a right application of knowledge. And this is necessary because then the Christian is able to live a life of obedience and spiritual devotion because they have been trained to distinguish not only between good and bad, but even between good, better and best. This is because they have been taught to critically analyze and carefully think through and identify what is crucial and what isn’t. They know what things are categorized as excellent and what things are not.
Without maturing in discernment, insight and understanding, I will succumb to every personal impulse and emotion. I will be tossed to and fro by the culture, and consequently live a life of instability and insecurity because of bad decisions, unfruitful relationships and meaningless endeavors. Maturing in insight and understanding requires hard work in the scriptures. There are no shortcuts to knowing God. It is a demanding proposition. If I want to understand, I must know God. If I want to know God, I must strive and pursue after Him by studying His Word with all my might… and I must pray for His Holy Spirit to teach me. But it takes time and effort.
And then even after I may have put in much effort, sometimes I feel as though I am still lacking in understanding. So I asked myself what things hinder me from understanding? What makes it so difficult to understand certain things at times? The Bible has the answer to such questions. In that same passage from Hosea, the prophet tells me in 4:11 that ‘harlotry, wine, and new wine take away the understanding’. This vivid picture couldn’t be any plainer. Adultery and drunkenness not only dulls the senses and callouses the heart, but they are sins that destroy marriages and other relationships. What Hosea is trying to tell me is that if I have gone after other things besides God, then I have committed spiritual harlotry, and with that I become so dull and calloused that I could never understand anything that God is trying to teach me. Falling in love with other alluring gods (like status, the praise of men, money, etc) is such an affront to God that my relationship with Him is fractured to the point where He will not impart the understanding that I claim to have so desperately been seeking. A complete forsaking of all other loves must take place in my life. I must rid myself of all interests that are cause for my stumbling if I would gain this great gift of understanding.
Still don't know what all the kiddos mean by a "podcast"?
Did you know that you can have the weekly sermon audio from Harvest pushed to your smart phone automatically each week? Well, that's the basic premise of a podcast. This helps to feed your daily walk with teaching that is Christ-centered from Pastor Jeff Miller, James MacDonald's Walk in the Word, John MacArthur's Grace to You, John Piper's Desiring God, Focus on the Family, Dr. James Dobson's Family Talk, FamilyLife ministries, and many many more. All of these pouring into you throughout your day, commuting, walking, working out, weeding the flower beds, and even doing the dishes!
You have a few choices on an app to chose and how to add us to start getting the audio free forever!
Apple iPhone: If you like the vast majority of the United States of Apple are rocking an iDevice, then look no further than the following three apps to manage your podcasts, ours specifically.
The Apps: Overcast $0.00 | Pocket Casts $3.99 | Apple Podcasts $0.00
How to add HBCPN: Add us via iTunes especially if using Apple Podcasts or add us directly within your app of choice by copying and pasting the podcast feed directly here: http://www.harvestpittsburghnorth.org/sermons/?format=rss
Android (dealers choice here, Samsung, HTC, Google Nexus, LG, you name it!): You like to tinker and make you phone work for you, not because some company thought the default setting were the best settings. So choice is a priority, and that you'll have in abundance for android podcast apps to choose from.
The Apps: Pocket Casts $3.99 | Podcast Addict $0.00 | Podbean $0.00 | BeyondPod $0.00 | ..more!
How to add HBCPN: Add us add us directly within your app of choice by copying and pasting the podcast feed directly here: http://www.harvestpittsburghnorth.org/sermons/?format=rss
Stream our podcast on Google Play Music!
Don't be shy if you can't get this on your own, say hello to me on any given Sunday and I'd be happy to help you add us to your phone. I only berate Jeff as being technically inept, so everyone else will get my utmost attention and love. ;-P
UPDATE! - As of 4/18/16 we are now on Google Play Music Podcasts! Stream our podcast now on Google Play Music.
Have you ever read through the ENTIRE Bible?
Curious to find out how much of the Bible Harvest has covered since launching in Pittsburgh in October 2011? So were we and now you can track it along with us! Harvest Bible Chapel believes in expository preaching, which means that we read God's Word each week and apply it's meaning into our daily lives.
Expository preaching is a form of preaching that details the meaning of a particular text or passage of Scripture. It explains what the Bible means by what it says. Exegesis is technical and grammatical exposition, a careful drawing out of the exact meaning of a passage in its original context.
Click on the image to see the full Bible coverage
We are called to witness God's truth in His son Jesus Christ and it comes from the Word that he breathed into existence. We'll be keeping this file up to date in order to show what books and chapters of the bible we've covered during the regular Sunday sermons, click on the link to see our progress. (HBC Sermon Bible Coverage)
Note: X = full chapter coverage, / = "slash" for partial coverage or a few verses from a particular book. Yellow highlights are guest speakers, hover over those cells to see who preached from that passage.
If a particular book interests you, please check out our sermon archive that can be filtered by a particular topic or book that was covered on the right hand side of the Sermons Page.
Note: The number (#) next to each topic or book of the Bible indicates the number of sermons that covered each accordingly.
We hope that you enjoy this little bit of nerdy attention to detail as much as we do!
All for His glory!
About A Mile Worship
We were so blessed to have the incredible up-and-coming Christian Rock band About A Mile be our guest worship leaders on February 28th! If you missed it, you can listen here - just click play!
