Keion Henderson - Rising Through the Ranks

[spoiler]Today 's sermon, today’s conversation, today’s message is called «Rising Through the Ranks.» Everybody say, «Rising Through the Ranks!» Let me put that in your vernacular: I’m coming up. Just tell everybody around you, «I’m coming up! I’m coming up! I’m about to blow up!» And, you better get to know me now because don’t ask me for my number when I roll up ahead next week. You better get to know me now. How many of you all have literally been in church all of your life? Look around. Now I want you to put your hands down and, to be honest, how many of you all are new to the faith? Let me see your hands. Let 's praise God for that! Come on, guys, let’s praise God! That means we’re doing our job; that our church shouldn’t be full of only Christians. We ought to have new converts, people who have switched religions, and people who just got baptized last week. We ought to have people who’ve been saved all their life because all of that means that the church is growing. But I don’t care how long you’ve been in church; some of this stuff is hard to understand. Does that make sense? There are plenty of terms and phrases connected to Christianity that are difficult to understand, even to the most astute subscriber to the Word of God, including your favorite preacher — myself included. There are some things in here that I have to read over and say, «God, what did you mean by that? It doesn’t make sense .» And that’s why the Bible says, «Study to show thyself approved, » that you might be able to rightly divide the Word of Truth. Everybody say, «You have to study it!» I don’t care how prolific a preacher you are or how talented you are in navigating through multi-syllabic expressions, or in reading Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic, and knowing the etymology of Latin or Anglo-Saxon, and being knowledgeable about expositional preaching and other grammatical concepts; you can know all of that but still not understand what you’re talking about. Here 's one of my favorite scriptures in the Bible: «In all thy getting, get understanding!» If you can get that scripture in your heart, that’s the best one to quote when somebody comes to you looking for answers. When someone asks you what you think about a topic, you can simply respond, «In all thy getting, get understanding.» What do you think about what’s happening in the world? In all thy getting, get understanding. What do you think about the Supreme Court’s ruling? In all thy getting, get understanding! Because Solomon was correct in the Book of Wisdom, The Book of Proverbs: in all of our getting, we should get wisdom. What is wisdom? Wisdom is the correct usage of knowledge. There are a lot of smart people who are not wise because knowledge and wisdom are not the same thing. Is there anybody here who would be honest like me? You know a whole lot more than you do; you know a whole lot more scriptures than you follow because there’s a difference between knowledge and wisdom. I know a whole lot about that Bible, but when it comes time to do what that Bible says, now I have to step out of knowledge and step into wisdom. That 's why Solomon said, «Give me wisdom, knowledge, and understanding, » because without all three, you are as a tinkling brass or a sounding cymbal. Are you with me so far? So, even after 2,000 years of church history-more than that now, we’re in 2023 — today will be like a bunch of random thoughts you may have pondered but never questioned. Why are we in the year 2023? It’s because our calendar uses what we call B.C. and A.D. Okay? Before Christ is B.C., and A.D. is after the death of Christ. So, we’re 2023 years after Christ’s death. Does that make sense? That 's why we are in the year 2023. To the best of our assumptions, Christ died over 2,000 years ago, and so we are in the year of our Lord and Savior, 2023 years after He was resurrected from the grave. There are some Bible verses and passages that even leave the most brilliant biblical scholar speculating about the exact continuity, correctness, and meaning of the Word of God. As I was asking myself last night while preparing this message, I’ve been pondering all week: why is it so hard sometimes to understand the Bible? Why is it so hard? And I began to blame God inadvertently-not like saying, «God, you did this» but simply wondering why He didn’t make this clearer. The Lord said something to me that convicted me, and it’s probably one of the most profound statements I’ve ever heard God speak back to me. I kept saying, «God, why is it so hard to understand the Bible? Why does it take so much effort to understand the Bible fully and correctly?» Before that question is explored, it must be said that this is what God said to me: «Son, I did not make my Word unclear.» I said, «God, have you read your Bible?» God said, «No .» He said, «I did not[spoiler]