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All right. Good evening, everyone. Hold on, let me start again. Howdy. Howdy. I love hearing that. Well, I'd like to welcome you tonight to our evening service. It's good to be here with y'all. It's really an honor and a privilege. Tonight, just fair warning, I'm going to do something a little bit different.

I'm not going to exposit a passage per se, but I do want to deal with a topic that has been near and dear to my heart, something I've been thinking about for quite some time. I would like to share it with you tonight. The topic of tonight is there on the screen.

It's why study theology. I know what you might be thinking. You know, I'm a seminary student. A lot of you know that. So here John is trying to convince everyone to sign up for seminary. And while that's partially true, it's not why I'm here tonight. There's actually the impetus for me wanting to talk about this actually came from some stats that I heard a couple weeks ago.

And I wanted to share them with you tonight. You can think of these stats as kind of the state of theology in American evangelicalism. So this is from 2022. It was collected by Ligonier Ministries. And these stats are describing evangelicals. That's the key word. That would be you and I, people who identify with the words of John 3.16.

They believe in Jesus, they follow Jesus. But here are some other things that they believe or don't believe. Number one, 38% of evangelicals believe that religious belief is a matter of personal opinion, not a matter of objective truth. 43% of evangelicals believe that Jesus was a great teacher, but he was not God.

48% of evangelicals believe that God learns and adapts to new circumstances. 43% of evangelicals believe that Jesus is the first created being by God. That's 73%. 60% of evangelicals believe that the Holy Spirit is a force, is not a personal being. 57% of evangelicals believe that everyone sins a little, but most people are good by nature.

65% of evangelicals believe that everyone is born innocent in the eyes of God. And lastly, 56% of evangelicals believe that God accepts the worship of all religions, including Christianity, Judaism, and Islam. That's just a few of the findings from this particular survey. And like I said, the key word here is evangelicals.

These aren't non-Christians that they're interviewing. These are people who identify as Christian. Do these statistics surprise you? They surprise me. I was kind of blown away by them. And kind of the follow-up question is: are they concerning? It's a legitimate question. And in my opinion, the answer is yes.

As I've, just in my own observation and my own experience, I've gone to a few other churches and talking with my evangelical friends. I sense this sentiment on the rise that says, I want Christ, but I don't want Christian theology. You know, Christ equals good. Like, I can get on board with Jesus.

But doctrine, I mean, doctrine is too boring, it's too confusing, it's dry, it's divisive, it's academic. And as a result, Christians don't know what they believe anymore. And a lot of them don't care. That's what's concerning to me. But are they right? Do they have a point? Is there too much doctrine in?

In Christianity? Do we need to lay off theology a little bit and just focus just on Christ? Well, I think there is an argument to be made for theology, and that's the argument I'll be making tonight. I think we need to spend some time talking about it because this is the way the evangelical church is going.

So let me first just establish some terms. This is what I mean when I use the word theology, just so that we're all on the same page. Let's start with the word itself. Theology is made up of two Greek words, is theos and logos. Now, theos is the Greek word meaning God.

You can't separate God from theology. I think a lot of people use the baseline definition of theology is the study of God. And that's pretty good, but there's a problem with that definition. And the problem is that we can't study God directly. That's kind of like asking the bacteria in the petri dish to study the scientists.

There's just an order of magnitude that doesn't work there. We rely on God to reveal himself to us. So I think maybe a more accurate definition of theology is the study of God's revelation, also known as God's Word, Scripture. And to do that, to study God's Word, we need something else.

We need logos. Lagos is a Greek word. That is often translated as word. You know, John 1:1, the word was with God, and the word was God. That's logos, there in the Greek. But it also carries this idea of reason, of thought. It's where we get the English word logic from this word logos.

It implies order, it implies justice. And John 1:1. There you see it. It predates creation itself. It was there in the beginning. Why? Because it was God. God is an ordered being, and we can't understand just by studying Him directly, but He has truth. He is bound in truth.

He is truth. And so when He reveals Himself, He reveals Himself in an ordered way. And not only that, but God also gives us the ability to reason. He gives us the ability to read scripture and to think through it and to come to conclusions. We see this in Acts 17, actually, when Paul is talking to the Athenians, and he uses the phrase that God has given us logic so that we might seek God and perhaps feel our way towards Him.

So logic is definitely a part of God's gifts that He's given to us in order to understand Him, to understand His Word. All that to say, theology requires us to reason together. Which is why I like the definition of theology of ordered consideration of God's Word. Theology is ordered consideration of God's Word.

You need both. You need consideration, you need God's Word. And just to demonstrate this, I have a cute little illustration for you. I call this the road of theology, right? And just like any road, it has a beginning point and it has an end point. So, let me get one thing out of the way.

When I say theology, from here on out, I'm talking about sound theology. People use the word theology to mean a lot of different things nowadays. Now, from here on out, I'm talking about the theology that comes from God as revealed in Scripture. Another word for this is orthodoxy.

So, with that out of the way, let's talk about what's the source. Well, we touched on this already. The road of theology starts with God. We cannot know anything about God lest he reveal it to us, namely through his word. A lot of people claim to be theologians without going to God's Word or minimizing God's Word, and that is not true theology.

That is a road with no beginning point. That's wandering. Theology also has an end point. It has a destination. And that destination is love. Specifically, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, your soul. Soul and your mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. Galatians 5:14 says that the whole law is fulfilled in one word.

You shall love your neighbor as yourself. Paul is saying the whole law has a telos, it has a direction to it, and that direction is love. John 13, 35, Jesus is speaking to his disciples, and he says, By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you can recite your catechisms.

Right? No. If you love one another. We think of theology in terms of academia, but I think there is something more to that revealed by Christ in Scripture that the direction of theology is love. Orthodoxy by itself is not enough. So theology is this road between the two, you know, starting with God, ending in love.

And here we are on this road of theology using our human reason to get from point A to point B. And we have a little bit of a problem because our reason is, well, let me speak for myself. My reason is a little murky at times. It's fallible.

It's tainted by sin. I don't get things right all the time. So in this analogy, it's like the car breaks down halfway, and I don't know what to do. I actually had this experience with my first car, as a Nissan Altima. I didn't get out of the garage two miles before.

Smoke started coming from the engine. And so, what happens? Well, the Holy Spirit comes along and gives us a trade-in. He doesn't just fix up our old mind, he gives us a new mind. This is what Romans 12:2 talks about. Do not be conformed to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

And then, what does it say? Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is: His good, pleasing, and perfect will. So, how do we arrive at sound theology? Well, we can't, not with our old minds. No, we need a little bit of help from the Holy Spirit.

That's what He does. You know, He is the helper to bring to remembrance the things the Lord Jesus has said. So, what is our task in all of this? Well, simply said, not simply done, our task is to stay on the road. We just need to stay on the road.

And how do we do that? Well, we need to know the truth, we need to believe the truth, and we need to practice the truth. 2 Timothy 4, 3 through 4 says, A time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into silly myths.

You see the picture of that, veering from the road. You know, you're no longer. Approaching your destination. You're no longer coming from your beginning point. You're just somewhere off by yourself, claiming to be wise with no knowledge of the truth. Well, I think we often fall guilty of that.

I think churches often fall guilty of that. And that is why we need theology. We need theology to stay on the road. If you have your Bibles, you can turn to John chapter 8. I have kind of a lengthy passage. We'll be reading verses 31 through 47. We won't break it down bit by bit.

We'll move through it pretty quick, but I do want to read the whole thing. So if y'all can follow along with me, starting in verse 31, let me read. So Jesus was saying to those Jews who had believed him, If you continue in my word, then you are truly disciples of mine.

And you will know the truth, and the truth will make you free. And they answered him, We are Abraham's descendants, and we have never yet been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say you will become free? Jesus answered them, Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave of sin.

A slave does not remain in the house forever. The Son does remain forever. So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham's descendants, yet you seek to kill me, because my word has no place in you. I speak the things which I have seen from my father, therefore you also do the things which you have heard from your father.

And they answered him and said to him, Abraham is our father. And Jesus said to them, If you are Abraham's children, then do the deeds of Abraham. But as it is, you are seeking to kill me, a man who has told you the truth which I heard from God.

This Abraham did not do. You are doing the deeds of your Father. And they said to him, We are not born of fornication, we have one father, even God. Jesus said to them, If God were your father, you would love me, for I proceeded forth and have come from God, for I have not even come of my own initiative, but he sent me.

Why do you not understand what I am saying? It is because you cannot hear my word. You are of your father, the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him.

Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is the liar and father of lies. Because I speak the truth, you do not believe me. Which one of you convicts me of sin? If I speak truth, why do you not believe me? He who hears, excuse me, he.

He who is of God hears the words of God. For this reason, you do not hear them, because you are not of God. I know that's a lengthy passage, and I know it's a bit of a tongue twister, but there are a few things here I think worth noticing.

And so, just to give a little bit of analysis and brief context, Jesus is talking to Jews. And I think this is a substitute for Jewish leaders, kind of the representative religious Jew of the time. It also has a kind of an interesting modifier in there. It's Jews who had believed him.

Now, this is interesting because the rest of the passage isn't very complimentary of these Jews. And so, this used to bother me a lot. You know, how are these Jews that believed him? Are these believers as we think of that word today? And I think the reason that this modifier is in here is just to indicate the fact that these are Jews who, at some conscious level, are following Christ.

You know, maybe they're believing his claim of Messiahship. There's a part of them that actually is rooting for this guy. Maybe it's to deliver them from the Romans. Maybe they like some of his teachings. But it's very clear as you move through the passage that there are other teachings of Christ that really bother them and that they just can't accept.

And so Jesus calls them out on it. And I think the message here is that these are people who want to have Jesus, but they don't want to have Jesus' word. These are people who may be like people today who try and. Separate Christ in theology and hold them apart from each other.

And Jesus says, you can't do that. Why? Well, I think there's three reasons here why we need theology in order to have Christ. You know, one is freedom from sin. You see that there in the first few verses, particularly verse 32. If you abide in my word, which, by the way, that's Lagos, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.

You need sound theology in order to deal with your sin. You need to know theology in order to know what you're being saved from. And here's one of the complaints that I sometimes get about theology: it's just not practical. You know, I don't want to be the guy who's always sitting in a classroom learning things when there is so much to do out there.

You know, I want to be on fire for the Lord, doing great things. And that's not a bad motivation in itself. But just understand how functional can you be if you've got a ball and chain attached to your leg. How practical is that? I think here Jesus is equating knowing the truth to being set free.

And when you are set free, then knock yourself. Out, go make disciples of all nations. But there is something to be said about knowing the truth before that. Another thing that Jesus mentions about theology is separation from our old father. You see this in verses 37 through 44.

Jesus says to the crowd, Why do you not understand what I say? This is verse 33. It is because you cannot bear to hear my word. And why can't they bear to hear his word? Because they are of their old father, the devil. They are being like their father, the father of lies.

And for that reason, Jesus says, you do not hear truth. And here's another complaint that I hear about theology: is that theology is too divisive. Theology divides, the gospel unites. And sometimes, again, that's people trying to hold Christ and theology at different ends of the spectrum. But that's a false paradigm.

In a sense, theology is supposed to divide because we need to know, well, to use maybe a trite phrase, we need to know who's your daddy. We need to know if you are of your father, the devil, or if you are of your father Yahweh, Jesus Christ. Theology is made up of truth statements, and truth.

Is intrinsically exclusive. And the Bible says as much. You know, Hebrews 4:12 says, The Word of God is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and spirit. Sound theology needs to be divisive because we need to recognize the spirit of Antichrist when we see it.

And guess what? We see it. It's here. It's today. It's in our community. And how do we know the difference? Well, 1 Timothy 6, 2 through 4 says, if anyone teaches a different doctrine that does not agree with the sound words of Jesus Christ, then he is puffed up with conceit and he understands nothing.

There's a lot of so-called theologians going around these days that don't know the sound teaching of Jesus Christ. And so you and me, how do we know? How do we know the difference? Well, we need to know the sound teaching of Jesus Christ. So yes, I get it.

I know that there is a lot of division that arises from different doctrines, you know, people believing different things about different verses and different interpretations. But I don't think that's because we're too theologically minded. I think that's because we're not theologically minded enough. That's because we aren't saturated day in and day out meditating on the sound words of Jesus Christ.

And that brings me to the final point. Verses 45 through 47, we see that truth brings us into solidarity with our new Father. In verse 47, Jesus says, Whoever is of God hears the words of God. And so, the man or the woman of God is characterized by two things.

I don't know the answer, but I know the one who does. We theologize not because we have truth, but because we crave truth. We theologize because we need to go to God, who is the source of all truth, in order to practice life and godliness. There's no other way.

There's no other way. And we need to crave all of the truth, the whole counsel of God, not just the parts that tickle our ears, not just the parts that are easy on us to understand and apply. We need to be in the habit of teaching our lips to say, I don't know.

And then we go to the Father who knows all things. So, I have, well, I have a bad habit of forgetting I have a PowerPoint, but there's the rest of it. All right. So, I'm not sure how well you can read that, but I have pretty bad eyesight, so I'll read it for those who.

You can't. This is a little comic I found. Lucy is looking out the window. She says, Boy, look at it, rain. What if it floods the whole world? And Linus says, it will never do that. In the ninth chapter of Genesis, God promised Noah that it would never happen again, and the sign of the promise is the rainbow.

And Lucy replies, You've taken a great load off my mind. And Linus says, Sound theology has a way of doing that. It's cute. It's not. It was something that caught my eye. But I put it here because I think it's a transition between, you know, we've explored from John chapter 8 with the importance of sound theology, the importance of knowing truth.

And I think this demonstrates the effect on us when we do know truth. Theology has a stabilizing effect. And so for you and I sitting here, and this is where I want to go for the rest of the night, I want to say, how do we get this?

How do we get this stabilizing effect that comes from a sound and robust theology? And so you can turn to our second passage of the evening, 2 Peter 3, 14 through 18. Give you just a second to turn there. 2 Peter 3, 14 through 18 says, Says, therefore, beloved, since you look for these things, be diligent to be found by him in peace, spotless and blameless, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation.

Excuse me. Just as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given him, wrote to you, as also in all his letters, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things that are hard to understand, which the untaught and unstable distort, as they do the rest of Scriptures, to their own destruction.

You, therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, be on your guard so that you are not carried away by the error of unprincipled men and fall from your own steadfastness. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. To him be the glory, both now and to the day of eternity.

Amen. So, let's contextualize this passage just a little bit. It starts out in verse 14, saying, Since you look for these things, so what are these things? Well, if you back up one verse to verse 13, you see that these things are the new heavens and the new earth, the things that are yet to come, the things that Peter is encouraging the church to look forward to.

Now, this is a church. We are assuming that these are believers. They're saved. They know. The gospel. But this isn't milk. This is solid food that Peter is encouraging now. And what does he exhort them to do while they're waiting for these things to happen? Well, three things, really.

Keep yourself spotless and blameless. Verse 14. Don't lose your stability. Verse 17. And verse 18, grow in grace and knowledge. And right in the middle, he talks about Scripture. A couple observations. One, I love that he includes the writings of Paul when he talks about scripture. This is actually a pretty key passage when we talk about Old Testament, New Testament, how we know the New Testament is Scripture.

Right there, Peter considered the writings of Paul to be Scripture. But I also enjoy the little comment that Peter makes that the writings of Paul are really hard to understand. I can relate to that. And Peter predicts, you know, what happens when you encounter a piece of scripture that you don't understand?

Well, he says that there are some people who are unstable and untaught who twist that scripture, twist it to their own destruction and to the destruction of others. And Peter is warning the church of this. He says this is going to happen. It's human nature. It's our tendency.

We see this today. So, the big question for you and me is: how? How do we not become this way? How do we not become the man or woman who will twist Scripture to their own destruction? And we can recognize when other people are doing it. Well, the general answer is: we need theology, but the more practical answer is what I'll go through next.

And here I'm going to propose something that is a model. It's not, this is my creation. It's not something found in Scripture, but I do think it's based on principles that are wise, and it's helpful for me as I consider how to go about studying theology, how to go about theologizing, maybe to use that verb.

So, let me again advance the slides that I forgot. There you go. All right, this is what the model looks like. As you can see, it looks kind of like a pyramid. And the purpose or the reason it's illustrated this way is to provide this picture of stability, you know, kind of a stable and healthy way to practice theology.

And there's a few terms on here that I'll explain here in a minute. But each tier, you can think of it this way, is a different method of studying theology. You may have heard some of these phrases before, but let me just go one by one and explain what I mean by each tier.

Of these. So we'll start at the bottom with biblical theology. Biblical theology, plain and simple, is just read the Bible. Whatever you do, just get in God's Word. This takes the form of your daily reading plan, takes the form of expository preaching, takes the form of it can be listening to your audio Bible while you drive to work every day.

Now, this is the maybe a way of saying it is the raw data. It's your most basic way to practice theology. And the good news is, anyone can do it. You don't have to be an expert. You don't have to have gone to seminary. You just need to open God's Word and read it.

Even children can listen to it and be taught God's Word. Now, this is this bottom tier of biblical theology. And its purpose for us is to know what's in God's Word, but maybe more importantly, to know what's not in God's Word. I spent some time interviewing folks for summer camp positions, and one of our interview questions was, Okay, can you tell me your favorite passage from the Bible and why it's your favorite passage?

And I got all sorts of answers. I heard a student say, My favorite verse in the Bible is, God helps those who helps them. And I said, oh, where is that found? It's not there. But all that to be said, how do we recognize when we get hit with something like that?

It might not be that obvious, but it might be something, okay, well, God says this. Will you be able to recognize, did God actually say that? The way you recognize that is by knowing what he said, by immersing yourself in God's Word, by meditating it day and night.

Psalm 1. Blessed is the man who walks not in the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits at the seat of scoffers, but what? His delight is in the law of the Lord, and he meditates on it day and night. Now, this is convicting for a seminary student like me.

How often do I spend meditating with the pure joy of God's word, not thinking about a system, not thinking about a paper I'm gonna write, but just knowing God? I don't do this enough. That's the reason it's at the bottom of the pyramid, because it's the most basic, and I believe we need to spend the most of our time here, knowing God's Word.

A good scientist cannot draw conclusions until he knows his data set. A good theologian can't do so either. But it doesn't stop there. We go on to the next tier, which is systematic theology. And I know that sounds a fancy term. And frankly, I didn't know what systematic theology meant until I went to seminary.

And you don't need to know what it means in order to understand the principle behind it. You see the word system in there. You could also use the word patterns. But I prefer the word doctrines. This would be what we might call the major doctrines of Christianity. The doctrine of God, the doctrine of the Holy Spirit, the doctrine of the Trinity.

Things like that. We study these things systematically, and we have names for them. And guess what? Some of these names don't appear in the Bible. These are names that we, for lack of a better phrase, that we made up in order to describe a biblical reality that we do see in the Bible.

The Trinity, a great example of that. That word Trinity does not appear in Scripture, but the reality of the Trinity, that God is one with three persons, is all over Scripture. And so, in order to be able to talk about it, we use systematic theology. So here's a basic definition by Roland McCune.

Systematic theology, or Christian theology, in the widest sense, is simply doctrine, the doctrines of the Bible set forth according to plan and in. Order. Well, why engage in systematic theology? I think it's important that we engage at least a little bit in systematic theology, and here's why. Well, the first reason is clarity.

That's just the simple reality that when the writers of Scripture sat down and wrote scripture, they didn't include an index for us. We added that later. That was our systematic theologians helping us out. And it is helpful. Consider for a minute if all you had was Acts chapter 2 and you were tasked with determining a theology of the Holy Spirit.

What would be your conclusion? Well, mine would be that the Holy Spirit is a fire-breathing language translator. There's obviously a lot more to the Holy Spirit than that, so we need the rest of Scripture. We need for Scripture to help us out. And in doing so, we can build a theology of the Holy Spirit or fill in the blank that is according to Scripture, informed by Scripture, that helps us understand and clarify what we're talking about.

Another reason we do systematic theology is for structure. For structure. Again, the word Trinity. We need a vocabulary sometimes to help us out. And this can actually get us into trouble because oftentimes we don't agree on what the terms mean. But systematic theology. Helps us to go back to Scripture and say, okay, what terms does the Bible use?

And can we describe this using logic, using our reason that God has given us? But can we trace its source back to Scripture? Systematic theology helps us with that. And the last reason is just for fact-checking. When you don't know doctrine, it's really easy to be deceived. It's really easy.

I was in my hospital visits as a chaplain. I walked into a room of a man who was obviously suffering, and I asked if there's anything I can do. Can I pray? Can we talk? And he said, yeah, there's something you can do. You can hand me $5,000.

And I thought he was joking, so I started laughing, and he said, no, I'm serious. You can hand me $5,000. You're a theologian, aren't you? And I said, okay. And he said, what's Ecclesiastes 10, 19? It says, money is the answer to everything. That was his theology. That was his system.

That is one of the dangers of systematic theology is failing to take the whole counsel of Scripture, the whole doctrine of suffering in this case, and cherry-picking or twisting just To get to the solution that you want. With a robust systematic theology, you can fact-check that very easily.

You can say, okay. Now, Ecclesiastes 10:19 may say that, but let's read the context just for a minute. Well, let's read these other verses over here just for a minute. That's just one example. But the point is that the idea of a doctrineless Christianity stands at odds with the words of Christ.

And we need doctrines. We need to study them, embrace them, love them. It's important that we have terms for these, that we talk about these. Now, a way to do that, just for practicality's sake, this comes in the forms of literature. You know, you have these big books that are called systematic theology.

That's one way to get it. Another way is podcasts, catechisms, creeds. You know, the church has been practicing systematic theology for a long, long time. But proceed with caution. Proceed with caution, because while it is a good thing to have a theological system, it is not a replacement for the Word of God.

That's why it's on the second tier, not on the bottom. We can sometimes, and I'm sometimes guilty of this, being more loyal to our theological system than to God's Word, pure and simple. Which is why we need to be like the Bereans in the book of Acts, who, when Paul Comes along and has this theology about the gospel to the Gentiles, what's the first thing they do?

Well, they search scripture. They see if this Paul guy is legit, if it accords with the Old Testament. And guess what? It checks out. Good system. We need to be in the practice of doing the same thing. Whatever system a book or a preacher or a podcast expouses, we need to be diligent in checking that with Scripture.

That ought to be our first stop. And if we find that we're in error, then that's our invitation to reevaluate. And that's okay. It's okay to be wrong. Well, the last tier, I just briefly mentioned this, is one that I call practical theology. And this is, in a word, this is God's word applied to your circumstance.

This is where things get exciting. This is where we like to spend our time because it's not academic anymore. This is out in the world. This is real life. And this is what it's all about, right? James 1:22 says, Be doers of the word, not hearers only. I think there's an appropriate warning in that.

Don't be the guy that is just always reading theology books but is not loving his neighbor, doesn't even speak to his neighbor, and doesn't have a prayer life, doesn't serve in the church. Don't be that guy. Practical theology is good. But the problem that I often see is that we want to begin here.

We want to make this the foundation of our entire theology. And I think most of the time that's in this desire to be relevant. Because if it's not relevant, then it's just boring old bookwork. And then if we don't have time, it's easy to ignore it. So if you actually want to be practical in theology, if you want to use theology according to God's will, then we've got to start with biblical theology.

We have to start with meditating on the whole counsel of God, not just the parts that we find relevant at the time. And life is entirely too complex to have a chapter and verse to tell us exactly what we're going through at the time. And that's where systems come into play.

An ability for us to be able to find the relevant passages and to understand them in a way that does apply to our circumstance. You know, talking with college kids a lot, we talk about dating because that is the season of life that a lot of them are in.

Now, where does the Bible talk about dating? Can someone show me the chapter and verse? That would be really helpful. I don't know. It doesn't. So, how do we inform our method of dating according to God's word? Well, it may not talk about dating, but the Bible has a lot to say about friendship, has a lot to say about marriage, about...

Manhood, about womanhood, about purity. So, you take that and you form a practical theology of dating based on what the Word of God says and be faithful to that. Be faithful to that. Don't worry about, well, what does God want me to do? Does God want me to break up with my girlfriend?

You'd be surprised how often I get that question. Just be faithful to what God has revealed. So, brief recap. How should we study theology? Well, three ways: biblical, systematic, practical. We need all three. I think of it as kind of a healthy diet of theology. But I also believe that we need to make sure we get our diet in the right amounts.

Make sure that we're not turning it on its head. Because when you do, when you inverse this pyramid, something is going to happen. You have this picture. If you start at practical theology, which is our tendency, life is going to throw something at you called a crisis. Did you like what happened there?

Let's play that again. Boom. There it goes. And when life throws at you a crisis, your entire theological framework can collapse if it is not stable. And I've seen this happen. This comes. From my experience as a hospital chaplain, there is a big, big difference when I walk into a room of someone who knows the Christ of Scripture, who has heard truth, believes truth, practices truth, and they encounter suffering that they did not bargain for, that they had no idea was coming, and that person is at peace, as opposed to someone who may claim the name of Christ, but has been taught somewhere along the line that God blesses those who are good and curses those who are evil, that suffering is a result of sin, or what have you, bad theology, and then suffering comes into their life, and all of a sudden their whole worldview, their whole view of God, collapses around them.

I've been in the room when that's happened. This is what I don't want for y'all. I want you to be able to have a theology that is robust, a theology that is stable, a theology that as we are working through life, you know, Tom Baber says, life is what happens as you work through your theology.

It's not going to be all there the moment you become a Christian. It's something that we build, that we work on. And as we go through Through life working on our theology, my desire for you and me is that we produce stability. That we are the men and women who it doesn't matter what circumstance life throws at us, we know what the Word of God says and we know how it applies to our life and to our heart, and we can teach that to others.

That is my desire for this church. And so, what do we do? What do we do? For me, in college, I didn't know what systematic theology was, and so if I were asking my college self this question, it would be, okay, I know my diet is lacking in this area, so I need a little bit more systematic theology.

That's partly the reason why I'm choosing to take our college students here at Emmanuel through systematic theology. But for you, it may be different. For you, it may be too much systematic theology. Maybe that's all you get, and you need to spend more time in your daily devotion.

However, the grand gist of this message and the main point is: don't relegate theology to the sidelines. You know, we need to be men and women who are practicing this in our church, in our families, in our individual private devotion. The good news is for you and I that there are a lot of opportunities to do this at Emmanuel.

You belong to a good church that values theology. And up on the screen are a few ways that you can kind of beef up your diet in different areas. You may be doing this already, and these aren't exclusive, these aren't the only ways, but it's just some things provided by our church that can help and that have helped me.

And so you can read those lists up there. And what I'm saying by this is not that Emmanuel has a monopoly on theology and that you can only get this here. That's not it at all. There are plenty of churches that do this really, really well. But I do think that as we see the trends of evangelical Christianity and as we read the statistics and as we know, let me just put it this way: there are more non-denominational churches today than churches that belong to a denomination combined.

Why is that happening? And the numbers are growing for the non-denominational churches. And I know I'm painting with a broad brush. I don't mean that non-denominational churches are bad or that they're abandoning doctrine. But I do know that denominations help anchor us to sound doctrine. Doctrine. They can.

They have the ability to do that. And I also know that a lot of churches leave denominations because they don't like theology. The founder of the Church of Christ is kind of ironic. He has this famous saying: he says, I need no creed but Christ. I need no denomination.

So I'm going to go start my church. Well, guess what he did? He started another denomination. You can't get away from it. Well, all I'm saying is we need to be tethered to the anchor, and that anchor is Christ. We need to be aware that we have a tendency to go after itching ears.

And if we sideline theology for the sake of relevancy or influence or popularity or comfort or culture, then we are doing ourselves a disservice. We're doing ourselves a disservice. And so, what's the point, John? I'll leave you with this. Theology has a source. That source is God. And for us, that source is God's Word.

But don't forget the purpose of theology either. The purpose of theology is love. Ephesians 4, 15 through 16. And I'll end with this. It says, Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into Him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body.

Joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love. In love. 1 Corinthians says that knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. And that's really the goal, isn't it?

Because love without theology is kind of like a house with no foundation. You know, it's unstable. It's liable to hurt someone. But theology without love, it's like a foundation without a house. It doesn't do anything. It's just sitting there. So let's be a church. Let's be people of God that excel in both.

I don't think that's too much to ask for. So let me pray and then we'll be done for tonight. Father, thank you for this time. Thank you for your word. Thank you for impressing on my heart just a joy of studying your word, of wanting to know your word.

I pray that I never lose that. I pray that these men and women would never lose that, Lord, that that would characterize our church. That it would characterize this body. Please, Lord, help us not to lose our first love, which is Christ. Help us to know, Lord, that you are the way, the truth, and the life.

So, Father, I pray whatever application you have laid on our hearts tonight that you would give us the courage, the strength to carry it out. In Jesus' name, amen.