God Gave Us His Word - 2 Timothy 3:14-17 - Let's Be Clear

What's up Mercy Hill? Hey my name is Pastor Bobby.

It doesn't get a whole lot more exciting than that video. Look I'm around church leaders all the time that are literally having to think about their church dying and that church building getting turned into an art studio, getting turned into a restaurant. And God is doing such an amazing thing here.

We literally are having to build new buildings. And so let me just say thank you if you have been giving to this. Let me just say thank you. Let also just encourage so many of you, Pastor Randy mentioned this in the video, and it's really an amazing thing. I mean, probably between our Christmas services and the month of January, there'll probably be a thousand people that would have visited Mercy Hill. Just this past weekend we had one of the largest weekenders we've had in the last couple of years, and so I just want to encourage you to jump in with your time, jump in with your talent, jump in with your treasure. Now I understand that you got to kind of get around and, you know, we can't go from first date to married, but a lot of times when you when you land at a church and you realize like, this is where I want to be, sometimes there can be this big delay between you serving, you giving your time, your talent, your treasure, and let me just say we want you to jump right in here at Mercy Hill. This is such an awesome opportunity, and it's very easy to see that building and see everything that's going on and being like, man, all that's already done, all that's already happened. Look, in terms of the discipleship initiative that we are in, we've only raised half the money so far, okay?

So we're still talking about 15 million dollars to be raised, and so it's gonna require all of us jumping in with our time, with our talent, and with our treasure. Okay, all right, we're gonna be in 2 Timothy chapter 3 today. I am so excited about this sermon, let me just welcome you if you're at one of our campuses. In some way it may seem like, oh man, I really kind of got off the hook here because Pastor Andrew, you know, normally he gives me the controversial sermons. I don't know how many sermons I've preached on money and sex here at Mercy Hill, but he's been preaching the controversial sermons over these last number of weeks. You know, you think about creation and transgenderism, marriage, homosexuality, and so today we're just simply talking about the Bible and what we believe about the Bible.

And in some ways it may seem like, oh, I really got off the hook with this one, but I would say maybe this one is more controversial than them all, because this really gets at the heart of all of it, which is this. How do we know what is true in the world? Because that's what's at the heart of all these different topics we're talking about. Like, how do we know what is true? Do you and I, like, do we determine what's true? Does science determine what's true? Does culture, whatever culture says, is that, you know, what's true? Is there even truth at all? Or maybe, like, is all truth subjective? And for the most part, our culture is such a sea of confusion when it comes to what truth is. How do you get to it?

How do you find it? Is there actually truth? I would say the culture is such a sea of confusion, except if you ever see those marketing ploys, where you're like driving on a highway somewhere in the mountains and it says, this is the most scenic highway in the United States.

How do you know that, you know? Or like when Buddy the Elf, me and my kids just watched this, he discovered the world's best cup of coffee in New York City. That's just a very objective statement, the world's best cup of coffee. But for the most part in culture, the culture just really doesn't want to answer the question about truth. Like, where can you find truth? Is there truth in the world? Here's the thing though, the Bible is abundantly clear about this. Not what I say, not what the church says, the Bible is so clear about what truth is and where it actually comes from. And Pastor Andrew has been referencing this verse, Proverbs 25, 25, talking about truth or good news being cold water to a thirsty soul. And truth is that.

Truth is cold water to a thirsty soul. I don't know if you've ever been in a situation where you're like extremely thirsty. I remember two and a half years ago, my two older boys, they were just starting to do some of these bigger adventures with me in the mountains, runs and stuff. And so it was March and I had that, I was doing a 13 mile run on this mountain trail and I convinced them to do the first four miles.

I knew they could do that no problem. And so they did the first four miles with me and then I began to kind of coax them to do more and more with me. And finally it got to the point where it went from four miles so they were doing this whole thing with me. The only problem was it was March and in the morning it was pretty cool, but by the time we got in the afternoon it started getting pretty hot and we didn't have any water with us. And where we were at, I mean there's there's no stores, there's no, I mean you know it's it's mountain mountain roads, four service roads to even get to the trail.

And so I was getting a little bit worried. It was just me and them. No one else was around. And we're running on the trail and I kid you not, there's a small cooler on the ground. This trail is in the middle of nowhere. And we open up the cooler and there's four cold Gator raids in the cooler.

And so we had a little bit of a moral debate on what to do there, you know. But I've been around trails long enough. This is pretty common on like the Appalachian Trail. There's people that are just like trail angels. They just leave stuff on the trail and we still talk about it. This is almost three years ago.

We still talk about how good that Gator raid was. It was cold water to a thirsty soul. And that's what we're gonna see today. That's what the Bible is for a culture that is so confused. It's just cold water to a thirsty soul saying, hey here's what truth is, here's how you find it. So basically today in this sermon we're really just gonna kind of do two things. We're gonna look at one of the most important passages in the Bible that talks about what the Bible actually is, and then we're just gonna do two things. We're gonna look at the claim and we're gonna say, okay, what is the Bible claim about truth and what it is, and then what are you and I, like what are we gonna do with that claim? So that's it. Very straightforward, very clear. What is the Bible claim, and then what do you and I choose to do with that claim?

Here's the big idea. The Bible is God's Word, and it has the power to change us. So we're gonna be in 2nd Timothy 3. It's one of the most important passages in the New Testament for what the Bible actually is.

That's why we have those things in all the seats this weekend. It has that verse on there, and it's just so clear on what the Bible actually is. So let me go ahead and read through it. This is Paul writing to his apprentice Timothy. He says this, but as for you, continue in what you've learned and you firmly believed, knowing from whom you've learned it and how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. And in this statement here, and we're gonna really focus on this for a while today in the sermon, all Scripture is breathed out by God. It's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. So what does the Bible claim?

It is so abundantly clear here, okay? All Scripture, not some of it, all Scripture is breathed out by God. I want us to feel what a massive claim that this is, because it's not saying it's a book about God, it's not saying it's a book influenced by God. It is saying that it is a book that is actually breathed out by God. So when you read the Bible, it's God speaking to you.

As simple as that. And the funny thing is, the word that Paul uses here for God-breathed, I don't typically dive like super deep into the Greek, but it's the only time this word is used in the Bible and it's the only time this word is ever used in any Greek literature. So Paul basically has to make up the word just to describe what this is. He basically takes the word God and he pairs it with this Greek word nustos, which basically just means breath, or it's God-breathed. You know, it's like my kids always coming home from school now that they're old enough and I hear these words they're saying that I don't know what they are, because they're kind of like, I don't know, you know, just language changes over time.

I'm not gonna repeat any of them because honestly some of them may not be super good. Paul's like, I have no words to describe what it is that this is. And so he makes up a word, because there's nothing else like the Bible. All Scripture. Not just the words of Jesus, not just the first five books of the Old Testament, all Scripture is God-breathed.

Here's the funny thing to me. I kind of love this because it just bothers people in our culture so much. The Bible doesn't try to defend this statement. The Bible offers no defense for this. It doesn't appeal to logic or the historicity of the Bible.

It simply states that it's the Word of God. And this goes so much against our modern sensibilities, because like we're gonna, we got to prove it. We need logic to prove it. You know, science or culture, like am I just supposed to believe it because the Bible states it? The answer is yes.

That's actually the answer, yes. We should just believe it because the Bible states it. But I do understand that this is where people can get stuck sometimes. So I just want to address a couple objections people may have.

Because maybe you have felt this, maybe you've talked to somebody that you work with that's felt this, and so just to maybe help us think about it. One objection would be, you can't use the Bible to prove the Bible. Like, how can you use the Bible to prove that the Bible is true? And I would just say, okay, if we really think about this, you actually kind of can do this. So if the Bible's ultimate, like it claims to be, then it certainly could be used to demonstrate its truthfulness.

Like, what else would you do? Would you appeal to something that's less ultimate to prove the thing that's the most ultimate? I read one writer, he said like this, he said, I was asked by an atheist to prove the Bible without using the Bible. I responded, I'd be happy to if he's willing to prove atheism by only using the Bible.

The atheist, he was not very thrilled because trying to make his point in accordance with my standard of proof. Likewise, I pointed out that there's no reason for me to accept his standard of proof. So here's the thing, whatever is ultimately true in this life would be the standard of proof for everything else.

Like, that's just very logical. The issue is not that you can't have a circular argument. The issue is, what are we going to choose as the standard of proof?

Like, you're gonna have to choose a circular argument at some point. Because if you use something outside of the Bible to prove the Bible and you say that's ultimate, well then that is the thing that's the most true. So we really just have to pick, okay, what is her standard of proof gonna be? And you know, God's created science and medicine and all that stuff, so there's there's truth in all of that. But what this comes down to is, what is the foundation of truth though? When these things disagree with one another, what is the foundation of truth? And we have to choose what that is. And I would just say, I would be very happy comparing the Bible to any of those other standards of truth. I mean, seriously. I mean, you read stuff in the Bible from 3,000 years ago and you read it and you're able to know that is true what that's saying. And people that are like, well, science or medicine, like, that's gonna be my standard of truth.

And I was thinking about this today. I'm like, guys, you go back a hundred and fifty years ago, just with science and medicine, it's like, okay, toothaches were worms living in your teeth. In the 1850s, men literally thought beards kept you from viruses, which I think some guys at Mercy Hills still maybe think that. You go back further than that, urine was used for whitening your teeth. That can't be good for your breath, okay?

You may get white teeth. Twenty years ago, it was normal to smoke in restaurants. In the 70s, it was normal to drink and drive. In the 60s, it was normal for women to drink and smoke during their pregnancy. And people are gonna be like, well, I'm gonna take science or medicine as my standard of proof.

I'm like, really? I mean, you go read the Proverbs from 3,000 years ago, and you're gonna see all of these crazy true statements that just by reading them and you being a human being, you know that they're true. So I would just say, when we're comparing all these different things, I think the Bible is pretty reasonable.

And so if it is pretty reasonable and it's claiming to be this, then we have to decide, okay, what am I gonna do about it? The other objection that people will often throw out, and I've heard this a lot, is people will just say, well, the Bible is just not reliable. It's just not a reliable book. And people will very casually throw this out.

There can be nothing further from the truth than that. Like, it's one of the most reliable books in terms of the historicity and like the history of the world. And certainly in ancient literature, times 100. And people will often say, scholars and skeptics, right, these different names and locations, they'll say, well, man, that stuff never existed.

We haven't found that stuff. And over the last 200 years, so many of these different things, the Pool of Iconium, Pontius Pilate, these names have actually been discovered in different sort of things. And guess what? Do you think the skeptic or the scholar then changes their opinion once that's discovered?

No. Because something actually, something else is going on. And we're gonna address that here in a little bit. The other thing is, I had a professor in college, I went to a secular college, and there was a religion class, and the professor was super smart, went to Harvard for Bible, you know, could read Hebrew, all that. And the professor would do this thing at the beginning of class that, hey, the Bible is just like a game of telephone, where each person in the class, they whisper in the other person's ear, and by the time it gets to the very end, it's very different than where it started.

And now, knowing what I know, I'm like, that is the most ignorant thing that the professor would do that. Because when you look at what scribes actually were, and their focus on basically copying the Bible, and then you learn that there's 25,000 New Testament manuscripts that exist from very, very early on, and you realize that you can compare a lot of those manuscripts to one another, and you can find a version from 700 AD and compare that to one that's 200 AD, and realize there's almost no mistakes at all in the manuscripts. And then when you think about other historical documents, the Iliad is one. There's 1,700 copies of the Iliad, okay? And the copy that's the closest to the original is a thousand years after the original.

With the Bible, you have almost 25,000 manuscripts that are just within a couple hundred years. And so anybody saying it's just a not a reliable historical document has not just read up on this stuff, because it is the most reliable times ten ancient historical document by a long shot. So, but the point is, with all of this that I want you to see, I want to address that stuff, but the point is for a lot of people, this reliability is actually something to kind of hide behind, because that's not really why they don't believe the Bible. And what I'm gonna say is gonna be a little bit controversial, but we got to think about, okay, what are we gonna choose to do with the Bible? And so let's basically just ask this question, what are we gonna do with the claim that the Bible is the Word of God? Because I want to jump into why do we believe that or why do we not believe that?

So what are we gonna do with this claim? This is what the Bible claims, this is clear as can be, cold water to the soul, can't be any more clear, it's not what the church, it's not what church history is saying, it's not what I'm saying, it's what the Bible is saying. This is what the Bible says, it is the Word of God breathed out by God to us. This is really the heart of the sermon today. Will we submit to the Bible or will we reject it? It's really as simple as that. Because here's the thing, people choose to not believe the Bible because they don't want God over them. It's just really as simple as that. People hide behind all sorts of smokescreens about reliability, about the game of telephone, about whatever, but in reality this is a problem all of us have had since the very beginning of humanity.

You go back to Genesis chapter 3 with Adam and Eve. What was their issue? They questioned what they can't have, they kind of want to make the rules themselves.

That sounds like my kids. That's all of us. Question what we can't have, we want to make the rules ourselves. And you may say, is it really that simple? Is it really that simple? That's why people reject the Bible.

I would say yes, it's really that simple. Now I've seen a thousand of these smokescreens of what people hide behind. I've seen this so many times with high schooler that goes off to college, you know, in church people are like, they need more apologetics, they need more defense of whatever. They go off to college, they get in some class or whatever, you know, and now all of a sudden they reject the Bible. They reject Christianity, and they have all this philosophy and logic and all this stuff.

Well then a couple months later you realize, oh wait a minute, they're having sex with their boyfriend, they're having sex with their girlfriend, and that's really what's at the heart of all of this. Now they needed the rejection of the Bible, the philosophy, and all that to reject the rules or whatever, but at the heart of it was just a moral thing that was going on inside of them. That they didn't want to follow God's rules. I've seen this so many times with, you know, let's say a man that wants to leave his wife. Sit down, talk to him, they've been in church forever, and now all the sudden, paired with the divorce and leaving the spouse, he don't believe in the Bible anymore.

It was like, that's real convenient that those things were just kind of lined up together. And so any smokescreen or reliability or whatever, it's really just getting at the heart issue of, we don't want God over us. Because here's the thing, if we choose not to believe in the Bible, then we can continue to control the story. If we believe the Bible, then God's in control of the story. And so the question we have to ask is, have you given the Bible moral authority over your life? Because so many people in churches are like, I believe the Bible for sure. You know, I believe the Bible. It's historical and the translations and it's all good, but yeah, it's like, okay that's cool. You know, it's like these things in the seats. On the front there about like reading the Bible and learning and all that, like that's great.

You need that, but the back is where it's at. Because if you don't actually believe the Bible has moral authority over you, you're never gonna apply it or do anything with the stuff in the Bible. And so one of the ways I think about it is, who wins when you and the Bible disagree? Because here's the thing, and I bet you there's have been a lot of this going on in this sermon series.

We hit these different topics, right? Homosexuality, something else. The Bible is a big enough book for everybody to find something they agree with in the Bible. So pointing to the stuff you agree with, actually I don't think at all proves that you believe the Bible. I would say here is the thing that is the tell if you really believe the Bible. Find the weakest link between you and the Bible. Find the thing that you struggle with the most about the Bible.

I would even give everybody a moment just to kind of think about that. Like something that the Bible tells you to do, a way of living, a belief, a thought, something else that you just struggle with. It's like you can't, you just can't wrap your mind around that or your heart around that. Because that right there is the tale to what you believe about the Bible. Because in those moments, here's what's gonna happen. In those moments when we get to that very weakest link, you're gonna say, God, you're God.

I'm not. I'm gonna believe you. Or you're gonna be like, you know what, I'm gonna choose to do this anyway. And so the question is, do we believe and obey the Bible when believing and obeying the Bible is hard? Because if not, we just really don't believe in a, you know, we just really don't believe the Bible.

I've been there. I have been so many of these situations in my life where me and the Bible disagree. My heart, my soul, something in me does not want to do what the Bible is telling me to do. And so we have to determine in those moments, are we gonna give God control or are we gonna stay in control? Look, it's hard to give God control of our lives.

Okay? I don't want to give nobody control in my life. You know, I've joked around a lot about how I don't like to fly. I've got over my fear of flying now though.

I've done some mindset work, so. But one of the things that's still crazy to me about flying is like, none of us even know the pilots. We haven't even met them. What if he drank too much last night? You know? What if he's having a bad day? What if he's dealing with depression or something? Like I don't, I don't, we don't even know.

We don't even see their face. We're just gonna let them fly us 500 miles an hour through the air? Our life depending on their every movement? It's crazy to me.

I was at Busch Gardens over Christmas with my kids in Tampa. You know, you're riding on these crazy rollercoasters. Everybody's having so much fun, but when I'm sitting there I'm like, man these things look dangerous.

You know? And they got these 16 year olds with these little headsets on. They're like, oh send them on. They just hit the little button, you know? And I'm like, what if they hit a wrong button or something happens?

You know? These things just. So I don't like giving anybody control over me. But here's the thing, and I have just lived this, and I've experienced this, and it's really why I'm so excited about this topic. It is such a wonderful life when you give God control over your life. It's so good, there's so much joy and happiness and peace, and there's so much more that you don't have to worry about. I mean it's such a life-changing thing for God and the way He created us and the book that He has for us, that is over our life.

It is such a life-changing thing. So what I want to do here as we are sort of wrapping up today, we've really just talked about that one statement. But now that we've gotten past, okay, we evaluate the claim, every single one of us got to determine, do I actually believe that?

Am I willing to put that over my life? And when me and the Bible disagree, I'm gonna choose the Bible, you know, knowing that it's my moral authority. So once we get past to that point, I want you to see the amazing things that the Bible will do in your life if you believe it.

Because that's what the rest of this talks about. Look at the first one, the Bible will make us wise to salvation. Look at verse 15.

He says, how from childhood you've been acquainted with the sacred scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. When we put the Bible over us, that's the first thing the Bible will do. It will make us wise for salvation through faith. The way I think about it is, if you give human beings a billion years with a billion humans, not one person would find their way back to God. Because every single time, and you can go to every corner of the earth, every single time, the thought in the human heart would be, I got to be good enough to make my way back to God. That's giving, that's sacrifices, that's building a temple, it's whatever. And so that's why the Bible says here, man, the Bible makes you wise for salvation because it's the only place you're going to discover through faith. That's how you get back to God.

And there is nothing sweeter if you've been climbing and crawling and trying to get your way back to God through religion, and then you discover, wait a minute, God made a way for me to get back to Him where I don't have to do anything but simply believe in Him. That's why it so clearly says through faith. Romans 6 23 is such a good example of this, for the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.

What is a wage? It's something you earn, it's something you work for. So if we're gonna earn anything in life, it's death because of our sin. But salvation through Jesus is the opposite of that.

You don't earn a Christmas present, somebody gives it to you. So Jesus died for us, was buried for us, and was resurrected for us. And He's willing to offer us salvation if we simply would have faith, meaning we turn from our way, we turn from our sin, we turn from being the master of our life, and we say I'm gonna believe and I'm gonna follow Jesus. When we put the Bible over us, we discover getting back to God happens through faith. The second thing is the Bible is profitable for teaching and correction. The Bible, if you let it, will change you in all sorts of really, really awesome ways. All scriptures breathed out by God, and profitable for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness.

Everybody say profitable. That's what the Bible is. It is so profitable to change us. Think about how many things we do in our lives that are unprofitable, alright?

Watch too much TV, play on the internet too much, eat too much, stay up too late, rack up a bunch of debt, eat too much sugar, whatever, maybe so many things that are unprofitable. There is nothing more profitable that we could be putting inside of us in the Bible, because it massively changes us. Teaching, reproof, correction, training in righteousness. How awesome is it that the God who created the world, God created us, now wants us to give us instructions for how we should live our life. Sometimes I think we don't quite realize how amazing that is, you know? Like I coach people for running, right? And so as the coach, I'm just like taking some of my experience and trying to help them, like it's not really more complicated than that.

Like I'm a little bit further ahead, maybe I've done more races or whatever. That's nothing like what God is doing with us. God's not a little bit ahead of us, you know, thinking about some good tips to give us because He's got a little bit more experience. God created us from nothing. He knit us together in our mother's womb, and now He's willing to teach us, to correct us, to train us. You know a lot of times we think, oh man that sounds so bad being corrected, but it's so good so many times. Because you could come to the Bible and you could be upset and you could be fearful, you could be fearing man, you could be trusting yourself, and the Bible is gonna be so gracious to point you back to God.

You don't need to fear, you don't need to fear man, you don't need to fear what's gonna happen in the future. God is for you. God is gonna work all of this out for you. That's how the Bible is correcting us many, many times. It's not just like this black-and-white law book that's been written down. No, when we go and get in the Bible, God is speaking to us.

He's actually speaking to us. Thirdly, and the last thing here, the Bible will complete us, and it'll equip us, for every good work. That the man of God, you could put woman of God, may be complete, equipped, for every good work. You see this internal change that happens when we give the Bible moral authority over our lives, that eventually is gonna go out to more of an external impact. Like it's gonna start in us, God's gonna change us before he changes somebody through us, but eventually that's gonna work itself out so that we're gonna be complete, equipped, for every good work. One way I think of it, just reading this, is the Word of God is gonna get us where God wants to take us. It is true that you are here because God has a purpose and a destiny for your life. And Ephesians 2 10 says that God has works specifically for you to walk in.

For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. I have such a fear, and maybe some of you are wired like me, I have such a fear of not fulfilling the destiny that God has for my life, you know? That I could do so much more, but I didn't. But the thing is, when you read this, if you submit to the Bible and you believe the Bible and you let the Bible be the master of your life, you don't have to have that fear. Because what does it say? You're gonna be complete, equipped, for every good work.

I'm 40 years old and I experience this more and more every single day of my life. I love the Bible so much, because it's done infinitely more for me than any other book I've ever read. And I love to read, I love to learn, but nothing will change you like the Bible will change you. So as we close today, what do we do with all of that? Like what do we do with all that? The Bible is true, we need to submit ourselves to it, allow it to be our moral authority, but as you leave today, like as you leave here today and you get to Monday and Tuesday, your normal work week, like what do you do with all of that?

Here's the simplest way I could say it as I've really just been trying to think about this. Immerse yourself in the power of God's Word. Here's the cool thing, a lot of people can make the Bible super complicated, you need all these special plans or whatever, but it's so powerful if you just immerse yourself in God's Word, it will change you.

If you're like God I love you, thank you Jesus, I believe your word, please change me, it will change you. We got to get around it, we got to get in it, we got to let it be over us. So this week, some of you may be seeing this on Facebook, I posted it on Facebook, but my son Everett had the idea, our hot tub at our house, we bought our house, it came with a hot tub that's like 20 years old, it's always breaking, it's constantly breaking, you gotta get the hot tub, gotta come out there. Most of the time I just won't repair it, so anyways it's been broke for a while and he went out there and he read on the monitor, it said ice on it because it was so cold. So Everett had the idea that we start doing cold plunges in the hot tub. Well it's not a hot tub, it's a cold tub now.

So I was like, I'm always down, I love, I just love doing crazy stuff like that. I've been doing ice baths for a long time, so anybody that's a runner, has played football or whatever, are used to the cold. It's not like a cold plunge, but there's many years I tell Allison, hey I'm finished a run, go get 30 pounds of ice, and have it in the bathroom so I get in the bath, throw the ice in there. So Everett and I do the cold plunge, and I decide to video it, him and I doing the cold plunge, and I put it on Facebook, I put it on Instagram.

I woke up in the morning, it has 6,000 views. I was like, people are really into the cold plunge. What I realized is people are really into watching people cold plunge.

That's what it is. People are into watching people cold plunge. The cool thing about the cold plunge, you need no instructions at all. Like you just get in, that's it.

That's the only instruction, you just get in. And we can over complicate the Bible, right? Like I gotta have all these plans, I gotta have this, and Greek and Hebrew and all this stuff, and man, if that's your thing, I'm all for that. But the Bible is so powerful if we just get in, if we just immerse ourselves in it, it just will change us.

So that's the application today. We try so hard at Mercy Hill to create environments for all of us to get in God's Word, right? You could do that through relationships, with friends, you could do it through reading the Bible yourself. If you're here today, this is a good start, because you're here and you're hearing the Word of God. Getting in a community group, just being around some other people, there's so many ways to get into the Bible.

It is so powerful if we just get in, it will begin to change us. I want to close with this, just thinking about some verses, because some of you I know in this sermon today, you hear about what the Bible can do, and you're like, I'm a million miles from what you're describing. The Bible can change you and complete you and equip you for every good word, you're like, I am a million miles from that. I just want to close sharing a couple verses that would just remind you, I don't care where you're at, because we are not gonna change us. God's gonna change us, and if we just think about the power of God's Word, do you remember back in Genesis, very beginning of Genesis, chapter 1, what does God say? God says, let there be light.

What happens? There's light. God speaks creation into existence. Do you remember that time that Jesus is on the boat and all the disciples are freaking out because of the storm, and he gets up, he tells the wind and the waves, he says, be still.

What do they do? They obey him. It's crazy when you think about it, the power of it. You think about the story of Lazarus, Jesus' best friend dies. Everybody's freaking out, he's away, and it takes two more days, and everybody's crying. Jesus called in a loud voice, Lazarus, come out. What do you think happens?

He does it. He comes out with the grave clothes still on, because Jesus spoke him into life. So any thought that you're a million miles away and you can't change the Word of God is so powerful. Hebrews 4, the Word of God, it's living, it's active, it's sharper than a two-edged sword. It can pierce the division of soul and spirit, joints and marrow, discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

It can change you from the inside out if you will get in it and let it get in you. Let me pray. God, what a gift that you gave to us, that you would be willing to give us your word, that you'd be willing to coach us, to teach us, to lead us. God, I pray that you would give us the spirit to be willing to follow you when we get to that weakest link, when we get to that thing that just seems like there's no way I can follow that.

There's no way I can do that, that's too hard to do. God, that you'd give us grace and mercy and help us to follow you. God, we know that following your word is the path of life and so please Lord help us to do that. God, I know there's people wrestling this weekend, I have been there, wrestling with am I gonna allow God to be the God of my life and am I gonna submit everything to Him no matter what the cost is. God, I pray that you give them grace and faith to be able to do that. We pray this in Jesus name.