Putting God's Word In Your World

Amen, amen. So I'm excited, y'all excited, I'm excited. Sorry I'm going drag it over here. Oh, finger got stuck, that's messed up.

I'm excited, so let me kind of explain this little mini season that we're in right now.

So we just finished kind of a marriage relationship Series in the church world. We call that topical. Now in the church World sometimes things that are topical or looked down upon, I think they're very helpful. Because when I was doing each sermon over the last four weeks, there were people in the room who were dealing with that in their relationships and their marriages with their kids, extended family members.

There were people who were dealing with criticism, defensiveness, contempt and stonewalling.

And every single week I heard from somebody or got a text from someone who, when we Blended that practical scientific data with God's word, one guy actually messaged us and said, hey, when you going to come back to our church- not our church, but he's at a different church and watches online- and he said: , he said his marriage was shifted and it's not by what I said, it's by the word of God, and so I think those types of series are very helpful. At the same time, look at your neighbor, say, at the same time at: at the same time, it is incumbent upon me as a pastor of a Church in Buckeye, Arizona, the West Valley of Phoenix, in an area in the west where only 12% of people attend church- even less are biblically literate- it is incumbent upon me to teach you through the Bible, and so I, as a pastor, have been trying to blend what is practical, immediately connects with someone who's not familiar with the Bible, with something that is very, sometimes informational but will help you understand the character of God through his word at a deeper level. It's both and, and, so I'm trying, as a pastor, to figure out how to best do that in our current context. So what we're going to do over the next few weeks is we're going to be in the Book of John.

The Book of John is the fourth book in the New Testament: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.

We're going to be in there, and here's how that's going to work is: I think it's August 4th or 6th, I'm blanking on exactly what date it is. We're going to have a back to school kind of event bash in invite a bunch of people to it. We're going to be beginning a new series then. So between now and then we're going to be in the Book of John.

We're not going to finish the Book of John in the next five weeks- not going to happen.

Book of John's big. It's 21 chapters and each chapter has a lot of content to cover. So we're going to do a series in August and a little bit of September and then eventually we're going to come back to the Book of John and then we'll go into another series and then we're going to come back to a book, The Book of John. Who knows it could take a couple years to get through the Book of John because we're blending it with other series.

I just want to tell you what we're going to be doing so there's no confusion when we go back and forth between it.

I think it is incumbent upon me to teach you the Bible, and I'm going to teach you the Bible, starting with the Book of John and speaking of the Bible. One of our values is to put God's word in our world, and when I say that I don't just mean like a lot of churches out there- and I think a lot of churches do this well- I don't just mean Outreach, meaning we're going to take the Bible and we're going to Proclaim it to people who are out in the world, outside of the church. I think that's helpful and important and whether it's our giving or whether it's our interacting in the community, we are going to communicate God's word, the message, the good news of Jesus, to people outside of our church. It's important.

But what I mean by putting God's word in our world I mean, yes, in the world.

But more specifically, I think the biggest problem in the American Church, probably across the world, is that we have not taken God's word and applied it to our world. Like your world and your world, my world. One of the biggest flaws in the way that we practice faith is there's a lot of people who claim Christianity, claim to love Jesus, claim that the Bible is the word of God, yet we believe the Bible is the word of God, yet take very little discipline or time into building a habit to take that Eternal Word and put it in our world. So the sermon title for today is called putting God's word in your world.

Our vision as a church is to help people find peace and develop Purpose By anyone, with me revolving everything around Jesus.

The whole heart of that vision is not just to give you a whole, great spiritual work ethic where every aspect of your life revolves around Jesus. That's part of it. But the goal is that you would get into the place where, kind of our Nam sake, you would get into orbit in your walk with God, where maybe it's hard to start but as you get into it you get to this place where you're defaulting to the will of God in your life where it's natural for you to begin revolving everything around him. I always hesitate, hesitate to say very like clear and direct statements like this, but I think I can say it here: you will probably never get into orbit in your walk with God if you don't take a concerted effort to put God's word into your world.

Now I'm saying this to people who who struggle with the Bible.

It's not that you don't like it. I mean there might be some parts that you don't like, cuz someone in your high school class who barely knew the Bible said: oh, Bible says this, you shouldn't like it. And then you listen to them, even though they have no theological degree or any understanding of Faith at all. But you listen because they were your high school teacher.

Maybe that was a situation for you, but for the most part we don't look at God's word and think that's terrible.

I disagree with that. What we typically do is we look at it and say, yep, it's good, but then the way we live- we, we live as if it's not good enough to apply. I ain't trying to make you feel bad. It's the same with me.

I struggle with it.

I've been learning this stuff for 20 years and I'm still trying to apply this into my life because I recognize that if God's Eternal Word is available like we can, we can grab it. It's available, if he provided it for me on purpose, it's probably incumbent upon me to take it and utilize it in my everyday. The problem with our faith is that we don't. I was reading a little report that came out from the state of the Bible.

You can actually go to a website called the state ofthe biblecom, ororg, and you can read the 2022 and 2024 statistics that they put out there about the Bible, and I think they're pretty generous.

They say about 50 to 55% of people say that they appreciate the Bible in the United States. I'm not even talking about like. This is not Christian number, this is just people who appreciate the Bible and then you take it down significantly when it comes to people who actually read the Bible. Now, the statistic is fairly low when it comes to people who read the Bible.

Depending on the different subset of Christianity, depending on where you live and things like that, it could be as high as 30% who are reading the Bible.

It could be as low as 13 to 15% who read the Bible. But let's just be generous. Let's just say 40% of people who claim God read the Bible. Now, the way they decided who use the Bible by listening or reading was they said they had to do it three to four times a year outside of church.

So when you see numbers like 20 to 30% of people read the Bible three to four times of year, but more than 50% of our nation claims Christ, what we see is that we have a nation full of Christians who are devoid of the word of God, and that's convicting to me.

I think we're in a world where either there are biblical churches that like priz the fact that they're biblical and the way that they consider themselves biblical is by using big words and communicating this: , going through the Book of John over four years without going anywhere else and not communicating something that maybe a first-time believer could immediately connect with. I'm not talking bad about it, I'm saying that's how we kind of view it. Or the church is all topical, practical and helpful. It's propositional in nature.

I'm going to get better as a person, but you don't come to church to get better as a person.

Oh my gosh, maybe you did, that's okay. I'm not judging you for it, but ultimately I learned about 5 years in I wasn't coming to church to be better as a person. I get better, but I'm coming to church so that I can begin apprehending the character of God, learning who Jesus is and allowing the character of God to impact my life. I come to church to get Jesus.

I read the Bible to get Jesus and when I get Jesus, my life is better.

That's why we've got to take God's word and put it in our world, but without me just giving you a whole bunch of propositions. I want to give you the word of God. Talking about the word of God, I got to do it right. We're going to be in John, chapter 1 today and you might not like it.

Bumble read 18 verses.

I'm not going to make you stand up, don't stress. I know you like the word of God, but I love the word of God. I eat, sleep and breath this stuff. I'm a geek.

If any of you have ever been in the conversation with me, that evolves past talking about weather and stuff like that.

And you ask me a Biblical question. I'm thinking about someone who's sitting in this room who works out with me once in a while and asks me biblical questions and then wishes he hadn't afterward because I'm such a geek about the Bible. I'll talk about it all day. I love the Bible, but when I read these 18 verses I remember thinking: 3 weeks ago, when I started prepping I was like: should I read all 18?

And the Lord convicted me.

He was like: my word is inspired and it pierces through to the soul and even if it doesn't immediately intellectually connect with everyone in the room, my spirit can still work in them. So I'm going to read it and I'm going to believe that God can speak something to you. But then I'm going to describe it and explain it a little bit for those of you who don't immediately track with all of the content in it, we good, just say Amen, awesome. I'm going to read it.

John, chapter 1, verse one: in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

He was with God in the beginning, he not it. He was with God in the beginning. Through him, all things were made. Without him nothing was made.

That has been made in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.

The light shines in the darkness and the Darkness has not overcome it. There was a man sent from God whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light.

He came only as a witness to the light.

The True Light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was sorry. He was in the world and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him.

Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but born of God.

The word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only son who came from the father full of grace and truth. John the Baptist testified concerning him. He cried out saying: this is the one I spoke about when I said: he who comes after me has surpassed me, because he was before me out of his fullness.

We have all received Grace in place of Grace already given, for the law was given through Moses.

Grace and Truth, yeah, for the law, though, given through Moses, Grace and Truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God, but the one and only son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the father. He has made him known. I know what you're thinking.

I've heard this a million times over.

I know what that means. I'm telling you, as someone who's probably read that 50, 60, 70 times, preached three sermons on it. Every time I read that, it blows my mind that John would open his narrative text with this. Couldn't he have been like Matthew?

Mark or Luke?

Matthew's like all right, cool, we're going to start with the genealogy. Mark is like we just going to jump into the ministry. Luke's like I'm just going to give you all the Practical stories that he told and give you every bit of data that I possibly can so that you can make your decision as to whether Jesus is the Messiah. John's like hold up, I've been living for a minute.

This is about 90 years after, after well, 90 ad, which is about, 50 years after 40, 60- I'm bad at math, that's why I stopped accounting- 60 years after Jesus, his death.

And John, seeing a couple Generations pass at this point, recognizes. You know what I need to give him a little bit more than just the narrative. I need to help them understand something about who Jesus is, and I'll give you the theological components of this text that everybody else preaches on really quickly. This is trinitarian theology, meaning father, son, Holy Spirit, together in this Union of essence that I can't fully comprehend or understand, but John is speaking directly to it.

He is talking about how Jesus was pre-existent, like before existence.

That's what pre-existent means. I know you might think I'm going to leave and go to a different Church where they don't use terms like pre-existent and trinitarian, but I want you to know, theologically, John is helping these next Generations out quite a bit. He's helping them understand that Jesus is God, he's not just a man. The ol is cropping up around John at this point that says Jesus didn't come in the flesh- theology.

Cropping up around John at this time that says, Jesus was just a man.

He's seeing both and he's like: no, you guys have to understand, cuz you weren't there to see it. He is both man and God, and that's super helpful. But there's something deeper, I think, to this passage that I think will be helpful to each of us as well, which is this General posture that God has toward each of us. He wants us to know him, him.

He wants us to take who he is and live our lives indulging in every bit of who he is.

The Westminster Confession actually says it this way: that the chief end of man is to know God, love God and to enjoy him forever. That's what he's called us to do, that's what he desires for us, and the way that this text begins- and I'm going to take us back to John, John 1:1 again- is with one of the most confusing statements in Scripture, but I think it's one of the most helpful. In the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Verse two: he was with God in the beginning.

Verse three: through him all things were made.

Without him nothing was made. That has been made in him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The thing you see repeated, it's a pro tip in Scripture. If you see something repeated it's not repeated on accident.

The word here is word.

Word was repeated in the Greek, the word for word. It's funny to say out loud- the word for word in Greek is logos. Now to us we say: in the beginning was the word. Takes us a second to realize that the word he's talking about is Jesus.

Right, but it's more than that.

In the Greek, the word logos you find in helenistic or Greek philosophy and you see it reapplied in, ancient Judaism and in early Christianity. The word logos is more than just a word spoken. The word logos is word, spoken, written, all those things. It's logic, it's reason, it's plan.

So when he says in the beginning was the word, he's not just saying in the beginning God said let there be light, though that's true, he's saying in the beginning was a plan, Logic.

The person through which his character would be embodied in the beginning was the word. That word is Christ Jesus, who is God's plan, the embodiment of God's character on Earth pre-existent before any of us were created, before Adam and Eve were thrown into the garden, before they sinned, before the law, before the prophets. Christ existed. He was always and forever will be the plan for us to connect at a deeper level.

It says: through him all things were made.

So he's not just the word spoken, he's the instrument of creation. That would be my first point: the creation. God spoke creation. One of the interesting things about the Bible is it actually is useful because, let me say it this way, a lot of people will come up to me and they'll say: ah, we're New Testament Church.

I'm like, I'm a, I'm both Church.

Because the New Testament presupposes so many things that are articulated in the Old Testament. It's not. It's not that we forget the Old Testament just because we have the New Testament. The Old Testament is actually really helpful.

I'll admit upfront that it is partial.

It's not final, but it is part of it. John tells us, in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God. Jesus is pre-existent. That means in creation Jesus existed.

So the first words that we see from God give us Revelation about who God is.

It says: let there be light. He says: let animals fill the Earth. He says let man, let us make man in our own image. Then he says: let us make woman.

And then you see all of this stuff in the garden occurring.

You see that God's like the art of speaking for our creator, like it creates, it does something and it reveals. It says we are created in God's image, that what God speaks comes into existence and in some way gives us Revelation or an image about who God is. That's, that's the first aspect and he refers to it here. Right, like he, he says he was with God in the beginning.

Through him all things were made.

Without him nothing was made that has been made. You got to understand that Christ is in the beginning. But he doesn't just say Jesus, he doesn't just say Christ. He says in the beginning was the word and the Word was with God.

We've got to understand not just word but logos in the beginning.

Christ existed in the beginning. A plan existed in the beginning. God's word had power. But I'll take you further, because I am a believer that, since the Old Testament is valuable to us, God has been revealing himself and, trying to communicate and disclose himself to us all through the Old Testament in.

My proposition for you is that God wants you to know him at a deeper level.

So I don't H all right creation. He reveals himself in creation. We're created in His image. When you look at another human being, you see some semblance of the image of God.

But then let's go further.

Let's move from Genesis, chapter 1, move Beyond three, where they sinned and were kind of sent out of the garden and a plan was put in place long term that God would eventually fulfill in Christ Jesus. Let's move to chapter 11, 12, 13, when we start to see something different. It's not just the creation, it's the promise. There's a promise.

This man named Abram-, God considered he reckoned as faithful or righteous.

And so God chose Abram. Of a bunch of PE- anybody he could have chosen- he chose Abram to be the vessel through which, ultimately, God's plan would be fulfilled. God told Abram, who in his old age still had not had a kid, This Promise. He said: your descendants will be as the stars in the SK guy.

Your descendants will be a blessing to the entire Cosmos or the world.

That's the promise God made, a promise through Abraham. He disclosed himself to a man named Abram. This promise that would ultimately be fulfilled in Christ Jesus. So Abram believed in God in the midst of a world where people did not necessarily believe in God, and so God made him a promise.

In this promise you have logic, you have God's word, his promise that ultimately he has a plan to fulfill or to bring us back to connection with him, to restore us.

So there's your promise, and I want- I'm going to zoom through this pretty quickly so that I can get really practical with you all- the next step we have after this promise. Abram had a bunch of kids, Father Abraham and many sons. Many sons had Father Abraham. There there's one real big one of Promise.

His name is Isaac, and he had another kid and another kid and another kid, and eventually this guy named Joseph goes over to Egypt and he hangs out there in the land of gsan, because there was a famine in the land that's present day Israel, and then his whole family stays in the land of goshan for about 400 years.

And then there's a pharaoh that rises who didn't know Joseph, and so they get put into slavery. It's a real bad situation. They're in need of Deliverance and God reveals himself again to a man named Moses. God then reveals himself through the plagues in Egypt.

God then reveals himself through that last plague, the killing or the death of the firstborn.

Then he reveals himself as they crossed on dry ground through the Red Sea, and then the water fell onto. The Egyptians and the Israelites were fully delivered from the land of Egypt and then they spent a lot of time in the wilderness. God revealed himself through Mighty acts, and then God revealed himself again through the word on Mount. Si God gives Moses some tablets.

You know what we call these tablets: The Ten Commandments.

Y'all heard about them. It's one your mama taught you when she wanted you to be dis: be respectful and not disrespectful you. Here's what's cool: those were Revelation of who. God was partial in a land where people were not following God.

They learned how should I live?

Love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might, and second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself. Plus here's several others that you can follow that will help you live well in the land that I've promised you. We call that Torah, or the law. God spoke through not just creation.

God spoke through not just a promise, but God spoke through a legal code, and people are all hating on the legal code.

I get it, it can be used the wrong way, but part of that legal code gave us the essence, in some ways, of who God is, and that's beautiful. So when I look at the Old Testament, the Bible- right, the Old Testament is part of the Bible- I love reading through- almost said- Leviticus. I like numbers, I like Exodus, I like Deuteronomy and I like parts of Leviticus when I'm in the mood. But I love it because of the fact that it reveals to me the character of God.

But he didn't stop there, did he?

Then the people become Israel proper. They have a couple Kings, and those kings, long story short, do not. They do not obey God. And these people who are supposed to be light to the Nations- John refers to the this slly in John chapter 1- these people who are supposed to be the light to the nations are not operating as the ambassadors or the representatives of God that he called them to be.

He wanted them to be the light in the midst of Darkness, but they were sinful human beings and so, while they had a little bit of truth, that truth was partial and they ultimately didn't get where God wanted them to be.

So God sends them more Revelation of his character in the form of prophets. So God says to Isaiah: he says, hey, tell them who I am. God says to Jeremiah: tell, tell them who I am, what I'm about. He says to naham, Micah, he gives some disclosure to Jonah.

We don't love Jonah as much, but he did it to Hosea, to Obadiah, to Micah, ultimately to Malachi.

God gives these prophets disclosure so that they would go to the powers that be and say: Here's who God is, please listen to his word about how you should live in light of who God is. But they didn't listen and ultimately, after the prophets, there was a couple hundred years where there's a disconnect. We don't see much in Scripture, but it's because, as part of God's divine plan, he wanted to send not just a created word, not just a promise, not just the Torah, not just some prophets. He wanted to fulfill the full extent of Salvation with a final word, through the person and the work of Jesus.

Why do I tell you all that?

Because that is what John is communicating here. He's saying that Jesus is the light that shines in the Darkness. Darkness has not overcome it. There was a man who came to witness or testify to this concerning that light, and you guys didn't listen to him.

The True Light gives light to everyone.

Verse n was coming into the world. He was in the world and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave right to be children of God, children not born of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband's will, but of God.

And then it says- and this is one of my favorite passages in Scripture: then the word became flesh.

What is this saying? It saying that God has been trying to disclose himself to us from the beginning, yet we have not heard or understood. And, no matter how it came, we didn't recognize it. And I know you didn't exist back before Jesus.

That was them.

But even now Jesus has come, yet we struggle to recognize and apprehend the word of God. We all claim to be Bible followers, we all claim to be Christians, yet if Jesus were to come into this room, I'm wondering if we know enough about the character of God, as already revealed in history, to recognize him. I'm not trying to be mean or negative, netive or drastic. I'm trying to help you understand something that has gotten me into orbit in my walk with God.

God has sent it from creation all the way to when he sent Jesus.

He wants to disclose himself to you and when we look at Jesus, we see the perfect image of God. We see the Fulfillment of all prophecy, the Fulfillment of the promises of old, the embodiment of Torah and the Pinnacle of all creation. We see it in Jesus. And you might say, yeah, I like Jesus.

I've been liking Jesus my whole life.

It's the church I don't like. Or or. It's. Reading the Bible seems intimidating.

And what I want to communicate to you is: if you, if you like Jesus- you say you like, do you really know him?

Have you, have you looked in his word that he has given us access to and said, hey, like, if I'm going to follow him, if I want to know the character of God, if I want to receive this Grace daily, if I want to pursue this, then I need to know a little bit more about this God. And so when he says, in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God, and he says in verse 14 that the word became flesh. What he encourages us to do is if you want to understand the logic of God and get to the place where you're fulfilled, where you're feeling peace, where you're in the place that you should be in life, where you can become the genuine human being that God called you to. What John is telling us is this: you need to look at the word that he has disclosed, and the word that he has disclosed is Jesus, and the only way you know Jesus at a deeper level is by reading or listening or trying to apprehend the word of God.

But look at your neighbor, say it's hard.

Look at your other neighbor, cuz y' real quiet. It's hard. It's hard to apprehend Jesus by the word of God. I know we live in the country that's probably one of the most intelligent of all Humanity ever in history, and we're all mostly literate and stuff like that, but it is hard to look at a 2,000 year old text and try to apprehend the word of God.

Matt, you just read verses 1-8 and I heard that and I was like nope, that didn't make no sense to me and I'm like I'm with you.

But here's what I want to tell you: God cares so much that you would apprehend his nature that when you open this and you start reading, even if you don't fully understand the context of it, even if you don't know exactly how the Old Testament intersects with the New Testament, even if you don't know the full extent of how you're created in God's image- we struggle with that- how the promis is fulfilled, how the prophets spoke about God, how the law works out. When you look at Jesus and trust in him, he gives you the ability to receive disclosure and Revelation from him. What I'm saying is when, when you open the Bible and start reading it, something weird urse. Because God cares so much that you would connect with him.

It ain't magic it.

It's not magic it, but it is. It is unique how it works out that way. Let me give you, let me give you an example of how we kind of operate, versus how I think we should operate. My wife and I, would y'all kind of agree we should work our stuff out?

If we got stuff?

Yes, just one of you, okay, the rest of y'all are cool. If we got divorced next week, right, come on, how many of you agree that we should be able to work our stuff out. Amen, amen, yeah, yeah, yeah, cool. So in this normal Earthly relationship, I have the tendency to disagree with my spouse.

I probably have the tendency to disagree with most of you, and so in this Earthly relationship, I have found that it is very, very difficult for us to come to cohesion on any plan whatsoever.

It's not that we're not compatible. I want to be very clear. I think we get along really well. I think I submit when I need to submit, she submits when she needs to submit.

We come together and we work things out really nicely.

See, we had kids together. We parent them similarly, most of the time, like we're still together after 12 years. We're doing a pretty good job. But I need you to know, and you guys know this: if you're in a relationship like this, it is really really, really hard.

And when I'm reading this pass message, God gives me this image of how the church, or how people who claim to be Christian, interact with him, because God has this desire for a deep connection with each of us, so much so that he would disclose himself through creation.

He disclosed himself through prophets, through a promise, through the trah and, ultimately through Jesus. And let's be clear, he sends his Holy Spirit to those who have trusted in Jesus so that we could be perpetually in connection with him. He cares so much about a connection with us, yet when we have full, available disclosure to him, this is shoved in a bookshelf. It would be like if I think, okay, Hannah and I, we should stay together, we should connect, we should, we should work on this stuff, and I said: you know what?

I think it's important, but it's not that big of a deal for us to be connected and unified on certain things.

But I would say it's a big deal, but you might say, well, it's hard. It's hard to relate to another person who grew up in a, in a Southern Baptist Church. I didn't grow up in church at all, and so we disagree on certain things like private school versus public school. That was a whole conversation between the two of us.

Right, we don't necessarily disagree.

It is hard to unify, but is it worth it? Is y'all are so scared. Is it worth it? Yeah, it's worth it.

All, right, it's, it's totally worth it for us to unify on this.

But it's hard, but, but it's worth it, but it's hard, it's worth it. And so what do I do? I embrace the difficult so that I can do the thing that is totally worth it. When it comes to our relationship with God, he wants to disclose himself to us.

Yet we find ourselves in a position when we look at God's word, because we don't just get creation, we get creation all the way to the Holy Spirit.

You're in a much better position than Moses. You're in a better position than Canan abble. You're in a better position than the prophets, a better position than the Israelite Kings. You're in a better position in a lot of ways, even- and then the disciples W.

But it's hard.

You have creation all the way through the Holy Spirit housed in this piece of this, this book, this thing. You have it all housed right here and God has given you access to it, and we in America, for the most part, have access to understanding it too. But it's hard. It's hard to understand an ancient text.

It's it's hard to connect with people who were in an Agricultural Society when I grow up out here, I mean maybe some people in Buckeye, but you know, if you grew up in a big city you don't know it.

It's hard for me to comprehend what John said here he's being like all philosophical, using words like logos and stuff that I don't quite comprehend or understand. I know it's hard. The question: it's hard. Is it worth it?

It's hard.

It's totally worth it for you to embrace what is difficult, which which is simply reading the Bible and trying to get disclosure from God. It is totally worth it for you to go through the hard so that you would understand more about the character of God. I don't know if you need to listen to it. I don't know if you need to read it more consistently.

I don't know if you need to pick a time during the day to spend some time trying to comprehend it.

It is hard to understand at a deeper level, but it's worth it. But then there's a grace even in that, because while some people say it's hard, I'll tell you- and I've already told you this- something happens when I'm obedient to God. You think Abraham was sitting back there way in the ancient world with some like super long biblical text that he was reading and all of a sudden, one day, Yahweh spoke to him in a way that, like he never spoke to any of us, he didn't have that text. God gave him Grace and revealed himself to him when he didn't necessarily have a way to apprehend that knowledge.

And so I say to you all in here who think this is difficult: God's so good, God's so nice, he's gracious, he's loving, he's compassionate, slow to anger, rich in love he's.

He's actually patient, right. So when you're reading something and you're like, oh, I think Philadelphia in Revelation refers to the city in America that was created 2,000 years or 1900 years after the Book of Revelation, yeah, it's okay. I had a student write that in and they didn't understand what they were saying. But you know what God was speaking to them and it's okay.

You don't have to know everything to start apprehending God's word.

There, there is a way to believe. There are things that you should know as you grow. At the same time, God is so good that he will superseded your own ability to study in order to connect with you at a deeper level so that you would understand his character. I, I'm trying to communicate in any way that I can, similar to how God is.

He's like I.

I guess I'll use creating them. I guess I'll use giving them a promise. I guess I'll use giving them my attributes and my law. I guess I'll use talking about my character.

I guess I'll send my son.

I guess I'll give them my Holy Spirit. He cares so deeply that you would connect with him that he sends it. John talked about it, but people didn't listen. And if there's one thing that I want to shift in our church- and I know we just got through with the marriage topical series that I hope was super helpful- I never want us to forget where the true power of this moment on Sunday comes from.

It comes from God's word, his self-disclosure to each of us, and so we're going to be a church that is intentional about putting God's word in our world.

How intense should I be, Lord? How intense if I gave my wife a one pager? We one pager. If you don't know what a one pager is, a one pager is something I use in like management or leadership, where I give somebody that I'm leading a one pager.

It's like: here's the purpose, here's what you're supposed to do, here's how you can execute it properly.

It's a, it's a summary or a one pager. I give them that so that they can accomplish a task effectively and get every bit of what they can from me on a piece of paper. Right, if I would to give my wife a one pager. And then I had to go do something.

Maybe I went over sees for some random reason, or or maybe I passed, or you know something, something not that bad, right, maybe something just normal.

And I gave her this one page. I said here's all my attributes, sweetie. All right, just just remember that stuff, right? And then she goes out into the world and she starts talking about how much she loves me and since I'm not there, no one knows me.

They're like: hey, can you tell me about this person?

Can you tell me about Matt? And she's like: well, he left me a one pager that tells me all about him, but it's in the drawer right now. And so, I, I just love him, I think he's awesome, he's super cool, beneficial, it's just greater to live life with Matt. She probably- I mean, maybe not me, maybe pick someone cooler than me, but it's just great to be with them.

But you got the one pager in the drawer.

It's like you can, you can literally know everything you need to know about God. God has disclosed himself to you in my Bible-, just over a thousand Pages. He's disclosed everything that we need for righteousness and moving forward in the direction he has called us to. He's given us all that we need is right here.

It's not a one pager, it's over a thousand pager, but it's all there and we live our lives.

Similarly to the example that I just gave you, where people want to know why we're happy, we say that we're Christians, we say that we follow God and- and I'm wondering sometimes, especially when people comment on our Instagram-, what Jesus they're reading about. Y'all are laughing. I, I shouldn't have gone through it this morning, but I went through our Instagram to reply to any comments we hadn't replied to this morning. And there was one, there was one that said: GH, I hate you guys.

There was.

You saw that. Oh gosh, forgive me, forgive them. They know not what they do. The next one, the next one I was looking at- gave me some perception of faith that they had that I don't even know in the Scriptures, because people have this image of Jesus in their mind, who is the embodiment of, not only God's will, but he's the embodiment of God's character on Earth, and they love to talk about Jesus.

But if they haven't read this, then they don't really know the Jesus to talk about and so they talk about it and they'll.

They'll give us this impression and it confuses people. And what I just want to tell everyone in this room: he's given you a th plus pager and on every single page it is inspired and true and helpful for you in terms of growing in your righteousness. You have it accessible and I am convinced that we as a church will only get into orbit in our walk with God if we start utilizing this. And I know it's hard, I know it's hard and you might even be looking at me.

It's like: well, I don't have the education you have M.

I started reading this thing way before I had any education. I was asking stupid questions in the Baptist Church in ninth grade, the first year that I trusted in Jesus. It just seemed to make sense to me that if he disclosed it, I should probably look at it. That made me special.

It's just a little bit of common sense, but we walk through, live our entire lives.

It doesn't make sense to me. We live our entire lives saying we, we believe in God who lives in heaven, and we believe that Jesus died on the cross 2,000 years ago and that somehow gives us Abundant Life presently by the power of God's Holy Spirit, but three to four times a year on average. We'll look at this. I'm not trying to be mean or negative or talk mess about anybody.

I'm trying to.

I'm trying to get us to the place, as a church, where we recognize the value in taking what he is already disclosed and applying it in our everyday life. I'll close with this. There's a super dumb thing that I used to do. I called it a Jesus Juke.

It was this thing that I did because I was starting to read the Bible and I was like, oh my gosh, this is cool.

The spirit Works in every single one of these Pages. I'm sitting here reading John. I don't understand anything that I L know about the Book of John. I'm like, in the beginning was the word, the word was with God and the Word was God, and then later I would always jump to 114.

The word became flesh and dwelt among men.

That's Jesus, it's talking about Jesus, and then John, and then I get to read through John and God speaks directly to me through his word, and some of it would stick, some of it would stick, and then I'd be in some random conversation. I grew up- just me and my twin, with my mom, and my mom and dad got divorced when I was three, so it was just the three of us and we were friends and I wasn't like the best at making friends, so we were just friends. Friends and I was super awkward in public and so I'd be standing in random places having read the Bible and we're talking about like some sports thing or something on TV, or someone went hunting that weekend and randomly, this verse that I just read would pop into my brain and I'd be like, oh yeah, like in John, chapter 1 in the beginning was the word word. It was so lame- I'm being H, don't do that.

It's so lame.

But you know what's interesting, God used it. God used it because it was this weird anti, like social awkward thing. That came with me starting to read God's word and it was accidental, honestly. That got like this stuff would get stuck in my brain and then it would begin like working itself out in my life.

So now, every time I get rejected, I think back to the book of Acts, where Paul got rejected.

Every time I'm lacking peace, I think back to Philippians, chapter 4, where it says: think on these things that are true, right, honorable, pure, lovely and of good repute, and the peace of God will be with you. When I, when I think about how I'm living my life, I think about, hey, I need to offer my body as a Living Sacrifice. When I think about, my frustration toward another person, I think when Jesus says, forgive them, they're not, not what they do, this just like it clicks. But it would never have stuck if I had never opened it.

And I'm not saying I'm special, I'm really not.

I'm one of the biggest Hypocrites up here. I try to be in good company, like with Paul, who was, who was not the greatest guy in the world, he says chief of Sinners, but he, he looked at the Old Testament and understood how that blended with Jesus and put together his letters so that the church would understand who Jesus is. The word of God is available to us and it's so good it. And he'll supersede- I say this about myself- he'll supersede my stupidity, he'll supersede my ignorance.

He'll supersede my bias.

He'll supersede my lack of intelligence in a specific area. He'll supersede my social awkwardness. He'll supersede every aspect of that, because he loves me so much that he. If he's willing to die for me, then he's willing to disclose himself to me and he'll do the same for you.

So I want us to live as a church with no excuse, no excuse to start implementing God's word into our world.

Gosh, I feel so intense. I've gone long so the band didn't have to worry about coming up, but I want to. Can I pray for you guys really quickly? I, I, I want to pray that God's word gets in you so that you might have the peace and understanding that has been so valuable to others in this room.

Okay, I'm pray for you, father.

God, I thank you for today. I thank you for the reality that your word was in the beginning and that when you created, you disclosed yourself. And when you sent your son, you disclosed yourself. And when he ascended, you sent us your spirit to keep disclosing yourself.

God, I pray for the people in this room who don't have a relationship with you.

I pray that, God, I pray that they would. They would come to a saving knowledge of who you are, that they would confess with their mouth that Jesus is Lord comes from the text, believe in their heart that God raised them from the dead. God, I pray that they would be saved. So, God, we love you and we thank you for this time.

Use this time in the Book of John For Your Glory and let us receive disclosure from your word.

It is in Jesus name that we pray, and God's people said amen. Thank you, guys, so much for being here today. They'll probably play something nice behind me, but I don't want to keep you too long, hey guys, if there's anything pragmatic you can leave with, it's the recognition that God loves you, regardless of where you are. He wants you to know him and he'll make it accessible.

And if you don't have the Bible- cuz we kept talking about it- we've got a couple out there for you.

Or just come to me and I'll make sure we get you one within the week. Y'all shake your head, if you hear me. Hey, we're going to be a church that takes God's word and puts it into people's worlds when they're broken, when they're in the bad, worst places of their life, when they're frustrated, when they're discouraged. We're going to put God's word into our world, and I don't think I meant this to be a value teaching, but that's what it's going to be.

It's going to live throughout our church.

God's word where in our world? Amen, somebody. Y'all feel good? Let's give a hand clap of praise to God for his word.

Y'all stand with me.

I'm going to dismiss you. I dismiss you from here, but never from the presence of God. You guys have it available for you, in any moment, any season. Just speak to God and open his word.

God, we thank you for that word.

It's in Jesus J name that we pray. Amen and amen.