How to Study Your Bible Pt 1

Good evening, everyone. Is everybody nice and warm? Oh yeah. Let's go ahead and pray and then we'll get started. Thank you, God, for another opportunity to come together collectively to worship you and to lift up your name. God, thank you for your greatness and your goodness to us. Thank you for showing us how immense and massive you are and how just beyond

space and outside of time, just how in control you are and yet still involved in the smallest details of our lives. Thank you for taking care of us in this way. God, we just lift this time up to you and we praise your name. In Jesus' name, amen. All right, let's stand.

God, thank you for making yourself known to us. Thank you for walking the earth through your son and setting an example for us and to us and making it known to us so that we can know how to live our lives for you. I'm going to get a drink first, my voice.

Thank you. Thank you for being the one we can turn to for everything going on. I praise you for all the good that comes from you, God, and thank you so much for all the blessings you give us. I just ask now that as Pastor Ryan comes, God, that you would bless us with your word. You would show us the parts of our hearts that need changed, what we need to lay down before you, and we just

thank you for the power of your word, that it can change. That it does a good work, hearing and doing. Help us not to forget what we hear tonight. In Jesus' name, amen. Good evening. If you would, open up in your Bibles for tonight to the book of 2 Timothy chapter 3. That's what we're going to be in for this particular section, but let me talk to you a little bit about what we're doing.

A different study than what we usually do. We just finished the book of Revelation. And the place we're going to next is the book of Joshua. But I kind of thought, I don't want the people that attend this church to just enjoy hearing somebody else teach God's word. I want the people that attend this church to be able to use God's word for themselves, to know how to study it, to know what it says, so that you can be able to accurately

handle the word of God. So I've been praying about it. And earlier this Sunday, as I was kind of laying out what the schedule for the summer was going to look like, I realized that there's going to be a little bit of a stint here after Revelation, where there might be an opportunity to do something like this. So we're about to embark on a little bit of a different journey than usual. And the journey that we're going to embark on is

how to study the Bible. So technically, it's going to be a four-part series. Although really, what I want you guys to really focus in on are the last three parts. Tonight, we're going to talk about why it's important for you guys to study the Bible. And I'm going to talk about why it's important to be someone who learns how to study your Bible. So before we get into anything else,

let me lay out for you what the next few weeks is going to look like. So tonight we're going to cover why. Why is it important to learn how to study God's word for yourself? Next week, I'm going to stand up here and act like a crazy man in front of a bunch of kids for vacation Bible school. So Wednesday night won't happen next week like usual. It will be me and Bryce and Stone are

up here doing a skit. So don't come next week unless you're helping out with VBS, because otherwise we'll put you to work helping out with VBS. Then the week after that is when we'll really get into it, because the way that studying your Bible lays out is like this. There's going to be three main parts that we're going to look at. The three main parts are these. Number one, we're

going to answer the question, what does it say? Number two, we're going to answer the question, what does it mean? And number three, we're going to answer the question, what does it mean for me? Now, that is the basic layout for what we call inductive Bible study. If you were using inductive Bible study terms, the three terms that you, interpretation and application. So we'll get to

that in the upcoming weeks. But what I want to do for tonight is I want to talk about why it's important, because I bet you're sitting there thinking, Ryan, can't you just teach instead of getting us involved too? I could, but I want to get you guys involved and get you to study it for yourselves. And so that's what I want to talk about. I want to talk about why it's important.

Tonight is why it's important for you to learn to study the Bible yourself. So I want to start off by reading something to you. It's out of a book called Haley's Bible Handbook, which by the way, if you don't own one of these, you should find one of these. Any Christian bookstore is going to carry it. Christianbook.com is going to carry it. Amazon is going to carry it, but it's

really important because it gives you a concise picture of every chapter of the Bible. And you're going to be able to know what that chapter says. And you're going to be able to know what that chapter says in its most basic form in about five minutes to read over what Haley has to say about it. But in the back of Haley's Bible Handbook, he has this section called the most important thing. And I

want to read a couple of quotes to you out of Haley's Bible Handbook. It says this, every Christian ought to be a Bible reader. It is the one habit, which if done in the right spirit, more than any other one habit will make a Christian what he ought to be in every way. If any church could get its people as a whole to be devoted readers of God's word, it would revolutionize the church. If the churches of any community as a whole

could get their people as a whole to be regular readers of the Bible, it would not only revolutionize the church, but it would purge and purify the community as nothing else could. He goes on, on the next page to say, and now today, the one best thing that the church could do would be to set itself to enthrone God's word in the lives of its people. The rest would follow that one thing in and of itself would go further in solving all problems, individual, social, and national than anything else the church could do. God's word is the best weapon that the church has.

Now, most of you know that the guy that started the Calvary Chapel movement, it's a guy named Chuck Smith. That is what gave Chuck Smith the philosophy to run Calvary Chapel the way that he did. That section out of Haley's Bible Handbook revolutionized the way he viewed the way he would teach the Bible and the way that the word of God would be used in Calvary Chapels forever, because that was his philosophy. That was his philosophy of ministry based on those pages in Haley's Bible Handbook.

So I did a little something. I grabbed a Bible called the Thompson Chain Reference Bible. I'll talk about that a little bit more when we get to the interpretation part, because I'm going to have all kinds of little visual displays for you, because I want to give you every possible tool that you can to be able to study God's word. But I went to Thompson Chain Reference, and I looked up why the Bible is important, and it gave me this whole long list of verses. I'm not going to read them all to you,

but I want to go over a handful of these verses. Now, I'm going to be moving very quickly through these verses, so you don't necessarily need to turn there with me. I'm going to have her put them up there. You can write them down, and you can look them up later. The first is Deuteronomy 8, verse 3. Deuteronomy 8, verse 3, it says this. He humbled you, speaking of God, Moses speaking to

the people of Israel. He humbled you, and he let you be hungry. And he fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, and this is what I want you to pay attention to, that he might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. That's why God's word is important, because man does not live simply by the physical things of this world.

Man lives by the words that come directly from the mouth of God, which we'll find out in just a moment is everything in this book. Psalm 119, verse 9, which by the way, if you want to read anything that'll tell you how important God's word is, read Psalm 119. Gear up, because it's the longest chapter in the entire world, Bible. It's the longest chapter in the Bible, but it's a really important one. Psalm 119, verse 9, says this. How can a young man keep his way pure?

By keeping it according to your word. Psalm 119, verse 11, says this. Your word I have treasured in my heart, or as the old King James says, your word have I hidden in my heart, that I have treasured in my heart. I have treasured in my heart, that I have treasured in my heart, I might not sin against you. Then if you move into the New Testament in John chapter 17,

John chapter 17 is Jesus's high priestly prayer for the people. I want you to notice what Jesus prays in John chapter 17, verse 17. He says this, Sanctify them in the truth. Your word, O Lord, is truth. Hebrews chapter 4, verse 12, says this, For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing as far as the division of the soul and the spirit of both joints and marrow,

and is able to judge the thoughts and the intentions of the heart. And then the last one that I want you to write down is 2 Timothy chapter 10, 2, verse 15, because 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 15 says this, Be diligent to present yourselves approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. I just gave you a handful of verses out of about a page full of verses that all popped up about why God's word is important. And that's what God's word has to say about God's word.

It's the most important thing that you could know. As Haley said in his Bible handbook, it will revolutionize your life. It will revolutionize our church. It will revolutionize our community. If the people of God will commit to study the word of God, to live out the word of God and to share the word of God, it is the one thing that will truly change the world around us.

Well, looking through all of these verses, one that seemed to encapsulate my desire to share the importance of why it's important for you to study God's word. The most is out of 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17. So if you'll look down in 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 16 and 17, it says this, All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be equipped, may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Now, one thing I'm going to repeat to you over and over again, as we study the Bible together and learn how to study the Bible together, is there are three rules for studying God's word.

You ready for these three rules that are important for studying God's word? You want to hear them? Number one is context. Number two is context. And number three is context. Because if you take the word of God out of context, you can make it say whatever you want to make it say. Do you know that I can prove to you from God's word that there is no God? There's actually a verse that says that there is no God.

And I can tell you that, and I can quote the verse to you, and I can even show you in God's word where it says, there is, there is no God until I look at the context. And I realized that the context says the fool has said in his heart that there is no God. See how you can do that. That's why context is the most important thing. So I want to give you the context of what Paul says here.

Now, second Timothy chapter three, second Timothy is the last book that Paul wrote. And as he's writing this book, he's writing it to Timothy, which is why it's called second Timothy, because he's the young pastor that he's writing to. Well, in the third chapter, it starts off by, Paul saying difficult times are coming. You need to realize this, that times are coming when men, when men will be lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, they will be lovers of self.

They will be lovers of money. And quite frankly, they may slap their mamas, right? I mean, basically that's what it says in there, all of that. And they will heap to themselves teachers that will tickle their ears and say what they want to hear. He goes on to give examples of some people like that from the old, and then he tells Timothy something. He says, but you,

Timothy, you need to hold on to the things that you have learned, the things that I have taught you, the things that your mother and your grandmother taught you. And as he tells them to hold on to those things, he says, all scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for correction, or for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. Why does Paul tell him that the word of God is inspired by God and is profitable for these things and ultimately will equip you for every good work? Because he knew what Timothy was about to face.

He knew that Timothy was going to deal with people who did not want to believe the truth. And he knew that the potential would be there for Timothy to get swept up in all of the things of the world. And so he told him, you hold on to the word. You hold on to what God's word has to say. And so as I look at those verses, verses 16 and 17, the first thing that I want you to take note of in second Timothy three,

16 is this number one. He says it is inspired by God. All of scripture is inspired by God. Now that word inspired is really interesting. The word inspire means to divinely breathe. So literally what he says there is all scripture is, is God breathed. Matter of fact, some of your translations may say that. That's an amazing thought, isn't it? That God is actually the one who breathed his word into faithful servants who then copied it down.

Now, Paul uses a specific phrase here when he says, all scripture is God breathed. Now, almost every commentator that I read agreed that when Paul wrote this, he didn't just intend it to be the Old Testament scripture. He intended it to also mean the canon of scripture, New Testament. It was being formed at that time because Peter will refer to Paul's words as scripture.

Paul will refer to Peter's words as scripture. Therefore all scripture is inspired by God. It is divinely breathed. Now the first thing I want us to understand about the fact that scripture has been divinely breathed out by God is that we can trust the reliability of scripture. What's the first attack? Anybody always brings against God's word. They always say,

you can't trust that. It's been what? You guys don't know. It's been copied down so many different times that how can you really trust what it has to say? Well, I want to tell you how you can trust what it has to say. So there's a manual that I took a group of teenagers through a few years ago. It's called the G3 tactical manual, not just because it has a legit name and the cover looks amazing,

but because it's a manual on how to share your faith with other people. And there's a defending your faith section. And I want to read to you out of this defending your faith section because it's really important. It says it is often said by skeptics that the Bible is not a reliable document of history. You should be happy to know that nothing could be further from the truth.

The Bible is completely trustworthy as a historical document. In fact, the Bible is far superior to all other historical documents. Although we do not possess the original autographs of the New Testament, around 5600 completed manuscript copies exist, some of which were copied less than 100 years ago. 100 years after the original. This is staggering when compared with other documents of antiquity.

For example, good secular non-Christian scholars consider the writings of Plato to be accurate and trustworthy. However, we only possess seven copies of Plato's writings, the earliest of which were copied more than 1200 years after the original. If it's a matter of credibility, the Bible clearly wins. As a matter of fact, there's a table in here that goes on to show that the works of Caesar, you have a thousand years in between the original and the copy, and there's only 10 copies of it.

The works of Aristotle, there's 1400 years in between the original and the first copy, and there's only 49 copies. But this is the part that'll really get you, all of you that remember having to read either the Iliad or the Odyssey growing up in school. Homer's Iliad, from the time of the original in 900 BC, to the time of the first copy in 400 BC, is 500 years. We possess 643 copies of the Iliad, and they are rated at 95% accurate.

Check this out. The Bible, which was copied less than 100 years after the original, we have 5600 copies, and it is 99.5% accurate. Most inaccuracies having zero to do, with any of the cardinal doctrines of Scripture. But you don't understand, the Bible's been copied so many times, you can't trust it. Listen, 99.5% accurate, pretty ding-dong accurate, right?

You can trust the reliability of Scripture. Why? Because it came from God. He breathed it out. But not only is it reliable, I want you to understand something. I want you to understand that if it's God breathed, that means that these are the very words of God spoken to you. It's not just historically accurate, it's one of the greatest displays of love that you can imagine in all of history.

Because God felt that His words were so important that He should make sure that He breathed them into His faithful servants so that they could copy them down accurately. It is God's Word for you. And for me personally, I've come directly to God's Word and asked it the toughest questions I've ever had. Asked it the toughest questions I can come up with, and God's faithfully taught me every time.

But there's one more thing I want to tell you about the fact that Scripture is God breathed. Because we understand that it is directly from God, we understand that God's Word is spiritual in nature. Therefore, it can only be spiritually understood. Listen, you can be the greatest scholar there is and you will still miss the main point of God's Word if God's Spirit isn't at work in you.

That's why you have to understand that when you approach God's Word, you cannot approach it as an intellect. You have to approach it as a servant. You cannot approach it as an intellectual document. You have to approach it as a disciple who is seeking to learn from the disciple-maker. Because it is spiritual in nature. It can only be understood on a spiritual plane.

So the first thing you must do when you study God's Scripture is pray. Remember we talked about that a few weeks ago in the book of Ephesians in chapter 1, right? That prayer in chapter 1, and if you didn't listen to it, you need to go back and pick up on that on our website. You need to go back and listen to that because that prayer is a prayer for spiritual understanding.

That God would open the eyes of our heart to be able to take in the truth of His Word. Because that which is spiritual can only be spiritually discerned. You see, all Scripture is God-breathed. But the second thing I take note of is that all Scripture is profitable. The word profitable literally means, you ready for this? It's pretty deep. It literally means useful.

I can get along with things like that, right? Like it's really useful. Yes, it is. It's incredibly useful. What's it useful for? Well, he's gonna tell us four things that it's useful for. Number one, it's profitable for teaching. The word teaching just literally means instruction or, here's a fun word for you, doctrine. Who here gets nervous when you hear the word doctrine?

Right? It makes you a little nervous, right? You're kinda like, oh gosh, that sounds like what smart people talk about. No, listen, doctrine is just simply the things that we know that are true from God's Word, right? God's Word teaches us doctrine because it teaches us the truth about the world that we live in now, and it teaches us the truth about the world that is to come.

You see, the Word of God is profitable for instruction and for teaching. And man, could we not use some teaching right now? Could we not use some instruction from God right now? As a matter of fact, we're told in the Old Testament, my people perish for lack of, do you remember this verse? For lack of knowledge. It's because they just don't know. I was listening to a teaching the other day about David

and when he brought the ark back for the first time. Have you guys ever heard that story before? So when David took over as king, the ark had been captured before he became king. Actually, when King Saul died, the ark was captured because they had taken it into battle. Bad idea. And so they wanted to bring the ark back to Jerusalem because they had established the capital in Jerusalem.

And so what they do is they decide, hey, let's take this thing back. And so David does not take time to receive good teaching. He does it his own way. And so they take the ark of God and they put it on a cart pulled by some oxen. And as they're going along, everybody's excited. We're bringing the ark back. Yeah, this is amazing. But all of a sudden the oxen start to stumble

and the ark starts to fall. And do you remember what happens? Uzzah puts out his hand and as soon as he puts out his hand to study the ark, do you remember what happened? Gone. He gone. Right? You know why? He died for his lack of knowledge because he hadn't been taught. Matter of fact, David got a little huffy with God. He was like, how you gonna be like that, God?

And God's like, man, you should have followed the rules. You should have done it the way that I told you to do it. So David goes away for a little while and pouts. But then he finally decides, you know what? Let's do it the right way. So you know what he did? He went and consulted the priests and said, hey, what's this supposed to look like? And they're like, oh, well, you gotta understand.

You got these poles. That's why those little holes are in the side of the ark. You shove the poles through there. It can only be the priests that carry it. And they taught him all of the rules. You see, they gave him the teaching, the instruction, the doctrine so that he could do it the right way. And when he did it the right way, he brought the ark back to the temple

and the whole nation celebrated, right? Why? Because God's word was profitable for teaching. The second thing that God's word is profitable for is reproof. Now, I don't know about you, but I don't ever use the word reproof. Like if I get corrected, I'm not like someone reproved me today. Or if I call my daughter in to tell her she's doing something wrong, I'm like, okay, daughter, it's reproof time.

She would be like, proof time? What do you even mean? What's that talking about? It's not a word we use a whole lot, right? So you're probably asking yourself, what does that mean? The word reproof means to refute error. But let me tell you even more. It means to bring conviction. Ah, now you're speaking a language I understand, right? God's word brings conviction into our lives.

And may I say, brothers and sisters, this often is what keeps us from reading God's word. You see, I don't always want to be convicted about my sin. That's why I like to use my black Sharpie highlighter on the parts of the Bible that I really don't like that much. And I'm like, I don't like that part. That's convicting to me. Let's pretend that's not there, right?

And then pretty soon you don't read God's word. Why? Because God's word convicts you of sin. And quite frankly, you want to continue in your sin, just like I want to continue sometimes in my sin. But you see, God's word is so faithful because not only does it teach us what's right, but it convicts us when you're wrong. That's why some of you come up to me after church and you say,

Ryan, I don't like you right now. Like, well, I didn't like me right then either. Okay? Because if I'm telling it to you, it means God already zinged me once. Because that's what God's word does for us. But listen, brothers and sisters, we need that conviction in our lives. And it is so important. That's why you've got to dig in and listen. Let God's word do the convicting work that only God's word can do.

This is why in general in our nation right now, God's word is being ignored or God's word is being twisted to a level that is so frustrating to people. Frustrating to people like me who love the purity of God's word. Nothing will burn my biscuits more than listen to somebody take God's word and make it say something that it doesn't really say. Like, I will legit just walk around my house and I'll huff for a while about it.

Aaron's like, go for a run. Right? Get over it. People don't like the Bible. Just move on. Because it irritates me because people are being misled. And so it is profitable. It's useful for teaching of doctrine. For reproof that refuting error or bringing conviction. But it's also profitable for correction. Oh, this is the fun part. You know what the word correction means?

The word correction means restoration. It means improvement of life and character. The Amplified Bible puts it like this. It is the correction of error for the restoration of obedience. You see, God is so faithful with his word. And this is what you have to understand. This is usually the difference between conviction and condemnation. Do you guys know the difference between those?

Conviction is something where we are aware of our sin, but we know that the only place we can go is to Jesus. Condemnation is when we become aware of our sin and the one place we do not want to go is to Jesus. That's the difference between the two. But God is always faithful that if he's going to show me where I'm wrong, he will also show me where I'm wrong.

He will also show me how to be right. I was having a discussion with someone earlier about coaches. Each of us, at some point in time, you've had a really bad coach in your life, right? Maybe a really bad teacher in your life. And that teacher is really, really good at telling you how bad you are at things. Or that coach is really good at telling you how bad you are at something.

But you're like, listen, I don't need anybody to tell me how bad I am. I was out there. I lost. I understand how bad I am. I need someone to show me. How to be right. That was one of the things I appreciated about my wrestling coach when I was in high school. He first of all knew you didn't want to talk about it right afterwards. Like if you lost, you're as irritated with yourself as anybody else is.

So he'd usually come up to you and hand you your sweats. And he'd say, talk to me in a minute. So you'd go talk to him and he goes, did you see what you did wrong? And sometimes you would. And sometimes you'd go, I don't have any idea. I do not know what happened out there. And he would gently talk you through it. Well, you did this. That was a bad idea. You should have done this.

And he would coach you through it. And it was an amazing thing because that's what a coach does. That's what a teacher does. You fail a test, you go to your teacher like, what did I do? They're like, well, you got all the wrong answers. That's what you did wrong. Here's where you need to look to find them so that you can be right. And God is so faithful in our lives that way by using his word to show us not only where we've been wrong.

But then to correct us. And bring that restoration by showing us how to be right. Now, the fourth thing that it is profitable or useful for is the training in righteousness. The word training literally means education and instruction. Ryan, we already talked about that. Let me read this to you out of the Amplified Bible. I think it's a really good way that it puts it.

And it really brought some light in my own study to it. It says, Learning to live in conformity to God's will both publicly and privately. Behaving honorably with personal integrity and moral courage. Learning to live in conformity to God's will. You see, that training in righteousness is the continuation of what we need. This is where you went wrong. This is how you can be right.

This is how you can stay right. These are the steps you need to keep taking so that you don't end up there again. Right? That's the training in righteousness. As he continues to teach us how to live on a daily basis in conformity to what God's desire is for us. And he used his word to do that in our lives. Why? Because his word is God-free. It's his word to you.

Well, he goes on from there to give us the result. That's the third thing I want you to see is the result. It says, So that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work. That the man of God may be adequate. Now, some of your translations, I know, I think the old King James puts it this way. I can't remember if the new King James does or not.

But it says that the man of God may be perfect. Now, I always appreciated that about the old King James. I'm like, yes, the word of God is going to make me perfect. That's not the idea really behind that word. Adequate is an adequate translation of the word. But I still don't prefer it. I actually prefer the translation of this word mature. You see, God's word is profitable in our life because it teaches us.

It reproves us. It corrects us. And it trains us. Why? So that we can be mature. Why? Because that's what God's desire is for us. Is to become mature believers in Jesus Christ. Been raising kids for 14 years now. And my greatest desire for them is to see them become mature human beings. Right? When they're babies, you want to see them start to talk. Well, you kind of want to see them start to talk.

You want to see them start to talk until they start talking. And then you're like, shh. Anyway, you want to see them talk. And then you want to see them walk. And then you want to knock them down. And then you want to see them keep walking. Right? And keep growing. Because you want to see them mature. And then they get into school and you're like, oh, I want to see you really grow in your knowledge.

I want to see you learn to read. And you want to see this next step in maturity. But your goal is to keep seeing them become mature. And from a worldly perspective, I want to see them become self-sufficient human beings who are contributing to society. But from a spiritual perspective, I want to see them become self-controlled people who are accountable to God.

And serving Him. And loving Him with all of their hearts. Because that's spiritual maturity. Well, that's God's desire for us, too. And the way that He brings us to that is by being in God's Word. Because God's Word is, first of all, like milk to a newborn baby. And then meat to a full-grown eater. What is the thing that it's going to take in our kids' lives to see them grow?

Well, you've got to feed them. Right? You've got to keep feeding. Right? I was just having this discussion with my youngest daughter earlier. She said, I don't like to eat. I don't understand that. Actually, that's not true. When I was her age, I was the same way probably. But I wish I was that way a little bit more now. But she didn't like to eat that much.

She'll eat like three bites. She's like, I need a break. I'm like, what do you need a break? You're like five pounds, kid. Put more weight on. Eat more food. Why? Because I know that food is what's going to make her stronger. It's what's going to help make her mature. And that's what God's Word is for us. It's our spiritual diet that brings us to maturity. That we may be adequate.

That we may be complete, fitted, or mature. Then the second word that he uses there is that they may be equipped for every good work. That word equipped. I love that. I don't remember which translation I read that said this. I think it might have been the least. Or it might have just been in Vine's expository dictionary. I can't remember which one. But it said, furnished, finish.

I like that. They are equipped. They are furnished to be able to finish. Finish. Right? When you have a job to do, all you want is the right tools to do it. Well, the Word of God gives you the right tools to do it. And what is the thing that God's equipping us to do? Every good work. I want to read this to you out of the New Living Translation. It said, God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.

Because that's what God does for us. I want you to go one more place with me in Scripture before we kind of close out here this evening. I want you to go to the book of Deuteronomy. And I want you to go to, oh my gosh, I lost it. I hate when I do this. I'm not going to be able to have you go there because I did not write it down and I thought I had it marked and I do not.

So, in Deuteronomy, it says this. Which brings me to my next point, kids. Right there. In Deuteronomy, it says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says this. It says that. In Deuteronomy, it says this.

Which brings me to my next point, kids. Write things down. Okay. It says that God gave them His word, because listen, it is your life. It is your life. The word of God for the believer is every bit of our life. It's the most important thing that we can take in, because it's profitable. because it's God-breathed and because it ultimately equips us to be who God called for us to be.

And I do want to close with this quote from David Guzik. As he talks about being equipped for every good work, he says this. This reminds us that we are not in the business of building sermon appreciation societies, but in equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. Let me read that to you again. This reminds us that we are not in the business of building sermon appreciation societies,

but in equipping the saints for the work of the ministry. I found that to be one of the most profound things I've read today because I think all too often, especially in the 21st century church, we have a sermon appreciation society because we love to hear sermons. We love to hear sermons. We love to hear sermons. We love to hear the crafting of a preacher putting a sermon together

and we go, it made me feel so good, but that's not our goal. I don't want you to walk away from a Sunday or a Wednesday and say, I really appreciated the sermon. I want you to walk away and say, I need to know God more so that I can be equipped to do what he has called for me to do. I want to give you the same kind of love for the word of God that my dad instilled into me, that my Bible college teachers instilled into me, so that you can take that kind of love for the word of God, dig into it for yourself and continue to flourish.

To have it change your life, and then to have it change the life of our church, and then to have it change the life of our community, and for God to continue to do that work as far as he wants to go. Amen. Let's bow together. Father, we come to you and just thank you for the time that we've spent in your word. Lord, I thank you. That there is a group of people here who wants to hear what the study of your word looks like.

And so Lord, I pray that you would give us hearts that are prepared. Lord, that you would give us hearts that desire. Lord, that you would give us a heart that longs for your word. Lord, would you give us a love for your word? And would you instill within us that spiritual ability to know what it says? Father, that you would open the eyes of our heart to know

what is the word of God. the hope of your calling, the glorious riches of your inheritance in the saints and the mighty power that works in us. That same power that raised Christ Jesus from the dead, that's at work in us to not only fashion us into who you want us to be, but to understand exactly what your word has to say to us. Father, do your work, we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Be blessed.