Battle Ready // It's Time to Use the Sword

We are gonna be back in Ephesians, chapter six, today, and we've been having a lot of fun in this series that we've called Battle Ready.

This series that's all about spiritual armor, and I've really been looking forward to today's message.

And here's why the last several weeks we've been talking about playing defense.

We've been talking about having the armor on and playing defense.

But today we ain't playing defense anymore.

Y'all.

Today we're talking about how to play offense.

We're talking about our weapon of attack.

Now, I know some of you in the room are sports fans.

In fact, on the count of three, let me hear my sports fans out there One, two, three, let's go, let's go, let's go.

So you're a sports fan, so this is what you know.

Defense is important, right?

But you score points on offense.

You got to get the ball in the end zone, or you got to get the ball in the basket in the A-seasons about to start up.

Y'all, let's go.

Right.

I guess I'm really not sad about that.

Yeah, you got it.

You got a score point.

Now let's pretend that you're watching a football game With the team that has a great defense.

I don't know if you guys know any football teams that have any great defense.

Oh, the 49ers, oh, wow, wow.

Notice, nobody yelled out the word Raiders, I'm just kidding.

Let's say you got the 49ers and you know you got the 49ers, you got the incredible defense and they're getting all the stops on defense.

You know, nick Bosa, fred Warner and company, they're just shutting down the offense.

What we don't do, we, what the 49ers don't do, that's when we get a stop on defense.

We don't say we stopped you, here's the ball again, come back at us again.

We're going to try to defend you.

I mean the 49ers defense is fun to watch.

The real fun is when you score points.

Playing offense, right, yeah, you don't do that.

You want to play offense, you want to score.

Now, you know like this is really important is because some of us, in our Christian lives, we play a lot of defense but we don't play a lot of offense.

And for some of us, we live incomplete Christian lives and we don't live in victory, like the song that we just said, because we don't know how to use the sword, because the sword is how we go forward and the sword is how we attack the enemy.

Today, this is what we're going to do.

That's going to be pretty simple.

Today we're going to ask the question how is this, how is this powerful?

Like, how is the sword so powerful, how is the word so powerful that we can use it to go forward?

We can use it to attack the enemy.

Another question that actually I think is really vital it might be more important than the first question is how do we use it?

How do we actually open this up and get something from it?

Because if we understand that it's powerful but we don't know how to use it, that's what we're going to do today, and I'm really excited because today we're going to learn how to use our sword.

Ephesians, chapter 6, if you're happy to be here this morning, would you say amen, amen.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

Ephesians, chapter number 6, verse 17, it says this it says Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit, which is the let's all say it together which is the word of God.

So we're God On this time period.

Roman soldiers the sword that they would have was really more of like a dagger.

It was about six to 18 inches.

It's a big 18, 18 inches and they would carry it with them all the time.

They'd have it with them.

They'd hand to hand combat If they ever just walked around.

They would always have it to shoot, because you never know when some enemy or somebody's going to pop out around the corner.

You got to use the sword, you got to bust it out, you got to be ready.

When he says use the sword, this is what he's talking about.

So the sword should be something that's available, ready for us to use.

It actually brings up the question that an honest and fair question some of you may have, and I just want to stop and kind of adjust it for a second.

I'm going to say okay, nate, we're talking about the sword and the Bible.

How do we even know the Bible is reliable?

Super question, right?

How do we know it's reliable?

Maybe you're not a person of faith.

Maybe you are a person of faith.

Do you just have some questions in your mind?

Well, next week we're starting a new series called Hot Topics, and what we're going to be doing is we're basically going to be talking about everything that you're hearing out there, everything you're hearing on the news, social media and all that, things like human sexuality, and we're talking about things like abortion and racism and all the different things, and next week we're going to start off the series by talking about how do we know that we can trust the Bible, how do we know that the Bible is actually reliable.

And what we're going to do is we're going to give out this book, one to every family.

Next week, called 77 Frequently Asked Questions About God in the Bibles.

We're going to give one of these out to every family and it's got questions like what is God really like?

If God's so loving, why can't he be more tolerant of sin?

Why does God allow suffering?

Just all kinds of stuff like that.

And we're going to give these out next Sunday to every family in attendance.

Now some of you are going to try to pull the car over here.

You're like, hey, it's afternoon Next Sunday, I'm kind of going out of town to talk for the weekend.

You've got to be here next Sunday to get one of these.

So next Sunday we're going to give one of these to everybody, and next Sunday we're going to talk about how do we know the Bible is reliable.

And if the Bible is reliable spoiler alert, it is reliable Then it has the questions to life that philosophers for years have been trying to find and, honestly, that many of us are trying to find.

Things like what is the purpose of life?

Where did I come from?

How do I get to happen?

What do I do when I try to do good and I still mess up?

Why is the world full of evil?

It has questions, answers to the big questions of life, but also practical advice just for living.

This is why this is one of the reasons why this is so powerful.

Along with the word in Ephesians, chapter 6, it also reminds us that we have something else called prayer.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

It says pray at all times, in the spirit, with every prayer request, and say alert, with all perseverance and intercession for all the saints.

When we think about prayer, we think of prayer as like a safety net.

Things go wrong, right, we call mom or we call God.

Okay, right, prayer is like a safety net.

But really, prayer is not just some safety net that we go to in emergency situations.

Prayer should be the very thing that we are running to.

We are believing that God could do great and mighty things in our life and it's the way that we can go forward in faith.

It's the way that we can go forward in the Christian life.

In fact, many people have said, some have argued, that, while there are six pieces of armor in Ephesians 6, prayer could be the seventh piece of armor, because prayer is how we go.

Prayer, being dependent on God as we use the armor of God, is a way that we can get victory in our spiritual lives.

So pray it up.

Prayer the word.

I want to ask the question that you said just a few minutes ago, and it's this how is the word powerful?

How is the word powerful?

I grew up in Solano County.

I grew up as a California boy.

My mom did not grow up in California.

My mom was a country girl.

So my mom grew up in South Carolina.

And when I say she grew up in South Carolina, I mean like the boondocks of South Carolina.

She got to drive 25 minutes just to go to the grocery store.

Everybody talks funny Hunting season.

The opening day of hunting season might as well be a state holiday.

You guys know country people just want to talk about.

So whenever we would go back there as a kid, we'd go there for a vacation every couple of years, my mom and my dad, they'd sit down.

We'd have a little like country education class, where they're going to say things differently.

This is how you be respectful.

Make sure you don't say, yeah, make sure you always say yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, yes sir, no, sir, I go back there.

All my cousins, yes, sir, yes, ma'am.

We are not in Cal Poly anymore and my mom's, like you can talk with that girl tonight, and so we go back there.

I remember one time I was just a little guy we went back there and all of my cousins, they all had guns.

So I came from California.

I mean, are we even allowed to say that we're gun in California, you know?

And I said, can I even laugh at that?

Yes, you can laugh.

And we went back there and my cousins wanted to take me out to shoot it.

Now my cousins have like an entire arsenal.

I'm telling you, they have all kinds of guns.

Up to that point in my life I had only seen guns on TV.

Or I had seen a gun on the side of a police officer.

I literally did, and my parents were okay with me going out shooting with my cousins we had a shoot.

But before we went out my parents sat down with me and they had this conversation.

They said, hey, this is God knows.

These guns are really powerful.

If they're aimed at somebody and they go off, that person can die.

Now the funny thing is I kind of it's actually I had watched TV and I had seen movies.

You shoot, people die, but for whatever reason, when I was a little kid and I had a conversation with my parents, all the dots connected, like the dots connected that, oh my goodness, guns are really, really powerful.

And after that conversation, going out with my cousin shooting and they taught me how to shoot and do all this stuff, I understood about the power of these.

And here's what I tell you, the story, because what they will do for some of us is we'll connect some dots to see how powerful the scripture really is.

Because for some of us we have this disconnection between the scripture and our lives.

For some of us in our lives, at one point maybe there was this connection.

We understood how powerful scripture was.

But over time, because of problems and concerns, life and difficulties and busyness, there's been this disconnection with the word.

But to now I want us to reconnect.

See the word's powerful.

In fact, in Jeremiah, chapter 23, it says that the word is like a hammer.

Jeremiah 23 · chapter mention

It's like a hammer.

In Psalm 119, it says the word guides us.

It's actually a guide for our lives.

In Psalm 119, it says that the word comforts us.

In Hebrews 4, it actually calls it a two-edged sword.

It says the word pierces us.

It reveals our motives, our hearts.

In John 831, it says the word frees us.

In 2nd Timothy, chapter 3, verse 16, it says the word helps us know God, that we can't know God apart from scripture.

Our mission here is to help people know Jesus and make Jesus known.

You can only know Jesus from scripture.

One of the crazy stories I think in Matthew, chapter 4, is Jesus was tempted in the wilderness.

Matthew 4 · chapter mention

I hope you guys remember this story.

Jesus was not tempted by the JV devil, he was tempted by El Diablo himself.

This was not like the demon in training, this was the devil himself.

Came to Jesus and tempted him.

What Jesus could have done when he was tempted?

Jesus could have said Satan, I'm God, kick rocks, see you later.

Could have done that, but Jesus could have done.

Some of you guys have done this.

Jesus could have used his intellect to outsmart the devil.

But Jesus also could have done Jesus could have used his power and said no, I have all power in heaven and on earth.

Get away from me, I'm Jesus.

Could have done that, could have like smashed the devil or something right.

Do that, do it.

He put a scripture, he says it is written, this is what the word of God says.

And then he quotes scripture and the enemy comes back and he says, okay, well, let me tell you again as it is written.

And me comes back, let me tell you again as it is written.

So he did.

Jesus himself used scripture and it was the power of scripture that allowed him to overcome temptation.

This is fascinating.

There's this pattern and pattern, over and over again, that we see about what scripture can do.

And because scripture is powerful, what the enemy wants to do is to not allow the scripture to get rooted in your heart, because if the scripture gets rooted in your heart, things change.

In fact, in Matthew 13, jesus told this terrible, this story about this, and he said that when the seed of the word of God is sown in your heart, what the enemy wants to do is literally, he's either going to bring worries to your life, to try to choke it out, he's going to bring problems in your life, he's going to bring discomfort in your life, he's going to bring difficulties and distractions, so the word won't get rooted in your life.

In fact, even right now.

This is how it works, because you can be hearing the word of God, but your mind could be someone else, right?

You ever done that?

Of course you're like I've never done that.

When you're preaching, I do that when you get speakers, preachers okay, just kidding, maybe I get speakers or preachers, but this is what the enemy does.

The enemy, the enemy, he just wants the word to be rooted in your heart and your life, and you know why.

Look what this verse says.

Jesus says when it sown on good ground, this is the one who hears and understands the word, who does produce good, who does produce fruit and yields Some 100, some 60, some 30 times what was sown.

The word bears fruit in our life.

The word yields fruit in our life.

This is what happens when we receive the word and we're open to receiving the word and we hear.

This is what it says.

It says it yields 30 and 60 and 100.

What was sown.

My dad was a pastor, who automatically meant some people thought that of course I was going to be a pastor.

My dad thought I was going to be a pastor, but there is nothing further from the truth.

Honestly, growing up, I had zero desire to be a pastor.

On a scale of 1%, I'm negative.

I don't want to be a pastor.

I know I already know you want to say why I don't be a pastor.

One of the reasons Because I wanted to make money and I wanted to have lots of money.

As a pastor s kid I knew that being a pastor was not the way to make money and I went to youth camp.

I was still like arts seniors go to youth camp.

I was quite fortunate to be a pastor and they challenged us to spend time in the word every day.

They challenged us to spend time in the word every day.

God spoke my heart.

I'm going to help.

I'm going to try to do this.

I started spending time in the word regularly.

I kind of got a plan and I did some things and started reading the word every day.

I started underlining things, I started circling things.

I had this study Bible.

It was pretty cool.

I would read the notes at the bottom of what was happening here and then there was all these different references that would connect this verse with another verse in the Bible.

So on the side I could see, oh, my goodness, this connects over here and I was like, oh, this same story is not just in Matthew, but it's in Luke and John also.

I started learning, I started reading and still I noticed I would be a pastor it's not about that life.

And I started going to church services.

That was a pastor.

I was in a little church service, but that's what I was doing.

I was just like, oh, my, oh.

My parents picked me up, I put lunch on my bed today oh, I'm good, that's how I done it Bible open, notebook out.

And yes, she said something pretty good.

I started.

I started as like hunger for the word and what I didn't realize.

I didn't realize this, but the word was starting to change my life.

That's not when I looked back in high school.

There wasn't all these decisions that I made, that were all these amazing, great decisions.

Now the word just started changing me and I realized that when I was like 17, 18 years old and I kind of got choked up in the night and couldn't talk about it.

I was 17, 18 years old and there was somebody, there was an adult that I really respected, and they said, hey, you have changed the vibe in a couple years.

I was like what do you mean that you have changed a lot in a couple years.

They were like you're a different person.

They said I see, your life shows that God is real.

What You're like yes, there's any doubt that God's real All the rest of your life.

And again, michael had a very exciting thing that he was doing.

Why did you even say that?

It really didn't come from an answer.

Why is it like God has changed your life?

And it's not funny, because I looked back and I'm like I do these things.

This is what happened.

This book got in me and it changed me.

And can I say this morning that the word is powerful and when you let the word get in you, the word will change you.

And it's not going to be something where you're going to have to try to produce spiritual fruit in your life.

It's not going to be something where you're like oh, I'm around this person, I'm going to act a certain way.

Oh, I'm at church, I got to put on my church dress, on my church, all this on, or I act this way around one person and that way around this person.

Guys, like it's real, you're all like.

Jesus uses his word to change lives and you can't fake it and you can't fabricate it and it's not something you put on, it's just what his word does, because his word is powerful.

So if his word is powerful, how do we use it effectively?

Some of you maybe in your life you've been discouraged because you've tried to read the Bible and you're like I didn't get anything from the Bible.

You're like where do I start reading?

I'm going to start reading Genesis and you get to some of the this person to God, this person, to God, this person.

You're like what in the world am I reading?

Stop pass your nature.

This is powerful.

I'm going to feel powerful.

How do we use it?

It's all in this.

It's all in this.

It's all in this.

That's what you meant by I want to talk about how do we use our sword effectively?

How do we use our sword effectively?

Somebody just checked out because you're like I know how to use it.

Okay, I'm not concerned with how much you know, I'm concerned with what are you doing with what you know?

And could it be possible that we could use the word a little more effectively?

I think for a second, if a Roman soldier, if they had this dagger, they pulled out of their shoes, they got this 18 inch sharp, powerful dagger, but they don't know how to use it.

That could be bad.

Stuff could go wrong.

This is what we're going to do.

I'm going to tell you how to use the sword.

This is what we're going to have for the next few minutes.

I'm going to grab this stool over here and we're going to have how to use your sword class 101.

How do you use your sword class 101?

.

And we're going to lay some foundations.

We're going to remind us of some things about how do we do this, because if you can use it, it can make all the differences in the world.

Where do we start, guys?

Where do we start?

Where do we start?

We start with using a Bible translation that you can understand.

These are Bible translations that we can understand.

There's a lot of Bible translation.

Right when I, when I grew up and I started reading the Bible at first, guys know I used to read the King James version great version.

You gonna know the King James version, right, it's a great version.

The Shakespeare in English is awesome.

It really is.

And, honestly, as a 15, 14, 15, you know, like that was all that I knew.

I just I just read it.

It's like eat it up.

But you want to use a translation that you can understand.

We, primarily here, use the Christian standard Bible because it's it's readable, but it's also very reliable to work for word translation.

But you want to read a translation that you can understand.

I'm gonna make a statement.

There's gonna make some people uncomfortable and I'm okay with that.

The best Bible translation is the one that you use.

That's right and that's that's.

That's all I had to say, and I would have got a pattern earlier today.

All right, earlier, is it?

The best Bible translation is the one that you use, right?

Some people want to like pick and fight about Bible Translation.

I love them and I'm for them, but the best one that's used is the one that you read, okay, so so pick one you can use that you can write.

Number two build a habits.

Build a habit of personally.

Build a habit of personally.

The smart people say it takes 21 days to build a habit.

So we want to do is cultivate a habit of engaging in scripture, and this is what this is really important.

A lot of times when we think about our lives, we think about our future.

Like, I want to do this.

I want to get this place, this place, whatever.

The reality is, we don't decide our future.

We decide our habits and our habits that are future.

We don't decide our futures.

We decide our habits and our habits that are future.

So we want to be somebody that's in the word.

If we want to have a strong Christian life, we have to have the habit of engaging in scripture, and the easiest way to start this habit is by picking a Time of day where you spend time in scripture and picking a place where you spend time in scripture, picking a time of day and End of place that you spend time in scripture.

I so maybe your time of day is the morning, your place is your kitchen table.

Maybe your time of day is 10 minutes on your lunch break and your place is in your car.

Maybe some of you that have like a crazy, maybe your, maybe does your, your house is all over the place, like crazy Got small kids.

I pray for you.

Okay, maybe you're like there's like no place I can go, a peace and quiet, so you go in the bathroom for three minutes, right, it's like getting the script or something.

Okay, find a time, find a place where we can get in the scripture and not just get in the scripture, but really let the scripture get in us.

Right, let's not just read, but let let the scripture read us.

Let me give you an example.

Can somebody tell me what's a fruit or a vegetable that you guys like?

Yes, strawberries are awesome.

Strawberries are great.

What's another one?

Tomato apples, apples I love apples, green apples, that's my jam.

Somebody else?

What's another fruit or vegetable you all like?

Watermelon watermelon, good.

Well, banana, I have banana day.

Those are good.

Any of you guys crazy people like kale, kale.

You know what I do?

I put kale in a smoothie and I mix it in with the other stuff so I don't have to actually taste the kale.

Okay, not really a kale guy.

Anybody like celery?

Celery?

Okay, yeah, I like celery.

Celery is pretty good.

I like peppers.

Do you like peppers?

Peppers are good.

Right, I go to Chipotle.

I always get the peppers in there.

That's what you do when you eat fruit or vegetables.

Okay, you don't just swallow them and spit them back out and say, I'm good, I got the nutritional value.

Bring on the ice cream.

Can you imagine what it would be like if you're like okay, I'm going to cut this up in little pieces so I don't choke.

I'm going to swallow it and immediately I'm going to spit it back out.

I'm good, I just had my fruit and veggies for the day.

We'll do that Because the nutritional value comes when it's digested.

Nutritional value comes when it's in you and it's sitting there for a while, and what the word needs to happen in our lives is it needs to come in here and sit in here for a while.

In fact, we need to digest it.

Here's a suggestion, maybe for somebody who's not a doctor here's a suggestion maybe for somebody in here is take an entire week of the entire week and just study and spend time digesting one chapter of the Bible.

Maybe it's all about the Bible.

You spend an entire week and you just literally read the seven or eight verses in Psalm 1 every single day of the week.

Why you digest it?

What do we do?

What's this foundation to using our sword?

We get a Bible translation, we get a understanding.

We cultivate the habit.

We engage the habit.

Number three we understand the context.

We understand the context when it comes to reading and studying the Bible.

Context is king, context is king.

When we say that together already, context is king.

Okay, let's say it one more time, a little stronger already, context is king.

Context is what is going on here, what is happening.

So, for example, you know there's a verse in Psalm that says there is no God.

Literally says that you know what the line says right before that the fool have said in his heart there is no God.

Take that out of context to be that Right Context so we can look at context for a book of the Bible.

So, for example, we just studied 40th all summer.

You guys remember that.

Everybody say yes, I remember that.

That he ready.

Yeah, of course, I know he doesn't really put it in the same.

And Philippians was written to a group of Jesus followers, a church, together in a city of Philippi where this is where these people lived, this is where they're home, this is where their family was, this was a church of people that were a church, was growing together.

So we talk about things like this in these different things.

The book of 1 Peter couldn't be any more different.

It's written to Jewish Christ followers that were suffering intense persecution and were dispersed all over the place.

So the context is different for Philippians as opposed to 1 Peter, and it's understanding the context, and not just the context of the book but the context of an individual chapter.

So it's happening here.

You guys remember, two months ago we taught on Elijah the first king 17.

You guys remember that, right, of course you guys, because it's very nice.

Elijah, if you guys remember, elijah gave the widow some food.

He gave the widow some food, oh, okay, all right, I'm sorry.

I'm sorry, the widow gave a.

Sorry, she was listening, I was just testing, you all.

Okay, the widow gave Elijah some food.

Elijah requested food, okay, and I was like, oh, that's great.

What's the context of that?

What's happening here?

Massive famine in the entire land.

Oh, oh, there's a lot that's happening here.

She's a widow, so she doesn't have a lot of money.

She also is from the city of Zeraphat, which is far away from where Elijah's from, and this is not.

This is the city of Gentile people that aren't followers of God.

Okay, so then there's a, there's a religious barrier here.

She's a woman, so there's a gender barrier.

She's a widow, so there's all these barriers here, and Elijah goes to her and she's willing to give Elijah a meal for last year, I suppose, what.

And you look at the context of that and it's like, wow, god cares for the religious outcast.

God cares for the destitute she was dead, for God cares for the marginalized.

God takes care of those people, and this is what happened to the widow.

God took care of her meal.

She didn't run out because she had faith in her faith.

And this is when we understand this.

We get this.

We get this when we understand the context, when we understand the context of the passage.

It's also important to understand the context so we could interpret scripture right.

Okay, there's a lot of applications for scripture, but there is one interpretation of scripture that God intended for this passage to have.

Whatever the passage is Now, sometimes we wrestle with this interpretation.

We're like all right, I think this is what it means here.

And sometimes we're like I think what it means here.

In some places, other places, it's very clear.

This is exactly what it says right For God to love the world that he gave his only begotten son.

Whoever believes in him should not perish that everlasting life.

But there's one interpretation of that, right, there's no wrestling with that.

And we want to have context so we can interpret what is God saying here?

Now, with that interpretation, there are many different applications that we can use to apply this to our lives, and we get this from understanding the context.

Now you might ask what's the way that I can better understand the context.

What you have to do is we have to number four use some tools.

Use some tools.

If you were to kind of go build a house or build something, you would want to have some type of tools.

Right, you're trying to put something together.

You would want some tools.

If you're smart, you'll read the instructions.

If you're a guy, you don't need the instructions and you're gonna use some tools, right, to try to put this thing together.

So when we're studying scripture, what we want to do is we want to have some tools to help us.

For example, maybe a study Bible, maybe a place like Blue Letter Bibleorg that's actually an app Got questions that's an app as well.

You version of what that can help us do is that can help us say okay, what's happening here?

What I just did from my personal operating is I just find it a little reset just for fun, and I'm going to the gospels right now Matthew, mark, luke and John.

By the way, if you're like, I don't even know where to start being the Bible, I personally would not recommend starting in Genesis.

I would recommend which is the beginning.

I would recommend starting in the New Testament Matthew, mark, luke, john because they're biographies about the life of Jesus.

And this is what I've done.

I'm going through Matthew and, as I'm going through it, I have a study Bible.

I'm spending time meditating on the text and then I'm looking and saying what are some other thoughts that this person has about this text?

And I can pull up some different tools.

This is what I'm encouraging you to do Use some tools.

Download one of these apps.

Use tools that will help you understand context.

Next, ask questions about the passage.

Ask questions about the passage.

So here's questions that we ask.

When you read scripture, what is it saying about the character of God?

What is it saying about people?

Is there a promise here from God that I can claim?

Is there an application I can make to my life?

Sometimes we're asking, like how do you get up here and like the Bible for 30 minutes?

I just ask some questions about the text.

We just talk about it, right, like what's God saying?

What is God saying about his character?

What does it say about people?

Ask questions about the passage.

Next, practice memorization.

Practice memorization.

This is what a lot of times we'll do.

There'll be something in our lives that maybe we're struggling with or something going on and what we do is we pull out our phones.

Is that wrong?

Is that right?

Can we pull out Google?

Or we open up our TikTok, or we go to YouTube or we go to something where we're like, what should I do about this situation?

What should I do about that?

Or how should I deal with my struggle with film playing?

That's normal, right, so a lot of us do.

But a lot of times there's verses about those very things that we can claim, like some of us right now are dealing with.

Maybe we're dealing with worry, maybe we're dealing with loneliness, maybe we're dealing with struggles, over, over, over these different things.

We can claim a verse about these things and we can memorize that Right Now.

I know memorization, right, memorization part.

Guys, you all got your favorite song memorized, right?

Your favorite song comes on the radio Like you just sing it out as loud as you can, right, and we can memorize.

We have that.

We just have to do it.

Memorize the scripture Number seven start with prayer.

Start with prayer.

When you go to the word start with prayer.

Lord, help me to understand Lord.

This is my prayer.

A lot of time right now I.

I have a full task list of things to do and Right now, my time with you.

I have a tendency for my mind to drift and think about all these other things I need to do today, but help me over these next few minutes to focus on your ears.

Open up my cell and then lasted for two months.

We left the scripture.

We read the scripture, but we need to let the scripture read us.

We need to take down some walls.

We need to be okay with sometimes there being places that are uncomfortable for us and say, god, this, I'm just really uncomfortable right now.

Back, if you go to the scripture and the scripture never disagrees with you, maybe you're not living your life in submission.

I've been reading.

I was reading the possibly turn around the mountain at 5.57 and Jesus just says some really strong things that Honestly made me uncomfortable.

That does not line up with my life.

This is painful.

Left there those that mourn.

Let's it.

I don't want more.

What do we do?

We perceive vulnerability.

You say, god, I'm gonna open up my heart to you right now and I'm gonna let you speak to me and I'm gonna look at your word and when I see a verse, rather than trying to do theological Jim Mastitz and try to say that verse doesn't mean that.

Maybe it's just your holy spirit and I'm gonna pursue vulnerability about this.

How do we use our sword?

This is what we do, guys.

Get a translation we can understand.

We cultivate the habits of personally engaging this.

We understand the context, we use tools, we ask questions about the passage, we practice memorization, start with prayer when we pursue one of those.

That's what I want you to end there.

I want to give all of us a seven-day sword challenge.

Y'all ready for this?

A seven-day sword challenge.

What one challenge you do?

I'm gonna challenge you to read the Bible every day for the next seven consecutive days, not seven years, not seven months, not even seven weeks, but for seven days.

That you will say.

I will read the word Every day for seven days.

Maybe it's just a verse.

Okay, that's great.

Like, if you read a verse today, I'm with that.

That's great that that can help guys.

A seven-day challenge.

And here's why Because Jesus says that his word sets us free.

Jesus says that his word will free up, and Right now we live in a world, right now, that is looking for freedom but it's living in bondage.

We live in a world right now that's looking for answers and has all these questions.

We're living in this world right now that is so confused.

But, guys, we have the answers and you know what Jesus people do.

Jesus people spend time in the word.

Like what Jesus people don't do is Jesus people don't say, yeah, I got the Bible Somewhere and it's got a bunch of dust on it of my new version app hasn't been used in like 17 months or something.

Like Jesus people spend time in the word.

Jesus people read the word.

Jesus people, um, meditate on the word.

That's what we do.

This is what I'm gonna challenge you guys to do over the next seven days To take this challenge and you can do this.

One more thing this is dangerous.

Before you read the word, I want you to pray for that, just a prayer.

Once you say I renounce the world ungodly mind folks it is and surrender myself fully to you people, your service.

Hey, so this week, maybe you're like me, like I'm gonna go through the gospel.

I got the gospel right now.

You like me, I'm already a chapter in the gospel, matthew, one kind of rough.

Give me Matthew one better, though okay, where you read I renounce the world on Godly mind says, and sending myself always to you, speak, lord your servant is, and watch what the word will do.

Guys, you know I play D-Crisis Kind of play often, kind of live in victory by using the sword.