The Works of the Word of God

And um rather be a Christian than anything I know.

What a blessing it is that you're here today.

I hope you had a wonderful afternoon and uh time of refreshment as we begin a new week of ministry and uh serving the Lord together.

Appreciate uh your faithfulness and being here, and uh we're looking forward to the Lord speaking to our hearts.

Don't forget we have a meeting after the service this evening uh to talk about Bible school.

I want to make sure we have pr uh plenty of time for that.

We'll kind of talk through our theme and uh what we're working through and get everyone signed up.

And I did say this morning, and I didn't mean that, I want everyone involved this year in serving the Lord in Bible school.

And there's lots of opportunities uh for us to really get everyone involved in that.

And so sometimes we think, well, that's children's workers, that's their job.

Uh but I I want to change the mentality and the thinking on that.

This is a meeting of the Calvary Baptist Church, uh, and we're trying to reach young people and their families, and so uh really all hands on deck would be helpful for us, and so um, if you're able to help us, I hope that you'll do that, and uh, we'll get your name and information at the end of the service today.

Uh, ladies, don't forget the tea is coming up, and uh, sure you're excited about that.

Thank you for um those of you serving and helping with tables there and and uh helping Marie accomplish that.

I appreciate that so very much.

We're praying for a great meeting and looking forward to that.

And I want you to think about being intentional and um mission-minded in an event like this.

So that means, yeah, we could serve the members of Calvary Baptist Church through an event like this, and we want to do that and create some great memories for you.

But uh being soul conscious is thinking, who can I invite to this meeting that would love an event like this, and maybe they need a church home or they're not Christian, and you'd bring them to an event like this to hear the gospel and meet Christians, and I think that'd be a wonderful thing.

So just re recalibrate a little bit in your thinking if that might be a help to you, and we're praying for that in a big way.

And of course, Mother's Day is right around the corner, fellows.

Now's the time to prepare, okay.

You ladies, I put it on the T and expect you to hit it over the fence, and faith is the only one who said amen.

So uh looking forward to that, certainly, and uh we honor every uh every lady in attendance, every woman is a mother uh in some way.

And uh we need godly women in our culture today, and we want to encourage you in that way.

So that's kind of what's coming up.

Uh, someone said to me yesterday, well, hey pastor, now that the Freedom Fest is over, you can probably take a breather.

Yeah, that's exactly what's gonna happen.

Going to play golf three times this week and go to the beach a couple afternoons, and uh yeah, it's gonna be a great week.

No, we have a lot go we have a lot coming up and a lot to do, and uh some follow-up that we need to take care of this week and some visits as well, and so uh let's just be faithful and serving the Lord and worshiping him together and grateful for all that the Lord is doing.

Well, let's take God's word tonight together and turn to the book of 2 Timothy and chapter number 3.

Just want to talk to you for a few minutes about the work of the Word of God, 2 Timothy chapter number 3, and we'll begin our reading here in verse number 14 in just a moment.

2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse number 14.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

Several weeks ago we had a missionary here.

His name was Dan Powers, and um, I guess the backstory um coming up on what would that be?

2000 2002, that'd be 24 no 2000, yeah, it'd be 24 years ago.

Um graduated 24 years ago.

I engaged, I I proposed to Marie the weekend I was graduating college, and on that weekend she gave me a Bible.

It was a very nice Bible.

I used it um so much so it's been rebound uh a couple of times, and um it's just a treasured, a treasured possession.

How many of you have a Bible that you really love?

Will you raise your hand?

Well, I I I say this facetiously and I don't mean to, but it's kind of hard to pass an iPad down to our kids, but they'll they'll be fighting for your Bibles.

I love to see people using Bibles, and I have treasured copies.

Well, it was a Thomas Nelson signature series Bible.

They sold them in the Crown College bookstore years ago.

They only did maybe one or two runs of them, calf, skin, leather, pliable.

I mean, the day you bought it, I mean that that Bible just felt like butter in your hands.

And uh nice pages, nice thick paper, and you can write notes in it.

And and uh I loved that Bible.

Well, Brother Powers was here, and uh I I was watching him teach our Sunday school class, and when he got done, I said, Brother Powers, that Bible is beautiful.

Where did you get that Bible?

Oh, I said Brother Cox, he said, somebody gave this to me.

It's a Thomas Nelson Premier Bible.

Ooh, the premiere.

I said, I've seen those online, and I I've kind of looking at those.

Can I can I look at your Bible?

He says, You know, actually, God told me to give you that Bible.

I said, Yes, he did.

He told you to give me that Bible.

And so I've been preaching now from this Bible for, I don't know, the last several weeks, and I just love it.

I I just it's got that same calfskin feel, pliable, flexible.

I love the paper in it.

And uh it there's nothing quite like getting a new copy of God's word.

How many of you know what I'm talking about?

Just you ought to have a Bible that you really cherish, and so um not gonna pull a punch.

I'm a little bit older now, the prints are a little bit bigger, which is a little bit of an asset to me.

Um, but the Bible.

Let's talk about God's word tonight.

Paul is writing to uh Timothy.

Timothy is one of his disciples.

I just left a discipleship meeting.

I want those guys to know discipleship doesn't mean a 14-week course, and I'll see you in heaven.

Discipleship means we are bound together for life.

Discipleship is the journey of a lifetime.

Jesus said in John 8 31, if you continue in my word, you shall be my disciples indeed.

How many of you are still disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ?

Learners.

And Timothy is one of those young men that has the rare privilege of saying the Apostle Paul is he's my mentor, he's my coach, he's my teacher, he's my rabbi.

I'm following him.

And uh Timothy is allocated at different points in Paul's ministry to go to certain places and do certain things.

The interesting thing about Paul and Timothy, they're not the same person.

Timothy's even encouraged not to have a spirit of fear, but of power, of love, of a sound mind.

We don't know exactly what this means, but drink a little wine for your stomach's sake.

I think it intimates to us that Timothy was a bit of a timid person, maybe had some anxiety in his life.

He felt things strongly in his gut.

And so Paul writes him to not have a spirit of fear, but to press on and not to give in, not to give up for the cause of Christ.

Well, notice in verse 14 of our passage tonight, but continue thou in the things that thou hast learned and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.

Paul is saying here that there's really two things that you ought to remember the rest of your life.

I want you to remember what you've learned.

Don't ever forget what you learned.

I quoted the verse from the Proverbs this morning: buy the truth and sell it not.

God has put a lot of great things in my heart.

And none of them I can take any credit for.

Matter of fact, if you know Jesus, you have no boast but Jesus.

Flesh and blood hath not revealed it to you, but our Father which is in heaven.

The ability to know God is a gift from God Himself.

And it's a gift through others that God uses to teach you his truth.

Continue thou in the things that thou hast learned and hast been assured of.

Know what you know.

Come to solid conviction about what you've been taught.

But there's a second thing he wants you to remember, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.

Isn't that amazing?

No one enters heaven without human fingerprints on their life.

I often say, the older I get, the more often I say, Pastor Sexton used to say.

How many of you have heard me say that?

You know why I do that?

Well, he put something in my heart.

Here's what he used to say.

He used to say, I know you guys think I like to repeat myself.

I don't speak to be heard.

I speak to be repeated.

That's what he used to say.

I quoted him this morning.

A church is a group of saved, born-again believers who have voluntarily joined themselves together to carry out the Great Commission.

Every time I baptize, this is Dave.

Dave, upon your profession of faith and the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior and our obedience to our Lord's command, I baptize you, my brother, in the name of the Father and the Son, of the Blessed Holy Spirit, buried with Christ in baptism, raised to walk in newness of life.

I learned that from my pastor.

I not only remember what I learned, but I remember of whom I learned it.

And Paul is trying to take Timothy down memories lane because he's going to say something to him in verse 15.

And that from a child, thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith that is in Christ Jesus.

Do you have your eyes on verse 15?

Can we all say it together?

2 Timothy 3.15.

Ready to begin?

And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.

How many of you can say tonight, from a child, I've had the privilege to know the Holy Scriptures.

Will you say amen?

Well, we ought to be grateful for that.

And beginning in verse 15, down through verse 16, Paul gives us the five works of the Word of God.

And if you're taking notes, I want you to write these down.

The five works of the Word of God.

Now we're preparing ourselves for Bible school, for the privilege of teaching young people the truth of the Word of God.

Mitzi, do we have the Bible school slide back there?

Maybe you can pull it up for me.

I want to talk through it for just a minute.

We were talking about a theme for the year, and we kind of thought it'd be cool if we could uh there it is.

Okay.

Route 66.

How many of you have been on Route 66?

Well, it fits really well because we have 66 books in the Bible.

So we're going to take kids on a three-day journey, not the beast.

There we go.

Here we go.

All God's men said.

Amen.

Okay.

Route 66, a three-day journey across the land of the Bible.

And we're going to talk about the grand story of Scripture, what we call the meta-narrative or the big idea, the 30,000-foot view of Scripture.

If you're in the Walmart this week and somebody says, hey, what's the Bible really all about?

You say, Well, the Bible's really about three grand narratives.

The Bible's really about creation, catastrophe, and Calvary.

The Bible is the unfolding drama of redemption.

That's what the Bible's all about.

It's how He made us, how we were marred in the hands of the potter, and how God has reclaimed us and will eventually restore everything lost in Eden back into Himself.

So we're going to take these three little characters on a three-day journey all the way through the 66 books of the Bible, talking about God as our creator, sin as the catastrophe, and Calvary as the cure for all of our problems.

That from a child.

So the first work of the Word of God, number one, write it down, it makes us wise to salvation.

The Word of God makes us wise to salvation.

Romans 3 10, verse 13, for whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

How then shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?

And how shall they believe in him of whom they've not heard?

And how shall they hear without a preacher?

How shall they preach except they be sent?

As it is written, how beautiful are the feet of them that bring the gospel of peace.

It's the word of God that makes us wise to salvation.

The Bible gives us our condition.

It tells us who we were originally made to be.

It tells us how sin has so corrupted us.

It speaks of a God, the God, the Lord Jesus Christ, who came into the world, who suffered in our place, who bore our penalty, he was buried and he rose again.

It is through the preaching of the Word of God that people come to faith in Jesus Christ.

He has chosen the foolishness of preaching to save those that are lost, being born again.

Being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible by the Word of God that liveth and abideth forever.

Don't you agree that every creature needs a preacher?

Every creature needs a preacher.

We were talking a moment ago about the Great Commission, Mark 16, 15, and he said it to them, Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.

Pastor Sexton used to say he made a visit one time, and the little girl had probably heard Mark 16, 15, and she shouted into the house to her mother, Mother, the creature is coming.

The creature is coming.

How shall they hear without a preacher?

We need people in Englewood and Port Charlotte and Northport and all around our area preaching the Word of God.

People need to hear the gospel.

It makes us wise to salvation.

And what Paul is saying to Timothy here is that he from a child had a familiarity with the Holy Scriptures which were able to make him wise unto salvation.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if every child in our community had access to the gospel of Jesus Christ?

But we ought not to deceive ourselves in thinking that every child under the shadow of this steeple has a relationship with the person of Jesus Christ.

I remember in New Smyrna making that statement, and someone said to me, Pastor, there's no possible way.

I mean, we live in the Bible belt down here.

There's no way kids around here don't know about Jesus.

And I remember that next week we had a young boy come into a Bible study and somebody mentioned Adam and Eve.

And he said, Where do they live?

And they said, Jesus.

And he said, Who is that?

We have become dangerously accustomed to assuming people know Jesus Christ.

We live in a biblically illiterate society.

And when we're teaching and preaching and witnessing, we could no longer use terms.

We use terms we assume people understand.

Go to the Starbucks this week and say, Has your sin been propitiated?

They have no idea what you're talking about.

We need to use biblical words, we need to define our words, but the Bible's able to make us wise to salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

I was saved under the preaching of the Word of God.

And I came to Christ through the instruction in the Word of God.

Matter of fact, I was saved when I was a teenager.

I was at teen camp and I'd heard the gospel so many times.

And when God got a hold of my heart, convicted me of my sin, revealed to me who He is and who I was.

I didn't need to turn to my pastor, I didn't need to turn to my youth pastor.

The Word of God had made me wise to salvation.

I knew how to come to Christ.

I'd heard the gospel from a child that was known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise to salvation.

I just have a curiosity question.

How many of you were saved before the age of, let's say 16, if you raise your hand.

How many of you saved before the age of 16?

Keep it up real tall right there.

Real tall.

That's about, I don't know, that's about 75% of the church here.

Okay.

How many of you are saved between the ages of 16 and 30?

Will you raise your hand?

Okay, real tall.

16 and 30.

Okay, that's a pretty good group.

How about 30 to 60?

Raise your hand.

30 to 60.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, maybe?

Okay.

Over 70, raise your hand.

Saved over the age, or 60.

Over the age of 61 hand in the back.

D.

L.

Moody put one foot on America.

He put the other foot on England.

He shook them both for God.

They say a million people came to faith in Christ through the preaching of D.

L.

Moody.

You know what Moody said at the end of his life?

Moody at the end of his life said if he could live his whole life over again, he would be an evangelist to children.

Preacher was asked one time how many were saved in a certain meeting, and someone said something like, four and a half.

Four and a half.

Yeah, I said there were four adults and one kid that came to faith in Christ.

Four and a half.

And Moody said, actually, you should have said one and four halves.

Because a child can give his whole life to God.

Wouldn't we all agree we would have loved to have come to Jesus Christ as early in our lives as possible?

It's able to make us wise to salvation.

Number two, verse 16.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

And it's profitable for doctrine, for a proof, for correction, for instruction and righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good works.

All scripture.

All the writings, the truth of God, the Bible is the finished written word of God in which he's revealed his person, his work, his will to mankind.

The finished written word we have in our hands tonight.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God.

God breathed his word.

Did you ever read in Genesis chapter 1?

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness is upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, David said in the Psalms, by the breath of his mouth were the heavens made.

He breathed.

He breathed.

He took Adam's bones and his body.

He formed man of the dust of the ground.

And he breathed.

And man became a living soul.

Shall these men live?

Ezekiel 38, 37, 38.

Oh, they'll live.

What did he say?

Breathe upon them.

The disciples were in the upper room in Acts chapter 2, and the Spirit of God came and cloved in tongues of fire, and the Spirit of God breathed.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

All scriptures given by the breath of God.

We have God's message transmitted to us through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

Not the word of men, as it is in truth, but the word of God.

And he said that this word, this inspired word that's preserved for us even tonight, it does these four things.

All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for what's the first one, church, for doctrine.

Doctrine is our beliefs and our teachings.

What we believe.

What we believe.

Everything we believe ought to come from the Bible.

Taking these guys next week in discipleship class.

And by the way, if you are saved or a new Christian and never been discipled, you need to let us know.

We'd love to help you with that.

I said, next week we're going to talk about what it means to be a Baptist.

Now that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

That's why.

Our answers, our answers need to come not by our traditions or opinions.

Our answers need to come from the Bible.

Often say this, and I mean it.

We don't have Baptist doctrines.

There is no such thing as a Baptist doctrine.

There are Baptist distinctives, but there's Bible doctrine.

Everything we believe ought to have a chapter and verse assigned to it.

Everything.

Our Secretary of War this past week, who is a Christian, apparently was.

Quoting something from the Bible that was from a movie called Pulp Fiction.

No, is it in the Bible?

Do you know its address?

Sometimes, sometimes I have an idea what neighborhood it's in, but I forgot its treat address.

But is it in the Bible?

I've had people say to me, Oh, it's in there somewhere.

I remember we were doing sword drills in our Christian school one day, and we'd kind of get the kids going in the morning doing sword drills.

And uh, you know, Jeremiah 33, 3, bang, they'd stand up and say it.

1 Samuel 12, 24, bang, they'd stand up and say it.

You get them going.

You can't pull this trick until you really get them invested.

And then I said, Hezekiah 4.12.

And they go racing through their Bible looking for Hezekiah 4.12, and nobody can find it.

And finally, this old boy speaks up and he said, Pastor, that's not in the Bible.

And this other boy said, Yeah, it is.

I'm almost there.

It's not in the Bible.

It's in there somewhere.

All scripture teaches us our doctrine.

What do we believe?

Our statement of faith ought to have chapter and verse taken from God's Word.

It tells us what is right.

We write that down, it tells us what is right.

Matter of fact, these epistles in the New Testament often you can take the razor blade, for example, the six chapters of Ephesians, you can take the razor blade right down between chapter three and four.

Chapters one, two, and three, Paul tells you what to believe, and chapters four, five, and six, he tells you how to behave.

Take Colossians, cut it right down the middle.

First half of the book, he tells you what our doctrine is.

Second half of the book, he tells you what our decorum ought to be.

Our, listen, our behavior always emanates from our belief.

What you believe matters.

He said to Timothy, Till I come, give attention to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine.

People need to know the truth of God's word.

Lest we be taken, tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine and slight of men whereby they lie in wait to deceive us, but speaking the truth in love may grow up into him.

If there's one thing Christian people need so desperately today, in a world of change and varying and oscillation, they need to be grounded in the doctrine and the truth of the word of God.

We need to know the truth.

Tells us what's right.

Well, look at the third work of the Word of God.

It teaches us, it makes us wise to salvation.

It teaches us our doctrine.

Number three, for reproof.

Reproof.

He says later to Timothy, preach the word.

The instant, in season, out of season, reprove, rebuke, exhort with all long suffering and doctrine.

That tells us where we went wrong.

We need to be told where we went wrong.

All we like sheep have gone astray.

We've all turned to our own way.

The Lord hath laid on him the iniquity of us all.

We've been moving into our new house, putting furniture together.

And I've had a lot of help with that.

You know who you are, I appreciate it.

And you get done with that, and you have five screws left over.

Three other parts, and you look at it and you think, I wonder, I wonder how important that was.

And then you sit down in the chair and realize I went wrong somewhere.

You know the Bible says that the Lord, if a man turns away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer will be an abomination.

You know what I think the Lord is saying there?

We can come to the place in our Christian lives.

We don't want to be told where and when we were wrong.

He that is not a doer of the word, but a hearer only is like unto a man.

He beholds his natural face in a glass, he beholdeth himself and goeth his way, and he straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.

You know what Mark Twain said?

Mark Twain said, it's not the things about the Bible I don't understand that bother me.

It's the things that I do understand about the Bible.

Those are the ones that bother me.

You know, when you read the Bible, there's actually a two-way reflection.

You're seeing God and seeing yourself for who you really are.

Why do we need to stay in the Bible?

Because we need to not only know what is right, we need to be told what is wrong.

Reproof.

Reproof.

There's a fourth work of the Word of God.

He says again in verse 16, for doctrine, for reproof, for correction.

Number four, God tells us how to get right.

David said in Psalm 119, I think it's verse 87, verse 89, before I, verse 67, before, see, I almost forgot.

I I did something very embarrassing last night.

I'll interrupt myself.

I did something super embarrassing last night.

Do you want to hear what?

Nah, I won't.

Never mind, I won't tell you.

Okay, I'm gonna tell you.

So I had a trailer on my truck.

I was picking up uh a used digital piano for our house so the kids can can use it and it'd be a blessing.

So I had went down to Fort Myers to pick it up.

And I'd looked at it on Friday night, so I just had to pull in the driveway, and Demetri was gonna help me.

And um so I I pulled down the street, I I I saw the house, and so I started backing into this driveway.

I'm halfway into this driveway, and there's a guy sitting on the front porch.

And then I looked at the front door and I thought there was a step going into that house I was at last night.

I made three attempts and took me about four minutes to back into the wrong driveway.

The man's sitting on the and I thought, why didn't he say anything?

Before I was afflicted, I went astray.

But now I have kept thy word.

Before I was afflicted, I did my own thing.

Pulled into the wrong driveways of life.

But now I've kept thy word.

Isn't it good that the Holy Spirit, through the word, corrects us?

He shows us how to get right.

If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another in the blood of Jesus Christ, his son cleanseth us from all sin.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

If we confess our sins, say it with me, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

You know, there's two conditions to that verse.

He's faithful and just.

He's faithful to forgive us after he corrects us.

Oh, he's so faithful to forgive you.

You say, Pastor, I feel so far away from God tonight.

You're not.

You're just 1 John 1, 9 away.

Confess our sin.

He's faithful and just.

Doesn't the justice of God mean that he should punish us for our sins?

Well, yeah, but Jesus paid the debt of my sin.

And when we come in confession to God and we say, Lord, I have walked away from you and I have sinned against this love of yours in my life, he takes the precious blood of Calvary and He washes our sin away.

Why?

He's bound to, because the debt has been paid and sealed in precious blood.

The Word of God corrects us, it shows us how to get right.

There's a last one here.

It's at the end of the 16th verse.

For instruction in righteousness, he tells us how to stay right.

He tells us how to stay right.

Hold your place here.

Go with me a few pages towards Revelation.

Go to 1 John chapter 1.

1 John 1 · chapter mention

Or chapter 2, I'm sorry.

1 John chapter 2.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

1 John chapter 2.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

1 John chapter 2.

1 John 2 · chapter mention

Harold Clayton used to call this 1-eye John.

1-eye John, 2-eyed John, 3-eye John.

1-eye John, chapter 2.

John 2 · chapter mention

My little children.

Do you have it there?

I feel lonely up here.

Can you read it with me?

1 John 2, verse 1.

1 John 2:1

Ready to begin.

My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.

And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.

How wonderful.

These things write I unto you that ye sin not.

Can you write in your margin there?

It would be better not to sin.

How many of you agree?

It would be better not to sin.

And can I read it a different way?

My little children, these things write I unto you that you sin not, but no.

Not the conjunction of differentiation, the conjunction of continuation, and if any man sin.

Did you ever read in Psalm 103?

I think it's verse 14, He knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are but dust.

Aren't you glad our Heavenly Father remembers what we're made of?

And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father Jesus Christ the righteous.

Our Lord, his word, the power of the word of God, is not just able to make us wise to salvation, to show us what is right, to show us where we went wrong, to show us how to get right, the word of God teaches us how to stay right and to avoid the consequences and pitfalls of sin.

A steady diet of Scripture, met with a steady diet of application of what God speaks to us about, will guarantee in our Christian lives.

Listen, not sinlessness, not sinlessness.

Hear this, but sinning less.

William Law used to say, how can I be up in the bed so late in the morning and I'm so far behind in my sanctification?

He's still working on me.

Aren't you glad he's still working on you?

So far behind on my sanctification.

Instruction in righteousness.

That, verse 17.

Look at it if you will, that the man of God may be perfect.

Truly furnished unto all good works.

God wants to make you a mature Christian.

Thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

No good thing with he withhold from them that walk uprightly.

And this is the work of the word of God in our lives.

May we this week give the word of God the power and privilege to change us and to make us more like Christ.

June 14th, 1995, the Word of God made me wise to salvation.

And since that time, he's taught me and is teaching me what is true, what is right.

Separating sometimes in my mind what I thought was true from what's not true at all.

I've heard people say, I haven't changed in 40 years.

They ought to say, I haven't grown in 40 years.

Make us more like Christ.

Tell us where we went wrong, how to get right, how to stay right.

And what I'm praying is throughout the summer, God will help us to take seriously the truth of God's word, to get it into our community, that young people might come to be wise to salvation, and that God might put a burden on all of our hearts to help reach many in our community with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

I was talking to a friend of mine who does a lot of Bible distribution.

We were talking about, as John Reynolds did at the Volusia County Baptist Church years ago, took them years to do it.

They put a copy of God's word in every home in Orange City and Deltona, Florida.

Tens of thousands of homes.

I said, wouldn't that be great?

Wouldn't that be great to get the Bible in every home in Englewood, Florida?

A copy of the Bible.

That'd be great.

He said, that would be great.

He said, I've watched people in Africa wait for five hours for a copy of the Bible.

And when they run out of copies, one person in a village will get one copy and they'll start tearing off pages and reading them and changing them, exchanging them with others.

There would be one thing better than getting a Bible in every home in Englewood.

It would be the truth of the Bible to get into every heart in Englewood.

I don't know if the Bible cares.

I don't know if the devil cares that we have a favorite copy of the Bible.

But he sure cares when you get into it and it gets into you.

And I'm praying that God will help us to hunger and thirst for righteousness and let his word get into us.

May we pray.

Our Father, we thank you for this day.

And Lord, I pray as I close tonight that all of us will take seriously the opportunity and privilege we have to meditate and read and memorize and be informed by the Word of God.

Lord, I see a number of young people in church tonight, and I'm so grateful to see them here.

Lord, I know the only thing that will purify their way is the truth of this book I'm preaching about tonight.

That all the temptations that all of us face, and let us not let us not limit temptation to those among us that are the youngest.

Let us look in the mirror and know that all of us face temptations at every stage of our lives.

And the only hope we have is to know what's right, to be shown when we're wrong, to be conform to your image, and to continue in the steps of righteousness.

So help us, I pray, as we begin a new week, maybe a January 1st Bible reading goal, maybe a devotional life that's grown cold and sour.

May we return to the power of the Word of God tonight as you work in us.

And though day to day we may not see growth in our lives, we know that if we'll consistently feed upon the scriptures, you will make us wise and watching and mature, thoroughly furnished unto all good works.

And that's my prayer for each one here tonight.

That we'll be prepared to serve you in a powerful way to make an impact for the gospel of Christ.

And we praise you for it.

We ask in Jesus' name.

And all God's people said amen.

Amen.

Let's stand together, may we?

And um, Ethan, if you'll come and uh if you're here and helping us in the Bible school, just move forward if you can, uh, maybe into these center sections would help us a little bit.

And I do I do mean that.

I hope everyone will help us in serving the Lord.

And there's so many things that we can do.

One of the things that we've really thought about is our evangelism before Bible school.

Obviously, we'll want to go after young people that have already been here in the last couple years, but there's people moving in our area all the time, young people.

Somebody told me when I moved here that there aren't any children that live here, and I see them everywhere.

And so let's reach, let's reach children, let's work hard.

And we have several several weeks to do this, and we want to do our very best at that.

And then when they come, we want great records so we know who they are and where God has brought them from, and then to do the follow-up work.

We have parenting classes as well.

We had a packed room last year with the parenting class.

We hope to do two nights of that this year as well, and I think that'll be a real blessing and a help to us.

And so anything you can do to help us, um, I hope everyone prays, but I do hope everyone serves the Lord here this summer as well.

So let's pray and just take a minute break there, and Ethan, you'll come and get us ready.

We'll put those Bible school graphics up, and we're looking forward to it.

Father, we come to you again in the name of Jesus, and we praise you for the opportunity that we have to serve you.

And Lord, I pray that you'll bring, Lord, we definitely need as a church body this spirit of fellowship and camaraderie and pulling in this direction to reach others for you.

And Lord, it it carries throughout every ministry that we have here.

And we thank you for all that you're doing in this place.

Thank you for the two families that joined, Lord, this morning and make us a blessing to them and others who are coming in the next several weeks and those following Christ and baptism.

Lord, we couldn't thank you enough for your goodness and your work at the Calvary Baptist Church.

We glorify you.

We want to do our best for you this week.

We want to be faithful, and uh, we want to labor together, and we know that as we labor for you, we'll meet each other in that place and build friendships and fellowship and bonds of camaraderie that we so desperately need.

So help us, I pray, to do our very best for you, and we thank you for it in Jesus' name.

Amen.