Back to the Basics: The Priority of Scripture

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Was it today? Was it yesterday? Maybe it's been a few days, a week, or even a month.

Maybe you have never learned just how vital the Word of God is to you living the Christian life.

Today, we want you to see the absolute necessity for God's Word to be a foundational part of your life.

So grab your pen and your Bible as we listen to week two of Back to the Basics.

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The Priority of Scripture. And now here's today's message.

Last week, we started a brand new series called Back to the Basics.

And we talked about the fact that in our lives, there's sometimes a needed reset, right?

There's times in our lives where we take a look at everything that's going on,

and we wonder why we're at the place where we find ourselves.

And we haven't practiced the things that we know we should practice.

And so it's a good thing to go back to the basics.

And last week, we talked about going back to the basics of prayer.

And if you haven't, if you missed it, you can find our podcast,

Generationist Church podcast on Apple iTunes and Spotify and iHeart and even YouTube now.

And so take advantage of that and listen to it, and share it,

because we need to be men, and women, and young people.

Who are grounded in the foundations of what God desires for our hearts and our lives to be.

And so last week, we talked about prayer, and we encouraged you to come out

to Wednesday night prayer meeting.

And I will say, I said this last week, but Wednesday night, our prayer time has been so sweet.

And this past week, as we gathered together and we prayed, we also heard a testimony

from one of our dear ladies who had come and had asked for prayer about a certain physical ailment.

For three weeks, we prayed and asked God for healing because we believe God still heals, right?

God is powerful and he wants us to pray.

And so we gathered around her and we prayed and we pray always leaving it in his hands, don't we?

We pray submitting our will to the will of the Father, but she gave a testimony

how she went back to the doctors and she has been healed.

And we don't know why she wasn't healed the first time we prayed over her or

the second time we prayed over her. But when you continue praying,

it does more than just change your outcome or your circumstances.

Prayer oftentimes changes ourselves.

It aligns us with him. I've been trying to give you guys a big idea or a takeaway each week.

And last week, if you missed it, we're going to put it up there for you.

It's this. Our big idea for last week was if prayer was a foundational part

of Jesus's life, the only son of God, then guess what?

It needs to be a foundational part of our lives as well.

And so we talked about praying constantly, praying boldly, and surrendering the outcome to God.

And then on Tuesday this week, I was feeling convicted about something.

I was like, man, I want everyone that's at church, I want them not to just,

I want them to have tools in their hands that they can look at,

that they can have throughout the week.

And so I decided I would put together a five-day devotional based on this week's sermon.

And so last week I put it out on Facebook and Instagram, and it's also in the Church Center app.

But so this devotional was a five-day devotional based on last week.

And so I want you guys to have the tools because it does us no good if we gather

together on Sunday and we don't put into practice what God has been teaching

us, right? In the word of God.

And so probably tomorrow afternoon, I will get that out there for week two,

and there'll be another five-day devotional for you guys based upon today's

message and on today's topic,

because we want to get the Word of God into people.

It does us no good if we gather together, we have some cookies or donuts or

whatever is out there, and coffee, and we get to see friends,

we get to see family, and that's all great stuff. We need that connection.

That's why we have connection groups that are starting up, because we need each

other to get through this.

But it does us no good if the Spirit of God is not working and illuminating

the Word of God, and it falls on...

Receivable soil of your heart, if that makes sense.

We want to put into action the word of God.

And that's what we'll be talking about today. So as we dive in to our message

today, would you just join me in a word of prayer?

Heavenly Father, we come to you this morning and it's so good to be in your house.

It's so good to be with brothers and sisters in Christ.

We've had incredibly hard week. Some of us, others are carrying unthinkable weights this morning.

We all are carrying different things and going through different things.

And so God, we want to lay it down at your feet this morning.

And we just pray that you would help us focus on you.

You're the reason why we're here. You're the reason we have breath in our lungs

this morning to serve you and be in relationship with you and to reflect your

glory in the way that we live, the way that we treat people,

the way we act as a family, in our marriages, in our workplaces.

God, thank you for bringing each person here that's here this morning.

We ask that you would do what only you can do through the power of the Word

of God and your Holy Spirit.

Move in people's hearts and lives today. We recognize that it only happens from you. So meet us here.

We ask you to speak this morning through your word. In Jesus' name, amen.

If you have your Bible with you this morning, I want to invite you to join me in 2 Timothy 3.

And we're going to walk through one of the core passages when it comes to the

transformative power of the word of God. God, and while you're turning it out,

I'm going to give you today's big idea.

It's in your notes. If you don't have a notes page, go ahead and raise your

hand and we'll make sure to get you one because I know for me, I'm so ADD.

And by the way, I mentioned last week, if you're not taking notes,

you're probably counting the tiles on the ceiling.

And on my note on my desk, when I got back to my office Sunday after the service

was a note that said there's 171 planks of wood in her.

So if you've ever wondered that you can thank Danny for revealing that to us.

Don't worry. He was listening as well, I hope. But here's today's big idea.

The Bible has been given to us as a tool to equip and encourage us for kingdom living in the world.

Equip and encourage us for kingdom living in the world.

Spending intentional time reading and meditating on scripture is our daily sustenance

that we need as Christians or as followers of Christ.

And what you're going to see is that God's word has everything that you need to live a godly life.

God has spoken to us and he said, this is how my people will live.

This is how we'll operate.

And when we live under the umbrella of God's authority, there is protection instead of discipline.

It's like we tell our kids, and you probably get sick of me saying this,

but there's obedience found in obeying the Word of God, in obeying God's ways.

There's a protection. I don't mean a blessing like cash, money, you know.

I mean, sometimes the greatest blessing, like we tell our kids,

sometimes the greatest blessing is not experiencing the pain of the consequences of sin.

Because how many of you know the consequences of sin are always pain and they lead to death.

So we want to get in God's word. This summer, Easton went to church camp for the first time.

He went down to Turkey Hill and he had a great time.

And I was so thankful that his big sis Addie was there because I don't know

how he would have done going to camp six hours away by himself,

self, not knowing any kids.

We sent them over with Bethany Bible Chapel, which is just a great church.

A lot of friends of ours go there.

How many of you know we're all brothers and sisters, right? We're not in competition.

We're all in the family. And so we sent them and they had an incredible time.

But we told Easton specifically because he's the youngest and because he's.

Like his dad, when you get there, before you go outside and fish,

because I know that's all he wants to do is fish and be down by the lake, put the sunscreen on.

Cute little bottle for kids. It's like a billion, you know, the SPF so that

the sun is not going to get through. He's not going to come home burned.

What did he do? He comes home and he's taking his shirt off and he can barely

move and he's like walking like a mummy or something and he's got blisters all over his shoulders.

Why is it? He had the instructions. You have the instructions. You have the word of God.

He did not apply it.

See, it does us no good if we have the word of God and we do not apply it to our lives.

And as painful as that sunburn was, and he still has freckles and scars from

that, that'll probably be with him his entire life.

It's the same thing when we neglect to apply the word of God to our lives.

It scars us and it brings pain.

So let's jump into 2 Timothy 3. Paul's writing to his young friend Timothy,

and he's trying to encourage him to continue in the faith and to focus on the basics.

And here's what Paul says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed.

You know those who taught you and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred scriptures.

And so here, Paul begins by acknowledging that like so many of us,

we are indebted to other people who have taught the word of God to us.

Maybe it was your mom and dad or a grandparent or an aunt and uncle or a Sunday

school teacher or a pastor or who knows.

But for Timothy, he had a godly heritage and it even mentions,

Paul mentions them in chapter 1 verse 5,

says his grandmother Lois and his mother, whose name was Eunice,

taught him the scriptures from when he was just a young child.

Now I have a twofold reason for pausing at this place intentionally.

The first one is this, to remind you that God brought you into his family and

he almost always uses people.

There are people that have poured into me throughout my life,

poured the word of God into me, discipled me, mentored me.

And had they not done that, had God not used them to do that,

I probably would not be standing here today.

And then secondly, I want to remind you, you have a responsibility and it's

an honor really to speak life and to speak the word of God and to train up your

kids and your grandkids and your neighbor kids.

Pour in the word of God. God, and I want to say this too.

I know some of you, some of you travel far.

Some of you bring kids that it's kind of like kicking and screaming, you know?

Hey, I was there too. When I was a kid, I had a drug problem.

I was drugged to church every Sunday, every Sunday night, every Wednesday.

Yeah. A little different than some of y'all's drug problems, but just the same.

But what I want to communicate to you is that for those of you who are bringing

and going that extra mile to get your kids to church on Sunday and on Wednesdays

when we have Next Gen and Gen Kids on Sundays, I want to applaud you.

I'm proud of you. You're doing the hard work. And I understand how hard it is. Trust me.

My kids have a drug problem, too. Right?

The second thing I wanted to point out is that the reading of God's Word does

not make you a Christian, though. Ooh, that hurts.

What does the verse say? What does the text say? It says it gives you the wisdom

for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

It tells you what you need in order to be saved, but by itself,

just reading it is not going to make you a Christian, right?

Paul continues in verse 16, and he says, all scripture, how much?

All. All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching,

for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness,

so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

If you're taking notes this morning, the first thing you need to know and understand

is that when it comes to the Bible, all Scripture is inspired.

All of it. Every word of Scripture is inspired.

You might hear someone say, well, it's so old, you can't really know what the original said.

And there's been so many translations that it can't be trusted.

And I wish I had the time today to do a deep dive into the Bible to give you

a short list of how accurate and how we know the Word of God is,

in fact, the inspired,

God-breathed Word of God. But let me just give you a short list.

Historical manuscript evidence. The New Testament alone has more manuscript

evidence than any other ancient text,

with over 5,800 Greek manuscripts and over 20,000 plus translations in other languages.

The time gap between the original writings and the earliest manuscripts is relatively

short, sometimes within a century.

The Old Testament, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the mid-20th century,

more specifically 1946,

confirmed the accuracy of the Hebrew scriptures and the accuracy of the texts

that dated back to the third century BC.

And they were found to be consistent with later manuscripts. It's incredible.

The third one, I believe there, second one is textual consistency.

Despite the vast number of manuscripts, textual scholars note that the differences

between these texts, which are actually known as textual variants,

are mostly minor, like it might be an apostrophe or something small,

and do not affect core theological doctrines.

The consistency among these manuscripts is remarkably high compared to other

ancient works. man, it's incredible what these scribes went through,

the meticulous care in copying the scriptures.

They ensured it's biblically accurate.

Archaeological evidence. I began to get so sidetracked. I'm ADD squirrel anyway.

And as I'm studying for this, I began looking up archaeological archaeological

sites and digs and all of the things that scripture has confirmed.

Did you know every day there's more and more and more biblical archaeological

findings that confirm everything the word of God says?

As if it's all true. It's because it is.

Prophecy fulfillment. Jesus alone fulfilled 324 prophecies.

If you were here at Christmastime, we said that the probability of Jesus only

fulfilling eight, remember this, was one to the 17th power.

That's one with 17 zeros behind it. the literal translation of the phrase inspired

by God means this, breathed out by God.

God breathed out the exact words for the prophets to write.

I came across one commentary that said this, and it's by William MacDonald,

and I love how he talked about verse 16 and how God breathed in how we got our scriptures.

He said this, In a miraculous way, God communicated his word to men and led

them to write it down for permanent preservation.

What they wrote was the very word of God, inspired and infallible.

And while it is true that individual literary styles of the writer were not

destroyed, it is also true that the very words he used were given to him by the Holy Spirit.

The writers of the Bible did not give their own private interpretation of things,

but wrote the message which was given to them by God.

It is false to say that God simply gave the thoughts to the individual writers

and allowed them to express these thoughts in their own words.

The truth insisted on in scripture is that the very words originally given by

God to men where God breathed, amen?

That's the word of God. That's the very book that we take so casually and we don't spend time in it.

It's God breathed.

Why is it important to believe that all scripture is inspired?

Because if you do not have a foundation that it's God-breathed,

that it's infallible, that it's without error,

then you will never see the importance of God's word in your life,

and you'll always struggle to live in accordance with it.

You'll never be able to make it the authority in your life that God designed it to be.

It has to be the authority in our lives as Christians.

So, number one, Scripture is inspired. Number two, Scripture is profitable.

I'm sure most of you are here today and you know the value of something being profitable.

A lot of times we see it referring to our financial gain or a win.

In other words, we might say would be beneficial or useful.

And Paul says that the spiritual nourishment in every word has proceeded from the mouth of God.

And here's his short list.

It says for teaching, that's doctrine, right?

It sets forth the mind of God with regard to things like the Trinity and the

doctrine of angels and man and sin and sanctification or becoming more like

him. That's just what that word means.

It teaches us about morality. Hello?

It teaches us about the family. It teaches us about church and what it should

look like and what the qualifications are for different offices within the church.

It talks about our finances. is it talks about everything that we will ever experience in life.

We just got done with a series. I think it was seven weeks on the book of James.

We addressed attitudes. We addressed pride. We addressed, here we go, our tongues.

Man, the word of God, God, as we walk through it, will address everything that

you will ever experience or walk through.

God gave us everything we need for godly living in the Word of God.

So why aren't we in it as much as we should be?

And I want you to know, I always include myself in this as well.

This is level ground at the foot of the cross.

I need to be in the Bible more too. We all need that.

The second thing he says is for rebuking. Some versions might say reproof.

They mean the same thing, but this refers to rebuking our wrong behaviors,

our sinful attitudes, and our wrong beliefs.

See, the Bible exposes our sin.

And a lot of times people who are living with sin want nothing to do with church,

not because they don't like you.

It's because they know that the word of God is gonna be preached and it might expose sin.

Listen, the Bible exposes our sin, but that's not the end of the story.

It exposes it so that we can change.

Because God's heart is always redemption, isn't it? God's heart is not judgment, although he is judge.

God longs for each one of us to be redeemed and in right position relationally with him.

The next thing he says is it's for correcting.

I like how one commentary described this word correcting.

It said that correction is the restoration of something to its proper condition.

When we correct our children, when we correct people, it's not because we're judging or hating them.

It's because we want them to be restored to right relationship.

That's why we preach the gospel. We want something to be restored to its proper condition.

And the Greek word correcting here.

It appears here in the New Testament only one time, but it's used often in Greek culture.

And here's what it's used for. It's used to write fallen objects or help put

back someone on their feet when they've stumbled.

See, Scripture doesn't just rebuke our sinful behavior.

It points us back to restored relationship with Jesus Christ.

We aren't here to condemn.

We're here to reveal truth and

to restore and to help put people back into right relationship with God.

As Christians, our goal is not to judge and to condemn people not living for the Lord.

Our goal is to help people come to Jesus and help put them back on their feet

to live a life that is glorifying to the Father.

And sometimes we as churches, we're known more for pointing out people's fallenness

rather than doing everything we can to love them in graceful ways.

Now, it's truth and grace.

Truth and grace. The last thing Paul says in verse 16 is that the word of God

is profitable for training in righteousness.

I made a list in my notes here of ways that were trained in righteousness in the word of God.

Forgive me if this comes across a little preachy.

Here's a list. It teaches us about God's character.

It teaches us about his love, about his holiness, about his justice,

about his grace, about his mercy.

It teaches us about our fallenness and our sinfulness.

It reveals humanity's fallen state. It reveals our problem with sin.

It reveals my incredible need for a savior, my need for Jesus Christ.

It shows us God's amazing plan of salvation.

It reveals how God provided a way to reconcile humanity to himself through Jesus

Christ, through the way of the cross.

The Bible teaches us about our identity. It teaches us about morality and ethics

and our self-value and our worth that he created us.

He's gifted us when he put the Holy Spirit in us and sealed us at salvation.

He's given us spiritual gifts.

By it, by applying the Word of God in our lives, a young person can stay pure.

Young people don't have to look like the world.

Scripture is the foundation for every single thing in our lives.

It reveals God's will for us.

It provides guidance on how to live in alignment with His will.

Teaches us how to love him, teaches us how to love others.

It teaches us how to love other people that we don't like, or we may consider our enemy.

It teaches us how to forgive, how to confess.

It even teaches us how to forgive those who've never owned the way they've offended

you or sinned against you.

Listen, we forgive because we're forgiven.

The Bible gives us hope and peace and encouragement and endurance.

And I cannot for one moment understand how anyone could not be in their Bibles every single day.

You can't be in the word of God and wonder if you're loved.

You can't be in the word of God and wonder if you're valued or if you're important

or if God really cares about you or if he has a purpose for your life.

See, the more you're in the Bible, the more you understand how in love our creator God is with you.

That's why the psalmist said this in Psalm 19. He said, the instruction or law

of the Lord is perfect, renewing one's life.

The testimony of the Lord is trustworthy, making the inexperienced wise.

See, the word of God gives us wisdom.

Verse 8, the precepts of the Lord are right, making the heart glad.

The command of the Lord is radiant, making the eyes light up.

You ever walk in and just know someone spent time with the Lord this morning?

Because of the radiance on their eyes and on their face, they light up a room.

Verse 9 says, the fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever.

The ordinance of the Lord are reliable and altogether righteous,

more desirable than gold, than an abundance of pure gold, and sweeter than the

dripping from a honeycomb.

In addition, your servant is warned by them, and in keeping them,

there is an abundant reward.

You want to be a man or woman or young person?

Living for tomorrow and living for eternity, build up treasures in heaven.

That's why Jesus said in Matthew 4, man must not live by bread alone,

but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

Last night, I texted one of my kids and just said, you've been in the Word?

You've been spending time with the Lord? Why is that?

Because for me, like I'm in that place where I need it.

I need it so desperately and so badly in my life.

Like the air that I breathe, like the food that I eat, I need it. I want to consume it.

And I want that for them as well.

Brings us back to our big idea that spending intentional time reading and meditating

on scripture is daily sustenance for us as followers of Christ.

You and I need to come to the place where we understand that we need the Word

of God more than we need anything else in life, more than the food we eat.

How many of us are too busy to, you know, we might miss a meal one day?

I get too busy and I miss a meal one day. What about missing two meals a day?

I kind of, you know, I kind of, once in a while, once in a really great while.

But what about Scripture? How many of us are okay not being in our Bible one

day a week or two days a week?

Or what about once a month?

This morning, you need to know that all Scripture is inspired, that it's profitable.

Thirdly, that it's living and active. Amen.

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Do groups and we dive into the word of God because, listen, I'm not gonna convince

you to change your life, but the word of God will.

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The word of God will. Hebrews 4 says, the word of God is living,

effective and sharper than any double-edged sword, penetrating as far as the

separation of soul and spirit, joints and marrow.

It is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.

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It's active, it's alive. And the more you read it, the more time you spend in

it, the more it changes your heart.

Paul says it's sharper than any two-edged sword.

I love what John MacArthur says about this verse. He said, while the word of

God is comforting and it's nourishing to those who believe,

watch out, it's also a tool of judgment and execution for those who have not.

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Committed themselves to Jesus Christ.

That's powerful. Paul says the word of God judges our thoughts.

It judges our intentions.

You see, people try to cast judgment on the word of God, but every person one

day will be judged judged by the word of God.

Jesus said in John 12, 48, the

one who rejects me and doesn't receive my sayings has this as his judge.

The word I have spoken will judge him on the last day.

What's the word that God has spoken? It's the word of God.

The word of God is judging in regards to our thoughts.

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Of this. Culture says that the Word of God is not relevant, that it's not for today.

And so the world casts judgment at the Word of God, doesn't it?

And they want to do away with its teachings. Let me tell you something.

The Word of God is inspired.

The Word of God is literally breathed out of God's mouth, and it is profitable,

and it is essential for the Christian to live a godly life.

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And finally number four the word of god always accomplishes god's purposes,

always isaiah says for just as rain and snow fall from heaven and do not return

there without saturating the earth and making it germinate and sprout and providing

seeds to sow and food to eat,

so my word that comes from my mouth will not return to me empty,

here it is, but it will accomplish what I please and will prosper in what I send it to do.

My greatest responsibility outside of shepherding is to preach the word of God.

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To get the word of God into you so that we live it in our daily lives.

It's why I encourage you to read it, to memorize it, to meditate on it.

Because I know that real change happens when the Spirit of God moves through

the Word of God and gets a hold of your heart and your mind and your lives.

And trust me, I know what you might be thinking. It's too boring.

It's too old-fashioned. It's too whatever.

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Love this. When you trust him as your Lord and your Savior, this is what God does.

He said in Ezekiel 36, I will place my spirit within you, and here it is,

I will cause you to follow my statutes and carefully observe my ordinances.

Did you catch that?

I will place my spirit within you, and I, I, I cause you to follow my statutes.

I cause you to carefully observe my ordinances.

When you truly submit your heart and your life to the Lord Jesus Christ, he empowers you.

He empowers you to follow the word of God. And the Holy Spirit causes you to obey. bang.

It's a nudge. He's never going to force you, but as you get into the Word of God,

the Spirit of God is going to begin working on you and changing you into a brand new person.

When you walk in the Spirit, when you spend time in His Word every day,

you're going to want to be obedient to it.

God's word is inspired. It's profitable.

It's alive and active. It always accomplishes his purpose in your life.

And if it will become your greatest desire to live in such a way that your life is a success.

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Here this morning, and you can hear my voice, and you've never given your heart

and life to Christ, the Bible says today is the day of salvation.

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Don't put off giving your life to Christ.

Do it today.

And here's what it looks like. I like to say it's as easy as ABC.

You can admit that you're a sinner to him.

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You can believe that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son

that whosoever believeth in him shall not perish but have everlasting life.

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And then you confess that he is Lord and Savior and you place your trust in

him and you invite him into your heart, you invite him into your life and he

places his spirit in you.

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With no one looking around, I just want to ask you, if that's you today,

if you're saying, hey, I want to start a brand new life today.

I want to live for the Lord Jesus Christ.

I'm not going to embarrass you. I'm not going to call you out,

but I just want to pray for you.

Would you just slip your hand up real quick and say, hey, I want to start a

new life with Jesus. That's me. Lift it up real quick.

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That you're convicted, that you need to spend more time in the word.

I want you to commit to him right now. Commit to the Lord that you will be faithful.

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Just like my wife and I have regular dates every week, you need to set an appointment

in your calendar, in your phone, and you need to meet with God.

You need to be in his word. You need to worship him. You need to seek him through prayer.

If you don't understand it, ask the Lord to reveal it to you.

He will speak to you through his word.

He wants to be in relationship with you.

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God, help us to be men and women and young people that are going back to the

basics this week, that we are praying as we should and that we are in the word of God as we should.

Make these priorities in our lives.

We love you. we give you glory we ask that you would change us in Jesus name Amen.

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You've been listening to the Generations Church Podcast Be sure to check back

next week as Pastor Jeff continues our study on the book of James If you'd like

more information about Generations Church,

feel free to get in touch with us at info at generationschurch.us or head over

to our website, generationschurch.us.

Thanks for listening.

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