The Power of Bible Engagement

Three years ago, we started the year with a sermon series called

There Has to Be a Place. It included sermons like there

Has to be a place for everyone, which is kind of good because I

wanted to be able to come here. There has to be a place that

gives people time. How many of you needed a little

bit of time to get your life right with Jesus?

Raise your hand if you're here, God bless you.

We talked about there has to be a place for people to take their

very first step UPS of faith. We talked about there has to be

a place that tells people it's not over.

We talked about there has to be a place for lost causes.

And during that series, I introduced you to the spiritual

spectrum. And if you were here last week,

we talked a little bit about it. I'll, I'll do it again.

We'll put it right up here on the screen.

If I were to give these numbers some context, every single one

of us were somewhere on this spiritual spectrum.

So let's say a - 5 is somebody who doesn't believe in God.

A - 3 is somebody, let's say they hate God.

I mean, the good news is they kind of believe that he exists,

but they're kind of ticked at him -1 is somebody who's not

quite ready to live for God, but they, they at least believe that

he exists. And they're going, all right,

I'm, I'm trying to navigate it. Let's say that a 0 is a person

who's ready to make a decision to make Jesus Christ the Lord

and Savior and start an intimate personal relationship with Jesus

Christ. You know, the zeros here at the

crossing are kind of our heroes because we love it when people

start taking the step to be obedient in the area of baptism.

And then a + 3 might be somebody who believes and they're

developing a pattern of obedience.

They're starting to do the things that God calls them to

do, and there's developing a track record.

And let's say a + 5 is somebody who is all in completely

surrendered to the lordship of Jesus.

They are holding nothing back. Now, a couple things to note at

the beginning of this, every single one of you, you are

somewhere on this spiritual spectrum.

So if you were to pick where you are, you don't have to raise

your hand and you don't have to scream it out loud.

But where would you say you are on that spiritual spectrum from

a -, 5 all the way to a + 5? And for those of you who are

interested in doing the plus five thing, just be real careful

with that, OK? Because you know, pride will,

you know, goes before fall. So where are you at?

Now? I got to tell you this, no

matter where you are, no matter where you place yourself, no

matter where you kind of see yourself on that spiritual

spectrum has absolutely zero to do with your value.

It has nothing to do with your value because every person no

matter where they are on that spiritual spectrum was created

by God and loved by God. You guys all know this verse

John 316 for God's to love the world that he gave his one and

only Son, that whoever believes in him will not perish but have

eternal life. So that it does not say for God

so loved all the plus fives. It doesn't say for God so loved

all the plus threes. It says for God's to love the

world. However, as you look through

scripture you will notice that there is a high amount of

emphasis placed on the left side of the spiritual spectrum.

Look what it says in Luke chapter 15 verse 7.

Luke 15:7

I tell you this is Jesus talking that there will be more

rejoicing in heaven over one Sinner who repents than over the

99 righteous persons who do not need to repent.

Heaven has an eye on the left side of the spiritual spectrum.

Jesus himself stated in Luke chapter 19 verse 10 that his

Luke 19:10

mission was to seek and save the lost, those on the left side of

the spiritual spectrum. In fact, Jesus is very last

words before he ascended into heaven was Matthew chapter 28

Matthew 28:18–20

verses 18 through 20. If you spend any amount of time

in church, you know these words as well.

Look what it says. And Jesus came to them and said,

All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them

in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, and

teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

And surely I am with you always to the very end of the age.

In order to make disciples, you are reaching people on the left

side of the spiritual spectrum and then you are helping them

move to the right side. And we don't get to come up with

our own mission. Jesus starts this whole sentence

off with all authority has been given to not me to him.

All authority belongs to Jesus. It is his mission, our job as

Christians. We are bound.

If you call yourself a Jesus follower, we are bound to be

obedient to this and we must as a church make His last words our

first priority. So what does this look like?

It means that every single one of us need to be in the process

of moving on the from the left side of the spiritual spectrum

to the right as far as we possibly can.

And it's not just us moving ourselves, it's us doing

everything and our power to help other people do the same.

And so you might be asking yourself at this point in the

message, how do I move from the left side and take steps in the

direction of moving to the right?

Well, the Kingdom of God is not like your job, which is kind of

a good thing, but it's not like the Kingdom of God.

And that the longer you stick around, the more you get

promoted. That is not how it works.

Christianity is not a time served religion.

The way you move from the left to the right is in two areas, in

faith and in obedience. The way we move from left to

right is taking steps in the area of our faith and in the

area of our obedience. Your Your faith will never

outpace your obedience. Your obedience will never

outpace your faith. Wherever you find yourself

struggling to be obedient is an area where you are having a hard

time trusting God. That makes sense.

It's hard to be obedient in an area where I don't believe that

God will come through in that area.

So if you're having an obedience issue, you have a faith issue.

If you have, if you're trying to figure out how to take more

steps in the area of your faith, you will look and where you are

not being obedient is an area where you're struggling to

believe. Your obedience and your faith

run at the same speed. You will never be obedient in an

area where you don't have faith, and you won't have faith in an

area if you're not being obedient.

So as your faith increases, so will your obedience.

As your obedience increases, so will your faith.

You will never be obedient in an area where you don't have faith.

That is why I am so glad that you are here today at all of our

different locations, especially the thousands of you who are

joining online because you're nervous about the weather.

We're glad you're here. I'm going to encourage you,

don't vacuum, just sit. Pay attention to sermon.

OK you. There'll be plenty of football

this afternoon. Turn off all distractions so you

can totally dial in. I also want to issue a very

special welcome to those of you who are part of the Crossing

Inside, celebrating 7 baptisms last month.

We love you guys. Now our mission as a church is

to help people find an intimate, personal relationship with Jesus

Christ. And we have a big audacious goal

as a church to make this region, the region where we do life and

ministry, the hardest place on planet earth to get the hell

from. And here is an uncomfortable

truth. We cannot create the place we

want to create unless we createspace to become the people

that God created us to become. If there has to be a place for

lost causes, and if there has to be a place that gives people

time, and if there has to be a place that helps people find an

intimate, personal relationship with Jesus Christ, if we want to

make sure that that place exists.

As Christians, as followers of Jesus, we need to make space in

our lives to become the people that God desires us to become.

We have to createspace to move from left to right.

We have to createspace for us to become the people that God

desires us to become. Therefore, in order to make this

region the hardest place on planet earth to get to hell

from, every single one of us need to createspace in our lives

to spend time in God's Word so that God's Word gets in our

lives. The single greatest discipline

for spiritual growth is Bible engagement.

If you are wanting to grow in your faith, if you're wanting to

take moves from left to right, the number one discipline is

Bible engagement. The problem is that survey after

survey shows that people who kind of raise their hand and

say, yeah, I'm a Christian, I'm a Jesus follower, do not

prioritize engaging with the Scriptures.

So here's just the stats. And I just want you to think

about about, you know, where you would see yourself on in these

stats. So other people who raise their

hands and say, I'm a I'm a Christian, I believe in Jesus.

45% of people spend less than once, one time a week reading

the scriptures. 12% of people who call themselves Christians

spend time once or twice a month reading the scriptures. 9% of

Christians, several times a year, they're like, yeah, a

couple times a year I open it up.

And 33% of people who call themselves Christians seldom or

never. What that means is that the vast

majority of people who are saying that they are a Jesus

follower have zero idea who they're following.

How on earth can we create a place for people to encounter

Jesus when most Christians don't encounter him?

And I just don't want that to be true of us.

The crazy thing is, I mean, this is you guys might be going all

right. I don't know about you, Clayton.

I think you're an idiot. The crazy thing is that

scientific studies are starting to report, and this is going to

catch you off guard that reading the Bible is actually good for

you. Who would have thought if you

were to list the problems facing our world today?

OK, I'm just going to list some. I'm just how many of you would

say, and this is this is group participation.

How many would you say that people in our world today are

are navigating loneliness? OK, How many people would say

bitterness would be in the top ten list?

Like there's just a bunch of bitter people.

Yeah, everybody's everybody's gotten in laws, right.

How many of you would say anger people are just angry trolls.

Yeah, we've all got Instagram or Facebook.

How many would say that self esteem is an issue that people

are navigating and study after study shows that people are

doing all kinds of self harm? So if we were to take all those,

if you guys are just leaning in for a second, I would say that

if I was to come up with a top ten list of things that people

are struggling with, the things that I just mentioned would at

least be in the top ten. All right.

So they did a survey on 200,000 people between the ages of eight

and 80, and they charted them over a period of time and they

looked at people and they said, all right, spend 1.

You know, I want you to spend time engaging in God's Word.

And when they looked at a week, they noticed that the people who

spent time in the Word one time a week, and they looked at

people who are spending two times a week, they noticed

almost no change. So if you're spending time on

the Bible on Mondays and you're spending time in the Bible on

Tuesdays, and then you were just kind of punting for the rest of

the week, they saw zero change. But when they started looking at

people who are spending time in God's Word 3 days or more a

week, something changed. What they meant by Bible

engagement was anybody who was spending four times or more a

week engaged in the Scriptures. They noticed something

different. So this is a person who goes,

all right, I'm going to read the Bible on Monday, Tuesday,

Wednesday, Thursday, and I might on Friday, Saturday or Sunday.

Of the people that spent time four or more times a week, here

is what they found. Loneliness dropped 30%.

Bitterness dropped 43%. Anger drops 32%.

Alcoholism drops 42%. Porn consumption drops 60%.

Just reading the Bible helps you stop watching porn.

Just holding a Bible in your hand makes it hard to watch

porn. If you hold 2 bibles in your

hand, it's almost impossible to watch porn.

It's that powerful. Just holding the Bible will help

you stop watching porn. Self harm drops 30%.

Connectedness increases 30%. Self esteem rises 30% reading

the Bible. Is that good for you?

Some of you right now you're going.

OK Clayton, I'm sold. You've done enough of a pitch.

Where do I sign? You don't have to Foursquare me

here. I'm I'm all in.

What do I need to do? What I'm going to tell you is

you're going Clayton. I want to make space, but I

could use some helpful tips and tricks to become a Bible engaged

person that this year 2025, I'm going to move from left to right

and I want to grow and I'm going to createspace in my life to be

Bible engaged. So here are Clayton's helpful

tools, tips and tricks to became become a Bible engaged person.

The first thing you need to do is you need a place.

Find a chair, a desk, a couch, the favorite place where you are

going to go and read your Bible. Now listen to me.

You can read your Bible anywhere.

You can listen to it everywhere. The other day I was making a

drive and I just put the Bible on while I was driving.

You can do all that, but what I would tell you is you need to

create a space that you go to to interact with God's.

You can do it anywhere, but when you create a space where you're

like, you know, what are a place?

Hey, I'm every morning, I'm going to come right over here.

I'm going to sit down for a little bit and I'm going to

spend time in God's word. The second thing you're going to

need is you're going to need a time.

When are you going to do it? You've got to where now we need

to talk about a win. Now this is my recommendation.

This is not in the Bible. This is not like a guarantee.

Like this is how you win a Bible engagement.

But I will just tell you that I think this makes a lot of sense

and I think you guys are smart people.

So you're going to agree with me now, Probably the best time to

spend time in God's Word is one of the very first things you do

in the morning. Why?

How on earth do you plan to spend the entire day living for

God if you haven't spent time with Him?

So if you can fill yourself up before you pour out, that's

probably beneficial. It gives you time in the day to

actually implement what you learned.

So the other day I got up and you might be like, hey, Clayton,

it's not going to be the first thing I do.

It's going to be the third thing.

That's totally fine. I got up, went to the bathroom,

made myself some bagels, ate the bagels because I didn't want to

get cream cheese on my Bible, wash my hands, and then spend a

little bit of time. Now, Speaking of that, you're

going to need a Bible. Now, your phone is just fine.

In fact, if you have the Bible app, the Holy Bible one, which

is phenomenal, you can use that. It's super good.

But what I would tell you is if you're going to use a electronic

device, you need to turn off all the notifications because it

you'll be like part way through a verse and then Fox News will

send you an alert and then you're gone.

You're off someplace else. So if you do it, you know, turn

off all the distractions. That way you can gauge.

Now you're going to need this Bible and you're going to want

to pick a translation. Now, this is where a lot of

people get twisted up. So I'm going to give you

Clayton's tools, tips and tricks about how to figure out what

Bible you want. There are all kinds of Bible

versions. Well, let me back up before I

give you the graphic. So unless you are fluent in

Hebrew or Greek, which I would tell you is not worth it your

time, Every every Bible that you have is a translation from these

ancient texts. OK.

And what people did is they made their own translation and

they're trying to capture it to the best they can.

And you're might, you'll hear people say this, this like if

you're in a fight with somebody at work about all the different

translations, if you are interpreting a, a different

word, there's multiple words that we can use in our English

language to put that word. So there's a connection and

different translations have a different goal.

And I'm going to unpack that for you.

So here are a bunch of Bible translations.

So all the way on the, as I'm looking at it all the way over

here, you have what are called word for word translations.

So when you're reading an NASB, the New American Standard Bible

or the ESV, the English standard version, you are reading a word

for word translation. So when you're reading it, it

will be clunky, but it is in the same order as it was in the

Septuagint. So however they said it in the

Septuagint, it's how you're going to read it in English.

And so when you're reading it, it will feel clunky, but it is

as close as you can get to the original text.

And then all the way over here you have thought for thought.

So they are taking the sentence or the paragraph and they are

putting it together in this to give you the thought for thought

translation. So that's why if you're sitting

next to somebody and they're reading out of the ESV and

you're reading out of the NIV and you're going, these two

things say a different thing. They are both saying the same

thing in a different way. Now I also put on there those

little numbers at the bottom. You might be, what are those

numbers? Those are reading levels.

So if you're going, hey, Clayton, I read, I'm I'm so

smart. I've got so many degrees.

You might love yourself a good You know, you don't need a

thesaurus. You are a thesaurus.

And if you don't get that joke, I would encourage you to

leverage the 6th and 7th grade reading levels.

And there is nothing wrong with those.

In fact, as a church, what we leverage here at the Crossing is

the NIV. It is right smack dab in the

middle. It is a hybrid between word for

word and thought for thought. And it is at a what is it?

A 6th grade, 7th grade reading level.

Easy. Now you might be going, but

Clayton, I've been reading the NIV and I still don't get it.

At least you understand the words.

You may have a struggle with the content, but you at least have a

way to make sure that you can read it.

I want you when you engage in God's Word to enjoy it.

And if you go after a 11th grade reading level, you might be

going, I need a thesaurus because I'm struggling.

All right, now you're going to need a place to start.

And here is one of the biggest blunders that happens when

people try to start reading the Bible.

They start in the Old Testament. So they're reading Genesis,

which is a killer book. They're reading majority of

Exodus. They're like loving it.

And then you get into some stuff and you're like, how did I get

here? Now what I want you to know is

that the way the Bible is set up is the Old Testament is the old

covenant that God made with Israel.

The New Testament is the new covenant, the new agreement that

God made with us. So if you are going to start

reading the Bible, you should start reading about the

agreement that God has made with you and me.

And I would start in the New Testament.

Now, I know that there are some of you who are going, hey, I

want to read through the Bible in a year.

And I want you to know that that's an admirable goal, but

that is should not be like a priority for you as a Christian.

And I'll tell you why. The goal is not to consume a lot

of biblical content. The goal is to obey the content,

to allow the word of God to get into you.

And so I would tell you, start in the New Testament and start

in the Gospels. When you read the Gospels, which

are the first four in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke,

John, pick one of them and start reading.

I just finished Luke and now I'm in First Corinthians but start

in the New Testament. And if you're going, I'm going

to read through the New Testament this year, check this

out. The New Testament only has 260

chapters, which means if you do 1A day, you're going to get

through it with relative ease. It's only got about 8000 verses

in it. So if you read 22 a day, you're

going to get all the way through it.

If you take it out over the whole year and while you're

reading your chapter, you can read a bunch, You can read 5A

day, which is a good discipline. But if you're just I'm just

going to open up the Bible, I'm going to spend time in this

chapter. When you're reading it, you want

to find something to highlight. So you're going to want to get

yourself, in my opinion, a highlighter.

If you're on a phone, you press a little button and it should

highlight for you. If you're looking for a real

highlighter, I'll tell you the highlighter that I use the

highlighter that I use is Mr. Pen.

It's a Mr. Pen highlighter. Am IA dork.

Yes, he has a mustache. The little the little Mr. Pen

highlighter. I got like 20 of them.

OK, here's why I like the Mr. Pen highlighter.

If you're reading in a Bible, when you highlight, it doesn't

bleed through really hard on your Bible pages.

So you end up highlighting one thing on one side, then you flip

it over and then you know somebody else would bring your

Bible. Why'd you highlight that?

I didn't. It's on this page.

OK, so it's a great highlighter. And what are you going to

highlight? Let me tell you what you're

going to highlight every time you're reading the Bible.

These are the four things you need to look at here at the

crossing. When you do a DBS, we talk about

the speck SPEC there. Yeah, SPECSA sin to avoid.

So when you're reading your Bible and you're like, Oh my

goodness, I need to stop doing that.

Highlight that. I want to stop doing that.

OK, then the P is a promise to claim.

A promise to claim. You're going to want to cling to

these promises when you're going through the dark days of life,

when you're having struggles of faith, you're going to need

promises to claim. Most of the time when I land the

plane here at our 48th St. location.

Do you know what verses I'm using?

When I'm talking about the very end of our service, I'm usually

telling you a promise to claim. E an example to follow.

Hey, this is how this person was following God.

I want to follow God like that. When you're reading about Jesus

and you see how Jesus deals with people, you're like, oh, that's

a great example for me to follow.

And then C is a command to obey. We're going to leave it up for a

second for those of you want to take pictures like I need to

know what spec is a command to obey.

So the Bible says don't let your you know the the sun go down on

your anger. You're like that's a command to

obey, love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you.

That is a command to obey. So speck sin to avoid promise to

claim example to follow command to obey.

And when you do this, here's what it's doing.

It is giving you a chance to not just learn God's word, not just

consume God's word, but to obey it.

It moves us from left to right through faith and obedience.

Now, if you bump into something when you're reading the Bible

and you're going to bump into stuff, it happens to every

single one of us. You're going to bump into

something like I don't necessarily understand this, and

I love it when you reach out to me, and I love it when you reach

out to our staff. But before you do that, I want

to give you a great resource. It is gotquestions.org.

Got questions.org? I have not read every article on

this site, but it is one of my favorite sites.

If you were to take all of the books and commentaries that I

have in my office and all of the software that I have on my

computer, and you were to make it basically free and online, it

would be gotquestions.org. I would say of the stuff that I

have read there, I agree with like 90 to 95% of it.

So whatever answer you get from there will be like 90 to 95% of

what I would tell you, only it would be better.

Remember, the more you spend time with something, the more it

will make sense to you. If you are just starting to grow

in your relationship with God and just starting to spend time

in God's Word, you're going to have more bumps relationally

because you're, you're growing in your understanding.

How many of you, I don't really want to make God a weird uncle,

but how many of you have like a weird person in your family tree

and then somebody starts dating somebody and they bring him

around, you know, weird Uncle Bob, and they're trying to

figure out how to make sense of weird Uncle Bob.

And you're like, well, that's just Uncle Bob because everybody

else knows him, so he's being sarcastic.

And the other person trying to figure out, do they hate me?

No, that's just Uncle Bob. That's just how he is.

The more you spend time in God's Word, the more you're going to

understand God. The less you spend time with

Him, the harder you're going to have a good time understanding

Him. So when you have a fuller

context of who God is when you find yourself with a bump in the

text, you'll be able to navigate that bump more seamlessly

because you have a broader picture, a deeper understanding.

Time with God helps us understand God's Word.

However, don't just stop at putting in time with God's Word.

Do what it says. You see, reading the Bible will

awaken your faith because you will see that time and time

again God has proven Himself trustworthy.

As your faith awakens, it will allow you to grow and take steps

in the direction of obedience. James, who is Jesus's brother,

says this in chapter 1 verse 22. Do not merely listen to the Word

and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.

Simply reading the Bible will leave you deceived.

It's when we start to do what the Bible says that we start to

take steps in the direction of obedience.

Sadly, of all the people that are Christians, very few people

are reading their Bible. And those that are reading their

Bible, they are deceived because they're not doing what it says.

They can quote all kinds of verses in the Bible, but they

have yet to live any of them out.

There's a quote in the bathroom at my mother in

And I love that quote because this guy's looking at this other

guy. You've got all the answers

figured out, but you're just as broke as I am.

The bottom line is, if you know all this stuff, how come you

haven't put any of this into your life?

How come your life looks the exact same as mine?

That's why reading the Bible is important, but doing what it

says matters more that when you start living out the things in

Scripture is where the growth actually happens.

You see, the Bible is a guide for making disciples and

training ourselves and godly living.

Look what it says in Second Timothy.

All Scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching,

rebuking, correcting, and training and righteousness so

that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every

good work. If you are not spending time in

God's Word, you are not thoroughly equipped for all the

good works that are going to come your way for you to do.

The Bible is our defense against sin.

Raise your hand if you'd like to sin less.

Didn't raise your hand. Weird.

OK. Psalm 11911 I have hidden your

word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

Spending time in God's word helps us to sin less.

The bottom. Would you say that our world

right now is a dark place? There's a lot of crazy stuff

going on. I'm glad you raised your hand

there. Look what it says in Psalm

119105. Your word is a lamp for my feet,

a light on my path. It will illuminate your way in a

Dark World. The Bible is our weapon against

the enemy Satan. Jesus was in the desert.

He was tempted three times by Satan, and all three times,

guess what? Jesus used Scripture, He used

the Word of God to defeat the temptations of the devil.

This might be one of the areas where Satan has been attacking

you the most, as he's been doing everything in his power to get

you to be a person who raises your hand and calls yourself a

Christian, but spends no time, no time in the Word of God.

And so he is coming in and he is trying to keep you.

He doesn't want you to grow, He wants you to maintain the status

quo. What if you were to see you

engaging in God's Word as you fighting against Satan and every

time you don't read God's word you were to have to go to your

little marker board and go Satan 1 today.

Because if Satan can keep you from the Word of God, he will

keep you from understanding who you are in Christ.

Because when you read the Bible, it will clarify your purpose,

eliminate your identity, equip you to make a difference, and

allow you to see through the devil's schemes.

It will heighten your spiritual awareness, break your heart for

the things of God, and awaken your desire to wage war against

the pain and suffering that sin and Satan are causing all across

this region. More importantly, when you read

the Bible, you will have the answers to life's biggest

questions that those around you desperately need.

But more important than that is when you read the Bible, He will

reveal that. It will reveal to you the person

and the power of Jesus. Let me show you when you read

Genesis, you're going to find out that Jesus is a creator and

our promised Redeemer. When you read Exodus, you'll

find out that he is the Passover lamb.

When you read Leviticus, you're going to find out that he's the

high priest. When you read Numbers, you're

going to realize that he is water in the desert.

In Deuteronomy, you're going to realize that Jesus becomes the

curse for us. When you read Joshua, you'll

realize that Jesus is the commander of the Lord's army and

judges that he will deliver us from injustice.

And Ruth, our kinsmen Redeemer. And for Samuel, our all in He is

the prophet, priest, priest and king.

In Second Samuel, he's the king of grace and love.

In First Kings he is a ruler greater than Solomon.

In Second Kings, he's the powerful prophet in First

Chronicles, the son of David that is coming to rule in Second

Chronicles, the king who reigns eternally.

In Ezra, he's the priest proclaiming freedom.

In Nehemiah, he's the one who restores what is broken down and

Esther he's the protector of his people and Job the mediator

between God and man. In Psalms, our song in the

morning and our song at night. In Proverbs he's our wisdom.

In Ecclesiastes are meaning for life and song of Psalm, the

author of faithful love. And Isaiah he's the suffering

servant. Jeremiah, the weeping Messiah

limitations, he assumes God's wrath for us.

And Ezekiel, he's the son of man.

And Daniel, he's the stranger in the fire with us.

In Hosea he's the faithful husband even when we run away.

And Joel, he's sending his spirit to his people.

And Amos, he delivers justice to the oppressed.

And Obadiah, he's the judge of those who do evil.

And Jonah, he's the greatest missionary ever.

And Micah, he casts our sea or our sin into the sea of

forgetfulness. And Nahum, he proclaims a future

World Peace that you and I can barely even imagine.

In Habakkuk he overcomes and crushes justice and justice.

And Zephaniah, he's the warrior who saves.

And Haggai, he restores our worship.

And Zechariah, he is the promised Messiah who is pierced

on our behalf. And Malachi, he is the son of

Righte consciousness who brings healing.

And when you start reading in the New Testament, you'll

realize in Matthew he's the Messiah who is a king.

And Mark he's the Messiah who's a servant.

And Luke, he's the Messiah who's a deliverer.

And John, he's the Messiah who is God in the flesh and acts.

He is the Spirit who dwells and empowers his people.

In Romans he's the righteousness of God.

In First Corinthians he's the power of love and of God.

In Second Corinthians he is the down payment for what is yet to

come. In Galatians, he's our very life

and he Ephesians, he's the unity of the church.

In Philippians, he's our joy in life.

In Colossians he holds the supreme position over all

things. In First Thessalonians he's our

comfort. In the last days and 2nd

Thessalonians he is our returning king.

And First Timothy he's the savior of the worst sinners.

And Second Timothy, he is the leader of leaders.

In Titus, he's the foundation for truth.

In Philemon, he's our mediator. In Hebrews he's our great high

priest. And James, he matures our faith.

And 1st Peter, he's our hope in times of suffering.

And second Peter, he's the one who guards us from false

teaching. And 1st John, he's the source of

all fellowship. And 2nd John he's got in the

flesh. And 3rd John, he's the source of

all truth. And Jude, he protects us from

stumbling and walking away from our faith.

And in Revelation he is the King of kings, the Lord of Lords, the

Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.

And he is coming again, and he is going to make all things new.

No wonder Satan doesn't want you to read your Bible because if

you were to read your Bible, it would change you.

We're moving to a time of decision.

For those of you in here and for those of you watching online, if

you don't have a relationship with Jesus, maybe there's some

questions that you are asking that just have not been asked.

And I just want to tell you, don't put off asking those

questions any longer. When you start reading your

Bible, no matter where you pick, if you said Clayton, I'm not

going to listen to anything you said.

I'm starting wherever I want to start.

I'm going to close my eyes, find a page, and start reading it.

Fine. But when you read the Old

Testament, you're going to find out that God used messed up

people over and over and over again in a mighty way when they

turn their lives over to Him. When you find yourself in the

funky parts of the Bible and you're reading the genealogy and

it's basically a long, long list of names that you don't know and

that you can barely pronounce. What you'll find out is that God

can bring incredible things out of messed up families and that

he can use jacked up people to bring about redemption in the

lives of people around you. When you read the New Testament,

most of what you will read in the New Testament was written by

one of the worst guys on planet earth at the time.

He says he was, and nobody in the Bible disagreed with him.

Like this guy is as jacked up as you could possibly be and he's

proof no matter how messed up you've been, you cannot outrun

the grace and mercy and love and redemption of our Lord and

Savior Jesus Christ. And God got a hold of him and

completely turned him around and used his life and his ministry

empowered by the Holy Spirit to write the very words that have

been drawing people to Him every day.

In fact, you will read words from him in 2nd Corinthians 517,

one of my all time favorite scriptures.

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, they are a new creation.

The old is gone, the new has come.

All of that is available in the person and the work of Jesus.

I'm proof that means that the same thing that happened to all

the people in the Old Testament and all the people in the New

Testament and all the people from the time of Jesus to write.

Now people have encountered not just the word of God, but the

person of God and the power of a spirit, and their lives have

been transformed. And that can be true of you

today. So just a few moments when the

people around you stand and start singing and come to the

steps and pray. I want to encourage you if

you're in the room, to walk right over there underneath that

screen next to the Baptist today.

I got to start getting this thing right.

Maybe you turn and talk to somebody who brought with you or

who brought you or who's sitting with you.

To those of you online, especially those of you who are

new to online, there's a button that just populated in the chat.

And if you click on that, some of our team will take you into a

private chair chat where you can just talk with them about what's

going on in your life without everybody knowing your business.

And it's a great opportunity for you to start going.

You know what? I need to ask some questions and

get them things figured out. To those of you who already have

a relationship with Jesus Christ, hear me.

If this indeed is going to be a group of people trying with

everything in their power to make this place the hardest

place on planet earth for people to get the help from, we have to

createspace in our lives to become the people that God

created us to become. We cannot possibly expect to

make the difference that God expects us to make if we are not

spending time with Him in His Word.

So would you do something? Would you start off this year

spending some time on your knees and prayer?

Pray that this year you'll be a person who makes space to spend

time in God's Word. Pray for other people in our

church who are getting ready to make the same commitment.

Cover them in prayer so that we can become the people that God

desperately wants us to be. Would you stand with me,

Heavenly Father? You, more than anybody, knows

exactly the amount of power and potential lies in this moment.

And you know how bad Satan wants to prevent it from happening.

If he can keep us cold and lukewarm in our faith, he can

keep our faith low when our obedience low, which means that

life change and impact will be low.

But God, if we could become people of your word, if we

craved it like we do real food, I have no way of imagining what

kind of work you could do through us and in us.

So, God, this year in this church, would you create in us a

hunger for your word? And God, we can't do this on our

own. It's going to be a spiritual

battle. And so we're asking you in our

weakness to be our strength and our busyness to create a

desperation to find time with you.

God, as we're reading your Word, speak to us and press upon us.

Don't be difficult to find. Your word promises that those

who seek fine, those who ask will receive.

And so God, we plan on seeking you this year like never before.

And we're going to ask like never before so we can become

more like you than ever before. And am I praying?

Amen.