 The power of God's people continually meeting and going before the word in prayer and the lead being the one to lead us in biblical hope through the scriptures was pivotal. Wasn't just the value of I need to spend time with the Lord to start my day, it was every day my perspective is shifting from fear to faith. Well, good weekend. How's everybody doing? You guys good? You guys good? Can we just say hello to Portage and everybody who's joining us online? Come on, put our hands together. We love you guys. Stephen, Candice and all of our crew over at Portage. We love you guys. Those of you who haven't seen in a while, we miss you and we're very excited about the series that we really launched last weekend, but this weekend we're gonna start in earnest, which is called Be Radiant. And this is going to lead us all the way up to the release of the docu-series that you just saw a little snippet of called Do Rain. And on your way out at both of our campuses today, we have information for everybody to pick up, please avail yourself to this. This is called the Radiant City Vision booklet and there's also a smaller one that's available called Watch and Pray. Watch and Pray is the spiritual journey that we're all going on together over the next several weeks where we're doing that thing literally where we're watching and we're listening to what God is saying. We're praying and asking him what our part to play in is in the Radiant City Vision, leading up to the docu-series and the presentation of that and just coming down a few weeks into the future after we have looked at all five of our core values of really what it means to be radiant. So if you're online, you can go to the link and you can download this. You can get a digital version of it or on your way out at both Richland and at Portage. You can pick this up and it's available for you. I wanna invite you today to turn with me in your Bibles to 2 Timothy chapter three. 2 Timothy chapter three. This series entitled Be Radiant is a series in which we are going to look at what it means to be radiant. Last week we looked at Isaiah 60 which is a foundational prophetic scripture for who we are as a people. You might remember in Isaiah 60 verse number five it says, you shall see and be radiant. What does it really mean to say, wow, we're radiant? Is it just, you know, I go to radiant church? God's desires, no matter what church you go to, whether it's Emmanuel or it's got Christ, church, chapel, I've seen some crazy church names over the years like First Church of Christ Tabernacle of Deliverance and Fire. I mean, there are some wild names out there. The name on the church doesn't matter as much as the brand on our heart by the Holy Spirit. And God is calling all of us to be radiant. Ephesians chapter five in the NIV says that he's coming back. Jesus is coming back for a radiant church without spot or wrinkle. He wants us to be radiant. But what does it really mean to be radiant? Here at radiant, this church, we've identified five core values, five factors. You could think of them as five strands in the spiritual genetic code, the DNA of our hearts of what it means to truly be radiant. And this week is core value number one, which is this. Radiant church is a word centered church. We are word centered disciples who are part of a word centered church. This is the word of God. And so look with me here in your copy of the Bible or digital version, whichever you have and turn with me to second Timothy three. We're gonna look at verse number 14 through 17. This is Paul reigning to Timothy says, but as for you continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood, you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. Paul's scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work. There is so much that Paul wrote in that small little section of scripture to Timothy. Timothy's a young leader. He's building a church. Paul is an aged apostle. Paul is writing to Timothy and he's reminding him of his spiritual journey and his moorings. And he's saying, look, from the time you were a child, I know that you grew up studying and learning and memorizing the sacred scriptures, the texts for Timothy that would have been the Old Testament but included in Paul's understanding of what scripture is as his own writings. And when he's telling Timothy, he says now, more than ever, you need to give yourself to the scripture because everything that you need, everything that you need to be prepared, everything that you need to be transformed, to be changed, to be competent, to fulfill the call of God on your life is found in the scriptures. You remember when you were a kid and you learned it. He says, now I want you to continue to give yourself to it. If you'll do that, you'll be wise under salvation but you'll also be wise in helping other people live out their calling. And I believe with all of my heart that the scriptures, the Holy Bible, the word of God is and must be the center of our lives because there is nothing else like it. The word of God is unique, it is powerful. Hebrews chapter four verse 12 says the word of God is living and it is active and it is sharper than any two-edged sword able to divide between soul and spirit, bone and marrow and it is the discerner of the thoughts and the intense of the human heart. The Holy scriptures, the Bible is not just written words. Jesus said the words, I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. The Bible is the only book that when you read it, it's reading you back. AW Tozer in fact said the Bible is not only a book which was once spoken but is a book which is now continually speaking. The Bible is the foundation and listen, it seems as if that would be elementary that we would just all go all of course. If we're gonna be a church, we ought to have the Bible as the center of what we do but it's not necessarily an assumption that you can make in our day. Let me tell you some things you might not know about the Bible and why it is so significant and important. The Bible has 1,189 chapters in it. There are 929 chapters in the Old Testament, 260 in the New Testament. There are 66 books in the Bible, 39 in the Old Testament, 27 in the New. The Bible was written by 40 authors, give or take a few in three different languages, Hebrew, Greek and a little bit of Aramaic on three continents over a period of 1,500 years. The Bible is the word of God. Paul says that the word of God is God breathed that means before man ever wrote it, God spoke it and breath came out of his mouth as spirit inspired the writers of scripture to record it. There are 150 chapters in the Bible that are prophecy alone that predict things, some that have already come to pass that were predicted hundreds of years in advance and some that we are actually watching unfold even in our own day. Western civilization was built upon the revelation in the Bible. When it's been acted upon and obeyed, the communities and the societies that did so prospered. When it's been dismissed or disobeyed, people are destroyed just like God said in his word that my people perish for lack of knowledge. Many skeptics have attempted to prove it wrong. Many enemies have attempted to destroy it. Many critics have attempted to deconstruct it. Many pastors have attempted to water it down but Jesus himself said in John 1035, the scriptures cannot be broken. Isaiah chapter 40 verse eight says the grass withers, the flowers fade, but the word of our God will stand forever. And you know, God is right and let every man be a liar. When it comes to who we are, who we are as a church and what our mission is, we are gonna build our world upon the word of God. It is our center. We learned it in Sunday school and church, we're gonna affirm it as adults. The B-I-B-L-E, yes, that's the book for me. I stand alone on the word of God. Come on, the B-I-B-L-E. Can I get an amen up in this place? That was a golf whoop or whatever you call that. I'll tell you what, I bear witness so much with what Paul told Timothy because my personal story is as a young child, my earliest memories are both painful and hopeful all at the same time, like many peoples. I grew up in a home with a single mother who my dad left when I was nine months old, lived in the inner city of Detroit and in Pontiac. My mom was 20 years old when my dad left and it was my paternal grandparents that took us in. And as a little boy, I remember wondering where my dad was, having a hole the size of my dad in my heart, but having a grandfather who loved God, having a grandfather who every morning before he went to General Motors Fisher Body Plant to work would sit in the same chair drinking out of the same orange 1970s Art Deco Coffee Cup, eating oatmeal and reading his King James Dixon Analytical Study Bible. It was thicker than a Detroit phone book. I called it a 50 pound heathen choker. Man, I'll tell you what, because if you shoved it down somebody's throat it'd kill him. And my grandpa would sit in his chair and he would read the Bible every morning. And as a little boy, I would crawl up onto my grandfather's lap and he would read the Bible to me. And I saw my grandfather's pattern and it stirred something in my heart to love the Bible, to love the scriptures. Even before I knew how to read, I loved the Bible. As a young boy, probably eight, nine, 10 years old, my grandparents gave me my first Bible. I still have it in my library today. It was a hardcover NIV and on the inside cover my grandmother wrote to Leah at Christmas, 1979. And it says Proverbs three verses five through six, trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding and all of your ways acknowledge him and he will direct your paths. And that scripture became a foundation that I built my life on. Because against all odds and against all statistics that said that a young boy growing up in a single mother's home with an absent father, I should have been a statistic. But the grace of God met me and the word of God anchored me. So as a nine, 10, 11 year old boy, I was fascinated by the Bible. I would read the Bible, I would have conversations with my grandfather about the Bible. He would always point me back to the word of God and say, lead the Bible says. And I was fascinated by listening to my grandfather talk because he knew the Bible so well and I loved that it would just flow out of him. Two things flowed out of my grandfather. Old hymns and Bible verses. And I remember thinking I wanna be just like my grandpa. And so at 12 years old, when everything that I had learned from scripture and from my grandfather about the Bible, all of that set me up for a 12 year old encounter with the living God. And I knew his voice because I had heard his word. And it set my course and it fixed my life and it gave me roots, it gave me foundation and some of the most difficult times of my life. And from 12 years old on into my adulthood, I spent countless hours. I saved my birthday money from when, my dad gave me money, wrote me a check and my mom and dad gave me money, my grandparents money. And I went down to the Zondervan Christian bookstore and I bought a Bible just like grandpa's. A brown, scofield, genuine leather, King James study Bible. And I remember that thing cost me $91. I was 13 years old, my mom and dad were like, what are you gonna do with your money? You gonna go shopping? I'm buying a Bible. And my mom thought, wow, 13, why are you buying a Bible? It's like, I wanna read this thing that has changed my grandfather's life, that will change my life. I had encountered the presence of the Lord. I had experienced a calling to serve him. And so I began to study the Bible. My teen years, I dove into the scriptures. I taught myself how to understand original languages. I bought Bible commentaries. I became obsessed, so much so that my mom wanted me to go to a counselor. She's like, it's not normal for a 13 year old boy to sit in his room and read the Bible all day. Now I played basketball, I ran track, played baseball, but I loved the Bible. And I will tell you this, that there is no decision that I have ever made that has had a bigger effect on my life than making the decision that I'm gonna build a word-centered life. I saw it in my grandfather, and I decided that's the kind of life I'm gonna build. And you know what concerns me today? What concerns me is how distracted Christians have become. And how there is a spiritual famine in our land for the word of God. You know, Amos 8 verse 11 says that in that day, there will come a famine not for bread and not for water, but for hearing the word of God. Do you know that Jesus' greatest challenge in ministry was he said they have ears to hear, but they don't hear. It wasn't that the word of God wasn't available, it's just that people weren't hungry to hear it. People didn't have ears to hear it. Why? Listening to all kinds of other things because other voices had bigger, greater influence on their lives. Other people spoke louder than God's word did. Jesus was speaking, those who heard his word, their life was forever changed, but those who heard his word and ignored his word, it was like water rolling off a duck's back. And my concern is that even in our day, even in the church of Jesus Christ, where the word of God should be elevated and should be respected and revered, it is actually being watered down. We've taken the Bible and we've dissected it and we teach it like chicken soup for the soul or like fortune cookie theology. We've got little verses that we like, but we ignore a vast majority of it. And what we're ignoring when we ignore the full counsel of the Lord is exactly what Paul said. Everything that you need to fulfill your call in Christ, to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior, to understand eternity, to understand God, to understand history is all found in the scriptures. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by Fox News. That's what Romans 10 says, right? No, no, let me try it again. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the most recent podcast, Revisionist History. Oh, it says, no, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of, yeah. We want our faith to grow, our commitment to the word of God has got to grow. And you know, I'm old school. I like old fashioned, I want a Bible. I want that thing in paper with leather and I'm a Bible connoisseur. I want goat skin, gold gilding. I want handset type India paper, 24 GSI quality paper. I mean, I want a nice Bible. Why? Because it's the most important book that I've gotten in my life. Why would I have a paperback Bible and a $1,000 phone? And I want to just make this statement. I want you to hear me as your pastor. Jane and I have had the privilege of being the pastor of Radiant Church for 25 years. And I have no idea, I have no thought in my mind that this church has been built on anything other than the word of God. It's not me, it's not our best ideas, it's not our innovation, it's not any of those things. It's not my personality, it's not anybody else's personality, it's not all the props and it's the word of God. And I don't know how anyone can build a church on anything other than the word of God. I don't know. It's popular today to have sermons and illustrations and to use the Bible to make our point instead of the Bible being our point. It's popular today to take scripture and to syncretize it with culture so that it's palatable to the masses. It's popular to take a book that has been the bestseller of all times that has not withered, it has not gone away even though people have tried to destroy it and say, well, here we are in America, we figured out, we're more sophisticated. And so the Bible contains some of the word of God but it doesn't contain all of the word of God because there's some things in it that we don't like and our preferences are other or culture says something different. Let me, I want you to think about this. When we allow our lives to be shaped by the image of God and the word of God, that's called discipleship. When we allow the Bible to be shaped by culture and our opinions, that's called idolatry because making an idol means we reshape God the way that we think you ought to be. And it's a dangerous thing when a church or the church or a nation or a culture looks at God's word and says, God, you got that wrong or that was messed up or that was another time. We have got it all figured out and so we're gonna fix you God. Do you know once upon a time one of our national founding fathers did that? Thomas Jefferson, who's third president of the United States, one of the founding fathers, the writer of the Declaration of Independence. He was a brilliant man, but in his brilliance he was offended at everything supernatural in the Bible. He was also, he had a lot of problems as well. He was a womanizer, he was a slave holder, all kinds of other things. And so what he did though to fix God's word was he went through the New Testament with an exacto knife and he cut all of the verses out that had anything to do with miracles or supernatural or resurrection in there, healings, any of that. He took it all out. So what he was left with was what he believed was the ethics of the New Testament. He wanted a moral philosophy. It was during the time of the Enlightenment. He wanted a moral philosophy. And so what he was left with was what became known as the Jeffersonian Bible but really what it was is a mutilated man's corrupted attempt at making God in his own image. And because of that, the word of God never granted him repentance. There's no testimony to prove that Thomas Jefferson ever found salvation, ever repented of his sin, any of that kind of thing. In spite of his wisdom and in spite of the fact that he had access to the word of God, the scariest thing in the world to me is not that the word of God is true and that we don't respond to it. The scariest thing to me is that our generation has more Bibles available to it but we are more removed from the revelation in the Bible than any other generation ever has been. America, we have no excuse. If God does not judge America, he's gonna have to resurrect Sodom and Gomorrah and apologize to them. Because we've got a Bible, Sodom didn't have one. In fact, we've got 2.5 Bibles per every one of our 327 million citizens in our culture. We've got Bibles everywhere. We've got Bibles in hotel drawers. We've got Bibles on our devices and even our wonderful smartphones. And we don't just have Bibles. I remember growing up, Bibles were either brown or black or burgundy. Anybody remember that? Or it was like green because you had that living Bible thing. I don't know what that was. But you could get it in the NIV or you could get it in the King James. But now, do you know that I have a book in my office that has 57 translations of the Bible. On my Bible software program, I have over a hundred translations of the Bible, all in English. And you can get it in all of these translations and you can get it in goat skin. You can get it in genuine leather. You can get it in leopard print. You can get it in a tin can. You can get it in a zip little, you know, those zip cases, put your notebook and your pens in there. We've got student Bibles. We've got men's study Bibles. We've got women's study Bibles. We've got ESV study Bibles, NIV study Bibles. We've got soldiers Bibles, American patriotism Bibles. We've got teen and kids Bibles. We've got slurpy repairmen's third shift study Bibles. We've got Bibles for everybody. But yet, we have a famine in our land. And listen, we have a famine in the church for the word of God. What I'm praying for is a revival of the Bible that we say to God, God speak to us. We wanna be a Samuel generation. First Samuel chapter three, verse one, it says that, during the time of Eli, it says that there was no widespread revelation and there was a drought of the word of God. It was rare that the word of God spoke, that the word of God was even there. The Bible is a book that is constantly speaking to us. Question is, are we hearing it? Are we listening to it? One time I was on a, asked the pastor program, I was 25 years old and it was on Christian television and I was less, I had less coof. And a guy called up, he was a King James only guy who believed the King James was the only translation you should read. So he called up and he asked a question. I was by far the youngest guy, youngest pastor on this panel. And he said, oh, I'll direct this question to that young guy right there. He's like, what's the correct Bible translation that I should read? And I knew where he was going because I've heard these guys talking. And so I looked in the camera and I said, sir, the Bible that you should read is the one that's collecting dust on your nightstand. To me, it's not about as much of what translation is, but we've got to get the Bible in us. I learned the books of the Bible by hip hop, B-I-B-L-E, all the letters for all you out there that are forgetters, get you a Bible. Your Genesis and Exodus and Numbers two, Leviticus and Deuteronomy for you, my homeboy Joshua and judges, don't you leave out roots? We got Kings and Sam's better than strawberry jams. Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, we got Acts and Romans one and two, Corinthians, I got Galatians and Philippians and Ephesians and Colossians. See, if you cut me, I am Bible. If you cut me, that's what ought to be said about us. So I don't care what Bible you're reading, read it. Get it, it's life, it's breath to our spirits. And we need to memorize it, there's no excuses. We've got more resources, we've got more Bibles, more translations, more availability to it, more ways to memorize it. We just have to see the value in it. I don't know how anyone builds a church without the word of God being the center of it. You know, this week, next week, we're talking about that we're word centered and next weekend is we're spirit empowered. Jesus said that the Father is searching those who will worship Him in spirit and in truth. The truth is the word of God that's inspired by the spirit of God. Some churches say, well, we're Holy Spirit churches. Some churches say, no, we're Bible churches as if the Bible is antithetical to the Holy Spirit. Or that the Holy Spirit's over here going, oh, those Bible people are really dry Pharisees. Let's just have some fun. And that you got the Bible over here going, well, you know, I'm the word of God and I'm just analytical and let's do a Greek parsing of the verbs. No, the Holy Spirit inspired this book. And He dwells on the inside of every one of us. God wants us to be spirit and truth. When we read the Bible, we're not reading an academic book. We are reading what God has spoken eternally. And the same Holy Spirit that dwells on the inside of you is the same Holy Spirit that inspired the Scripture the first time. How many know the same Holy Spirit and inspire you again to understand it and then to sanctify you by receiving it as the word of God implanted into your heart with meekness that is able to save your soul. James 1, 21. It sound like Jack Van Ampia up here, but it's okay. See, I don't know how anyone can build a church. I don't know how anyone can build a life without the word of God being the center of it. Number one, the Bible, the word of God shows us how to be saved and how to be right with God. Read the Bible, we realize I'm a sinner, God's holy. And the way that I am saved is if anyone believes in his heart, confesses with his mouth that Jesus is Lord and believes in his heart that God has raised him from the dead, he shall be saved. If anyone calls upon the name of the Lord, they shall be saved. That we are justified with God, not by our works, but by his grace. How do we know how to be saved? The Bible. The Bible teaches us about God and his kingdom, everything that we need to know. It's found right here, church. Listen, we don't need Nat Geo channel telling us about God. We don't need Time Magazine putting out another cover, Who Was Jesus? We've got it right here. We don't need Hollywood informing us about who God is, even if it is a funny movie, like Bruce Almighty or whatever. Hollywood wants to shape God. Media wants to shape God, wants to tell us who Jesus is and isn't, we don't need anybody. The Bible, God has revealed himself to us. Think about that. God has said, here's everything that you need to know pertaining to life and godliness. It's here, about eternity, about you, about God's big picture eternal, about what heaven's gonna be like, about what demons are like, about how you are made. I mean, it's everything is right here. How God entered into history, it's all right there. The Bible is a standard that is meant to govern our lives. The word cannon, when we talk about cannon, the cannon is closed and the scripture is the cannon of God. It means standard. We live our lives according to the word of God. Jesus said this about the word, that when we fall on the word as a rock, it might break us. But if the word of God falls on us, it will crush us. That means if we come to the word of God and we're confronted with our sinfulness or things that are in our lives that are contrary to the way God has ordered us to live our lives, it might hurt as we repent and we're broken before him. But God is then able to build us back and to conform us into the image of his own son. But there's gonna come a day where we're all, every man, every woman, every human being who's ever lived is gonna stand before God and give an account for the lives we lived and what we did with the knowledge that we have. And on that day, there will be no excuses. And in that day, this will not be an invitation into mercy, it will be a just declaration of judgment. Nobody's gonna say, yeah, I know I read the Bible, but I disagreed with you on that. And can't we just agree to disagree? No, God's gonna say, every knee will bow, every tongue will confess. You had access to the truth, you refused to repent of that. I'm not talking about salvation issues, for saved were saved by grace, not by our works. I'm talking about those who just refuse to acknowledge God wants us human beings to flourish and to find meaning and to find beauty and to find joy in life. And it starts with knowing Jesus, but then it continues by us following and walking in the steps of His word. The entrance, Psalm 119 says, the entrance of your word brings light and it gives understanding to the simple. It's a standard to govern our life. It's the tool for training and equipping us as Christians to grow up into everything that God has for us. And maybe most importantly, the word of God was Jesus's antidote and it's our antidote to temptation. When Jesus went into the wilderness, driven by the Holy Spirit and the devil came to him, at his weakest moment, and tempted him, Jesus's reply to the enemy, the thing that pushed him away was, it is written. It's written, the enemy came at him at his weakest places in his life in his most vulnerable moment. And because Jesus had the word of God in him already, he was able, that's what came out of him in that moment of temptation. It is written, not what I feel, not what I'm thinking, not what I heard, not what everybody else does, it is written. The way that you walk in victory in all the promises of God in your life, the way that you walk in victory in the midst of spiritual warfare and in the middle of a culture and a world that is going the opposite direction as righteousness, is you better have the word of God on the inside of you. Do you know that as a good Jewish boy growing up in synagogue like Jesus did, he would have had the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, memorized. And probably in Hebrew and in Greek from the Septuagint. He would have had it in him by the time he was 12 years old. It was a rite of passage. So when I hear people say, I can't understand the Bible. Listen, two-year-old kids in a Jewish culture had it put on the inside of them. They were able to memorize it. And I've been around some people who can memorize everything. It's amazing to me how sometimes as a pastor people will say, I just can't remember the Bible when I read it. It's like, oh, talk to me about the stats on Tom Brady. Oh, Tom Brady, he's been in 10 soup bowls, get seven. Do you know he can throw a ball in English like this? What's his workout? Oh, it's called TB whatever. He's got this whole program where he eats this much protein. He's got boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Tell me about that video game that you play. Oh, man, if you want to get to level 14, what you got to do is go to the labyrinth. You got to access this point. You got to get the book. They've got that all memorized. Talk to me about an engine under your car. Whoo, they got it all memorized. Talk to me about that guy that you slid over on. Oh, yeah, oh, he's so dreamy. He's got dark hair and he went to this school and he likes walks by the beach and he likes pina coladas and getting caught in the rain. He likes all this kind of stuff. And you know everything about everybody else. And then you talk to him about the Bible. It's like, the Bible's just kind of boring. The Bible's boring because God hasn't become real and fascinating to us yet. We got to get fascinated with Jesus because when you get fascinated with Jesus, the word of God will come alive. And we can memorize it. Let me tell you something about spiritual hunger. Jesus said, he who hungers and thirsts after righteousness, that's the Bible, will be filled. Natural hunger works this way. When you don't eat, you get hungry. Spiritual hunger works exactly the opposite. The more you eat, the hungrier you get. And when you don't eat, you lose your appetite. If you don't read the Bible, you're not gonna develop an appetite for the Bible. But when you read it, you become like, you become like a college kid at Old Country Buffet. I mean, you can't help yourself. It's like, oh, give me, I gotta get me a new King James Bible. See, I think the best thing that they could do among young people in our generation is make the Bible illegal. Tell kids you can't read the Bible. I think the devil's overplaying his hand. Just make the Bible illegal because then what you're gonna end up with is kids in the hallways going, pssst. I got some NIV over there at lunch. At lunch, just you and that guy. Oh man, I really need some right now, come on. No, come on, all right, all right. Pull out some, come back next week. I got the Holman Christian Standard. We're gonna be reading it, pssst. Don't be telling anybody. What are you doing Friday night? Man, we're gonna be digging into the variant text. It's gonna be amazing. I'm pulling out Logos Bible Software on the big screen. Yeah, yeah. You do that, we will have revival in America. See, too many churches teach the Bible, but not the word of God. In other words, what God's saying through the Bible. And too many churches have brilliant illustrations, but weak instruction. We need to build our lives on the word of God. And as a church, this is what we're called to. Great church from the beginning. We didn't have lights, building smoke, but we had Bible. And it's a good thing because that's the only thing I got. I was called to be a Bible teacher. I'm not a business speaker. I'm not an entrepreneur. You know who I am? I'm a 12 year old kid that's still fascinated with Jesus in the Bible. I sit in board meetings, my staff will tell you. I sit in board meetings where we have to make complex plans and business decisions and financial stuff. And I sit there and go, all I ever wanted to do is teach the Bible. The reason all I've ever wanted to do is because nothing has transformed my life like this has. And that's what I want for other people. And the greatest moments of my life, the greatest moments of being a pastor for me is seeing somebody's lights go on. And they heard the word of God and it's, oh, it's real. Or it takes, or there's change, or there's repentance, or there's hope. When that happens, my heart comes alive. Cause that's what happened in me. Jesus said, Matthew chapter seven, therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rains came, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house yet. It did not fall because its foundations were on the rock. They says, but everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who builds his house on the sand. The rains came down, the streams rose, the winds blew and beat against the house. And great was its crash. We have to be a church that helps people build their lives on the word of God. We're not gonna all get it right. We're still practicing at this. We're still falling on the word of God and parts of us break off and we're just like, God, help me build my life stronger, better, more like you in that particular area. When I come across things that confront sin in my own life, it's like, God, I'm sorry. Forgive me, Holy Spirit, help me. And then I've got to develop muscle memory on that new way of thinking, that new way of perceiving things. We're all in this, but it's important that we're not just people that have Bibles, that we're people that are walking Bibles. Jesus became the Word made flesh. Church, you know what Jesus wants for us as Christians? He wants us to become the Word in flesh form to a world. It's been said, you are the only Bible that many people will ever read. What are they reading? And as time goes on and part of this whole series is looking forward in time and saying, who's radiant church and what are we called to do in our future? Listen, we want to create church campuses, other churches, other mechanisms, any way possible. Use all means short of sin to get the Word of God to as many people wherever they are at so that they can encounter the living God and become fascinated with Jesus like we are. We want to help people that are far away from God, draw close, enter into a living relationship so they can become radiant disciples of Jesus as well. That's why it starts with us. Would you stand with me wherever you're at? It starts with us. It starts with us saying, Lord, your way is my way. I want to be a person of the Bible. You don't have to be a scholar. You just have to be somebody who's made the decision and say, when Christ the solid rock, I stand. All other ground is sinking sand. I will not trust the sweetest frame, but holy trust in Jesus' name. Upon your word, I'll build my life. It is a firm foundation. Maybe you're here today and storms are coming against your life, the wind blows, the waters are rising, and you're realizing, you know what, I'm not building my life on God's word. I believe in God and believe in Jesus, go to church, but there are places in my life where I'm not building my life on God's word, God's way. I'm building it my way and asking God to bless it. Today you know what he's calling us to? He's calling us to simple trust and repentance. Just say God in that area of my life, I'm sorry. I've not submitted that place to you. He's calling all of us to recommit our lives to be word-centered people. Maybe today for you, you're recognizing my life's built on something other than God's word. My life is not even, I'm not even right with God. I want everybody if you would take a moment by your heads with me and pray. And today I'm in just a moment, I'm gonna lead many of us in a prayer of salvation. The Bible is clear that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever should believe on him would not perish but have everlasting life. We can have eternal life. We can have our sins forgiven, we can be made right with God. It's what the Bible is all about, pointing us towards that. We're lost in our sins, we're guilty before God, we deserve death now and spiritual death forever. But Jesus came, God sent him to die in our place on the cross to pay for your sins, your mistakes, your brokenness so that you could be made whole and receive eternal life. And here's the good news, you can't earn it, you can't qualify yourself, Jesus has done it all. You can just receive this gift. It's free, but you have to lay down your own life in order to take up his life. You have to lay down ownership and say, Jesus, I'll do it your way, come into my heart, be my savior, be my Lord, be my rock, and I will build my life on your word. All over this room, even online, you're watching, you're listening. Do you have ears to hear today what the Lord is saying? Is he speaking to you that it's time for you to get right with God, to invite him into your life, to make him Lord and savior? Today, if you're within the sound of my voice and you say, I know that I'm not right with God, I've never accepted Christ as my personal Lord and savior, or I've walked away and I've lived for myself, built my own life, but today I recognize I need to repent and get right with God. I wanna lead you in a prayer, but I want you to respond. If that's you, and you know or you suspect you're not right with God, but you wanna get right tonight, today. Right now, I just want you to raise your hand wherever you're at, just say pray for me, that's me. Today, I want to get saved, I wanna be right with God, pray for me, Pastor Lee. I see that hand, thank you, I see that hand. Wherever, thank you. All the way in the back there, I see your hand. Who else would be so bold, God save me. Thank you, young man. I'm skating in the room, if you've not raised it, raise it right now. Thank you, I see your hand, young man. See, this is the work of God, only God can do this. I want everyone in hearing of me right now to join with these who've raised their hands and to pray this prayer of confession. Say this with me, say, Heavenly Father, I come in Jesus' name, and I believe that you are the Son of God. I believe you died on the cross for my sins, and I believe that God raised you from the dead. And you are alive. I repent of my sin. I'm so sorry, forgive me, come into my heart, be my Lord and my savior. From this day forward, I'm a follower of Jesus. I'm a child of God, I'm clean, I'm brand new, I'm born again, heaven is my home, Jesus is my Lord, God's word is my guide, the church is my family, and I have a future. Thank you for loving me and saving me, God, in Jesus' name. Amen, amen. Come on, can we just celebrate tonight the goodness of God?