 Welcome to Foundations of Faith. Today I want to talk to you about the Bible. The Bible is the Word of God, and those of us who live in America, we're very familiar with the Bible. It's a part of our cultural conversation. It's in the drawer of every hotel. Probably three Bibles to every home in America. But so very few people really understand the significance of the Bible. In order to demonstrate what the Bible is and how important it is, let me actually read to you from the Bible for just a moment. 2 Timothy chapter 3 verse 16, speaking about the Scriptures says, all Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training and righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped, and ready for every good work. It says so much about what the Bible is and why it's significant. The Bible is made up of 66 books, two Testaments, the Old and the New Testament, written by over 40 different authors in three different languages over the course of some 1800 years. It's written in Hebrew primarily in the Old Testament, Greek in the New Testament. It was written by prophets. It was written by priests. It was written by apostles, disciples, and eyewitnesses of the events that we read about in the pages of Scripture. And as we just read out of 2 Timothy, it is God breathed, which means God's the one who spoke it to holy men who then recorded it and passed it down. It's written by eyewitnesses. It's written as a revelation given to humanity so we can know who God is and we can know what God's desires and his wishes are. It's full of prophecy. It's full of poetry. It's full of history. It's full of stories. And it's full of promises. It's full of doctrine. It's full of flawed men and women. It's full of mistakes, not incompetencies or contradictions, but the record of human beings who have failed and made mistakes. And it's also full of the wisdom of God and full of the mercy and the grace of God who's dealing with flawed men and women. And its ultimate apex is in the revelation of the living Word itself, which is Jesus Christ, that we read about in the first four books of the New Testament called The Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. The Bible is the only book that when you read it is actually reading you because as Jesus said, the words that I speak to you, they are life and spirit and truth. The words of the Bible are not just history books. They're living words because they first were spoken by the mouth of God. And it is a book, a compilation of books that God gave to humanity as a gift because everything that we need to grow and to be strengthened spiritually is found in the Word of God. Archeologists for years and years and years have tried to disprove it and with every new archaeological discovery they find out that the Bible was actually accurate. Science does not contradict it. Physics affirms it and those who have been changed by the message of it affirm the spiritual truth and reality of it. The Bible is the greatest gift that God has given to believers because it is a gift that strengthens us and stirs us. We live in a culture that is so distracted by so many different options of what we do with our time, but there's no greater investment that you can make of your time than in becoming familiar with the Word of God. Let me just give you three things that you need to do with the Bible if you want to grow as a believer. Number one, you need to read it. You need to read it. You may not start in the book of Genesis or start in the book of John, but read the Bible. Start with a chapter and work your way on up. Find a reading program. You can read an actual physical Bible. You can find reading programs on your smartphone device, like U-version. You can get audio versions of the Bible. You can get multiple different translations of the Bible. Get a Bible somehow and begin to read it because the Bible is the living Word of God and the more you get it into your heart it will begin to renew your mind and your way of thinking so that when you make decisions you're not just left wondering what the world would do or what somebody else would do, but you're filling your heart with the Word of God. Psalm 119 says that your Word, oh God, is a lamp into my feet and a light into my path. It says that your law is perfect even to the converting the transformation of the soul. Romans 12 says do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may prove or live out what is the good, the acceptable and the perfect will of God for your life. How do you renew your mind? You have to get the Word of God in and the way that you get the Word of God in is starting to read it. Number two, let me encourage you to memorize it. Take it, memorize it. Psalm 18, Psalm chapter one says that when we ponder when we meditate on the Word of God which is required in memorization we're chewing on it we're thinking about it it gets into us, into our hearts and as David said in the Psalms the way that we keep ourselves from sinning against God is by meditating and getting the Word of God on the inside of us. It's radioactive. The Bible is radioactive it changes everything about our life. The third thing that I would encourage you to do is read it, memorize it, study it. Go to church hear the Word of God get into a small group with other people that are studying the Scriptures find a theme that you're interested and dig down deep get some additional tools that will help you understand the Bible there's so much to the Bible that you will spend a lifetime and I've been reading the Bible for over 30 years of my life and the more I read it the more I realize there is to actually study and to find out. Read it, memorize it and study it and here's what I promise you when you do those things the promise of James chapter one is going to be fulfilled in your life when it says to receive with meekness the implanted Word of God which is able to save or transform your soul