Nourishment and Transformation Through God's Word

1. "And what I know to be true is when I buy those things that satisfy the craving, what I'm not getting is the nutrients. I shared in the first service that there have been days that I have lived off of donuts because I found a good donut. And so I didn't eat anything else because I was full, but I was full from donuts. But I also know that I was not full of anything of sustenance. The donuts were really good, but I didn't get any good in me. And I really think that's where a lot of people are who call themselves Christian. They may be full. They're consuming a lot of things, but they don't have the nourishment and the sustenance that they need." [03:14] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "So the spiritual discipline, the spiritual practice that we're going to look at today is reading and studying Scripture. Because we are malnourished. We are at deficit. And there are people that are craving everything in our culture. And there are people in our culture that are consuming everything that the world is offering to consume. But we are still malnourished. And what I know to be true is that there are people that are hungering for identity. They're hungering for worth. They're hungering for purpose. They're hungering for their place in the world going, where do I fit in this world that we're in? And yet the Word of God has answers to those questions." [05:07] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "The first thing about the Word of God is it is God-breathed. It's not like any other book out there. It's not a book that you can go and just glean some information from and then walk away. It is breathed by the very breath of God. And so when we read Scripture, we are reading that which God has breathed, that which God has spoken. And we need to understand that that's what it is. Now, it not only is breathed by God, but it gives us teaching, reproof, correction, and training for righteousness. Teaching, it's simply instruction. It gives us instruction on how to live life. It gives us direction. It gives us guardrails to stay within these guardrails so that we don't get out outside and live in chaos and destruction and death." [06:30] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "The second thing that we understand about Scripture is it's our nourishment. Jesus says in Matthew 4, 4, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. He's quoting from Deuteronomy. And these are the words of Jesus. Jesus understands that the Word of God is nourishing to us. But for something to be nourishing to us, we have to consume it. It's not good enough to walk by and see an apple and go, wow, that's really nourishing. We have to eat the apple to get the nourishment from the apple. And there are those of us that have been in the church for a long time, and we've been in the church for a long time, our entire life, and we've heard messages like this, and we've heard what the benefit of the Word of God is, and yet we're still not reading it. But Jesus says, it is nourishment for your soul. It gets to a deeper place than you can cognitively understand. The Word of God speaks to our souls, nourishes our souls, the very spirit aspect of who we are. The Word of God speaks to that." [09:31] (63 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "There's freedom found in the Word of God, but we have to be abiding in the Word in order to know it. Then he goes on, and tells us that it is our hope, Romans 15, 4, for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, talking about the Old Testament, scriptures that were written previously, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope. Through the encouragement of the scriptures. Now, if we want encouragement through the scriptures, what do we need to be reading in order to have that encouragement? Scriptures. I mean, this isn't rocket science, but that's where our hope is found." [12:43] (39 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6. "Scripture reveals to us, first and foremost, who God is. That's where we stand. He is our rock. He is our fortress. He is our foundation. And then it reveals who we are to Him. And then it reveals who we are to one another. It's found in the great commandment, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. And what we see throughout all of Scripture is that principle. But that's where our hope is, y'all. Our hope is found in Jesus. Our hope is found in the fullness of who God is." [13:53] (35 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7. "The Word of God is confusing. The Word of God's hard to understand. My dad told me this years ago. He goes, Scott, I tried to read the Bible. It's just hard to understand. And when people say that, I really think they're waiting for someone to look at them and go, you know, you're right. You gave it your best shot. Good for you. You tried. Just put that thing away. You gave it a shot. To be honest, the Word of God, in certain parts of the Word of God, it's hard to understand. But I think one of the reasons it's difficult to understand is because we don't have a total understanding of Scripture. A lot of people have their little pet areas of Scripture. They have those little pet things, pet books of the Bible they keep going back to." [16:54] (56 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8. "Reading Scripture is about transformation, not information. It's not about just gaining information. It's about being transformed by the Word of God. So that's the first excuse. The second excuse is that the Bible is boring. There are parts of the Bible, namely Numbers, Chronicles, those areas, reading going, could you not get through this group of people? But y'all, if you've read Scripture, you know it's not boring. It's better than any movie you've ever read, you've ever seen. It's better than any novel you've ever read. It's got stories that will grip you. It's got, I mean, sadly, it's got war. It's got love. It's got poetry. It's got all these, if you're historical, it's got historical. There's, it's not boring, but it's boring to someone that doesn't, doesn't understand the fullness of Scripture and not even is trying to understand the fullness of Scripture." [19:38] (60 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9. "Satan doesn't want me to know the truth. Do we understand that this is a spiritual battle? Do we, do we understand that Satan's desire is to confuse, distort, and, and bring death into our lives? That's what Satan wants to do. And so why would he want us to know Scripture? Why would he want us to know the truth? Why would he want you to know who you are, your worth, your identity, and the truth of who you are? Why would he want you to know that? He doesn't. And so he's going to do everything in his power to keep you from reading and studying Scripture so that you don't know the truth of who God is and who you are to him. This is a spiritual battle." [21:21] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10. "If you're too busy to study and read Scripture, you're too busy. Obstacle four, which honestly, as I was processing through this, I've never had someone tell me this one. Satan doesn't want me to know the truth. Do we understand that this is a spiritual battle? Do we, do we understand that Satan's desire is to confuse, distort, and, and bring death into our lives? That's what Satan wants to do. And so why would he want us to know Scripture? Why would he want us to know the truth? Why would he want you to know who you are, your worth, your identity, and the truth of who you are? Why would he want you to know that? He doesn't. And so he's going to do everything in his power to keep you from reading and studying Scripture so that you don't know the truth of who God is and who you are to him. This is a spiritual battle." [21:21] (66 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)