The Bible: Our Foundation and Guiding Light

"The Bible shapes everything we do as a body of believers. Everything should revolve around Scripture. That's our goal. In fact, the only way we'll ever become a church, a church without walls, our mission statement, is to ground ourselves on that foundation, on the very Word of God. If we do anything well, just one thing, it needs to be just standing on the Word of God." [00:32:00] (23 seconds)


"You see, it's important to understand the Bible. Again, it's not just another book. It is God's very revelation about Himself and about His intentions concerning mankind. And that's why I've titled this sermon series, The Gospel Series, from the very first chapter in Genesis, to the last chapter in Revelation. It's all telling us the same story about God and what God has done about human redemption. It's about the gospel. It's about the good news of Jesus Christ." [00:32:22] (28 seconds)


"How you answer that question, what you believe in your heart, it shapes what you believe about things like humanity, who we are, why we're here. It shapes your view of morality, right and wrong, how we're supposed to live. It shapes your view. It shapes your view on philosophy, how we think, what we believe about truth. I mean, it shapes your views on society, how we relate to one another, how certain institutions, what they're supposed to look like, like marriage and family, the church, the government, your job." [00:33:53] (34 seconds)


"God's story, what we have right here, was written over 2,000 years. But yet, it still tells the same story. It stayed intact. It's written by 40 different people that never met each other. How remarkable is that? Tell me that this is just a book written by a bunch of old dead guys, and it has no significance in our lives today. You're wrong, and you're stupid. That's why Isaac Newton said the things that he said." [00:49:35] (36 seconds)


"Peter's saying here that while Scripture was written down by men, it was revealed to them. By divine revelation. They were eyewitnesses of what God was doing. I think about the accounts in Exodus. Moses, he goes up to Mount Sinai. You know the story. He spends time with God there. God reveals his glory, his majesty to Moses, and he gives Moses the law, right? He gives him the law. He writes, God, with his own finger, writes down the law, the Ten Commandments. He speaks truth to Moses." [00:49:50] (33 seconds)


"Now listen, I get it. We live in a culture where it's very hard to decide what's true and what's not. And there's all kinds of fake news out there. But one of the reasons God's word is so reliable, it's because it's grounded in the direct revelation of God himself. Our faith is not based on personal interpretation or human traditions. It's built on divine truth that's been revealed through the apostles and through the prophets over and over again in the same ways, telling the same message for over 2,000 years. And longer." [00:52:32] (29 seconds)


"Even though scripture was compiled by eyewitnesses, Peter says, even that didn't come from their own interpretation or their own will. It was all inspired by God. Men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. That's the next verse. And this is important because it's a very important verse. It's a very important verse. Because we hold to the scriptures as our sole source of authority in the church, because ultimately, it wasn't just written down by men or people that witnessed it." [00:53:11] (25 seconds)


"Listen, when Brittany and I, we went to our last marriage conference, um, not only did we sleep in the car, but we did go to a couple of the sessions. All right. And there was one on communication because that's not my strong suit. I like, I like to talk about communication. Um, but there was something that really stuck out to me in one of those sessions on that topic. And one of the she said, communication is self-revelation." [00:57:09] (22 seconds)


"God, through his own effort, remember according to Paul in his letter to the Roman church, Paul says, none of us seek God. And so through his own effort, God's given us words so that we might know him. Meaning God wants to be known. And listen, not only that, the very spirit that's inspired these writings, that very spirit as a believer today, that spirit indwells you right now. These are his words. He's trying to communicate who he is, what he's about." [00:59:38] (39 seconds)