Understanding the Bible: Purpose, Passion, and Relationship

1) "I love that having a strong why brings a passion to our what. And any person in any sphere of society that carries a passion in their area of life, they carry a strong why. Any athlete that goes into a race, who's wanting to win, who competes on the world stage, they carry a why. That's where that passion comes from. And for us, as christians, we have to carry a why. We have to carry a conviction. So I'm excited today to talk around why the Bible, and I trust that it's really going to inspire us in our faith. I believe today God's going to reignite something for some of us. May be challenging, but it's not about measuring up. It's not about feeling like, you know what, we're not doing this well. It's about walking away from today going, you know what, God? I want to have a passion in my heart. I want to have a hunger for your word." [01:23] (48 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Aren't you thankful that we serve a God who hasn't left us blindfolded to what's to come? But he speaks to us and he says, there's a new heaven, there's a new earth coming. In fact, the old way is going to pass away. And I don't know about you, but sometimes life gets hard. And the incredible thing is that we can look to the end where God says, you know what? You're on the winning team. There will be no more tears, there will be no more suffering, there will be no more disease, there will be no more sickness. What Jesus did on the cross was come to wrap it all up take us to heaven and set us free and give us complete victory." [04:19] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "The ultimate purpose for God's word is that we would know him, discover who he is, have a relationship with him. It's God's story of how he relates to humanity, past, present, future. I love that. As you read the Bible, you read a the story of creation. We see that God creates the earth, the universe, the animals, mankind, and we're the center of creation, that God creates us in his image. But we see that the reason we have these problems in the world today is because we fell. We bought the lie of the enemy and we've continued to fall ever since. But throughout the Old Testament, we see that God is after his people. He creates relationship covenant with a man named Abraham, says, I'm going to make you into a great people. I'm going to make you a special people. And it wasn't to be exclusive. God chose the people of Israel so that he could bless the world, so that through Israel he could come and reach and redeem the world." [06:25] (53 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "The tension can be, as we start to walk out our journey with Jesus, is that we disqualify ourselves. I don't know about you, but I didn't do too well in school, so I didn't read books. I wasn't a book guy. But when I came to Jesus, I thought, how am I going to be pretty overwhelmed by this? How do I get this into me? In fact, I would look around at other people and their journeys and how well they could eloquently speak about scripture. And I thought, maybe I'll never get there, or maybe I'll never be like that. And you know what? We just don't need to compare ourselves to someone else. We just need to come to this word and go, you know what? This is the word that God wants to build a strong foundation, wants to bring health into my life. God wants to speak into me." [07:37] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "It's God's word. It's infallible. Its authenticity is unmatched. It's his authority. It's how he speaks to us. For some of us, we've got to get into his word a little bit more because he's speaking through his word and he doesn't speak contrary to his word. For some of us, we're like, is God saying this or is God saying that? Or should I do this or should I do that? If we have a strong foundation in his word, there's a security to what God is saying. It's holy, it's perfect. Psalm twelve six says, the words of the Lord are flawless. Like purified in a crucible. It's like gold, refined seven times. This has to be the crux of our conviction that it ultimately is his word." [10:18] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Why engage? Why read? Why is it worth knowing? Because it's daily bread. It's what we need to sustain us. It's what we need to keep us healthy. It's what we need to keep ourselves engaged and desire after him. So often the result of not eating good food. All my KFC lovers out there, there's a KFC, like, literally down the street from my office, and I can just smell it. I'm telling you, that chicken speaks to me. But when you're not consuming good things, man, the KFC smells good. Come on. We got to get into his word because it has what we need." [19:39] (37 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Some of us need to get a word. Some of us are just going Sunday to Sunday, but God's saying, hey, would you get a word of. Hey, would you get some daily bread? Hey, would you get something to just stand on? Would you get something to have some breakthrough in? Would you get some faith, because it is still fresh bread. And the truth is, you are what you eat. Old tv show, very challenging. Very challenging title. Isaiah 48 says this. The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever." [21:00] (32 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "Jesus says, if you build your life upon my word, you're like a wise builder. When the stuff comes, when the storms come. Come on, you're going to stay strong. It's a journey. We're not arriving. It's a journey. And finally, my last point. Why the Bible? Because it is the revelation of Jesus. It's the revelation of Jesus. It all points to him from the start to the finish. It points to Jesus. It points to him." [28:28] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "Why the Bible? Because this word is going to bring you closer to Jesus, because without his word, we can't see Jesus. Because this word is full of grace and truth. The Bible says that Jesus said, sorry, that the truth will set you free. And we just gotta keep consuming it. We gotta keep putting this in us. We gotta keep coming back. I don't know about you, but on my journey of following Jesus, I've needed grace upon grace upon grace. And this journey following Jesus, we actually don't arrive. It's a journey where we're constantly coming to him. We're constantly being sharpened by him." [30:05] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "Some of us feel like we can't hear God. We don't know what he wants for us. Could I suggest you just need more of his word. He's spoken. He's still speaking, but he's speaking in the context of his word. He's speaking in the context of his word. Hebrews one three says, he, Jesus is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature. And he upholds the universe by the word of his power. And after making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the majesty, higher, further along. In Hebrews, it says in 13 eight that Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His word is real. His word is relevant, and his word is alive. It has power. It has grace." [32:47] (52 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)