JUL 21 2024 | Josiah S1E2 | Read the Book

Sea Change Church · JUL 21 2024 | Josiah – S1 Ep 2: Read the Book
2 Kings 22:8-20
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

and pray that every single penny would be used to expand your kingdom, Lord. We pray that we would continue in unity to move towards you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. And Hilkiah the high priest said to Shaphan the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the house of the Lord. And Hilkiah gave the book to Shaphan, and he read it.

And Shaphan the secretary came to the king and reported to the king, Your servants have emptied out the money that was found in the house and have delivered it into the hand of the workmen who have the oversight of the house of the Lord. Then Shaphan the secretary told the king, Hilkiah the priest has given me a book. And Shaphan read it before the king.

When the king heard the words of the book of the law, he tore his clothes. And the king commanded Hilkiah the priest, and Ahicham the son of Shaphan, and Achbor the son of Micaiah, and Shaphan the secretary, and Esaiah the king's servant, saying, Go, inquire of the Lord for me, and for the people, and for all Judah, concerning the words of this book that has been found. For great is the wrath of the Lord that is kindled against us, because our fathers have not obeyed the words of this book, to do according to all that is written concerning us. So Hilkiah the priest, and Ahicham, and Achbor, and Shaphan, and Esaiah went to Huldah the prophetess, the wife of Shalom, the son of Tikva, son of Harhas, keeper of the wardrobe.

Now she lived in Jerusalem in the second quarter. And they talked with her. And she said to them, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Tell the man who sent you to me, Thus says the Lord, Behold, I will bring disaster upon this place and upon its inhabitants, all the words of the book that the king of Judah has read. Because they have forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods, that they might provoke me to anger with all the work of their hands. Therefore my wrath will be kindled against this place, and it will not be quenched.

But to the king of Judah, who sent you to inquire of the Lord, thus shall you say to him, Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, Regarding the words that you have heard, because your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord, when you heard how I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants, that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before me. I also have heard you, declares the Lord.

Therefore, behold, I will gather you to your fathers, and you shall be gathered to your grave in peace, and your eyes shall not see all the disaster that I will bring upon this place. And they brought back word to the king. of the record, the who I have is, I have a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a very cingX, and a more cingX, and a re-cG, and a b-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a-a- Good morning, church. Welcome this morning to our 11 a.m. service.

If you have your Bibles, open up to 2 Kings 22, 8 through 20. We are following the life of one of Israel's most consequential kings. His name is Josiah. It's a character study. Looking into a king that was able to repent for the sins of the past kings, his father and his grandfather specifically, probably the worst king, the most evil king was Manasseh, his grandfather, able to repent, finding then the book of the law, which they had forgotten about, God's word, and then inquiring of the Lord and then acting upon what he heard in order to repent, reform, and then do the work of restoration that we see.

It's interesting if this week, doors have been opening in Africa for us. So I hope you, that was a beautiful movie. And what, I mean, that is from someone who's going to our church, made that movie, and the team, and it was just a gorgeous work of what we're doing as a church. Doors have been opening in Africa. You're going to be hearing more about that.

I'm going to be going to Africa here soon. We've had four different doors open in Africa in a year and a half, and it's been really providential and really of the Lord. So I'm going to be sharing more of that. We're in Malawi and, you know, with Phil Jimmet and others in the church. So we're going to be doing more about that. But because it looks like we're going to be God's opening doors in Africa for our church to be a part of, and this is amazing, what we saw, I began, I better learn a little bit something about Africa, right?

Other than they have a great rugby team, you know, and they're pretty good at the cricket. So I began to look at the early explorers of Africa, and it's actually fascinating. I started with a book called Into Africa. It's a story of David Livingston, and we'll talk more about him in a moment. But this desire in the 1800s that was enrapturing America, and especially England and Western countries, to begin to explore the world to the far reaches.

You have Shackleton, right? He's going to Antarctica, and it's an incredible story. If you've ever heard the journey of Shackleton. You have Livingston, who in about 1851, I believe, in a two-year period, goes from one side of Africa on the equatorial plain, and walks from one side of Africa to the other and back again. Now, there's no 7-Elevens at this point, right?

Like, this is a tough journey. And I read that journey. I read he was there. He spent 30 years there. Gave his whole life exploring Africa. And the reason he was exploring it, he originally went as a missionary, kind of got off the missional path, and began to search and inquire for the origin of the Nile River. Guy spent 30 years of his life, left his family, only saw his children for two years to four years of their childhood, died in Africa, put his body through incredible rigors in order to find the source of a river.

Now, important, I guess. It's important, right? It's important. But I began to ask myself the question, what am I searching for? What am I searching for? Because we're all searching for something. And where am I exploring in order to find that thing? Began to think about in regard to God's heart. How do I explore God's heart? How do I explore God's word?

How do I explore a prayer? Where you could explore a prayer for the rest of your life and not scratch the surface to an eternal God and what he has to offer you in the consolation of prayer. I began to think about God's word, something that I love. Two of my loves, besides Jesus, family, these things, are the local church. I'm a local churchman. I love the local church.

And I love God's word. And I was thinking to myself, what would people give if I told them, like in an Indiana Jones or an Indiana Jane, you put your name there, type of scenario, that there was a book, that if you went on a quest to find this book, somewhere in some jungle or somewhere in the world, that in this book, you would not only find all the answers to creation, of God, of who he is, you would find something that could redeem your past, animate your present, and give you guidance into your future.

If I could offer you that, what would the world go to? We see that Shackleton and Livingston and all these other explorers are on the Oregon Trail or Lewis and Clark. All these people were doing these things to explore things that were important, new frontiers. But what would it look like if you began to explore the word of God? I want you right at the top.

I try to give you a word every week to go along with the message. And the word for this week is exploration. I want to inspire you with a story about a place that is so beautiful, so alive, that'll change your life, and it's called God's word. And to begin to challenge you to set off on an exploration into the word of God that you might see your past redeemed, your moment animated, your present animated, and guidance for your future is that we see that.

In this passage, Josiah finds that. He not only finds the word of God, as we saw, but he begins to respond to it, and not only respond to it, he inquires of it. Let me just set the scene. For hundreds of years, his forefathers, as Huldah, the prophetess, tells him, maybe in that passage, they go and they inquire of Huldah, is her name, it's a female prophetess, to speak.

She basically says, you're going to be destroyed, God's going to destroy this nation because of your forefathers, right? He hears this word, the things that his grandfathers had done, the things that his father had done. Manasseh, his father, probably the most evil king, had burned his son to Molech, had sacrificed his firstborn son in the fire to Molech, probably in the temple of God.

Imagine the temple now, that it says God's name would be there, and if you read this book, the book of the law, if they had read that, it told them every way that Solomon, that David, and the things that Moses, actually it was a book of the law from Moses, had done and wanted in that temple worship, what it was supposed to be like, and then you walk into that place, hundreds of years later, where not only they'd forgotten who God is, they forgot that there was a Bible.

It wasn't called the Bible then, it was called the book of the law. They'd actually completely forgotten. Imagine this church you walk in next week, and there's a pillar, an Aserith pole, which is this giant pole, and they would like, you see the May poles in history, they would dance around the pole right there, and you would cut yourself as you danced around the pole, and then there would be the male prostitutes that were there that were a part of that worship, and then they had the Chumash, and they had all these gods, and all the starry hosts, and there was idols everywhere.

That's what it would look like. Now, somehow, the book of the law was still in the temple, but they had lost it. I don't know if it was under the mattress of the temple prostitute, or where they had done it, but Hilka, the high priest, he rolls in there, right? I don't know what he's doing. It's like, hey, spring cleaning in the temple. We gotta, you know, dust off the Aserith pole, or whatever it is, and when he's there, he finds this book, and then he decides to read the book, and when he reads the book, he's like, he has like this rut-row moment, like rut-row, you know what I'm saying?

He has a full rut-row moment, and the Bible will give you rut-row moments, and then he has this decision to make. Should I share this with the king? Because his life is probably in jeopardy, because it shows that everything that they are doing in the hundreds of years, they had forgotten who God was. They had even forgotten that there was a book. That's how far.

They were worshiping in this temple that was built for God Almighty, and yet they had forgotten who he was, and they had forgotten his book. Hilka is amazing. He goes, and he has Shaphan. He goes, Shaphan, why don't you go read this to the king? Shaphan goes and reads it to the king, and the king responds to that. Here's the main points for today, just a couple quick main points, and that's the intro.

Number one, main point is God's word is a book that you can have a relationship with. God's book is a book. God's word is a book you are supposed to have a relationship with. It's not just something you read. It's not just academic. I will speak to people who are trying to disprove the word of God, and they'll say, well, what about, you know, in Genesis where there's like this one exclamation point that's different than this one in the timeline of this, and they're approaching it from this academic pursuit, and yes, we can approach the God from an academic pursuit, from a critical pursuit, and they're explaining, you know, and they want to have this argument on an academic level, but it's hard to argue with someone who's never been to the place you're trying to explain.

If you were going to speak to Livingston after he had walked across Africa and back, and he went back to England like he did a couple times, and they began to criticize, you know, well, Africa's not really like that. Let me tell you what Africa's like, and he's like, I just walked it all the way through. There's a cobra. I got attacked by a lion in 1854.

His arm was shorter because it wasn't set right. Attacked by a lion. Lived through it. These people are trying to explain to something that he had experienced. The word of God is, as it says in Hebrews, is alive, it's living, and active. It wants to have a relationship with you because it is the word of God, and his word is alive, and through the Holy Spirit, he will bring it alive to you.

I ask the question, how far would you go to find a book that through the blood of Jesus Christ, which we'll speak about in that book, will redeem your past, remove your guilt and shame, animate your present, and give you guidance for the future? There was a joke in seminary when I was there, and they had this joke, and it was like, hey, how do you starve Adam?

Oh, I don't know. How do you starve Adam? Hide his lunch card underneath his Bible. Like, I never read the thing, you know what I'm saying? So, like, I'd go weeks without reading it, you know, and then I would just starve because I wouldn't be able to get in there. So that wasn't true. So there's two points today. Two very simple points. Three words per point.

Number one, read the book. Read the book. Pretty simple. Number two, use the book. Read the book and use the book. Let's go to verse eight. Read the book. Hilka, the high priest, said to Shaphan, the secretary, I have found the book of the law in the temple of the Lord, and he gave it to Shaphan, who read it. Charles Spurgeon has this incredible quote. I love it.

He says, a Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't. A Bible that is falling apart usually belongs to someone who isn't. I'll just give you the first step to reading it. You gotta find it. Remember, remember if you saw the movie, and millennials and Gen Y and Z that are here, if you haven't seen this movie, Cast Away, with Tom Hanks, it's just an incredible movie about this guy that gets stuck on an island.

He works for like FedEx or something like that, UPS. I don't remember what it was. And he gets stuck in a plane crash. He gets on an island. And he doesn't have anybody there, but a ball washes up, a volleyball washes up, a Wilson volleyball. And he puts a face on the thing, and it's his only friend. And so the whole movie, he's friends with Wilson. He's going a little bit crazy, right?

He finally, I'm not gonna ruin it for you, but he finally tries to get off the island. I am gonna ruin a little bit of it for you, but not too much. And there's this one scene where he's going over some waves, and all of a sudden, he looks out, and he realizes that the ball is floating away. And he jumps in the water because he's so desperate to find Wilson, and he can't get back to Wilson.

It's just this incredibly moving, touching scene. I mean, it's a leather ball, right? But you see what's happening. Some of us have had that same relationship with God's word. Except you just haven't realized it's floating away yet. And oftentimes, there's not a desperation to dive back to get that thing that matters the most. Because what if I could tell you there was a book that would redeem your past, animate your present, and guide you in the future?

You would go after it. That's the word of God. And so we see that Josiah finds, or excuse me, Shepin finds the book of the law in verse eight, and then he reads it. I'm gonna give you a couple verses that you can find. Because you have to find the book before you can read the book. And some of us need to find the right book. Psalm 119, 105 says, the word is a lamp, what?

Unto my feet, and a light unto my path. You ever feel like the world's getting darker? It doesn't matter when you got the word of God because the word of God is a lamp unto your path, a light unto your feet, excuse me, a lamp unto your feet, and a light unto your path. Hebrews 4.12, which I've already briefly mentioned, for the word of God is living, it's active, it's alive, it's sharper than any two-edged sword, it pierces to the division the soul of the spirit and of the joints and of the marrow, and discerning the thoughts and the intentions of the heart.

It gives you direction. I was discipled by a man who loved the word of God. His name was Dave Chrysler. Dave Chrysler was a mechanic, and just a simple mechanic. He was a massive man. He could carry engine blocks, small engine blocks, on his own, and he had thumbs like Polish sausages. They'd been broken so many times, and they had cracks and oil in them and the whole thing.

When I was 19 and I had rededicated my life, he comes to me, I get a phone call because he's a friend of the family, and he says, hey Adam, your mom told me you rededicated your life. I'm looking for someone to disciple this year. Because what I didn't know is for 25 or six years to that point, every year he would read the Bible from cover to cover, and then he would bring someone in who didn't know the Word of God and disciple them on how to be a Christian.

He said, if you want, we can meet every single Wednesday for a year and go through the Word of God. And I have to tell you, I learned more from that mechanic in his kitchen than I ever learned in seminary, than I've ever learned from anyone ever about the Word of God. He took the place that my father should have had and brought me up in the Word of God in a way that changed my life forever.

Every year, he would get a new Bible. And at his funeral, after 31 years, he had 31 Bibles and 31 men who he had discipled through that time. Every year, a new one. Read through the Bible and disciple someone. And at the funeral, they gave the Bibles of the year that you were discipled to each of the people that he had discipled that year. I want to show you what his Bible looks like.

This is every year. Pick a page. Every year, the pages are twice the size they should be because he loved highlighters. I don't understand these hieroglyphics. But nonetheless, he had a color for everything. Forgiveness had a color. Love of God had a color. Everything had a color. And he would just, there's not a page that he has not, you know, turned over.

This is one year. He wore it out in a year. He was grounded in the Word of God. And I have this Bible and it's probably one of my most cherished possessions that I have because at the funeral, I got to be one of the people that this mechanic, really simple. Somebody said, oh, he must have been so eloquent. And eloquent. And no, no. He was just Dave Chrysler, the mechanic, that read the Word of God and discipled people into the Word of God.

Mature believers, I want to challenge you one. That's a big challenge. Read God's Word every single year and find someone you're going to focus on and disciple every year. Someone who hasn't gone as far as you that you can bring up in the faith. You got to find it. You got to read it in order to know it. Here's your second part. Part two. Use the book. Go to verse 11.

Second point. I have to read the book. When the king heard the words of the book, he tore his robes. What I love is there was a response. I mentioned earlier that if you've seen Pastor Joshua lately, he's getting what they call yoked. Okay? And what that means is his arms are like the size of like balloons now because he's working out with Jay and May, two of our trainers, and I hadn't seen him for a while, right?

I walked up to Pastor Joshua. I said, Pastor Joshua, you've been lifting, haven't you? He goes, oh, just a little bit. Jay's been killing me in that gym. And I realized something about working out. If you want to get the results of working out, you probably need to go to the gym. If you want to eat healthy, you need to eat the broccoli. If you want to know the word of God, you need to immerse yourself in the word of God and do the difficult parts and then start employing the word of God.

Like he responded to the word of God with repentance at this point. I'm going to tell you this. The word of God is not always easy. I would say, you know, with prayer, let's just talk about prayer. When you invest in prayer, 70 to 80% of the time when I'm in prayer, I'm like, when's this done? Oh, when am I going to get a Costco today? You know what I mean? I'm just struggling.

Like I feel like, you know, Livingston in Africa just with a chete. I'm just hacking through the boredom and the time. I don't know what to, but then all of a sudden I'll get this consolation of God when I persevere through it. You do the work and he shows up and it's like, oh God, your presence is so good. It's like reading the word of God. I would just, man, I just got through the Chronicles chapters.

I think it's chapters of either 1st or 2nd Chronicles in the first 10 chapters. It's literally 10 chapters of so-and-so beget so-and-so, so-and-so beget so-and-so, so-and-so, and they got their pasture lands, and so-and-so beget so-and-so, and they beget so-and-so, and I'm like, oh, you're killing me, dude. There was four days of that. Now, here's the problem.

I decided this year I was gonna read through the Bible and the whole year, and so I went to ChatGPT. I know, it's the Antichrist. I know. Okay, and so I put in, give me a year's reading program. So I put in that. So I've been reading through the word of God, and I had gone like 10 days where I had read for scripture study, because I'm surrounded by the Bible.

You know, it's kind of my job, but I hadn't sat and read for 10 days, right, and I'm like, oh man, I got some catching up to do, and I went and looked. It's like four chapters of Chronicles every day. I had some catching up to do, and the part I had to catch up on was like 12 chapters of that, right, and so I sat there, and it was like forever, and I'm trudging through.

My callicai was so-and-so, but I finally got through, and then I got back to David, and I was like, man, I made it to the oasis. Jesus, the word of God is so beautiful. When you have a relationship with it, it's gonna be difficult. There's gonna be things you don't understand. Find a translation that works for you. Find a good translation. We're using the English Standard Version now at this church.

We were using the 1984. There's a lot of different versions you can use. Find something that works. The word I put was explore the word of God and then respond to it. He responded to it. Francis Chan says this, we never grow closer to God when we just live life. It takes deliberate pursuit and attentiveness. Verse 13, let's look at this response by Josiah.

His response after tearing his clothes says, go and inquire of the Lord for me and for all the people and for all Judah about what is written in this book that has been found. Let's stop right there in verse 13. When you inquire for the Lord for yourself, it's gonna affect the other people that live around you. If you're a mom and you don't have a husband that's a godly husband or your children or not following the Lord or whatever, as you inquire of the Lord, he is going to give you words and he's gonna give you his presence and he's gonna give you the ability to influence the terra firma that you live on.

He is gonna do that. He says, so go inquire for me of others and you will see when you begin to be overflowing with the word of God like Jesus said to the woman in John chapter five, we saw her about two months ago, he said it's an eternal well that'll begin to bubble over and you will have resources for other people. The Old Testament says when Israel's doing it right, everyone around them is blessed.

It says when it's doing it right, they're just blessing other people, you know, and you see this with Solomon, he's blessing Queen Sheba when she comes, all this stuff is happening. You become that person. He says, go and inquire for me. I love that word inquire. Circle the word in verse 13 if that's the word in your translation, inquire. His response has an inquiry.

How often do you inquire of the word to try to find an answer from it? Or do we, and it's fine, but do we just get in this rote like, well, there's my scripture, I'm just gonna read it. Oh, there it is again. Okay, God, just see me. But as opposed to say, I'm gonna inquire of the Lord about what it, like forgiveness. Let's say you have a problem with forgiveness.

Like you have a bunch of hate built up and you're just angry and there's a lot of that in the world today. You know, there's a lot of it in the world today. And you begin to question and say, God, I wanna know about forgiveness. You begin to look into the Bible and inquire of the Holy Spirit and of the word. What does your Bible say about forgiveness? You begin, he inquires of the Lord because he begins to explore.

The word of God is meant to be explored and inquired of. And so we go back to that verse 13 halfway through. When he inquired, this is what he found. Great is the Lord's anger that burns against us because those who have gone before us have not obeyed the words of this book. They've not acted in accordance with all that is written here concerning us. At that point, he could have said, well, this is bunk.

We got these other gods. Or he could have fallen on his face. It says that he actually tears his clothes. Now, it's interesting, a little bit later as we come in for a landing here in a second, you're gonna see that how he responded is met with a clause. The word is because. And the word because is twice in this passage. We're gonna look at that because.

One of the because has to do with how he responded to the word of God. And then you get to another word, therefore. We'll look at that in just a second. But I wanna give you two things that says that we are meant to respond to the word of God. God's word demands a response. Now, it doesn't demand it in the moment. I think it kinda does. But there will be a moment in all eternity when you stand before God.

This is the scripture. You will be there alone and there will not be somebody beside you. You can blame it on your father. You can blame it on your family. You know, the way I was raised, it really affected how I made my decision. At a certain point, you're gonna stand before God and you are gonna be responsible for the decisions you made. And one question in particular, and Jesus asked the people that were surrounding him often this, who do you say that I am?

It demands a response. You might not feel it in the moment, but at one moment we will stand before God and he will say, this is my son, who do you say that he is? James 1.22 says, be doers of the word, not just hearers only, deceiving yourself. John 12.48 says, there is a judge for the one who rejects me and does not accept my words. The very words I have spoken will condemn them at the last day.

You see this actually happen. Not long after Josiah repents, reforms, and restores, God says to him, I'm gonna give you a period of time where I'm gonna put a pause button on the destruction that's coming. There was so much evil done by your grandfather, Manasseh, and kings for hundreds of years as they besmirched my temple and they, it says they did worse than the Amorites did.

The Amorites, it says, were kicked, the earth itself, it said, spewed them out of the territory. Like if God's people, the Israelites, had not gone in there and taken it over because God used Israel to judge those nations. It says the earth would have spewed them out itself. I don't know how it would have done it, volcanoes, I don't know how it would have done it, but it was bad.

And what it says in the scripture is what Manasseh did was worse than all the Amorites together that they had done there before. So Josiah comes in, he repents, and you know what God does? Pause button. He gave him 31 years as king that the nation could be restored. And he says, we're gonna get to that, we're gonna get to that judgment because it's coming. I don't know why God didn't redeem it all, we weren't to the time of Jesus or whatever, but Josiah gets 31 years.

Now right after him there's a few more kings and then it's over. We end up with Zedekiah. If you know the story of Zedekiah, Zedekiah, the Babylonians come in, it's either the Assyrians or the Babylonians, I think it's the Babylonians, yeah. The Babylonians come in and they bring all of his sons in front of him and they kill his sons in front of him and then they poke his eyes out so it's the last thing that he ever sees and then they take him and change him into captivity.

Not great, okay? And to me, but Josiah has a heart that responds that says pause. He breaks the chain because. Those are the two words I wanna show you and the first thing I wanna say to you is this. The way you respond to the word of God is a because. Because you saw the word of God, there's that moment and all of us will have these transitional moments in our life where you will make a decision that will choose the trajectory oftentimes of your life.

You get to a place and you know our relationship's not gonna, isn't going the way I like it. I'm not as happy as I think I should be so I'm going to. So because, you will get a result. We have all these different things that happen. If you would, if you wanna go to verse 19 and I wrote that about this inquiry because inquiry has a response and I wrote before I read verse 19, your because will generate God's therefore.

I should say often, not always. I don't mean it's too definitive. Your because generates God's therefore. Verse 19, he says, because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I had spoken against his place and against his people that they would become a curse and be laid to waste and because you tore your clothes and you wept in my presence, I have heard you declares the Lord.

Verse 20, therefore, therefore I will gather you to your ancestors and you will be buried in peace. your eyes will not see the disaster I am going to bring on this place. Zedekiah's did. So they took her because she was a prophetess answer back to the king. There's two becauses and one therefore. Verse 17 said that judgment was coming. If you go, it says, because they had forsaken me and have made offerings to other gods that they might provoke my anger with the work of their hands.

These are because and it's two very different because. Because they forsook God are because they repented and humbled themselves before God. What Josiah did was a response to the living and active word of God. And when we see the word of God, we are either going to receive the word of God, step into it and use the word of God, or we can forsake the word of God.

So there's two practical takeaways that I have for you for this sermon as we come in for a landing. First one is this, rediscover the book of God. If the book of God has become like Wilson floating out to sea, rediscover the book of God. Find the book of God. If I told you there was a book that could redeem your past, animate your present, and guide your future, what lengths would you go to get it?

We have people that have given their very lives, 30 years, their families, their entire existence to find where water comes from to go into a river. It's great. It's great exploration. I'm glad we know that. I'm not sure I'm giving my life to that pursuit. I'm not sure I'm giving my life to that pursuit. But to explore the word of God that will open up new horizons, new vistas that you have never seen before.

If you begin to explore the word of God, you will never reach the end of it. Matter of fact, when we get to heaven, it'll be the most incredible exploration as we continue to explore more into God's love and his mercy. But this book will tell you, will tell you about that place. I'd say, read the book. So the first thing is read the book, find a decision, find a reading plan and get back into the word of God.

And then the final thing is reform your because. Perhaps you're doing something. What do I mean by that? Reformation means changing the way you do things. Reformation is before restoration. Restoration is fixing things with what has happened because you have reformed. Look at the ways perhaps you speak to your wife. Look at the ways perhaps you use your finance.

Look at the ways whatever it is and begin to look at your life in light of the word of God and begin to reform. I'll give you one final story. I was talking to somebody and they were talking about it. They asked me about electric cars. They said, I'm not sure why I can get an electric car. And I said, no, I totally get it. I totally get it. It's not, you know, they haven't done the infrastructure, whatever.

And they're talking to me and they said, I'm looking at this electric car and this person loves Jesus and they said, it's gonna cost, I think, like $60,000. I'm not sure I should do it. And I said, well, you could. And I said, well, let me just put that in. Let me just frame that up for you because they can afford it and whatever. I said, let me frame that up for you.

And I know you're a person that loves missions. I said, Harry just told me that for $5,000 you can build a house for someone in Tanzania. Just make a decision. What if instead of buying the car that you really don't need because you have a great car anyways, just keep the one you have, what if, and I have the relationship to have this conversation with a person, what if you took that $60,000 for the electric car that you really don't need but you kind of just want and you built 12 houses in Tanzania?

You know what they said to me? I want to do that. Tell me how to do that. I said, bingo. When I began to speak, so I'm gonna speak to this person and I said, you know, this person grew up as an orphan themselves. They know that these children are orphans. And I said, that's a legacy because that electric car, it's awesome. I'm sure it's amazing. But when you pass away one day, there'll be this place where you're pouring back into the thing that stole your life, being an orphan yourself, being taken away.

I know their whole story. And I said, boom. They said, I want to build those houses. I want to build their orphans. That's a because that matters. That's a because that talks about the word of God, that talks about the longevity and the fruit of God's word where you have so many extra battery stores now because you are filled with that living and active word.

You have a relationship with that word that it changes the very terra firma that where you live. Amen? Let's stand if you would. We're going to invite our prayer team forward. If you have not been prayed for by this crack prayer team, we want to have you come up and be prayed for. They got special training on Friday, on Wednesday again. Let us pray for you.

If you need prayer, it's an opportunity. We want to pray for healing. If you need healing, if you need emotional healing, if you need direction, if you want to know Jesus, please come forward. Oh, I was also told by the team, if you don't have a Bible, we have a bunch of Bibles in the back. Read through them. Some might not be the language in regard to how the language is used.

Find one that the translation works for you, but we have free Bibles in the back for anybody who wants it. If you extend your hands, I want to bless you today. Lord Jesus, I want to bless those that are here today, God, with the word of God, that the word of God would become open, that they would have the mind of Christ, that the word of God would become living and active, that they'd have a passion to explore, God, that supersedes the passion of explorers that have gone before us, Lord God, to go find places on the earth that we might find heaven itself.

I pray that whoever reads the Bible this week, will have revelation like they've never had, that it will come alive like they've never had, that they'll have a passion for the word of God, that we become a church that is grounded in the word of God, that they would know the word of God. I bless you with an understanding. I bless you with the Holy Spirit.

Before we close, Chris is going to give us one little more chorus, and then we'll close, and I'll say good day. Holy, holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God almighty, who was and is and is to come. All creation I sing, praise to the King of kings, you are my everything, and I will adore you. Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God almighty, the Lord and is and is to come.

All creation I sing, praise to the King of kings, you are my everything, and I will adore you. As you go today, be blessed as you go today. Once again, if you need prayer, come forward for prayer. You guys would love to pray for you. Fall in love with this book. Fall in love with this book. This book is a book that will lead you to the very heart of God and show you salvation.

It will set you free. Let it become the anchor of your life and the lamp unto your feet. In the name of Jesus Christ and under the blessing of his cross, in the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Bless you. Have a great day.