Women's Bible Study - September 28th, 2022
First B Jackson
2022-09-28

Automatically transcribed. Where this and the recording disagree, the recording is the record.

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Okay. I didn't know if she was coming up.

Good morning, ladies. Please find your seats. We're gonna get started.

If I can have you guys all stand up for worship, there's just something, really special about disconnecting from your seat and just, releasing yourself to be in the presence of God. Allow yourself to be free this morning. So good to see all these familiar faces. Sing the splendor of our king.

Himself and the darkness tries to hide and trembles at his voice trembles at his voice.

Let's just sing those verses again. Just close your eyes and think about the splendor of the king. The darkness flees in God's presence.

The All the earth rejoice. He wraps himself in light. And the darkness tries to hide, but it trembles at his voice trembles at his voice. Sing this out. How great is our God.

Want you to sing with

Thank you, Jesus, that you are the word. Thank you, Jesus, that you became flesh and dwelt among us. Thank you that you are the way, the truth, and the life. And, Lord, I pray that you would be the word made flesh to us this morning. That your word would come alive in our hearts.

It wouldn't just be words on the page, but as we read your word, as we study your word this morning. God, be the word we flesh today. Sing that again.

What a beautiful name it is the name of Jesus Christ my king what a beautiful name it is oh nothing compares to this what a beautiful name it is the name of Jesus

I love the line of this next verse.

You didn't want heaven without us. So, you brought heaven down.

This is a beautiful story of what Jesus did. Death couldn't hold him in the grave. The heavens are roaring the praise of his glory for he was raised to life again. Thank you, Jesus, that your name is above every other name. Your name is above fear.

Your name is above insecurity. Your name is above every sickness and disease. Your name is above strife. Jesus, we worship you this morning, and we honor and glorify your name. We lift your name up.

Lord, help us to live lives of worship today in honor of you by exalting your name, exalting your presence above everything else that we're facing. We worship you by putting you on the throne where you belong in our lives. Lord, your name is above every other name. We love you so much, God. We just bless Deborah's message as she brings it forth.

Father, put the words on her lips. May it be anointed of you, and may the word become flesh in our hearts this morning, Lord. Amen.

Thank you. Woo. Allie Wolf ladies. Thank you, Allie. So Allie has a baby, a job.

She's closing on a house today, and she showed up for us. Thank you, Allie. Miss Natalie, did you have some announcements?

Sorry. I wasn't prepared. Yes. You should have received an email from us yesterday or the day before. A couple of things.

One, Deborah did not have time to cover some really good content last week. In particular, there is a secular author who is writing on marriage, and it basically gives a biblical platform for marriage even though she's a secular author. So really good stuff. Be sure be sure to pull up those notes. Second, really exciting.

We are I know some of you in here do have high schoolers or you know of some high schoolers. I have been involved with Young Life for three years, and I've been leading a group of high school girls in Young Life. It's called Campaigners, like when girls are ready to go deep and actually dive into the word. And it's been on my heart for several years to grow that and expand that offering, but we're it's always really difficult to find leaders who are equipped and ready to give up their time every week. So Mike Demetrius, who's the youth pastor here at First Baptist, and I are combining forces and partnering with First Baptist, tribe, the Presbyterian Church, Episcopal Church.

We've invited Gateway to do this together because we're all doing this one off and pouring into one, two, or three kids at a time. And as you know, with high schoolers, it's just not cool to hang out with, you know, you and, like, a 35 year old. So we're prayerfully and excitedly pursuing the very first community wide high school youth group. Yes. But very much in partnership with all the churches, FCA, Young Life, they do a great job at providing the activities to pull in the kids that are on the fringe.

But what we're missing is an avenue for the kids that grew up in church that have gone to middle school youth group and are going to be the little lights in the high school. And so I know that topic was really raw for some of you last week with what's going on in the middle school and the high school. So this is just one way that we're trying to push back the darkness. And what we need from you, two three things. One, prayers for these high school kids.

Two, if you know of young adults that are mature or maturing in their faith, they don't have to be all the way there yet, or worship artists such as Ali and others. I know you guys are warm thin, but we would love to do a couple worship songs at the beginning, and we definitely need leaders for small groups. So please send them my way. That's gonna be at 06:30 to eight for the next eight Thursdays at the Tribe Ministry Center, which is across from Whole Foods, and dinner will be provided. So if kids are coming from sports, they'll be able to do that.

And then last is just to spread the word. If you have friends that have high schoolers, let them know. I can promise that there's gonna be a good core to start. So they're I promise they're not gonna show up and be the only one, and it's gonna feel really awkward. There's gonna be a good solid crew to start with us on Thursday.

And then the last announcement is that this this Bible study is a labor of love very much on Deborah's part. She spends hundreds of hours over the summer preparing content. She pays a publisher. She pays printing fees. We've been out of pocket funding the babysitter downstairs and our friend, Ferry, who does setup and tear down.

And we're very much okay funding that out of pocket. We feel like this is where we wanna spend our time and resources. But if you do feel led to offset some of that cost, we have a little love offering box the entry table and we would love your support even just a few dollars. I'll turn it over to Deborah.

Thank you, Natalie. Did you catch all that ladies? I love that we're fighting the good fight for our kids in this valley because I'm gonna pick up kind of where we left off last week at the end of the message. And I think you'll agree with me, things are changing fast and furious. And sitting in a small group last week, I didn't even realize how it's come into our schools in Jackson.

I mean, I know things are changing overall in city schools, but in Jackson, I cannot believe what our kids are facing. But let's jump into the lesson and we'll come back to that, so stay tuned. Alright. This week's lesson is titled practicing our faith. And God kinda took me in a different direction for what I'm gonna share with you.

Our key verse is John fourteen twenty seven, and we've talked about this verse before because I believe it with all my heart, and I believe things are gonna ratchet up in our world, and is it possible for you and I as children of God to have peace? Jesus said, I'm leaving you with a gift, peace of mind, and peace of heart, and the peace I give you, you're not gonna find in the world. You're not gonna get it out there. So don't be troubled and don't be afraid. Why did he say don't be troubled?

Because he knew we were gonna have troubles. And then someone did a really cool thing and went through the Bible and found 365 verses on not being afraid. And I think that's pretty amazing that the Lord gives us those verses about fear because we are living in a time where we can be afraid. And Jesus says, don't do that. I've got your back.

I'm right here with you. You can have peace no matter what happens to you. Someone gave me this little book called suffering is never for nothing. I put Elizabeth Elliot's quote on your handout. And Elizabeth Elliot, are you all familiar with Elizabeth Elliot?

Yeah. She was a missionary in Ecuador and her and her husband Jim prayed. They asked the Lord, should we go to Ecuador? They were very clear. The Lord said, yes, go to Ecuador.

While in Ecuador, they had a baby girl and they're making strides with these unreached people groups that had never heard of Jesus. And in the process one of the people groups murdered her husband. Okay. Now imagine you're Elizabeth. You prayed about this, you're in Ecuador and they murder your husband.

And she is an amazing woman. I very much recommend the book, Suffering is Never for Nothing. It's super easy to read and it has a lot of great nuggets in it. But as you can imagine, her peace of mind was pretty threatened, wasn't it? And this is what she says.

She says at the end of the day, you either believe God knows what he's doing or you believe he doesn't. You either believe he's worth trusting or you say he's not and then where are you? You're at the mercy of chaos, not cosmos. Chaos is the Greek word for disorder. Cosmos is the word for order.

We either live in an ordered universe or we're trying to create our own reality. Wow. She chose to trust God despite not understanding. And her whole testimony is so incredibly powerful and amazing. And at the end of her life, she said, God is really really good.

He's good and you can trust him. We all sense in our world that things are quickly becoming more chaotic. Aren't they? I mean even common sense is questioned today. Last week we talked about how there are two forces at work.

On one side, you have beauty and good and things of order. On the other side, you have disorder and chaos and lies. We know the enemy is at work where there's a spirit of division and confuse fusion, but we know God is at work where there's a spirit of unity and order. And our God Yahweh is the God of order. We just look at the universe and we all, it doesn't matter if you're in China or Hawaii, if you're rich or poor, we all get twenty four hours in a day and we all get to start a new day over again.

God is the God of perfect order and precise predictability. I mean I was thinking about this today, none of us in this room are thinking, I wonder what season's coming next. No. We're digging in our closets for our puppies because we know winter is coming. God is a God of order and predictability.

But in his omniscience and eternity past, he knew the devil would rebel. He knew we humans would be sinful. And so he outlines throughout scripture this order for us in order for us to function at our best, in order for us to thrive. In God's divine establishment, he gives us four divine institutions. These are institutions divinely given by God.

And he says, if you as a people will live within these four divine institutions, you will do very well. You will thrive. This is how I designed it and God set it up our first divine institution is free will. Free will. Free will is the big issue of the angelic conflict and if you're sitting there going, what does angelic conflict mean?

Go back and listen to last week's teaching. Okay. Free will is the big issue of the angelic conflict. We must be able to exercise our own choices. Will we follow Jesus and the truth and have order in our lives?

Or will we follow the lies of the culture that lead to chaos? And the the biggest teaching on free will throughout the Mosaic code is the freedom of worship. The freedom of religion. Now does this sound familiar to you? Where have we heard this before?

The freedom of religion is the freedom that all other freedoms hinge on. If we have freedom of religion, then we have freedom together like this peacefully without fear. We have freedom of speech. We have freedom of press. Our founding fathers knew the mosaic code.

And freedom of religion is under the first divine institution of free will. Other freedoms that God wrote in the Mosaic code. This was a new thing for people. He said, have the right to own your own property with boundary lines and your neighbor doesn't have the right to come and take what isn't theirs from your house. The government doesn't have the right to take what is yours.

You have the right to your own property. You have the right to pursue whatever trade or career or gifting that you want to pursue. Does that sound familiar to you? The pursuit of happiness. You have the right to pursue that.

You have these rights written throughout the Mosaic code. So I'll come back to why these institutions, how they're being threatened today, but the first one is free will. The second one is marriage. Marriage was God's idea and he defines marriage for us. This is Jesus talking to a crowd in Matthew chapter 19.

Jesus said to them, haven't you read your Bible? And he's quoting Genesis two. He says, the creator originally made man and woman for each other. He made male and female. Period.

He made male and female. And because of this, a man leaves his father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife. And they become one flesh. No longer two bodies, but one. He made their bodies to perfectly fit male and female.

Marriage is structured to bring stability to a society and God knew that. He knew if a society sets itself up with marriage, it will bring stability. Paul is calling out the Corinthians because the Corinthians lived during the Roman time where immorality was rampant. And yes, they they did have marriage, but it was very common to have a lot of affairs too, especially with the men. And Paul said, hello first Corinthians seven, because there's so much sexual immorality, just in case you forgot, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband.

Because marriage brings stability to a society and it gives children a stable environment. That's why God set it up like that. And I don't know if you got a chance to read the email and if you didn't get it, check your spam or junk file because it's been going into there. But I I just had to include a snippet from this author, Louise Perry. So Louise Perry, just to set the stage, she's a millennial, she's not a Christian, she is a proclaimed feminist, and she wrote she did all this research on the sexual revolution, and she said her it's it's really super fascinating.

She said, you know, as a millennial, I lived in a hook up culture. I lived where young men are so hooked in pornography they can't even have sex at 28. And she's like, it hasn't set us free. It has really put us in bondage. This isn't a Christian y'all.

This is just her research. I find it fascinating what she says about marriage. Then she gets to marriage. I'm gonna give you a snippet. She says while the monogamous marriage model may be unusual, it is also incredibly successful.

When monogamy is imposed in a society, this is what it does. It tends to become richer and more stable with lower rates of both child abuse and domestic violence. Birth rates and crime rates fall, which encourages economic development. Do you think God knew what he was doing? It helps in every area.

And then she says, the marriage system that has prevailed in the West until recently was not perfect, but where the critics go wrong is in arguing there's any better system. There isn't. Wow. Well, thank you. Thank you, Louise Perry for backing up scripture.

Ephesians five, Paul said, a man should leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife. The two become one. And yeah, this is a great mystery Paul said, but it's an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one. What did Paul mean by that? Well, Paul meant that when we are in relationship with Jesus, we are in relationship.

Covenant means it can't be broken. He is in us forever. We are forever his child. We will live with him forever. And God designed marriage to not be broken too.

Institution number three from God is family. Family was God's ideal and maybe you've heard this saying, so goes the family, so goes the nation. Yikes. The concept of family is extremely important in the Bible and it was first introduced right in the beginning. Genesis chapter one verse 28.

We're told that God created them again, male and female, just in case we ever down the road get confused. God created them, male and female. God blessed them, and the message says he told them to go prosper, reproduce, fill the earth, and take charge. Wow. Did you know the Israelites, the ancient Israelites, were some of the only ancient people that valued children?

One of the reasons God gave Israel the land of Canaan is because we know that the people in that area would sacrifice the children to their little g gods on firing furnaces. And God says that is an abomination before me. In Psalm one twenty seven three, he says, don't you know that your children are a gift from me? Value your children. And God has order within a family.

The fifth commandment of the 10 commandments says, children honor your parents. Because God's order says that parents are in authority over children. Things get out of order when the children are in authority over the parents. Paul talks about what Christians Christian homes should looks look like. In Ephesians chapter six verse four, he says, children obey your parents, but parents don't provoke your children.

He says, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. What's the training instruction of the Lord? It's praying for that balance of truth and love. Right? And how do we provoke our children or exasperate our children, some translations say?

I think when we put too high of expectations on them or when we compare them. I have two very different children. And early on I realized they each required very different parenting. And I think we provoke our children to anger and resentment when we put them all in this one box. They're not in a box.

They're so different. So free will, marriage, family, divine institution number four is a nationalism. Again, nations were God's ideal and human government was founded in Genesis chapter nine, ten, and 11 after the flood. We are told in Genesis 10 that the descendants of Noah scattered throughout a geographical boundary set for them. They spread into their territories by their clan, by their family, and by their language languages.

In Genesis 11, we're told where all these languages came from. Do you remember? They came from the Tower Of Babel. And what was the Tower Of Babel about? I think you're gonna find this very interesting.

So way back in Genesis, the enemy sold the people on his lie that a one world government would be best for them. And they said, great. Let's build this tower to the heavens and have this one world government. And God said, no. That is not my plan for my humans.

Different nations can set up different rules and the people can live within those rules. And you know what we're gonna see in the end times. Right? There's going to be a push toward one world government. And when the leader of this one world government is announced, who will be the antichrist, do you remember this from our revelation study, what does that usher in?

The seven year tribulation, the end of times. So I when I was reviewing this, I thought, oh my gosh. I get it now. I get why today being patriotic or loving my nation, I get labeled a Nazi for being like that. Why?

Why? Because we Americans right now today, we stand in the way of this push toward a one world government because we know that is not God's best for us. It's not best for us because we have freedoms here. We have the freedom of religion. We have families that we love.

We don't wanna be part of the world. Well, some of us do, but many of us don't. And so that's why the the word nationalism is like a a slur word now and it's associated with Nazism which is a lie. So the greatest thing you and I can do is live the truth and say no I love my country. I'm free to do many things people in other countries aren't free to do.

I love my country. There's nothing wrong with loving our country. So here's the thing ladies. These four divine institutions are all based on God's truth. And when truth is undermined, all four of these will be redefined.

And do you see that happening today? Do you see marriage and family, nationalism, freedom of worship being redefined? I had to add this little supplement to the teaching yesterday I finished and my son called and he said, mom, oh my gosh. Did you hear the new Italian prime minister, Georgia? I think her name is Maloney.

I think that's right. Did you hear her little speech? And I was like, no. I've been off the grid. I've been researching for today.

And he's like, you you have to look it up in YouTube. You have to listen to her speech. You're gonna love this lady. And what was really fascinating is I pulled it up on the Internet and I'm like, wow. This lady is under intense attack from the whole world.

She's been labeled a Nazi, she's been labeled the next Mussolini. I mean, she's had every ugly label possible put on her. Why? Well, I'm gonna read a snippet from her speech. So she talks first about how important family is to her, divine institution number three, and she asked the question, why is the family all of a sudden the enemy?

Why is family so frightening? There is a single answer to these questions because family defines us, because it's our identity, because everything today that defines us is now an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have that identity and to simply be the perfect consumer slave. And so they attack national identity, they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity. She said, I can no longer say, I'm an Italian, I'm a Christian, I'm a mother, and I certainly can't say I'm a woman. And she said, why is this?

Because I I am only a number. I should define myself as citizen x and gender z and parent one and parent two. I am only a number and I no longer have an identity. Remember the first week we talked about the importance of names? Names mean something.

They give you value. Numbers and categories don't mean anything. And she said, when I no longer have an identity, my roots are gone. I think she's been listening to our class because last week, what did we say? What did Alexander Solzhenitsyn say?

He said, how do you take over a people? You sever their roots. I was like, wow. She said, and then we become slaves. And then she declared this.

She said, I will defend God, country, and family. The things that disgust people so much today. And then she quoted one of my favorite theologians, GK Chesterton, who wrote a hundred years ago. This is what he wrote a hundred years ago. He said, there will come a day when fires will be kindled to testify that two plus two equals four.

Oh my gosh, she has been listening to us. We talked about Winston last week, didn't we? She said when two plus two equals four, swords will be drawn to prove that those leaves aren't really green in summer. And then she looked at her audience and she said, that time has arrived. Wow.

Ladies, we have to ready ourselves because we have been called for a time such as this. God knew the time you would be here. You are here for a reason. We are here to know the truth, to live the truth. We are the hope for this world.

I really believe that. And I believe it's one person at a time. One conversation at a time. Whoever God brings in your path, don't live the lie. Just be courageous and don't live the lie and I know it's hard.

One of our cultural the cultural icon of the day, Oprah Winfrey. I mean, what happened to Oprah? I used to love her. But my goodness, at the Golden Globe Awards, Oprah told millions of people. She said, live your truth.

Live your truth. She said, the most powerful thing you can do is speak your truth. Okay. Really, Oprah? That is such bananas.

Because you know what? To an Islamic extremist, his truth is I wanna kill all of you because that makes me a hero. Are we gonna live his truth? No. There is the truth and there is your opinion.

Okay? And if we all live our truth, we won't thrive and the devil knows that. Because living our truth is really living our emotions and what our feelings tell us. And guess what? Feelings aren't always facts.

I've gotten myself in a heap of trouble before living based on my emotions or my feelings. We have to take them through the grid of truth through scripture. The foundation of a life well lived is not based on emotions or how it feels to us. It is based on the truth. Principles clearly defined in here.

You know the most powerful thing you can do is not live your truth but live the truth. Not speak your truth but speak the truth. That's the most powerful thing we can do. And how are we doing with that as Christians? Well, we can't speak it or live it if we don't know it.

And according to a new survey from probe ministries, this just blew my mind, 70% of people who say they're Christian, 70% no longer believe Jesus is the only way to God. It's what Elizabeth Elliot said, you either believe it or you don't. If you don't believe it, you can't pick and choose. God doesn't give us that that right. He says, all scripture is God breathed.

It's all true. You either believe it or you don't. 70. And you know the lies coming at us are fast and furious. The stateoftheology.com and LifeWay did a new survey that shockingly revealed this is hot off the press 2022 that just in the past two years, Christian evangelicals have increased 15% on gender confusion believing that it's a matter of personal choice.

That today, 37% of Christian evangelicals believe it's a choice. I'm sorry. What did God say like three times? Just in case, male and female, I created you. Male and female, I knew how to make you.

I made you. And you know what? The science even backs this up. We can deface our outside but we cannot change our chromosomes. All of us in here were born with an x and an x chromosome.

It's done. It's sealed. You're a female. Okay? Hi.

Last week in our small group. Yep. Well, I'm I just wanna say before I say this. Do you remember our last idol that, you know, want people to like us. And if we speak the truth, some people aren't gonna like us.

And we're not gonna get invited to some parties. And you know what? You know what I say? Cathy and I talked about this. A lot of us suffer from FOMO, fear of missing out.

I suffer from JOMO, the joy of missing out. I don't care. It's fine with me. JOMO. So JOMO is going to be our thing.

Okay? So, last week in our small group, one of the ladies brought up this book called Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier. So I looked it up. And Abigail Shrier shares how serious and damaging transgender hormones and surgeries are long term. That many of these people are adults saying, oh my gosh, don't do it.

I wish I wouldn't have done it. And we were discussing how really at the end of the day, it's a form of child abuse to let our minors do this. It it is straight up child abuse. But Abigail Shrier, just like the Italian prime minister is being attacked ruthlessly. Every label you can imagine has been on her.

A Berkeley professor came out and said to Berkeley, we should steal as many of her books as we can and burn them. Okay. So I think she must be on to something if they're really that aggressively going after her. Right? She must be on the truth.

Right? Because why? Why is there such an attack on truth? Because truth, yes, shines the light on lies and it threatens their power. Follow the power, follow the money, and that's where you're gonna find very little truth.

So when I left Bible study too, on my feed there was this video from doctor Ellen Clayton of Vanderbilt. Have have you guys seen what what's happening at Vanderbilt? So Vanderbilt has announced that they will do chemical castration and double mastectomies on minors. Yeah. It's all about the money because it brings in so much money.

And what was so sickening is this doctor had all the staff, the doctors, the nurses, everybody in her stadium and this is what she said. She said, and if any of you object to this because of your religious beliefs, you will face consequences. Okay. So yeah. I mean, forget the party.

Our jobs might be at stake here for standing up for truth. What did Isaiah say in Isaiah 59? He said, truth stumbles in the streets and honesty has been outlawed. Speak the truth and you will be attacked. I feel like do you do you guys feel like this too?

Everyone's out of the closet except Christians. Why are we still in the closet? Why are we so passive? Why won't we have these conversations? We don't have these conversations in an ugly way, but just in a help me understand where you're coming from way.

Help me understand how when when research is is done on these issues, these surgeries that people very much regret it later. Help me understand how that's a good thing for our children. Help me understand how God says he made male and female. Help me understand how it's okay to to question God and rebel against that. That's never good for us.

There's a gut wrenching story in the Bible about a man who was at a crossroad. Would he please the crowd or would he speak the truth? And it's Pilate. The pharisees brought Jesus before Pilate and Pilate interrogated Jesus. And as he's interrogating him, a messenger comes with a message from his wife and she says, Pilate, he's innocent.

This is a righteous man. Don't hurt him. She said, I've suffered greatly in a dream. And then in Mark 15, we're told that Pilate realized by now that the leading priest had arrested Jesus out of envy. I think that's so interesting because Jesus was the truth and he was speaking truth.

And why did the Roman government and the religious people in control wanna silence that truth? Because he was threatening their power. And the only way to silence him was to kill him. So Pilate asked them, what should I do with this man that you call the king of the Jews? Pilate was being kinda snarky there.

He was like, you call him the king of the Jews. What do you want me to do with him? And the crowd shouted, crucify him and and again Pilate pushes back. He says, why? What crime has he done?

And the mob yelled even louder, crucify him. And this is the saddest thing. Do you know do you know what the scripture says next? Wishing to please the crowd. Pilate handed Jesus over to be flogged and crucified.

Wishing to please the crowd. The truth is powerful and it's a threat to evil forces. Hasn't history taught us that? I mean the Bible was written two thousand years ago. We have two thousand years of history to look back on.

How is the truth so such a threat? When you look at evil totalitarian governments, what what's the first thing the communist did? Communist China, communist Russia, the first thing the Nazis did, they went in, they captured the bibles, and they burned them. And then they banned them. Any Christian book because they couldn't have the truth.

It would threaten their evil power. You know why? Because this is really powerful. I'm telling you next week, I can't wait to share more of my personal journey with how powerful this has been for me. One of my childhood hood verses, I grew up in a very interesting home which I'll tell you about next week, but was Hebrews four twelve.

For the word of God is alive. It will meet you today just like it met Moses five thousand years ago. It will meet you today. It is alive and it is powerful. It is sharper than any sword.

It penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. How does it do that? It judges our thoughts and our attitudes. It says, Deborah, was that thought truth or was it a lie? Read my word and I'll show you.

Was that attitude from me or was that attitude from you? Read my word and I'll show you. But you know Paul said, salvation is a free gift. Right? Like we didn't do the work.

Jesus did all the work. But then Paul said, after that, you have to work out your salvation. What does that mean? He's like, you have to figure it out. Like there's a lot in here.

You have to fill your mind with this. It's a retraining of your mind because we've picked up on a lot of lies about our self and about God. And second Timothy two fifteen says, work hard so you can prevent your present yourself to God and receive his approval. One who does not need to be ashamed, who correctly divides the word of truth. What does divide the word of truth mean?

That means we have to keep it straight. We can't bend it for my truth and we don't bend it for the culture's truth. We correctly divide, we keep it straight. Proverbs 35 through six said, says, every word of God proves true. Every single word of it.

How powerful is his word? Well, Hebrews eleven three says that God spoke the world into being by the power of his word. And John one one, Jesus who said he was the truth said, in the beginning was the word, me, the truth, and the truth was with God, and the truth was God. Wow. It's powerful.

And don't you find it interesting that out of all of God's creation, only we are made in his image and only we have the unique gift that allows us to communicate truth. We are given words and words have power. Proverbs twelve six says, be careful with your words because they can destroy or they can build up. And Proverbs eighteen twenty one says, the tongue has the power of life and death. That's why there's such a war on truth because the enemy knows how powerful it is too.

Now as Ali makes her way up, I just wanna share because you know I love this. I love when secular research backs up God's word. And doctor Lisa Feldman, a neuroscientist shares in her groundbreaking research how people's words and actions actually shape our brain. She says for our whole life, outside of our awareness, we make deposits into other people as well as withdrawals and they do the same thing for us. And you and I know that's true.

I mean, someone can give us an encouraging word and it can totally change our day or someone can say something really hurtful and mean and it floods our bloodstream with hormones, squandering precious resources from our body. The power of words over our biology is amazing. She said you can text someone, I love you, and their nervous system calms down. But at two in the morning, if I texted you, is your door locked? Your nervous system is gonna ratchet up, isn't it?

She said, why are words so powerful? Because they're used to regulate us and we can regulate each other. The power of words is not a metaphor. It's in our brain wiring. Words are powerful.

Truth is really about power and the enemy will do anything to get us to discredit this truth and to get us to doubt this truth. Anything because he knows that when we're in the truth, we're gonna thrive. Second Timothy three sixteen says, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and right, the right way to live. In your study guide, I asked you the question, will this really change my life? I say yes, it will.

But you have to like Elizabeth Elliot had to do, like all of us have to do at some point. You have to choose. Am I gonna believe that God does not lie? That this is truth? Is it true or is it not?

Am I going to believe he's a promise keeper? When Joshua was dying, he turned to the Israelites and he said, every single promise Yahweh made us, he kept. He's a promise keeper. Does he not lie? Is he a promise keeper?

And does he really love us? And I know things happen that hurt. We're gonna talk about that next week and we question, does he love us? He says, nothing can get in the way of me loving you. Not any circumstance, not any person, not any hurt.

I love you and if you seek me, I'll show you. I love you. He loves us. He loves you. He wants to be in relationship with you.

Lord, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for just how much you love us. Thank you, Lord, that we have each other. I I love how you set the world up to give us free will, to give us marriage and family, and it and this country that we get to live in. Don't let us squander all that you've given us.

I pray that every single one of us will choose to know you at a really deep level. We'll just cross that line and say, you know what, Jesus, I trust you. I trust you no matter what comes my way, I'm gonna trust you. Lord, protect us. Bring us back next week safe and sound.

In Jesus' name, amen.

I was just reading in second Peter three seventeen and eighteen. He was saying, be on guard that you may not walk in deception. And then he follows that up with grow in the grace and the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And I just thought that

was really interesting that those two sentences were paired together because it's amazing how when you know the Lord, it's so much easier to not be deceived and to walk in truth. And Jesus says that he is the way, the truth, and the life. He is the truth. And he said that we shall know the truth. The truth shall set us free.

We shall know the truth. And I was just thinking about it. I was like, yeah. Like, we should know the truth, right, like, our minds, but, like, what about the person of the truth? And it was just kind of a cool revelation to me.

And so as we sing this next little short song, let's just turn our eyes to Jesus and say, I wanna I wanna seek you, and I believe in faith. I'm gonna find you because you're never you're never far away. You don't leave us nor forsake us. Let's just draw near to him. Sing the more I seek you again.

I think it's time to break into small groups and so we can all go to our designated places now and thanks for gathering this morning ladies. Love you all.