Even read that as you guys know, we've been covering our fourfold vision about two, three weeks ago. We started out with the first vision. So again, if you look at the bottom of your program on the front side, well, we have a fourfold vision of our church. And again, this is something that we try to evaluate and make sure that these are things that we shoot for.

So any areas that we feel like we need to emphasize that that year, we try to target that. And so this is something that it's important for us as a church, as our church is growing and more and more new people are coming to the church. It's important for us that, you know, a lot of you guys who may have come from other churches and think, OK, this is what we did and this is how I grew up.

And so this is the way this church ought to be. It's important for us that we recognize that there are certain things that we value in the church, not because it's unique to Berean, but because we see this in scripture. And so a couple of weeks ago, we talked about why high view of God and worship is at the center.

So all these other visions really stem from that. So if the church is not worshiping God in spirit and in truth, then teaching of the word of God, fellowship, everything that we're doing is really for for nothing, because what God desires more than anything else is to seek people who worship him in spirit and in truth.

So it's God centered worship and not man centered. So our church does not function by surveying and say, well, what's going to cause the church to grow the most? What is going to attract the most people to church? We've never functioned with that mentality because we don't see Jesus's ministry done that way.

Our primary desire is to see who God is and how should he be worshipped? How how should the church look like based upon what we know of him? And so that's why the the first vision of our church is to have a God centered worship and not man centered.

The second vision is what we're going to be talking about today is to equip the church, equip the believers with God's inerrant word. So that's what we're going to be touching upon today. And then again, we're going to go through all four of them before I jump into another another letter.

So let's read IACS Chapter 17, verses 10 and 11. The brothers immediately send Paul and Silas away by night to Berea. And when they arrived, they went into the Jewish synagogue. Now, these Jews were more noble than those in Thessalonica. They received the word with eagerness, examining scripture daily to see if these things were so.

Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we thank you. We thank you for your goodness. We thank you for your patience. We thank you for the Holy Spirit. That indwells us, Lord God, constantly interceding on our behalf. We thank you for Jesus, our high priest, our mediator, who is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, that we may enter the throne of grace with confidence.

As we have come before you, we ask, Lord God, that you would open the gates, help us, Lord God, to be in your presence. That everything that is taught, everything that we hear, may be the voice of Christ, that your children may hear his voice and follow. So help us, Lord God, in Jesus name we pray.

Amen. I read this text in IACS Chapter 17, not because next week I'm going to be expositing this text, but I want you to first and foremost understand where this where we got our church name, Berean. You know, at the beginning, when we changed our church name to Berean Community Church, the typical response that I got from people was, does your church also speak English?

Like that's that's the first response I get, because they thought I said Korean Community Church. And because the term Berean is not is not something that's common. In fact, it's only mentioned here and it's only mentioned kind of a blip as it's passing by. So basically, the story is Paul is in his missionary journey and he comes to this this city in Thessalonica and it becomes a very prominent church in the early church.

In fact, if you read the epistle of First Thessalonians, Paul says this becomes a model church. They learned to practice love with one another and and their faith was being proclaimed all throughout Macedonia. People were talking about this church and Paul was only there for a very short period of time.

So Thessalonica became a model church that all the other churches ought to have followed. But if you look at this text, Paul gets driven out of Thessalonica because of persecution. And Berea wasn't probably wasn't even on his radar, because if you look at Apostle Paul's ministry plan, he targets all the major cities.

Berea, he only reason why he came here is because he was being persecuted. He got chased out and he landed here. And well, since I'm here, I better preach the gospel. And he preaches the gospel. But he calls these people, these Bereans, of more noble character than this model church, Thessalonica.

And the reason why it says they received a word with all they can examine the scripture to see if these things were true. In other words, Paul actually said these guys are more noble because they questioned me. They didn't just receive it. Oh, you know, I'm preaching the word of God.

It must be true. In fact, he says, no, they're more noble because they questioned him, because they tested him to see if it was scripturally correct. So early on in the church, we we call ourselves Berean Community Church because we wanted to be a church that is based upon the word of God.

Not because we're Baptist, not because we're Presbyterian, not because we come from a certain background. But is it biblical? Is it scriptural? You know, I was raised in a Presbyterian home for the most part is very conservative. And and and then I got saved in a charismatic parachurch ministry.

So early on as a Christian, I basically rejected everything that I knew, everything that I was taught because it was Presbyterian. You know, at that time, I didn't understand because here's a group of people to me was living. I mean, their worship was lively. Their prayer meeting was you know, they cried out to God every Friday night.

And so I don't know about you, but have you ever argued with somebody that you were absolutely convinced that you were right? And then later on found out you were absolutely wrong. Has that ever happened to you? Right, if you say no, you're liars or you're so proud that you don't recognize.

All right. You're still you're still stubborn. Right. I don't think that's unique to me. I remember early on after I became a Christian, I questioned my dad. Even though he had a his I had a doctorate in ministry and he was a seminary professor, because I got saved in a charismatic circle, his faith didn't look like what I was experiencing at the Bible study.

So I remember one time I was having a discussion with him and I asked him a question about a verse in the Bible. And I said I asked him, where does this say in the Bible about, you know, not to be drunk with wine, but be drunk in the spirit?

And then my dad said, you mean not to be drunk with wine, but be filled with the spirit? He's like, no, no, no. It says to be drunk with the spirit, specifically drunk with the spirit. He says, I don't think that exists. It's like, no, you don't know what you're talking about.

You know, Presbyterian. So I remember having this discussion with him. And for years I searched through the scriptures to find out where is this? Because I know I read it. I went through the Old Testament. Maybe it's in the Psalm. Maybe it's maybe it's hidden in Ezekiel somewhere. Maybe that's why I couldn't find it or it's in Revelation.

And after all these years, I can tell you it does not exist. Right. I was absolutely wrong. I was so convinced that that's what I saw that in a quiet time. I heard in a sermon and it wasn't there. Now, I wish I could tell you that that was the only time that has ever happened.

But that has happened enough where I I don't believe myself if I don't see it and if I don't see it, you know. And I've had so many conversations with somebody. I've had people, especially in the earlier part of this church, came up to me and said, well, if you preach on a predestination and I can't come to this church.

Right. And I said, well, you know, the term predestination is in the Bible. And they would say, like, no, it's not. It's not that you're twisting the scripture. Right. It's like, well, it's here. It's like, no, I don't care. You're going to twist it. And they didn't want to look into it.

It's in the Bible. I mean, the word predestined is in the Bible. Election is in the Bible. The reason why I share all of this is that. We have to be very careful that our theology and our thinking is biblical, not because you are raised in a certain home, not because you are raised in a certain denomination, not because you happen to this is the first church that you ended up belonging in.

But is it biblical? Do you understand? And is it your personal conviction or or every Sunday, do you just listen and say, well, OK, Pastor Peter said it, so it must be true. I would never encourage you to quote me. I would never because I've been dead wrong before.

So you might be quoting some something that's dead wrong. Right. I would never encourage you to trust me. In fact, just a possible says these guys were noble because they questioned him biblically. But again, the questioning needs to be biblical questioning, not because of prejudice. I have situations all the time where people are debating certain issue.

Let's say a common issue that sometimes is debated in the church is about infant baptism and about immersion baptism, believers baptism. That's an issue that I we talk about all the time. You know, obviously you are at a Baptist church and I believe in immersion baptism. If you ask me to defend the biblically, I I believe I can do that biblically.

But oftentimes this discussion between infant baptism and and immersion baptism is nothing more than two people who have their own prejudice. It's not a biblical argument going back and forth. It's just like, oh, what's wrong with that? Why? Why can't you do that? Because the church that I went to practices this way or or I grew up with immersion baptism.

And it just seems weird. Why would you baptize infants not understanding the biblical argument on either side? So oftentimes the kind of discussions that we have are just one prejudice over another prejudice. And because that's my frame of mind, that's what I was taught by people that I respect.

And that's what I embrace. See, some of these things may not be dangerous because they're not essential, but there are things that if we embrace our Christianity based upon our culture, based upon what is popular, based upon what church we belong to, what family we grew up in, you will find eventually that it is not your faith.

And as long as you stay within your bubble, you never have to question that. As long as you never have friends outside of your little theological circle, you never have to question that. But all of a sudden, when you're outside of your little circle and people start to believe and challenge you, especially if you have a cult or somebody whose theology is way out of whack, they come and they start questioning your faith.

And you realize that you really don't know what you believe. You say, oh, no, I believe in the Trinity, I believe in the church, I believe in the priesthood of believers. And then when they start to open up scriptures, what about this verse and that verse? I don't have an answer for that, but I'm sure my pastor does.

And if that's your final answer, basically what you're saying is I believe in my pastor. My faith is based upon what he says, my faith is based upon what the church says, but it's not my faith. And just like when you're a kid, if you grow up and if it is not your faith, when you are tested, you're going to see that so much of it is going to fall apart.

And that's why so many people drift away from God, not simply because things have become hard in life, but because it wasn't theirs. They were just kind of piggybacking off of other people. So when we talk about we want to be a church where people are being equipped with the word of God.

We're not just talking about how we preach on Sunday. We're not just talking about how the Bible is taught during the weekday. We're talking about how the believers in the church not only hear the word of God, but to search the word of God, to study the word of God, apply the word of God and disciple others with the word of God.

You know, I'll give you an example of a situation that that, again, just for the purpose of of warning and encouragement. There was a period maybe about 25 years ago where the charismatic movement was sweeping not just the nation, probably the world. Conservative churches with pipe organs all of a sudden started changing their worship style to praise bands, you know, because prior to that, about 25 years ago, when I first got saved, when a church said that they had contemporary worship, what they meant was somebody had a guitar.

That's what they meant. And usually you say, oh, we have contemporary worship. They didn't sing hymns. He had one guy with a guitar leading praise. I was contemporary rock band music. Right. This charismatic movement came in and all of a sudden the worship style began to change and all the praise team and all the stuff came in during that period of time.

Well, there was also an anti movement against the charismatic movement that came in saying that because there's a lot of chaos doctrinally, they're not sound. And so there was a lot of seminars and conferences taking place to to combat all the chaos that was being created by the charismatic movement.

Well, there was a student that ended up going out of town to school and came back and attended a seminar bashing the charismatic movement. He came back and we had a conversation. And and because by that time I was already out of the charismatic movement and our church, at least the way that we were practicing church was was not charismatic.

So he just assumed that that's who I was. He's not charismatic, that I would be anti charismatic. So he came back and said, I attended this conference, Peter, I agree with you. You know, I didn't understand what you were saying, but now I understand. And then he was bashing the charismatic movement, bashing Jim, you know, John Wimber and the Vineyard Church and all this stuff.

And I remember sitting there and he was so excited to share this with me. But as he was sharing it and I didn't necessarily disagree with his conclusion. But I remember sitting in front of this young man and just talking to him, thinking, oh, this is dangerous because he doesn't have a good argument of why he believed that he just heard a went to a conference that that was filled with charismatic speakers.

And then he got affected. So I asked him, biblically speaking, what do you think is unbiblical of what they're doing? And he kind of got startled. It's like, what do you mean? Because he he just thought that I was going to say, awesome, you know, now we get it.

We're on the same page. I said, how did you come to that conclusion? He said, hmm, what do you mean? Like biblically, like show me the scripture that you wrestled with and you realize this is unbiblical. He couldn't point to a single text. So I tell him, you need to be careful, not just where you landed, but how you landed there.

Because if you land there without knowing how you got there, it's just your prejudice. Right. Let me say that again. If you land at a certain doctrine because it makes more sense to you, but you don't know how you got there, you don't know biblically, doctrinally how you landed on your other than that just seems right.

That's what all my friends believe. And he just made a good point. But you don't know how you got there. Then it's just your prejudice. And the reason why coming to conclusion, even if you end up and in the right place without understanding the biblical argument, what text, what scripture led you to that?

The reason why that's so dangerous is the Bible describes some of the characteristics of a false prophet. And one of the key characteristics of a false prophet, he's going to be he's very charismatic. He's going to come as an angel of light, meaning he's going to speak on the same pulpit that I'm speaking on.

Not necessarily this pulpit. I'm talking about a Christian pulpit. Right. He's going to be preaching out of the same Bible that I'm preaching out of. He's going to be proclaiming, saying that he's speaking for the same God that I'm speaking for. And he's going to be very good at it.

So he says many, many people are going to be convinced he's going to be very popular. He's going to he's going to do it to tickle your ears. In other words, he's going to say things to you that he knows that you want to hear. He's going to say things that he knows is going to convince the maximum number of people.

So even if you attend a conference, even if you go to a biblically sound church and you come to a conclusion, but you can't defend how you came to that conclusion, all it becomes is your prejudice. So whether you are a charismatic or whether you are non charismatic, whether you are a Calvinist or an Armenian, whether you are Presbyterian or you are a Baptist.

If I hold on to these things, not because this is what the scripture has taught me, not because of careful examination of his word, but simply because that makes more sense to me. Then it is just our prejudice. It's just your what you think is right versus what they think is right is your experience versus their experience.

And it is a it is dangerous for us to come to any conclusion. So our goal in our church is not to simply tell you here's the right doctrine. Everybody should believe it. Don't question it. Just accept it. Trust me. You know, there's a period in church history where the church actually told the people to trust me.

You don't have the ability to exposit the scripture, so we shouldn't even translate it into your language. So when we had men like John Wycliffe who came and said, you know what, let's translate it to English so that the common man could read it. They ended up persecuting him.

And the church said, you know, trust us. And they began to sell indulgences. The church got so far away from the word of God and nobody was able to discern. Is that biblical or not? But the church said it. So we must believe it. The whole point of the Protestant Reformation, even though we have the solos, you know, we have the five.

So the only only grace, only the scripture, only Christ. But the underlying foundation of the Sola is to get the scripture to you. Because when the church held on to it themselves, they when they begin to get us go astray. No one tested them. And the whole church, everybody went with them.

So he says, no, we have the priesthood of believers. Every every person needs to have the word of God. And so the whole point of the Reformation is to get the Bible to everyone. That's when they started to print the Bible in different languages and began to disseminate to everybody so that your faith would not rest upon what the church says, but what the word of God says.

So if we are as a church, just embrace, oh, I go to a Bible teaching church, so I like this or I believe this because I'm a this. I was raised as a parent, so I'm a this. All it is is just prejudice. And that's not what we what we mean by saying that our church preaches inerrancy of scripture.

What we're trying to do is that's why this kind of Bible study that we have is not simply here. Here's the conclusion. Here it is again. I would never ask you to simply trust me, test me, but make sure it's a biblical test. Make sure it's not just, well, I don't think it's right.

Why? Well, I just don't think it's right. I think I think I'm smarter than you. But in the end, that's what it comes to. Right. If it's not a biblical argument, it's just an argument between I think I'm better than you. I think I'm more talented than you. Right.

I think I know better. I think I experience more. I'm older than you. That's the only argument. If it is not a biblical argument, if it's going to be a biblical argument, it has to be based upon this is what I see in scripture. And this is this is why I disagree with you.

Today, there is a serious threat to Christianity, and it is not what you many people may think. You know, a lot of people, especially right now, because you're almost on a daily basis seeing some sort of grotesque persecution that is being carried out against Christians, especially in the Middle East.

You know, almost every day you see somebody being beheaded, somebody's body being burned, some church being blown up. And maybe some of you have felt have felt threatened. What if that comes over here? So every time we hear news about people coming and and things like that happening here, you kind of feel unsafe.

You know, we thought we were far away from that, but slowly maybe it's creeping over here, too. But Christianity has never been seriously threatened by persecution. All throughout church history, persecution, all persecution does is purify the church. And when the church is pure, revival breaks out. You see that in the underground church in China for so many decades, the Communist Party tried to squash any kind of religion, in particular Christianity.

But Christianity has thrived in that country. Same thing happening in India. We hear persecution being intensified in India. We talk to these pastors and he said, no, it's actually good. Only the real Christians end up sticking around. And when you have a worship filled with genuine Christians and all they want is to worship God, revival breaks out.

In fact, you we read stories even in the Middle East now as the persecution is increasing, they said Christianity, the conversion to Christianity is actually growing in that area. A lot of the nominal Muslims are getting tired of the of the violence. And they're looking at the Christians who are standing up for their faith to the very end and asking, what is it that these people are believing, even to the point of death?

That these people that I relate to are willing to kill, but these people are willing to die for their faith. What is it about their faith? They said they say that there's revival breaking out in the middle of this persecution. But this is nothing new. If you look at the early Christian history, when Nero began his intense Christian persecution of Christians, all these pictures that we saw, we see in of the early church were being dragged in the Coliseum and and lions, you know, biting people and killing them and being burned at the stake.

And there was a saying in the early church for every Christian who is mauled by a lion. There's two people who take their place. That was a saying in the early church. And they knew and they were able to physically see that persecution actually expanded the church. It didn't kill the church.

The danger in our generation today is not the persecution. And it's not the liberals in the universities who is questioned the validity of any kind of miracles. And I know that that's also spreading. And anybody who went to a university knows that the environment is not friendly toward Christians.

And people, oh, no, we need to do something about this. But again, this is nothing new. If you look at church history, church history is filled with liberals on campuses and university who who repeatedly said. That God is dead in our generation, by next generation, you know, there's going to be no Christians left that's always existed in church history.

And it's not the media pushing the liberal agenda. You know, there's so many people who are so afraid. What about what if homosexuality become normal? And it already has become, you know, I remember 15, 20 years ago, so we pass this law and it's going to be homosexual, this and homosexual, that.

Well, we're already there. And I'm not saying that there's something wrong with us fighting because we live in a free country. We should be able to express what we believe and get involved with the political debate. And I think we should. But whether those laws pass or not, it does not affect the spiritual vitality of the church.

The real threat to the church is that the church has suddenly devalued the authority and the sufficiency of the word of God. And I'm not talking about the liberal church. I'm talking about even in churches that have as a doctrinal statement, we believe that the word of God is inerrant.

In fact, most churches that I know, if you look at their doctrinal statement, if they consider themselves evangelical, will have that in their doctrinal statement. We believe in the inerrant word of God. Right. So I'm not talking about a doctrinal statement. I'm talking about how it is being practiced in the context of the church.

How are the people believing it? How are they practicing it? There is a subtle devaluing where the word of God is no longer sufficient. We have the word of God. Right. But we need other things. Paul said clearly in 1 Corinthians 2, 1 through 5. When I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom.

In other words, Paul said, I didn't come here to to to use my gifts. If I believe that Apostle Paul must have been a great debater because that's how he was trained. And at that particular period, it was part of their entertainment. You know, today we have Xbox, Netflix, video games, movies coming.

I mean, we have entertainment among entertainment. It's just a matter of which one. Certain sports events. At that time, their main form of entertainment was philosophers coming and debating each other. It's an exciting period, you know, in human history. So they, the philosophers would come into town and they would actually set up a little podium, you know, and one would debate the other and see who had the best argument, who were the best debaters and who had the best philosophy.

And if you happen to win, you would get a bunch of disciples and you would make money off of that. Paul is speaking during in that context is that he's coming. I'm proclaiming to you and I'm I'm not coming like them. He didn't come with lofty, lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified.

I have one message and I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, unlike the other philosophers who are coming so confident, so articulate. They've been in so many debates and they know how to how to argue and and to articulate their position. He says, no, not me.

I came in weakness and fear and in trembling. And my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but a demonstration of the spirit's power. That your faith might not rest in wisdom of men, but in the power of God. So there's a subtle devaluing of the word of God where we kind of like, yeah, we study.

I mean, I belong to a church where the word of God is taught. And that is that is enough. But when you are challenged, like, why do you believe that? Is it because you happen to belong to this church and that's what you happen to hear from the pulpit?

Or is that your personal conviction is the word of God? What if you found out tomorrow that I embezzled this church? Will that destroy your faith? What if you found out tomorrow that I cheated on my wife? I didn't do it, but what if you found out? Right. Would that ruin your faith?

Would Christianity crumble for you? Would your worship to God be ruined because I fell? Is your faith dependent upon what other people are telling you, or is it your faith? Is it scripture, is it biblical? Typically, you know, earlier on in the church, when our church wasn't big, you know, people would tell me, I'd say, Peter, you got to, you know, I remember people would tell me, hey, go to New Song.

That church got planted. They got planted about a year or two before we did, and they were blowing up. Every time I heard about New Song was like they have 500, 800,000. And we have 30, you know, 32, 30, 25, 15. If we if people went to missions, we had 15 people.

Then Revival 36, you know, and people people say, Peter, you need to learn how to do ministry. And then I would get phone calls from our denomination and say, oh, there's another church that planted two years after you. And they have 700 people already. How many people do you have?

Every time I had to report and tell them, it's the same. Peter, what are you doing? You know, and say, what are they doing? So they got the church organized this way. You know, their program is like this. And this is what they had. This is how many times they go out.

We're outreaching this, all this stuff. Maybe that's what you need to do. By that time, I was already convinced because I thought that was already my second stage in ministry. The first stage I I've done all of that. And and I figured out to get people attracted to the church is not that difficult.

You know, I just need to tell them one simple truth and package it really well. Right. And I could do that. I could package it. You know, I feel comfortable enough up here where I don't shake coming up here and I could entertain you and and tell you some jokes.

And, you know, I'm pretty good at telling stories. I can I can tell you all this stuff. And I figured out early on, if I did that, keep the message simple, keep it short and entertaining. It draws people. But at the conclusion of that, I realized that that wasn't real fruit.

Now, I've seen college group going from 15 to 100 and at the end conclusion that it grew. But the end of that, instead of having 15 people complaining, we had 100 people complaining. Instead of being frustrated with 15 people, I was frustrated with 100 people. And at the end conclusion of that, I said, this is not it.

This is not real fruit. And and I was convinced and it's a long story, but I was convinced that true fruit comes from. A true response to God's word. See, Christianity in our generation is being attacked and maybe even here, maybe you suddenly have bought into it, even here that you think that if we organize the church a certain way, if we had certain programs better, if we had more money, only if we had more space, only if people were nicer.

You know, only this and only that, only if we were more educated, only this and only that. And you think maybe that's the key to Christianity. So we suddenly we suddenly take in the sufficiency of the word of God. So, of course, we believe that, of course, we believe the word of God.

And we would never question that. But if you look at the reality of the way we live, do we really believe that that is at the core? Am I studying the word of God to test my faith? Or do I is my confidence based upon the organization? Right. If you want to counsel, you got to get a psychology degree.

You want to plant the church. You have to go get a marketing degree. Right. And suddenly we have taken the efficiency or sufficiency of the word of God and authority and place it on man. Why is the word of God so central to the ministry of any church and our church in particular?

There's four things that I want to I want to give you this afternoon. One. The word of God is where we get our authority. The word of God is where we get our authority to speak with clarity. Every once in a while, I'll meet somebody and say, oh, I can't teach that Bible study because they're older than me.

So let me teach this Bible study because they're younger than me. Right. In other words, their confidence comes from I'm older than you. You should listen. Right. My authority comes from my experience. Thus saith me. Right. If that's where my confidence comes from, then you can never teach anybody who's smarter than you, older than you, more experienced than you, maybe more successful than you because you have no authority.

Right. Our authority does not come from our experience, our age. Our success, our experience, our authority comes from his word. Remember when Jesus spoke the word of God, people were not just wow, he speaks, he's different. He said they were astonished. Matthew 7, 28. They were astonished that he spoke with authority, unlike the scribes.

Now, I don't know how the scribes were talking. You know, but the scribes couldn't speak with authority because they were constantly debating one another because they weren't debating the word of God. They were debating the extra laws that they created. But when Jesus spoke, he spoke with authority. Now, I don't think they were recognizing like he has a deep voice.

Right. Thus saith the Lord. I don't think they said, wow, he sounds like Darth Vader. He speaks with such authority. I don't necessarily think that it was something about his aura. He spoke with clarity and he spoke with authority because he was speaking for God. And that's exactly what he says.

It says about Acts chapter 4, 13, when Peter comes up and speaks, they said they saw the boldness of Peter and John and perceived that they were with they were uneducated common men and that they were a stand. It's astonished, but they recognize that they were with Jesus. They spoke with boldness, despite the fact that they were uneducated, despite the fact that they weren't they didn't come from privilege.

And yet they were speaking with boldness. Why were they speaking with boldness? Because they were speaking as Jesus was speaking with authority. You and I live in a generation where we are so afraid that we're going to offend people. Right. I can say anything as long as we say, oh, it's just me.

It's not the truth for everybody. It's just my truth. Right. And so even in the church, we almost have to be apologetic whenever we talk about something. Like, oh, hey, I don't want you to get offended. In fact, even the way we we describe sermons today, I realize in the last 10 years, they started using the word talk instead of preach.

Now, I don't know why they started changing that. But my guess is we live in a generation where no one no one wants to hear didactic teaching. Thus sayeth the law. No one wants to do that. They're kind of engaged. Like we're common. You and I are the same.

Right. OK, that sounds right. I mean, I'm not better than you. Yes, I'm standing up on a pulpit. I'm not better than you. So just humble yourself. I'm not preaching. I'm just talking, you know. So before we say, oh, we downloaded sermons. Now we say we downloaded three talks from this church.

You went to this conference and heard three talks. And there's going to be four talks today. Right. And I'm not saying that that necessarily is wrong. But again, how much of that we're trying to be careful because we don't want to offend anybody. Right. Even the way we describe Christian and non-Christian is like churched and unchurched.

We call non-Christian where the Bible says either of God or not of God or the light or darkness of of the son of God or sons of the devil. I mean, it's just black and white. It's like we don't want to offend people. It's churched and not church people.

Right. And there might be there might be reasonable reasons why we have to use that in certain circumstances, but I think we generally are in a culture where people are not speaking with clarity. Because the word of God has kind of like been shoved aside. It's like, you know, you know, we we want the culture.

We want love. We want a community. But when we begin to preach with authority, we don't get a good response. I've actually had churches say that they stop Bible study because it's not popular. If we have Bible study, people aren't going to come. So we decide to not have Bible study and emphasize fellowship.

The people come when they feel connected because that's what they want when they come to church. They want to feel connected. Well, that's not unique to Christians. Buddhists, Muslims, non-Christians, atheists, liberals, they all desire that. What makes the Christian church different? What makes the fellowship of the church different?

If all we are desiring, if all the connection that we have is simply, you know, have Jesus as a sprinkle some Jesus on it and then connection. That's what we really want in a church. Again, in and of itself, it's not wrong. But that is not the church. J.I.

Packer, in his book of the word of God, says this. Certainty about great issues of Christian faith and conduct is lacking all along the line. The outside observer sees us as staggering on from from a gimmick to gimmick and stunt to stunt like so many drunks in a fog.

Not knowing at all where we are or which way we should be going. Preaching is hazy. Heads are muddled. Hearts fret. Doubt, strain, strength, uncertainty, paralyzes action. See, when we are uncertain about the authority of the word of God, when we can no longer say thus, sayeth the Lord, this is what the word of God says without somebody even in the church saying, I don't know, I don't like to be preached that.

Then it affects the way we live. Unlike the first century Christians who in three centuries won the Roman world and those later Christians who pioneered the Reformation, the Puritan awakening and the evangelical revival and the great missionary movement, the last century, we lack certainty. When we say that the word of God is the word of God and is inerrant, what kind of authority does it have in your life?

Not just how it's taught. Oh, he raises his voice when he preaches. Right? Not just what happens here, but your belief, why you do what you do, how you raise children, what you value, your opinions, how you view yourself, how you talk to other people. What authority does the word of God have in your life?

Or is it just some doctrinal statement that you sign and you kind of shovel aside? It has to have authority. Our authority does not come from my experience, from my past, because we have a large church or a small church, but it is the word of God being taught.

Secondly, word of God is where God has given us power. Our power, our potency in the church is the word of God. Not your talent, not your money, not my education, but the word of God. In 2 Timothy 3, 16, all scripture is breathed out by God. It is the very breath of God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, meaning rebuke.

Again, it's a very, the term rebuke in the church in and of itself has a knee jerk reaction. And we say rebuke, oh, I felt rebuke automatically, ah, legalism. That's not the gospel. So the word of God is profitable for teaching and rebuke and correction and for training in righteousness.

You don't go from a sinner to the cross. You go from the sinner to repentance to the cross. It is the cross that calls us to repentance. It is the cross of Christ that examines our life and teaches us and rebukes us. And then it corrects us and then it trains us in righteousness.

It's the word of God that equips us. In fact, in Ephesians 6, 17, you know, you have that whole passage talks about the armor of God, breastplate of righteousness. You have the helmet of salvation, all protective gear. If you're going into battle, there are only one thing describes described as a weapon was the word of God, the sword of the spirit.

Now, at that time, I'm sure the sword was not the only weapon. You know, they probably had, you know, arrows and they had spears and all this stuff. But in the description of the armor of God, the only weapon that is given us is the word of God. The power and authority comes from his word.

That's why in Jeremiah 23, 29, the word of God is described. It is not my word, is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces. You think about fire, fire actually consumes. If it's hot enough, it will consume everything.

It doesn't just burn the edges. It consumes everything. And the hammer comes and breaks it into pieces. So I can imagine at that particular time today, you know, when's the last time you ran to a blacksmith? I have carpenter, but not blacksmith. But again, if you're thinking about that period of time when they're writing this, a fire and hammer are two things that you absolutely needed to form anything.

Right. You put it into the fire and you have to make it moldable. And once it's moldable, you take the hammer and then you smash it into pieces. Right. So that it can be shaped, whether you're making a helmet, whether you're making a sword, you have to put it into the fire, make it moldable.

And then the hammer comes and begins to shape it. And that's what it says the word of God is like. And a person who is not being exposed to the word of God is like a is like a piece of metal that is never moldable. You're just who you are and you're never changing.

You were the same yesterday. You were the same 10 years ago. You will be the same tomorrow because there's no change. But an individual who is in the word of God is constantly being molded by his word. Like those of you who've exposed yourself to the fire all week long and you come and you hear the hammer of the word of God every week when you hear the hammer, you're being molded.

You're being molded into the image of God. That's the word of God. But if your heart is not soft. If you're not being exposed to the fire. You can, you know, you can hit it all you want. It's just it's not going to change. It's not going to move.

That's why in Hebrews 4, 12, the word of God is described as living and active, sharper than any two edged sword, piercing the division of soul and spirit of joints and marrow, discerning, judging the thoughts and intentions of the heart. You you can be serving the church, giving to the church, even going out to missions and all of that for nothing if you're filled with pride.

Because the primary goal of everything that we do is to bring honor and glory to God. But anything that we do, even preaching the word of God, even preaching about humility. And if you exalt yourself, you ruined everything. You can serve the church night and day. You can give everything.

And if you're filled with pride, you ruined everything because you touch the glory. And he says the word of God judges the thoughts and intentions of your heart. When you're not exposed to the word of God, you may be doing all these things to bring attention to yourself and everything that you've done have become utterly nullified.

And that's why it's important for us that the word of God is like fire and rock, that it judges the thoughts and intention, not just what I'm doing externally, but who am I internally? In fact, if you can turn your Bibles with me to 2 Peter 1, 16 to 21, and I know many of you know this passage well, but I think it's a powerful statement that Peter makes and the Holy Spirit gives a second Peter chapter one, verse 16 and on.

Do you remember? You remember Peter, John and James are part of the inner circle and they see the glory of Christ. This is the transfiguration. And after the father speaks and Jesus is glorified and they're terrified because they see Jesus's glory and the father says, this is my son because they needed to.

After Jesus dies, he resurrects and he and he ascends. He was making sure that his identity is crystal clear, that there is no questioning who Jesus is. So he takes the inner three and shows him the transfiguration and say, this is my son in whom I am well. Please listen to him.

Peter and the disciples are freaked out. It's like, oh my gosh, we've seen his glory is kind of like, you know, the angels and Isaiah and Isaiah chapter six, like, what was mean? You see that same experience, but afterwards he says, don't tell anybody. So all this time, right, all this time, Peter's been keeping it quiet.

Cause he don't want to get in trouble. You know, he screwed up before he's going to screw up again. Right? Don't tell anybody. So this is where Peter is revealing. Like I saw that, right? He says, for we did not follow cleverly devised myths when we made known to you the power of the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

But we were eyewitnesses of his majesty. I'm not just making this up. I saw this for when he received honor and glory from God, the father and the voice was born to him by the majestic glory. This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased. He's talking about the transfiguration.

We ourselves heard this very voice born from heaven for we were with him on the holy mountain. Imagine, you know, imagine, imagine just being there in that presence. Like how would it affect you? Right? How would it have affected you if you were there, you were the inner three, right?

And I'm sure you thought about it. And you know, I've thought about it many times. Like every time I go out witnessing, it'd be great if Jesus was with me. You know what I mean? Like, I'd be always afraid when I was younger. Like what if they asked me something and I can't answer the question, I'm going to look like a dummy, you know, but if maybe if I went with one of my professors or maybe Jesus himself, why not dream big?

You know, Peter says, I saw him. I heard his voice. I saw him. And I heard his voice with my own ears. And he said, look what he says. And we have something more sure than that. I saw him. I heard him. But what I'm about to tell you is even more sure than my own eyes and my own ears.

What does he say? More sure the prophetic word to which you are, you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in the dark place until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your heart. In other words, what is he saying? The word of God is more sure than my own eyewitness testimony.

The word of God is more powerful than me telling you what I saw. Isn't that? That's exactly what he told Thomas. You believe because you saw. But blessed are those who do not see, and yet they believe. God has ordained his word. His very breath is in his word.

So when you come to the word of God, just as Peter heard his voice, you hear his voice directly, not through Peter, but his voice. So this coming to the word of God, think how powerful this is. Coming to the word of God is more sure than hearing Peter's eyewitness testimony.

That's what he's saying. The power is in his word. Thirdly, salvation is from the word. Romans 10, 17. So faith comes from hearing and the hearing of the word of Christ. Faith comes from hearing and the hearing of the word of Christ. You know, again, we can subtly kind of push aside the word of God and saying like, OK, game preaching.

OK, that's good. That's good for some people. Some people tend to like it. And then there's some other people just can't stand the preaching. Let's do something else. But he says salvation comes from hearing and the hearing of the word of Christ. How did you come to faith? You heard the word of Christ and you believed it.

The hammer came down on your hardened, sinful heart and the fire softened it and the hammer smashed it. And all of a sudden, not just not just a part of your life, but your whole paradigm of understanding the world about death, about money, about relationship. All got shattered. How did it happen?

You heard the word of God. And you got hammered. He said God has ordained the preaching of his word to bring about salvation. First, Peter one, 23, since you have been born again, not a perishable seed, but of imperishable through the living and abiding word of God for all fleshes like grass and all his glory, like the flower of the grass, the glass wither grass withers, the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord remains forever.

It's his word. So in our church, why do we, why is this so emphasized? I know what can bring more people to church. I know I've been in ministry long enough to know what causes people to say at the end of the service, like, oh, that was good. That was awesome.

But not all compliments are compliments from God. I can give a terrible message, but be funny. And I know I'm going to get compliments. Right. I can give you the word of God. Specifically from the word of God. And I felt like I, I, I told you exactly what it says.

And somebody will say, that's not it. See, he says in season and out of season, whether people listen or don't listen, whether it causes the churches to grow or to decrease. You know, there was a period our church didn't grow because of the way I was preaching. And then there was a period when people started coming because of the way I was preaching.

Some people came to this church because they said they liked the preaching. And then some people left the church because of the way I was preaching. In season and out of season. I know like right now, maybe because there's maybe a greater appetite for the word of God that maybe people are, we want to hear this certain kind of preaching.

But, you know, I know again, like I said, I've been a ministry long enough that there are seasons right now, maybe a season of growth, you know, but I know that they may come a time where there'd be a season of, of pruning too. And for the very reason why people came the very, that fits for that same reason, people will leave in season and out of season.

But I, what I'm telling you now, that this is not going to change. And the reason why it's not going to change, because I am not the head of this church and neither are you. The head of this church is Jesus Christ. And he said, my sheep, my sheep, not the world, my sheep will hear my voice and they will follow me.

Sometimes the sheep may look big. Sometimes the sheep may be small. Sometimes you may be complimented. Sometimes you may be criticized. But that's not up to me. The word of God must be taught, must be listened, must be studied, must be practiced in season and out of season. And finally, it's the word of God that causes fruit.

Joshua 1, 8, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on a day and night so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous and you will have good success.

The true fruit is always a response to his word. Again, in John 15, 7, if you abide in me, my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish and it will be done for you. There is a condition to answer prayer. Not all of our prayers are the same.

I'm not making that up. Scripture says it, prayer of a righteous man availeth much. If you abide in me, my words abide in you. Ask whatever you wish, it shall be done for you. You do not have because you do not ask. And when you do ask, you do not get because you ask for wrong, selfish motives.

Not all prayers are the same. There are prayers that we pray that are effective. And then there's some prayers that we pray that are absolutely useless. And he says, it's all based upon, are you abiding in his word? And is he abiding in you? True fruit is connected to abiding in his word and abiding in Christ.

So let me conclude with this. Again, when we talk about the second vision in our church, I'm not just talking about what I'm doing here up in the pulpit, right? I'm talking about I'm doing what I'm doing so that you would do what you need to do. You're not a student of the word because you come and listen to me every week.

You're not a student of the word because you check into Bible study and you check out of Bible study. A student of the word has to be examining the word of God. You need to be questioning. If you've been here for two, three, four, five years, and you never questioned anything that I said, you're probably not studying your word.

And I'm not saying that I screwed up that many times, right? But there's no way that everything I said sat well with you all the time, right? I'm pretty sure I must've said something. So if you've been here two, three years, and you've never questioned anything I said, I want to challenge you, right?

So don't come up to me today. It's like, okay, now I have all this problem with you, right? (audience laughing) We need to be students of the word of God. We need to make sure that my belief doesn't come from my prejudice, right? We need to make sure that what we're practicing, we practice because we see it in the word of God, not because, oh, I did this and a lot of people came.

I did this and so many people were happy. But is it biblical? Let me conclude with this statement, okay? If you're just waking up now, just make sure that you remember this, okay? Hello, good morning. (audience laughing) Remember this, okay? His goal achieved by his method, by his word.

His goal achieved by his method, by his word. That's our second vision. Let's pray. Okay, I can now ask the praise team to come up. And I'm gonna ask you guys to take a few minutes to come before the Lord in prayer. And again, to be a student of his word.

That if you've just been a listener of his word and not doers. If you've just been embracing certain doctrinal statements, but you're not in the word, right? The word of God is not judging the thoughts and intentions of your heart. So you never examine how you're spending your time, your heart, how your relationship with other people, because you're not in the word.

The word of God is not hammering you, right? And it's not guiding you. You're just hearing it every Sunday. Let's come before the Lord and embrace this. Not simply just give membership to a church that says this, but that each one of us become priesthoods of believers. That the gift that we have from his word, men who have gone before, who shed their blood so that we can have his word, would not be done in vain.

So let's take a few minutes to come before the Lord in prayer and say, "Lord, give me strength that I may come to your word." Let's pray. (muffled speaking)