Jesus and the Word of God

Introduction

I invite you to please go ahead and get your Bible out this evening and turn over into the New Testament to the book of 2 Timothy, where you please make your way in your Bible to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy 3. We’re going to begin by reading from the scriptures there in just a moment. As you turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3, I just want you to know I’m so happy to see. I really am. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my time here with these wonderful people, wonderful Christian folks here at South Bumby. I can’t believe we only have one day left. And the gospel meeting will be over and concluded. But I’ve been bragging about you to my family over the last couple of days, bragging about you to my wife, and just how well you listen.

You listen so well to the word of God being preached. You have such wonderful energy, such wonderful spirituality, and I appreciate it so much. I appreciate how you always come with your Bibles open, ready to learn, ready to be more like Jesus, ready to be transformed by the preaching of the Word of God. Thank you so much for listening so well over these past few days.

The Apostle Paul writes these words. He says in 2 Timothy chapter 3 and verse 16, all scripture, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate. Some translations use the word complete, perfect, fully mature, what the Apostle Paul is saying to us in those verses. As you really try to let those verses soak themselves and immerse themselves in your hearts, I want to begin by asking you about that book you have in front of you right now. I want to begin by asking you about the Bible. I want to know this evening. I want to know how do you view the Bible? How do you view the Bible?

How do you view that book that you have in front of you right now? I’m willing to guess that since you are attending a gospel meeting on a Tuesday night, you probably believe that that book, the Bible, is in fact the very word of God. You probably believe that the Bible comes from the very mind of God, and it is a product of the Holy Spirit, and it provides us with all the information we need to be everything God wants us to be. I’m willing to guess that nearly everybody in this room believes that the Bible does, in fact, come from God, but we also need to understand that as each and every year goes by in our culture, in our society, fewer and fewer people are not believing the same thing.

They’re not believing the same thing we do about the Bible. Few and fewer people are not believing that the Bible does, in fact, come from God. In fact, that is exactly what is being confirmed in poll after poll after poll. For example, a 2022 Gallup poll found that only 20% of Americans, that is only one out of five every five people in this country believe that the Bible is in fact the literal word of God. That is actually the lowest number that Gallup has ever seen. They started during this poll a few decades ago. And you add to that how, according to the same poll, about 30% of people in this country view the stories that are found in the Bible as fables, as myths, as legends.

In other words, they view the stories in the Bible like Noah in the flood. And Jonah spending three days in the belly of a fish, and Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt, and the creation account found in the book of Genesis as not real. As events that really did not happen, as events that are nothing more than imaginary. You see, unfortunately, there are more and more people in our culture and society who are beginning to view the Bible as a work of pure fiction. But the question is, are those people right? Are they right? Do they have a point? Can the Bible be nothing more than a book of myths and legends and fables, or could it be the actual and literal word of God?

Brothers and sisters, I think those are important questions for us to consider since this entire series of lessons in this gospel meeting has been about the need to live a transformed life. You see, if we are truly going to truly live transformed lives in Jesus Christ, if we are truly going to be committed to that and serious about that and dedicated to that, if we are truly gonna live lives where we are confident that living according to the Bible is the best way to live, then we first have to be confident that the Bible comes from God. We gotta first be confident that the Bible is a product from the mind of God and that it contains everything we need to know to be what God wants us to be.

1. Jesus Believed the Bible Is Inspired by God

In fact, probably the best way to achieve this level of confidence is to consider not what our culture says or what our society says about the Bible, but instead we need to consider what Jesus says about the Bible. What did Jesus say about the Bible? What did Jesus say about the book we have before us this evening? Believe it or not, but in the historical record of Jesus’ life that has been preserved in the Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Jesus actually had a lot to say about the Bible. He actually had a lot to say about the scriptures. In fact, the scriptures, the scriptures, played a huge role in his life. For example, when we study very carefully what Jesus says about the Bible or the scriptures or the word of God, one of the things we learn pretty quickly is Jesus believed that the Bible is in fact inspired by God.

Jesus believed that all the Bible is inspired by God. I’m going in my Bible to a few places to make this point. And the first place is in the gospel of Matthew. Will you go in your Bible, please with me tonight to Matthew chapter 15? And I hope you have your Bible with you because we’re going to be working our Bibles pretty good tonight. It could be paper form, digital form. I don’t care. Let’s just have us a Bible and let’s look at what the Bible has to say. And Matthew, the 15th chapter, we read about a time when Jesus got into a heated confrontation with the religious authorities. He got into a heated confrontation with the Pharisees and the scribes. You being the good Bible students that you are, you’re familiar with the fact that Jesus and the Pharisees and the scribes, they constantly clashed with each other, right?

They constantly bumped heads. And one of the main reasons why was number one, these men didn’t like Jesus. He did not meet their expectations of what they thought the Messiah was going to be. But in addition to that, another problem these men had with Jesus was the fact that he did not keep traditions. The traditions that they had. The Pharisees, the scribes, the Sadducees, they had a lot of traditions. And there’s nothing wrong with having traditions. That’s not sinful in itself. I mean, we have traditions as members of the church of Christ. Nothing wrong with traditions. But the problem with the Pharisees and the scribes was they tried to bind their traditions. They tried to put their traditions on the same level with God’s law. And Jesus didn’t have time for that kind of stuff.

Jesus never put man-made tradition on the same level with the law of God, like the Pharisees did. And so we see this confrontation, this clash taking place here in Matthew chapter 15, where the scripture says, just look at verse 1. Let’s go back up to verse 1 and get the whole context. It says, then some Pharisees and some scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem. Now wait a minute here. Whoa, whoa. Wait a minute here. These guys, this is so serious to them. What we’re going to read here, this is so serious to them that they actually leave from Jerusalem to go to Galilee to talk with Jesus about it. That’s about 90 miles. It’s about 90 miles from Jerusalem to Capernaum, walking. So we’re looking at about a two, three-day journey here.

This is how serious this matter is to the Pharisees. We want to talk with him about this so badly. We’re going to take a trip to Galilee. And it says some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem. And they say, Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders, for they do not wash their hands when they eat bread? And he answered and said to them, Why do you yourselves transgress? The commandment of God for the sake of your tradition. Now notice the language very carefully. For God said, For God said, honor your father and mother. He who speaks evil father and mother is to be put to death. But you say, whoever says to his father and mother, Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God.

He is not to honor his father or his mother, and by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. So notice what the issue is here on this occasion. The issue has to do with washing hands, keeping the tradition of washing hands before you eat bread. They want to talk with Jesus about that. And Jesus will address this matter by appealing to the word of God. Notice how while these men took very seriously the tradition of washing hands before you eat bread, they did not take seriously the Ten Commandments. Specifically, they did not take seriously. Commandment number five that required that required people to honor their parents. Jesus says that when it came to that commandment, they didn’t want to do it.

They didn’t want to honor their parents. They did not want to use their financial resources to help care for their needy mother and father. You see, instead of using their financial resources to do what the law required, Jesus says they would hold on to it and say it was dedicated to God. They would say it was dedicated to the temple, it was dedicated to the work of God. Mark tells us in a parallel account that they would say it was Corbin. They would actually try to find a loophole to get around doing what the word of God said, as religious and devout as these men claim to be.

How as Jesus quotes commandment number five of the Ten Commandments, he calls it something very specific. In verse number three, he calls it the commandment of God. And in verse number six, he calls it the word of God. From that we see that Jesus believed that the Ten Commandments or the writings of Moses that we can read about in the book of Exodus, that came from God. Jesus says these men were guilty of violating the word of God. He is putting his stamp of approval on the scriptures we find in the Old Testament, but he doesn’t just do that with the scriptures of the Old Testament. He also does that with the New Testament. And one great example of this, I believe, is found in John the 16th chapter.

You’re probably, most of you are probably familiar with what Jesus says in John the 16th chapter, verses 12 through 15. Remember in John chapter 16, Jesus here. This is not long before his death, he promised his apostles that once he left them to go back to heaven to be with his father, he says he was going to send them somebody. He was going to send them the Holy Spirit. He was going to send them the comforter or the spirit of truth and the spirit with truth would reveal to them not just some of the truth, but all the truth.

Now, these are just two of many examples we could consider that I believe clearly show us that according to Jesus, the scriptures, the Bible is not a product from the mind of men, instead, it is a product from the mind of God. Jesus believed that the Bible is inspired by God, and the application for us is very simple. The application for us is if we’re really going to be his people, if we’re really going to be disciples, if we’re really going to be the kind of transformed people that he has called us to be, then we got to believe the same thing that he believed about the scriptures. No matter where our society’s thinking continues to shift concerning this matter, no matter what our friends say or our professors say, or what our culture says, or what historians say, as the people of God, we must always believe and stand firm on the fact that all of the Bible, all the Old Testament and all the New Testament, it comes from God.

2. The Scriptures Are Worthy of Study

It is not the product of the mind of men. Jesus clearly believed that. Jesus believed that all the scriptures are inspired by God, and not only are they inspired by God, but when we study the life of Jesus, we also see that he believed the scriptures are worthy of study. They’re worthy of study, they’re worthy to be read, analyzed, discussed, correctly interpreted, even debated. And I give I give you a few examples of this. We go in our Bibles to Matthew chapter 22. In Matthew chapter 22, this is during the last week of Jesus’ life. The clock is ticking down here. And things are getting hot in Jerusalem. The religious authorities are very determined to get rid of Jesus. And so you have all these different religious groups coming to Jesus, trying to trap him, trying to test him, trying to turn the crowds against him.

And here we find the Sadducees against Him. The Sadducees, if you remember, do not believe.

Not understanding the Scriptures, nor the power of God, for in the resurrection they neither marry nor the given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven. But regarding the resurrection of the dead, have you not read? Have you not read what was spoken to you by God? I am the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. He is not the God of the dead, but of the living. When the crowds heard this, they were astonished at his teaching. Now I want you to notice carefully what the Lord says in verse number 31. You see, verse number 31. Notice how, when correcting the Sadducees’ erroneous view pertaining to the resurrection, Jesus asked them a question. What was the question? The question was, have you not read?

That is, have you not read the Bible? Have you men who are supposed to know so much about the scriptures? You’re supposed to be authorities on the scriptures. Have you not read what the Bible, what God says in the Bible about the issue of the of the resurrection? Have you not read and studied what God said to Moses in Exodus chapter 3 and verse number 6? Have you not read that their God made it very clear that he is a God of the living and not the dead? He is the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, even though they had already been dead for a very long time. You see, here Jesus is trying to stress to these men that they would not have had an erroneous view of the resurrection if they had been more careful and diligent students of the scriptures.

Jesus here is saying the scriptures are worthy of study. And another example we have of this is found in Matthew chapter 19. If you go in your Bible to Matthew chapter 19, and again we find religious authorities coming to Jesus trying to trap him. And this time, the trap, the attempt to trap him, has to do with an issue that’s still very controversial in our time today, right? Marriage and divorce. Marriage and divorce. That’s controversial in our time. It was controversial 2,000 years ago. It was something that the rabbis debated about and talked about constantly. There were different views among the Jewish people. And so the Pharisees are aware of this, and they come to Jesus with a question that they believe that no matter how he answers it, he’s going to make somebody mad.

And so in Matthew chapter 19 and verse number 3, it says, the Pharisees came to Jesus testing and asking him, is it lawful? Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any reason at all? That is a question I still get a lot as a gospel preacher to this day. Is God okay for divorce for any reason? And he answered and said to them, Have you not read? Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female? And said, For this reason, a man shall leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh, so they no longer two, but one flesh, for therefore God is joined together, let no man separate.

Again, notice how when answering a Bible question, Jesus does the same thing that he did in Matthew chapter 22. Once again, he asked the question of, have you not read? Have you not read the Word of God? Have you not read the Bible? Have you not read the book of Genesis? Have you not read the first book of the Bible? Have you not read how there in the first book of the Bible, God revealed his desire for marriage to be a lifelong relationship? That’s what God wanted from the beginning. What I just want you to see is according to Jesus, the scriptures, the scriptures are not just inspired of God. They don’t just come from the mind of God, but they also must be read. They must be studied.

They must be rightly divided and accurately interpreted. You see, one of the reasons why so many people in the world today are lost, and they don’t have a relationship with God, and they’re on a path to hell is because they’re not doing what Jesus says they need to do. They’re not regularly reading the scriptures, they’re not studying the scriptures, they’re not carving out time each and every day to carefully consider what the will of God is in the scriptures. Unfortunately, for so many people, they are lost right now and on a path to spiritual destruction because they have not read what the Bible says about salvation. They have not read what the Bible says about repentance and about the need to be baptized for remission of sins.

They have not read what the Bible says about worship that pleases God, and about the one church that Jesus established, and about things like marriage, divorce, and remarriage and biblical morality, and how God doesn’t want women to be preachers, and how God and his work should be the top of the order in every person’s life. Unfortunately, we’re living in a time where so many people they don’t know the Bible, they’re biblically illiterate, and it’s because they’re not reading the Bible and studying the Bible, but let that never describe me and you.

3. The Scriptures Are Useful

Do you remember how he overcame the evil one who was trying to lead him down a path of sin? We learn in Matthew chapter 4 that Jesus overcame the devil in his assault by using the scriptures. He used the scriptures, he quoted the scriptures, and he applied the scriptures correctly in his life. Jesus used the Bible to defeat the devil. Jesus also used the scriptures to correct religious error that was being promoted. And we see that again when we go back to Matthew chapter 22, right? Remember when correcting the erroneous view that the Sadducees had pertaining to the resurrection, Jesus quoted Scripture. He quoted from the book of Exodus. And then in Matthew chapter 19, remember when trying to correct or correcting the erroneous thinking of the Pharisees pertaining to marriage and divorce, Jesus used the scripture.

He taught from the book of Genesis. He quoted from Genesis and emphasized how from the beginning it was God’s will for a husband and a wife to be together for a lifetime. Divorce is not God’s will. Jesus used scripture. And then go in your Bible, please to Luke chapter 7. Because in Luke chapter 7, we find Jesus even using scripture to confirm his identity. If you look at verse number 21, remember during the time when John the Baptizer was imprisoned, he had been put in prison by Herod. John was getting discouraged. He was discouraged. And he wanted to know if Jesus was really the Messiah. So some of his disciples came to Jesus to question him about his identity. And in Luke chapter 7, and in verse number 21, in verse 21, it says at that very time, he, Jesus, cured many people of diseases and afflictions and evil spirits, and he gave sight to many who were blind.

And he answered and said to them, This is the disciples of John. You go report to John what you have seen and heard. The blind receive sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the poor have the gospel preach to them. Blessed is he who does not take offense at me. You see what the Lord is doing there? Notice how in response to a question people had about his identity, Jesus appealed. He appealed to those people by using scripture. He said, If you really want to know if I’m the Messiah, if John really wants to know I’m the Messiah, you go and you tell John about all I’m doing. You go and tell John about how I’m giving sight to the blind, I’m giving the deaf the ability to hear, I’m raising the dead, I am doing everything that the scriptures said the Messiah was supposed to do.

You see, the Jesus, the scriptures, the Bible. It wasn’t just something that had words on a page. The scriptures are not just to be read, they’re not just to be studied, they’re not just to be memorized and even quoted. Instead, according to Jesus, they’re to be used. They’re to be used to battle against the devil. They are to be used to correct religious error and to encourage people and rebuke people and correct people and to convince people that he is in fact the Son of God. Jesus used the scriptures all throughout his life, and the question is, do we use them like he did? Do we use the scriptures like Jesus did in his life? Like Jesus did in his own life. Do we use the scriptures and the daily battles we wage against the devil?

Whenever we find ourselves being assaulted by the devil. Whenever we find ourselves about to commit sin because we’re angry at somebody. Or whenever we find ourselves waging battles against lust, or whenever we find ourselves having problems in our marriages or problems with our kids or problems on our jobs, or if we find ourselves beginning to lack faith and trust in God. Do we use the scriptures? Do we remember what the scriptures have to say? And do we quote the scriptures and accurately use the scriptures to help us in that situation? Do we use the Bible to help us as we battle the devil? And whenever we hear religious error being promoted, do we freeze up and just keep our mouths shut? Or like Jesus, do we use the scriptures to defend the truth?

4. The Scriptures Are Historically Accurate

To defend the faith, to speak the truth and love. As Paul tells us to do in Ephesians 4 and verse 15. Jesus promoted the fact that the scriptures are not only inspired and worthy of study, but they’re useful. They’re useful to help us in every part of our lives, and our marriages and our parenting and the relationships we have with each other and how we work on our job and in the kind of citizens we are in this country. And when it comes to living a transformed life, we need to use the scriptures. In fact, that brings us to the fourth thing that Jesus had to say about the scriptures, and that is Jesus also endorsed the fact that they are historically accurate. They are historically accurate.

You know, it’s interesting how when you carefully study the ministry of Jesus, one thing you never find him doing is you never find him mocking the stories you read about in the Old Testament. You never find him referring to those stories as myths and legends and fables. You never find him saying, you know that thing about Noah, that’s just made up. That’s a fairy tale. No, what you find from Jesus is him constantly referring to those those stories as true, as historical, as events that really happened. For example, we go back to Matthew 19. We’ve talked about Matthew 19 quite a bit this evening. And remember in Matthew chapter 19, as Jesus taught the Pharisees the will of God when it came to marriage, he made reference to the creation account in Genesis.

He made reference to the fact that God made everything in the beginning.

He made man, he made marriage, he put his stamp of approval on the creation account found in the first book of the Bible. Jesus said that the creation account is a literal account. God literally made the world in six days. Jesus also made reference in his ministry to Noah in the global flood and how that really happened. And he made reference to the fact that Jonah, as incredible as it seems, spent three days in the belly of a fish. And he made reference to the fact that God did speak to Moses through a burning bush. And he made reference to the fact that Lot’s wife really did turn into a pillar of salt. And he also made reference to the fact that Naaman, in the time of the prophet Elisha, had to dip in the Jordan River seven times to be miraculously cleansed of his leprosy.

Over and over again, Jesus made reference to these great stories we read about in the Old Testament. Over and over again, he says that these stories are real. They are historical, they are events that really happened, and that should mean something to us. That shouldn’t mean something to us as the people of God. This information here should actually strengthen our faith. It should increase our faith. It should eliminate any doubts we may have in regards to the faith. You know, I can remember being in high school and even the first couple years of college. And I had doubts about many of the stories we read about of the Old Testament. I can remember having doubts about those stories. I can remember sitting in my freshman biology class at Stephen F.

Austin, listening to my biology professor, and beginning to have doubts in regard to the creation account found in Genesis. Or beginning to have doubts in regard to a literal interpretation of Noah in the global flood, or beginning to have doubts about Jonah actually spending three days in the belly of a fish. I remember going through a time in my life when I was starting to really doubt that those events really happened, but one day I decided to do something to help me with that. One day I decided to carefully examine the life of Jesus, particularly the evidence surrounding the validity of his resurrection. And when I did that, brothers and sisters, that eliminated any doubts that I had. It eliminated all my doubts. Because think about this.

Jesus made reference to all of these incredible stories throughout his ministry. And if he was really raised from the dead and seen all over the place, they have to be true because I hope we can all agree God’s not going to raise a liar from the dead. The resurrection was the key to me. The resurrection, that’s the that’s there’s a reason why that is the key foundation stone to our faith. If the resurrection really happened, if it is a historical fact, then everything else in the Bible has to be true, no matter how incredible as it may seem. Jesus. Jesus promoted the fact that the Bible is historical. It contains events that really, really happened. Because he was raised from the dead, we can trust in the historicity of the Old Testament.

5. They Have Authority: Necessary to Obey

They have authority in our lives. And another way we can say that is Jesus believed they are necessary to obey. And I really want to emphasize this point to you. Because when it comes to a lot of people in our society and culture and religious world, you and I both know that for a lot of people, they view careful obedience to the word of God as kind of optional. As something that that’s really not a big deal. In other words, a lot of people believe that since God is loving, and since he is full of grace and mercy and compassion, it really doesn’t matter what we do. It really doesn’t matter how we live, it really doesn’t matter how we worship, it really doesn’t matter if we carefully adhere to the instructions given to us in the Bible.

That is the very mindset that so many people carry with them in our culture and society today, and yet, if you just do a casual reading of the gospels, you see that is not the attitude Jesus had in his life. For example, look at Matthew chapter 23, please. In Matthew chapter 23, we find another moment of confrontation between Jesus and the Pharisees. And Jesus is really going to work on them here in this section. He is calling them hypocrites over and over again because that’s what they were. They were hypocrites. They only cared about what men thought about them. They did not care about what God thought. And in Matthew chapter 23, look carefully at what Jesus says in verse number 23. In Matthew 23, verse number 23, Jesus says, What are you scribes and you Pharisees, hypocrites?

For you tithe, you tithe meant and deal in cumin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law, justice and mercy and faithfulness, but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. You blind guides who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel. You see what Jesus is saying there. You know, so often we hear folks say that the problem the Lord had with the Pharisees was they were just too conservative. They just cared too much about carefully obeying what the word of God said down to the smallest details. When you read these verses, that blows that notion out of the water. It blows it away. Because notice how Jesus’ problem with the Pharisees wasn’t that they were too careful in obeying the word of God.

Instead, it wasn’t that they were not careful enough. Jesus says they paid a lot of attention to tithing all kinds of various spices, but they neglected things like justice and mercy and faithfulness.

That’s what the Lord is saying there. But Jesus didn’t do that. Go in your Bible, please, to John, the eighth chapter, and in verse number 55. Because it’s Jesus talks about how he treated the word of God. In John 8 and verse number 55, Jesus says, And you have not come to know him, but I know him. Jesus says, I know God. And if I say that I do not know him, I will be a liar like you, but I do know him, and I keep his word. I keep his word. Jesus practice what he preached. Jesus then just go around telling people, live a certain way. Think a certain way, do certain things, obey God, do what God says. Jesus then just go around telling people to obey the scriptures and obey God.

Jesus did that also himself. He was careful to do everything God wanted him to do. He obeyed the scriptures, and he promoted that other people need to do it as well. These people needed to do it at this time. We need to do it today. We need to be serious about obeying God in every aspect of our lives. This is why Jesus tells us in John 14 and verse 15, if you love me, you will keep my commandments.

You got to do something. We have to do something if we’re going to please God. That’s part of living the transformed life doing. But he who does will by Father who’s in heaven will enter. Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name? And your name cast out demons, and your name before many miracles, and then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. Notice how there are going to be some shocked people on the judgment day. You see that? They’re gonna be shocked people on the judgment day. There are gonna be people who are gonna be standing before the Lord thinking they should be allowed to go in because they did a bunch of religious things and slap the Lord’s name on it.

The Lord said, No sir, no man. It’s not the way it’s gonna work. Jesus says that when it comes, when it comes to going to heaven to be with God, there’s only one group of people who’re gonna make it in. And it’s those who love God and trust him enough to do his will. To do his will. To not do our will, but to do his will as it’s prescribed in the Bible. The will of God, the will of the Father is found in one place and one place alone, and that’s the Bible. In our case, as Christians, it’s been preserved for us in the New Testament. It’s in the gospel, the new covenant. You see, according to Jesus, it’s not enough just to say we love the we love God.

Conclusion

It’s not enough just to say we believe in God and we’re part of God’s family, and we go to church every single Sunday. No, in addition to those things, we have to obey God. We have to submit to God. We have to apply these things, we’re reading and studying to our lives. That’s what Jesus says, and that’s what we have to stand firm on. And so going back to where we started. I asked you at the beginning, how do you view your Bible? How do you view the book in front of you? Do you believe it’s the word of God? If so, why do you believe that? Why should you? Why should I? Why should we believe the Bible? Well, I submit to you that the main reason why we should believe the Bible is a product from God Himself.

It’s because Jesus believed that. Jesus believed the Bible. Jesus believed that the Bible comes from God and it must be read and studied and obeyed. That’s how he viewed the scriptures. And the question is, how are you viewing the scriptures? Right now, are you reviewing it as Jesus did? Are you respecting it? Are you believing them? Trusting them, teaching them, obeying them. If not, then tonight you have the opportunity to change. You have the opportunity to finally start obeying the Bible in the way that God desires. And that may mean, that may mean that you need to do that for the first time. That may mean that you’re not a Christian. You’re not a Christian. You’re not a follower of Jesus. And you can become a follower tonight by obeying the gospel, believing in Jesus, believing in Him, having faith that He’s the Son of God, He’s the Lord, He’s the Messiah.

He died on the cross for your sins. He was raised from the dead. Allow that faith in Jesus to lead you to repentance. Turning away from sin, having a change of mind towards sin that leads to a change in your life. Transformation. And then being willing to confess Him before these witnesses as the Lord and then obeying His commandment to be baptized in water for the forgiveness of your sins according to Acts chapter 2 and in verse number 38. That’s how you become a Christian. That’s how you begin the process of spiritual transformation and walking with Jesus. And if you’ve done those things, but you know you haven’t been living that life, you should be living. You believe the Bible, but you haven’t been living according to the Bible, and you’re a Christian.

That describes you, we’re here for you tonight. We want to encourage you, we love you. If you want to confess that sin in a public way, we’ll be happy to pray with you and pray for you and hold your hand, lift you up, and help you get back on the right spiritual path. If there’s anyone here this evening who needs to obey this book, the Word of God, we invite you to come right now. Let’s stand, let’s sing.