Bayside Baptist Church

Guest (Male): If I were the devil, if I were the prince of darkness, I'd want to engulf the whole world in darkness. I'd have a third of its real estate and four fifths of its population, but I wouldn't be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, the US. So I'd set about however necessary to take over the United States. I'd subvert the churches first. I'd begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: "Do as you please."

To the young, I would whisper that the Bible is a myth. I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what's bad is good and what's good is square. And the old, I would teach to pray after me: "Our Father, which art in Washington." And then I'd get organized. I'd educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull and uninteresting. I'd threaten TV with dirtier movies and vice versa. I'd peddle narcotics to whom I could. I'd sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. I'd tranquilize the rest with pills.

If I were the devil, I'd soon have families at war with themselves, churches at war with themselves, and nations at war with themselves until each in its turn was consumed. And with promises of higher ratings, I'd have mesmerized media fanning the flames. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine young intellects but neglect to discipline emotions. Just let those run wild until before you knew it, you'd have to have drug-sniffing dogs and metal detectors at every schoolhouse door.

Within a decade, I'd have prisons overflowing. I'd have judges promoting pornography. Soon I could evict God from the courthouse, then from the schoolhouse, and then from the houses of Congress. And in his own churches, I would substitute psychology for religion and deify science. I would lure priests and pastors into misusing boys and girls and church money. If I were the devil, I'd make the symbol of Easter an egg and the symbol of Christmas a bottle.

If I were the devil, I'd take from those who had and give to those who wanted until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. What will you bet I couldn't get whole states to promote gambling as the way to get rich? I would caution against extremes in hard work, in patriotism, in moral conduct. I'd convince the young that marriage is old-fashioned, that swinging is more fun, that what you see on TV is the way to be. And of course, I could undress you in public and I could lure you into bed with diseases for which there is no cure. In other words, if I were the devil, I'd just keep right on doing what he's doing.

Jason King: Recently my wife and I have been trying to declutter our house. Having a baby at home has showed us we have a lot of things that we don't really need, and we got to make some room for all of his stuff now. So we've been going around just doing a little bit of summer cleaning, not spring cleaning, but summer cleaning. As we've done that, we've found all kinds of things that at one point in our lives we thought would be really useful, maybe even something that would change our lives, but now it's just stuffed in a corner or a closet collecting dust. We're going through all of our cabinets, our closets, our drawers, corners of the garage and just seeing what do we have in here that we don't even really need anymore.

I want to give you a few examples so you can see what I mean by this. First, I've got a picture right here behind me of a pull-up bar. I remember I bought this back in college and I thought I'm going to do pull-ups every single day and I'm going to walk out of college with my diploma just shredded like Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. That was my goal. But this pull-up bar has been sitting literally in a corner in our basement for maybe three or four years, untouched, unused. I still work out, but I don't use that thing anymore.

How about this one? We found this very recently in our office. This is a 12-string guitar. You heard that right, a 12-string guitar instead of a six-string guitar. Now, if you know my wife Aaron, she loves to lead worship, she loves to play music, and she thought when I buy this 12-string guitar, it's going to change everything. It's going to improve my sound, it's going to sharpen my skill a little bit, it's going to give me a little bit of a challenge when it comes to playing guitar. I remember having that conversation with her about three years ago. Since then, this guitar has been sitting in our office in a guitar case, unused, unplayed. I'm pretty sure it's even out of tune at this point.

Or how about this next picture shows something in our garage? It's a stack of skateboards. I love skateboarding. I've been skateboarding since I was a kid, but life's been pretty busy. And so I've got these skateboards just stacked up in our garage. In probably about two years or so, I haven't ridden. These guys have not hit the road, I haven't been on them, I haven't been able to pull any tricks. I'm pretty sure I couldn't pull any tricks anymore even if I wanted to. My 30s are hitting me pretty hard.

I show you all these things primarily because yes, we're trying to declutter our house and I thought this would be a great opportunity to sell off these items instead of using Facebook Marketplace. Any bids? No? Okay. That's all right. I show you those things because I think every single one of us has spaces like that in our house. We have these drawers, these cabinets, these corners of the garage where honestly, things go to die. They collect dust. We have all these items in our lives that we thought at one point would change our lives, would improve our lives, but now we don't touch them.

Is the Bible one of those things? Seriously, is the Bible one of those things? In your life, has the Bible become something where you used to believe this is going to change my life, this is going to change everything about my life and how I'm living and the person that I am becoming, but now you see it as irrelevant for your life? It doesn't matter for your life and it's somewhere in your house, maybe on a bookshelf or a bedside table just collecting dust.

The prevailing myth in our society and our culture right now is that the Bible is no longer relevant. The idea is that the Bible was written so long ago that yes, it might have something to say about my spirituality or my faith, but when it really comes to the details of what the Bible says about living my life, it doesn't matter. Times have changed, history has moved on, people live differently now than they did then. So I don't need the details of the Bible to show me how I am supposed to live my life. The major consensus in our world right now is that the Bible is a fairy tale, or at best it's just a self-help book with some decent advice. Most people would agree with the words of atheist author Christopher Hitchens that we are no longer obliged to believe these myths, talking about the Bible, and we are certainly not obliged to base our society on the Bronze Age superstitions of nomads who didn't know where the sun went at night.

That's the prevailing idea in our society. You might be here right now and you might say, "Well, that's not me. Obviously, I'm at church right now. I don't believe that. I believe in God, I believe in the Bible, I've trusted Jesus as my savior." That doesn't apply to me. But here's the deal. The question you really need to be wrestling with this morning is that if the Bible, if the word of God truly is God's word, am I willing to submit every area of my life to it?

That's the real issue because we might be in here and we might say the problem isn't whether or not I own a Bible or I attend church or I believe in Jesus. I have all those things. The real question in my life is whether or not I'm allowing scripture to shape and form my life. Because at the end of the day, you can say that you believe the Bible is relevant, you can say that you believe the Bible is true, but is that evident in how you are living out your life? For example, is the Bible shaping your identity, or are all the people around you and their opinions shaping your identity? Is the Bible shaping your finances, or is the American dream shaping your finances? Is the Bible shaping your marriage, or is culture shaping your marriage? Is the Bible shaping your parenting, or is social media doing that?

If you believe that the Bible is true and you believe that the Bible is relevant, then it should apply to every single area of your life. It should have authority over your entire life. That's what I want you to see today in 2nd Timothy Chapter 3. In 2nd Timothy Chapter 3, we see that the Bible is not a collection of fairy tales and make-believe. It's not a self-help book with some inspirational advice. It's not an outdated dusty textbook that has no relevancy to our lives right here, right now in the 21st century in the modern world. No, the Bible is important. The Bible is valuable. God actually uses the Bible to transform the lives of his people. It is alive, it is powerful, it is true, it is the word of God.

Which means that the Bible is relevant because God is the author. We say it all the time that it is God's word, and so that means that the Bible is relevant based on the fact alone that God is the author. The way the Bible works really, the way I like to look at it, is it's kind of like one long text message from our heavenly father where he's communicating to us. He's saying, "These are the things that I have for your life and I just want to let you know that I love you and I care about you." That's what the Bible is like. Anytime that we are engaging with scripture, when we're opening up our Bible and we're interacting with it, we're reading it, we're hearing it, we're thinking through it, memorizing it, praying over it, what we're doing is we're actually engaged with the voice of God himself. These are the words of our loving heavenly father that he has given to us to let us know how much he cares for us, how much he loves us, and the kind of life that he has for us.

Listen to what Paul wrote here in 2nd Timothy 3, starting in verse 16. He said, "All scripture is inspired by God." Now I'm going to pause right there because that in and of itself is a lot to discuss and unpack. He said, "All scripture is inspired by God," or your translation might say that all scripture is God-breathed. When we start right here just in this verse, I want you to notice a specific word here. What does that say? All. Say it louder. All. That's right, all scripture is God-breathed. The prevailing myth in our society is that the Bible is no longer relevant to us now. It's good for our spirituality or our faith or putting our faith in Jesus, but I'm going to pick and choose the parts of the Bible that I actually want to listen to.

The parts that talk about marriage, sexuality, finances, different relationships in our lives, I get to go into the Bible and choose what I actually want to live out and apply. That's the idea that exists, not just in our society as a whole, but let's be honest about that, it exists in the church. A lot of people who call themselves followers of Jesus pick and choose what they want to believe to be true about the Bible and what they want to apply to their lives from the Bible. But what Paul is saying here from the very start is all of scripture is inspired by God, which means the totality of scripture is important for our lives.

I love what he says next in here. He says all scripture is inspired by God. Here's why that matters. When I really dig into the Bible, it is very quickly obvious that this is not an ordinary piece of literature. This is not some book that I'm going to go pick up at the library or at a bookstore and read it for fun here and there. This is something different. This is something that has been divinely inspired by the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul means when he says that all of scripture is inspired by God.

I'm going to give you a few examples of what that means because I believe that when we actually see that the Bible is the inspired word of God, that these are the voice of God, these are God's words and what he wants for our lives, then we begin to more readily build our lives based on what the Bible says simply because we understand who the author is. Here are three evidences that support Paul's claim that all scripture is inspired by God.

The first is cross-references. For a lot of you, that might sound very familiar, but in case you have never heard that before, a cross-reference is simply this. It's one part of the Bible referencing another part of the Bible. You see these connections being made all throughout scripture where something that was said hundreds of years ago is connected to something a hundred years later and you're seeing these theological concepts, these historical events, these major themes all connecting together in a way that is wholly unique to the Bible.

I'll give you an example of what I mean by this. A good example is if I look at Exodus and the story where the Israelites are fleeing the Egyptians. There's this moment where God's about to send death down into Egypt. It's the final plague, the last plague that attacks Egypt. God tells the Israelites, "I want you to take a sinless, spotless lamb, like a clean, pure lamb. I want you to sacrifice that lamb, I want you to take its blood and I want you to smear it across the doorposts of your homes. When you do that, death is going to pass over you."

If I flash forward several hundred years to the New Testament, Jesus is referred to as a sinless, spotless lamb, as a sacrificial lamb. In fact, the lamb that was sacrificed on our behalf. Now if you and I are covered in the blood of Jesus, now spiritual death and hell will pass over us. That's what we mean by a cross-reference. It's things tying together all across the Bible. That's just one example. I want to show you an image real quick that's kind of mind-blowing. These are all the cross-references in the Bible.

If I look at these white and gray lines at the bottom, what this is is all 66 of the historical canonical books of the Bible and each of the individual bars are the chapters, which is why you'll see like this really long bar at the bottom, that's Psalm 119. It's incredibly, incredibly long, so it stands out. These colored arches coming out of here, those are the cross-references. You're seeing parts of the Bible connect from the Old Testament into the New Testament. On the surface, you can already tell this is really complicated. I looked at another visual similar to this this week of the Quran and there were only like five or six. It's nowhere near this complex.

You can see just by glancing at this the Bible is pretty complicated. That's intense. But I want to explain this a little bit further so we can understand. These cross-references are written by 40 different authors over the course of 1500 years. To put that into perspective, these are people who never met, never spoke to each other, didn't have a chance to glance at each other's notes and compare and contrast what they were writing. Most of them didn't speak the same language or even live in the same country. When I look at this and I see this, what I see is 63,000 cross-references across 40 authors across 1500 years. That is not something a person can write. The myth and the lie that the Bible is actually just written by some really talented authors, it's not possible. J.K. Rowling cannot write like that. Ernest Hemingway, Edgar Allan Poe, William Shakespeare, they cannot write like this. James Patterson, Stephen King, it's just not possible. A human author is not possible. When I look at something as simple as just the cross-references, it's evident right out at the gate that there's a divine author behind the Bible.

That's the first evidence that I can look at that supports Paul's claims that the Bible is inspired by God. Here's the second thing: fulfilled prophecy. Throughout the Old Testament, the first half of the Bible, God sends these men called prophets to declare his word over his people. Part of what the prophets did in the midst of their declarations of God's word is that they began to express prophecies about what the coming Messiah would be like. Humanity sinned, we needed a Messiah to rescue us, save us from our sinfulness, and these prophets are saying this is what he's going to be like. The prophets existed hundreds of years before the Messiah Jesus arrived on the scene.

But when I look at these prophecies, it's unbelievable how well they describe the life and ministry of Jesus. They were written hundreds of years prior to Christ, but when I look at them, I see just this clear evidence that something is happening here. They very clearly depicted what Jesus would do, what he would be like, what his death would be like. If you want to get a glimpse of this, go look at Isaiah 53. It's a beautiful picture of ultimately what Jesus was going to do on the cross. When I look at all of these prophecies, here's some interesting statistics. Scholars have discussed that statistically only eight of those prophecies being fulfilled in one person are a one in 100 quadrillion chance.

Only eight prophecies, a one in 100 quadrillion chance. But it's famously been said that the odds of that happening, just to paint a picture, are like taking the state of Texas, filling it two feet deep with quarters, grabbing one quarter, putting a mark on the side, throwing it into the middle of the pile, blindfolding somebody and telling them to go walk and pick up that coin and that coin be the first coin that they pick up. That's what the odds of only eight of these prophecies being fulfilled by one person are like. Biblical scholars generally estimate that Jesus fulfilled more than 300. Again, we can see very clearly that this is not an ordinary piece of literature. This was divinely written, pieced together, inspired, breathed out by God.

The third thing that we see that supports Paul's claims that scripture is inspired by God is Jesus's view of scripture. Jesus believed that the scriptures were God's authoritative word, meaning that they had authority over his life. They were the thing driving and motivating his life and everything that he did. Throughout his ministry, we see this. Jesus consistently treated the Bible as the very word of God himself. When Satan tempted Jesus in the wilderness, Jesus answered every single temptation with scripture. When the religious leaders came and they challenged Jesus, Jesus answered them by appealing to God's word.

When he taught crowds, Jesus repeatedly said "It is written" in reference to the Bible. Even when he died on the cross, Jesus quoted from Psalms. Here's why that matters. If I'm willing to put my faith in Jesus and say Jesus is my source for faith, spirituality, religion, however you want to phrase that, then I should be willing to put my faith in all of his word. If my savior and my Messiah was willing to say that God's word has the final say and the final authority, then I should be willing to say that about my own life as well.

This is what Paul's driving at when he writes to Timothy in 2nd Timothy 3 that all of scripture is inspired by God. Paul is clearly pointing to the fact that God is the author of the Bible. The Bible was divinely inspired by God, written with the guidance of the Holy Spirit, and then confirmed in Christ Jesus. Now look, here's the deal. I can say all that, and I'm going to be real, I could stand up here for hours talking about this. There is so much evidence, archaeological evidence, historical evidence, textual evidence, on and on it goes that support that the Bible is the most trustworthy text in the world. But at the end of the day, you got to ask yourself if you truly believe that God's the author of this, then why aren't you living that way?

If this is the authoritative word of God, then why is it not having authority over everything in your life? If I could prove to you beyond a shadow of a doubt that this was truly the inspired word of God, then you have to wrestle with the question would you begin to live your life differently based on what it says? Because if he's the author, then yeah, I should be building my life around what it says. The real issue in many of our lives is not that we need someone to come and stand before us for hours and give us a lecture about the authenticity of the Bible. What we need is that we need to submit to the authority of God's word. Paul wrote that all scripture is inspired by God, so shouldn't it have a place of authority in my life? Shouldn't it be the most relevant voice in my life?

The Bible is relevant to our lives because of who the author is. Don't miss that. The Bible is relevant to our lives despite what our society wants to say, despite what our culture wants to say. It's not some dusty old book that doesn't matter anymore. It is relevant to our lives because of who the author is. Because God is the author of the Bible, then it is relevant to our lives right here, right now, today. It is written by the one who invented the formula for rain clouds, who designed the topography of every mountain range on the earth, and engineered the orbits of the planets. So isn't it worth listening to what he has to say about your relationships, about your finances, about your identity, and every other area of your life? Because when you do what happens is the author of scripture begins to write something new in you.

God did not give us his word as a textbook to just learn more information. He gave us his word so that we could become more, so that we could become who he created us to be. Which means that the Bible is relevant because God can use it to change our lives. The Bible is relevant because God can use it to change our lives. If God wrote it, then he wrote it for a purpose. He has a plan for it and his plan is to change us, to point us to Christ and to help us recognize that Jesus is here to save you from your sin and to begin transforming you, changing you into the person that God wants you to be. It does not get more relevant than that. That's as relevant as it can be.

The Bible can do what no self-help book or trend that you see on social media could ever do. It offers actual lasting life change through the work of the Holy Spirit. That's exactly what Paul wrote in 2nd Timothy 3. I'm going to read the rest of these verses to us. I want you to listen closely to what he says. He says, "All scripture is inspired by God." We just saw that, right? God's the author, all of it's important. "And it is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work."

What these verses are saying is that God wants to use the Bible to change your life. Not to just sit on a bookshelf collecting dust, but to radically change your life. It tells us what is true, it reveals when you and I are wrong, it shows us how to get back on the right path, and ultimately how to walk with God in faith. What I want to do right now is I want to take what Paul wrote here and I want to break it down piece by piece so that we can better understand what he's saying about how God uses the Bible to change our lives. Here are the steps of how God uses the Bible to change lives.

The first thing is that the Bible reveals truth. If you and I want to experience a changed life, then we need to know what is true because transformation begins with revelation. In other words, you got to know what's wrong in order to fix the problem. If I go out to cut my grass tomorrow and the lawnmower's not working, I need to investigate. I need to see what's going on. If I open the gas tank and there's no gas in it, then there you go, there's the problem. I need to fill it up with gas in order for it to get going. I need to see what the problem is in order to find the solution.

The Bible shows us the truth about who we are. It reveals to us the greatest truth that we need in our lives. It shows us our fallen nature and it reveals to us our need for a savior. Listen to what Romans 5:8 says about this. Romans 5:8 says, "But God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners." This is the greatest truth of the Bible right here, that you and I, we are sinners in need of a savior. You and I have fallen away from God. We've made choices that go against God's word. We've gone against God himself. We're sinners. We're in bad shape. But God loves us so much that he sent his son Jesus to die for us, to die on our behalf, taking our place on the cross even though we were sinners so that we could experience a new life in him.

That's not an issue that isn't relevant today anymore. That's not an issue that was only pertinent for 2,000 years ago. That's an issue for us right here, right now, today. This is what Paul means in 2nd Timothy 3 when he said that the Bible is useful to teach us what is true. The second way God uses the Bible to change us is the Bible exposes sin. Now this is the tough part. No one wants to open up the Bible and have their mail read, no one wants their toes stepped on. It's the hard part, but it's the most important part because scripture is relevant to us because it shows us the things that are going on where we need the help of the Holy Spirit. We need God to change our lives from the inside out.

The Bible refuses to just let us stay comfortable, to just stay where we are and stay living the same life that we've always lived. The Bible calls us to more. God uses it to say, "I have a better life for you." In case you're sitting here thinking, well, I'm perfect, I ain't got any problems, first of all, you're lying. But second of all, let me show you what Jesus says about that in Matthew Chapter 5. Jesus takes that idea and he breaks it apart. In Matthew 5:22, look at what he says. He says, "But I say, if you are even angry with someone, you are subject to judgment. If you call someone an idiot, you are in danger of being brought before the court. And if you curse someone, you are in danger of the fires of hell." Now you might read that and say, "Well, I don't murder people, right? So the Bible's not relevant to me because I'm not a murderer. Who cares?" Have you pulled out on Highway 58 recently? I get pretty angry. I don't know about you. And what Jesus is saying here is that anger towards a person, well, that condemns us. That's sin.

What about Matthew 5:28? Gets a little bit more serious here. Matthew 5:28, Jesus said, "But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart." You might say, "Well, I haven't had an affair, I don't look at pornography, the Bible's not really addressing something that's going on in my life." But guys, let's get real. What about the glances at the gym? The little peak out the corner of your eye that you think no one notices? Or ladies, what about the steamy romance novels that you think don't matter? What Jesus is saying here is what's going on in your heart, that's the real problem. That's the real issue. That's where sin lives.

Or how about this? Jesus takes it even a step further for those of us who are like, well, those things don't apply to me. In Matthew 5:39, "But I say, do not resist an evil person. If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other cheek also." He's saying don't seek out revenge. You might say, "Okay, well, that doesn't apply to me, that's not relevant to my life. I'm not fighting a Roman army. What's that have to do with me? I don't have enemies." What about that passive-aggressive email you sent to your boss this week? Is that seeking out revenge? I'm pretty sure it is.

So what Jesus is saying here in Matthew 5 is none of us has an excuse. Romans 5:23 tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. All of us, every single one of us. And so the Bible, what it does and the way God uses it to change us, is it says, "Hey, there's a problem, and I'm going to point it out and I'm going to call you to more, I'm going to call you to better." The Bible is still relevant in our lives today because sin still exists. We need God's word to expose the ways that we're struggling so that God can begin to change our lives. Yes, it might be hard and it might be painful, but it is important if we want to grow in our walk with God. That's what Paul means in 2nd Timothy 3 when he wrote that the Bible helps us realize what is wrong in our lives.

But the Bible does another thing. The third way the Bible changes us and the way God uses it to change us is the Bible shows us a better way. God doesn't say, "Hey, you messed up, you failed, you sinned, good luck figuring it out on your own." He says, "Hey, I'm going to show you the next steps that you need to take to get back to the life that I have authored for you." I love what Proverbs 3, verses 5 through 6 say. It's a very popular verse, you probably heard them before, but it says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart. Do not depend on your own understanding. Seek his will in all you do and he will show you which path to take."

In those moments where I've fallen short and I've messed up and I don't know what my next steps are, God says, "Hey, I'm going to show you the path. I'm going to show you what next steps to take." I know for every single one of us, we might say, well, is that relevant for me? But it's definitely relevant to us because how many of us, we deal with decisions every day? We're making decisions about our marriages, about our families, about our finances, about our future. We need to listen to the voice of God rather than trying to take control of it ourselves and say why I'm in charge? I'm going to do it in my own strength and my own power. Instead, the way the Bible changes us is saying, I'm going to go to God's word first and I'm going to see what God has to say about this issue. That's what Paul meant in 2nd Timothy 3 when he said that the Bible not only corrects us when we are wrong, it also teaches us what is right.

There's a fourth thing that God does, a fourth way that God uses the Bible to change us. The Bible shapes us. The more that we engage with the word of God, the more we begin to change and to grow. God will use his word to shape the very person that we are becoming over time the more we interact with him in his voice. I love what Psalm Chapter 1, verses 1 through 3 says. It's a beautiful picture of what this looks like. It says, "Oh, the joys of those who do not follow the advice of the wicked or stand around with sinners or join in with the mockers. Instead, they delight in the law of the Lord." That's the Bible, that's what he's saying there. The law of the Lord, that's referring to the Bible. "Meditating on it day and night. These people are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither and they prosper in all that they do."

It's a beautiful picture of what God wants to do in every single one of our lives. He wants to grow us, shape us, to make us fruitful in this life. That's what he's trying to do, and so the Bible shapes us in this way. You might look at that and say, well, is this really relevant to me? Is the Bible relevant to me? I mean, how is that not relevant to you? Who doesn't want stability and fruitfulness and endurance like Psalm 1 is describing? Who doesn't want a life like that? That's why it's relevant because God uses his word to begin producing that fruitful result in our lives.

This is what Paul meant in 2nd Timothy Chapter 3 when he said that God uses the Bible to prepare and equip his people to do every good work. That's why the Bible is relevant today. That's why it's not some dusty textbook that does not matter in our modern society because it doesn't just give us information, it transforms us. It changes us. It reveals to us the truth about who we are, it exposes the sins that are holding us back from the life that God has for us, it helps us see what God has planned for our lives, the better life that he has for us, and over time it shapes the very person that we are becoming so that we become more and more like Christ himself.

I've watched God do this countless times in people's lives. In fact, right now there's an 11th grader in our student ministry. His name is James. When I began serving in our student ministry years ago, I met James as a freshman. It was written all over James's face, the struggle that he was walking through. He did not want to be here. He didn't want to be in church. He didn't believe that God could do anything big in his life, that God didn't have anything for him. That's where James was his freshman year, but something happened. He vanished. He disappeared. For a little over a year, James was not here. I tried to track him down with his friends and some of his family and I just couldn't figure out what happened to him. Where did he go?

James came back about a year ago and he's a completely different person. I had to ask him what happened? Where did you go? What was going on? What I learned was that James in that time, he became addicted to drugs and he began pursuing that and he began trying to fill the hole in his heart where God's supposed to be with a high. That led him down a dark, dark road. As James began to become more and more addicted to drugs, he ended up in a rehab and recovery facility. In that room where he was in that facility, there was a Bible sitting on the bedside table, just kind of collecting dust, untouched for a while.

James said he kept seeing it every day. He felt drawn to it, but he refused to pick it up because he refused to believe that God had anything for him, that God could ever change him or help him. So he left it there. But there came this day where he just could not stop thinking about it. So he grabbed that Bible and he opened it and he began to read. James said as he did, God began a work in his life. As God moved in his life, he changed him. For James in that moment, the Bible became more than just a book sitting on a bedside table. It became how God met him in that recovery room.

That's why the Bible is still relevant today because thousands of years ago, God began divinely authoring the Bible, using 40 different authors across 1500 years to piece it together so that thousands of years later, a teenager struggling with an addiction would one day pick it up off the bedside table and step into the life that God had planned for him. God has done the same thing for you. He authored scripture so that you can find his response to whatever you are facing and so that you can step into the life that he is calling you to and experience the life change that he has for you.

Don't let this be another book on a bookshelf collecting dust. You might be in here this morning and you might be asking the question why? Why would God do all this? Why would God go through all of this trouble? Why inspire 40 different authors over 1500 years? Why preserve the Bible generation after generation after generation? Why change the life of a teenager struggling with addiction? Why do any of it? Why would he do that? It's because he loves you. He loves you and he wants to use his word to point you to that fact. Every single word from Genesis to Revelation, every page, every promise, every prophecy, every command, every story, all of it connecting to tell you the same thing, that God loves you. That even though you're stuck in your sin, he loves you enough to send his son Jesus to rescue you out of sin and to give you a changed life.