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Hey everybody, it's Rob from Trinity Streetsville.

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Here at Trinity, we're just a group of ordinary people learning to follow Jesus in our day.

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Say, do you read the Bible?

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If so, how do you read the Bible?

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Do you read it for information or do you read it for transformation?

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Because there is a very big difference between a Bible-believing person and a Bible-living

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person.

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Well, join us today as we discover that the Bible is way more than just a system of belief,

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it's a way of life.

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Our reading today is from 2 Timothy 3 verses 14 to 17.

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But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because

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you know those from whom you learned it, and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures,

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which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

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All scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training

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in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good

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work.

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The word of the Lord.

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Good morning, everyone.

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You know, the other day, my car was making a bit of a squeaking noise, so we went to

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the mechanic, and you know, the mechanic popped the hood, and the two of us stood there and

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looking inside, and you know, then the mechanic, you know what he did?

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He reached over and he grabbed a ratchet, and he put that ratchet on a bolt, and he

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gave it about a quarter turn, and the squeaking stopped.

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I was like, amazing, that's fantastic.

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I said, you know, what do I owe you?

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What do I owe you?

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And he said, that'll be $500.

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And I said, you've got to be joking me.

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You know, all you did was turn that bolt a quarter of a turn, and he said, yeah, yeah,

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no worries.

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Like, it was only $1 to turn the bolt, but it was $499 to know which bolt to turn.

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And isn't that true?

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That it is one thing to be able to turn a bolt.

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It's another thing to be able to look at all those parts and all those pieces and know

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what it is that they are doing.

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Anyone, anyone can turn a bolt, but not everyone can fully see all these pieces, all these

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parts and know what it is they are doing and how they all work.

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We are right in the middle actually now of a teaching series that we are calling the

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Bible for Grown Ups.

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And it's a series where we're not talking about cars, we're talking about the Bible.

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And actually, I have to do a little bit of an apology because I heard last week that

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some of the younger members of our congregation, this is legitimate, some of the junior youth,

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they said, hey, we're not grownups.

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And so you're doing this whole series and you keep saying the Bible for grownups, the

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Bible for grownups, and I hear you.

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And you know, we don't want to exclude anyone who's younger.

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And so what we might say to you for sure is this isn't just about the Bible for grownups,

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but it's the Bible for those who are growing up.

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And actually, the fact that you're here and that you're participating with us on Sunday

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mornings means that you actually may learn some of the things that we didn't learn when

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we were growing up.

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And you'll be better positioned to read your Bible throughout your whole life because you're

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here this morning.

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So the Bible for grownups, the Bible for those who are growing up.

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And so far, to kind of get to this, we've asked a couple of very simple questions.

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We've said, you know, what is the Bible?

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And we've said, now, and then where does the Bible come from?

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But today we want to do something different.

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Today we want to take that Bible and we want to pop the hood, if you will.

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We want to, you know how they always have one of these sticks, right?

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We want to pop the hood on the Bible and we want to take a good look at all the various

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pieces inside here and ask the question, you know, what does all this do?

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What is this for?

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How is this supposed to work?

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The average car, we are told, has something like 30,000 pieces in it.

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And you know, everything from carburetors and radiators down to little bolts and screws.

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And I have to be honest, I don't know a heck of a lot about cars.

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I probably know less, you know, what 5% of those pieces do.

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I don't know, but I do know this about a car and that is what the car is supposed to do

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when it's working.

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And when it's working correctly, it's supposed to move me.

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It's supposed to take me from A to B, from here to there.

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It's supposed to transport me.

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That's what a car does.

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A car is transportation.

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That's what all the pieces under the hood of a car are meant to do.

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But what about the Bible?

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If you look in the Bible, it too is full of all these pieces, all these parts.

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This is a wonderful Bible, by the way, made by our very own Brian Holton.

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And if you look under the hood of the Bible, you see, look, there's this and there's that.

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There's all these books.

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Some of these things are letters.

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Some of these things are prophecy books.

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Some of these are poetry.

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Some of it is like genealogical information.

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There's so much in here.

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This, there's 66 books found within the library of the Bible and they have different genres

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and different authors and they're written at different times and they're written over

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a span of like 1500 or 2000 years as well.

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And so you may look in there and say, my gosh, what does all that do?

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And what is it trying to accomplish?

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All those parts, all those pieces, they are doing something, by the way, when you read

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this thing, it's doing something to you.

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But what, what are the parts do?

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What's it for?

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What does it accomplish?

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Some people may say, I'm not sure the Bible accomplishes very much at all, but it is doing

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something to us.

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And today I want to talk about what the Bible is doing, what all those pieces and all those

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books and all those words, what they're doing is together.

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They are, they're like a car.

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They're moving us somewhere.

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They're taking us somewhere, but it's not about transportation.

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That's what a car does.

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The Bible is about transformation.

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That's what the Bible does.

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Right?

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That's what it's for.

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It's not to transport me.

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It's to transform me.

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Right?

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It's to transform you.

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It's to transform our city.

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It's to transform our church.

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D.L. Moody, he put it this way.

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He said the Bible was not given for our information, but for our transformation.

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That's it.

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That's what the Bible does.

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That's what it's for.

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Just like all the pieces and parts in a car are designed to take you to a certain somewhere,

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right?

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All the pieces and parts in a Bible are designed to turn you into a certain someone, right?

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A car takes you somewhere.

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A Bible makes you a certain someone.

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That's what it's for.

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That's what it's for.

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But the problem is most of us do not read our Bibles for transformation.

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We read our Bibles for information.

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We think the point of the Bible is for us to fill our heads with knowledge and facts

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and data.

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And yes, there is a lot of information in the Bible, but we don't read the Bible to

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make us look smart.

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We read the Bible to make us look like Jesus.

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We read the Bible for transformation, not for information.

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I can't state that enough.

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That is what it is for.

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And today I want to tell you the two main ways that the Bible transforms us.

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So here's a spoiler alert.

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I'll tell you right off the bat.

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Here they are.

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First, the Bible transforms us by giving us a true picture of God.

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And secondly, the Bible transforms us by telling us the true story of the world.

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And as I'm going to explain to you, the picture you have of God in your mind and the story

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you tell of the world and you understand how the world works, those are two of the most

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transformative influences in your life and my life.

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And the Bible helps us with both of those things.

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So how does the Bible work?

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Let's look at the very first one.

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The Bible works by giving us a true picture of God.

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If you were to open up a Bible and turn to page one, you would read this in the beginning,

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God, dot, dot, dot.

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And it carries on from there.

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And do you know what that means?

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It means that the Bible is first and foremost, not about you.

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It is not a book about me.

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It is not a book about how to solve my problems.

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It is not a book about how to live a better life.

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It is not a book about how to be successful or how to make better decisions or how to

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have better relationships.

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It's not even a book about how to get to heaven when you die.

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Right?

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That stuff, yes, that stuff is in there.

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But from the very first words of the Bible, you can see that primarily, primarily, primarily,

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the Bible is about God.

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And last week, we learned that the Bible tells this great big story.

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And if that's the case, then you know who the story is about and you know who the main

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character in the story is.

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It's God.

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It's not you.

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It's not me.

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The Bible is kind of like God's social media profile.

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It's his revelation to the world.

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He's showing everybody, this is who I am.

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This is who I am.

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And he's showing us, by the way, this is who I am.

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I am not.

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And if you think about it, what would we really know about God if it weren't for all the bits

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and pieces found in the engine of the Bible?

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What would we know?

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We might know some things from looking at creation, from looking at the world, from

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looking at each other.

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We might know some things.

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But as Eugene Peterson says, God and his ways are not what most of us think.

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Most of what we are told about God and his ways, whether it's by the way, whether it's

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by our friends or whether it's through our news feeds or TV or, or even some of the things

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we think up on our own.

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Most of all that Peterson says is wrong.

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It's simply wrong.

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It might not be dead wrong, but it's wrong enough and get this to mess with the way that

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we live.

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But the Bible is precisely a revelation of what we could never figure out on our own.

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So you see what he says there.

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He says that it's our ideas of God are wrong enough to mess with the way we live.

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Now you might say, what does my picture of God have to do with the way I live?

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And the answer is way more than you know, way more than you know.

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A.W. Tozer said that we tend by a secret law of the soul to move toward our mental image

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of God.

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Just take those words in for a second.

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We tend to move toward our mental image of God.

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In other words, the idea of God that you have in your mind is affecting the type of person

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that you are becoming.

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And it doesn't matter actually if you have the right image of God in your mind or the

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wrong image of God, you are gravitating toward that image.

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Yet your image of God is turning you into a certain kind of someone.

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And that someone could be amazing or that someone could be absolutely horrible and terrifying,

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but we become who we are based on what we think about God.

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A bloodthirsty terrorist is who he is partly because of the image of God he has in his

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mind, right?

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The bully that you run into at school or in the workplace is who they are partly because

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of the image they have in their mind of God.

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You know, the prosperity preacher is who he is because of how he thinks about God.

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But you know what?

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So is the missionary, the missionary who travels around the world to care for children does

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that because of the image of God they have in their mind.

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And so is the wife, the wife who stands by her husband for years as he struggles with

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a chronic illness and she stands by his side.

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Why does she do that?

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Partly because of the image of God that she has in her mind.

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Or how about a wealthy businessman who gives away three quarters of all his income to God's

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work and the work of the kingdom?

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Why does he do that?

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He does that partly because of the mental image he has of God in his mind.

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Each one of those people do what they do because of what they believe about God.

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What we believe about God matters.

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And I'll tell you with so much bad thinking about God out there and so much bad thinking

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about God in here, we need someone to show us a true picture of God.

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Our life depends on it.

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Our very transformation as human beings depends on it.

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And that's what the Bible does.

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That's how the Bible works.

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It helps us sort through all the bad information and the misinformation and the wrong images

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and unhelpful images of God and helps us to see what God is really like.

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And by the way, I don't think we see that any place more clearly than we see it in the

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life of Jesus.

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In the Christian tradition, there's this old Latin saying, lex orendi, lex credendi, lex

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vivendi.

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What that basically means is it says the way that you worship or pray affects the way that

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you believe, which affects the way that you live.

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Isn't that interesting?

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This morning as you gather, as we sing these songs and as we worship and pray together,

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you have an image of God in your mind.

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And that image of God is affecting the way that you think about God and your thoughts

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about God are going to ultimately affect your way of life.

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And that is why the Bible is so important because the Bible comes along and it says,

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let me show you a picture of the God that you're worshiping.

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And then that inform your thinking about God.

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And then that can in turn inform the way that you live.

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That process of moving and changing from our thoughts all the way through to our actions,

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that is called transformation.

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And if you think that I'm only talking to church people here, I am not just talking

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to church people.

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This affects everyone, whoever you are.

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You don't get to decide whether you worship.

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We all worship.

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There is no such thing as not worshiping.

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The only choice you have in the matter is what it is that you are going to worship.

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There was a novelist named David Foster Wallace who long before his suicide, he gave a very

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famous graduation address at Kenyon College.

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And this is what he said.

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He said, everyone worships.

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The only choice we get is what to worship.

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And then he said this, he said, and the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of a God

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or a spiritual type thing to worship is that pretty much anything else you worship will

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eat you alive.

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And he goes on and he says, if you worship money and things, then you will never feel

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like you have enough.

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Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly.

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Worship power and you will end up feeling weak and afraid.

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Worship your intellect being seen as smart and you will end up feeling stupid and a fraud.

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What he's saying is that everyone has an image of God in your mind and everyone has something

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that they're worshiping and that thing, that wrong image, if it's a wrong image, will deform

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you and over time it will turn you into something broken and ugly.

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But the Bible comes along.

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The Bible comes along and says, hey, let me show you a true picture of who God really

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is.

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This is the God who created you and the whole world.

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This is the God who loves you.

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Look, this is the God who laid down his life for you.

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This is the God who sacrificed himself for you.

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This is the God who will heal you and restore you and actually will restore this whole creation.

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Look at this picture.

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Look at this God.

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Let that be the God you see in your mind.

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Let that be the God that you worship here on Sundays.

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Then if you do that, then you will become like that God.

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You will become like the son of God.

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You will not be deformed into the likeness of whatever idea of God the world throws at

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you, but you will be transformed into his likeness.

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And so that's the beautiful thing when we let the Bible show us the true picture of

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who God is, that we actually find out the true picture of who we are because we gravitate

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toward who we're supposed to be as we hold that image of God in our minds and in our

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hearts.

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This is who God is, and this is who you're meant to be.

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So that's what the Bible is for, right?

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That's what the parts do.

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This is like the parts of the car all work together to transport us.

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The parts of the Bible are working together to transform us.

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And one of the primary ways it does that is by giving us the true picture of who God is.

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But that's only the first thing the Bible does.

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The second thing the Bible does is it tells us the true story about how the world is,

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right?

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Every person here, every one of us, we live by some kind of a story, right?

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You have to have a story in your mind, a story that answers some pretty fundamental questions

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like who are we and where did we come from and what is the purpose of my life?

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We all have a story that we believe that helps us answer those questions.

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So for example, I'll just throw a couple of examples out here.

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So if you had, take for example, the story of individualism, many people live their lives

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according to the story of the rugged loner individual.

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Now if you believe that story and live your life according to that story, then what's

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the answer to the question, who are we?

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The answer is we are independent and free beings.

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And then where did we come from?

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Well, that everyone can choose that for themselves because we're all independent.

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We can all make up our own answers to that.

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And then what is the meaning of life?

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Well, they might answer the meaning of life is to realize your full potential and who

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you are and all your desires.

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See how that story you tell yourself helps you answer those questions about life.

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Or how about the story of atheism?

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That's also tells a story.

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So what do atheists say?

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Who are we?

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We are evolved animals, glorious evolved animals.

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Where did we come from?

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We came from some glorious accident, trillion years ago, cosmic accident.

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What is the meaning of life?

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Well, there is really no meaning of life.

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You can just make of it whatever you want.

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There's so many stories you can live by.

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This hedonism, socialism, capitalism, commercialism, liberalism, conservatism.

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These are all stories that help you answer the big questions of life.

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And that's why James K.A.

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Smith, he says, he says, we're all essentially storied animals, right?

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To be a human, to be you and me is to be in and come from a story.

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And look what these stories do.

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A story defines our identity, a story that guides our actions and a story that orients

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us toward the future.

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Now, this is why it's important.

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The Bible tells a story.

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The Bible tells a story.

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But last week we learned that 60 percent of what's in the Bible is a narrative.

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It's telling you a story.

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And yes, it is a story through the lens of one particular nation, the nation of Israel,

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and what God was doing in them.

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But that story of that nation is actually blows up bigger into what God is doing through

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all the nations and all the world as well.

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And it answers all those really important questions.

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Who are we?

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Where did we come from?

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What is life all about?

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What is the meaning of life?

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The Bible is trying to tell you a story.

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But what you've got to realize is as it tells you the story, it's not just any story, it's

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trying to tell you a story that subverts and upends all the other stories that you hear

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out there day in and day out.

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There's a South American philosopher by the name of Ivan Illich.

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And he said, you know, when you want to change a society, how do you change the society?

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Do you do you have a big fiery revolution?

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He said, no.

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Do you do you have a very slow going political process?

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Is that the way to change the society?

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He said, no.

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He said, if you want to change a society, then you have to tell an alternative story.

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And friends, that's what the Bible is doing.

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It is telling you an alternative story, an alternative story to capitalism or commercialism

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or individualism or hedonism or atheism or whatever ism.

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It's telling you something different.

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And as it tells you its story, it's exposing all the problems and all the flaws and all

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the shortcomings of these other stories that we find ourselves living by.

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I feel like I just got to say one thing is maybe I'm using the word story so much that

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you're thinking story.

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Oh, a story is a fiction fiction.

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It's not real.

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But no, when we're talking about the story of the Bible, we're talking about the true

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story, the true story of the world that the Bible tells us.

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Friends, that story shapes us.

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It transforms us because when we live in that story, we live it out as well.

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You know, NT Wright is kind of the master of this because he actually has a way of breaking

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down the story of the Bible into what he calls a five act play, five act play.

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That act one of the story is called creation.

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It's where God out of nothing with his voice, he calls creation into existence and it's

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good and it's good and it's good and it's good and it's very good.

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That's act one creation.

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We're created.

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We are very good creation.

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Act one act two is the fall.

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That part of the story is when human beings rebel against God, we decide to go our own

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way and it snaps and breaks our relationship with God and it breaks our relationship with

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the rest of creation too.

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It's kind of a very sad and disturbing part of the story.

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Act three, though, is God's plan to put it all back together.

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And so he reaches out to one particular people, one particular nation and through them, he's

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going to bless the world and he's going to heal what was broken in act two.

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And that particular nation is called Israel.

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And that actually takes up probably most of the Old Testament that you're reading is God

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is chapter three, act three, God working through Israel.

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That leads to chapter four, act four, which is where all God was doing through Israel

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is fulfilled and culminates in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, who ultimately

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restores the broken relationship we have with God and gives the potential to be reconciled

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with one another.

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And that then leads to chapter five, the final chapter, which is the church, which is now

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how the followers of Jesus empowered by the spirit of Jesus continue to live and work

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in the world following Jesus as they do.

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Now that's the story.

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That's the story.

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NT Wright says we're actually living in that story.

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It's like we're jumping into the Bible.

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We're in there and we're located somewhere in act five.

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He calls it a play because he says we have to think of ourselves as actors and what's

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going on is we have a part to play in here.

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There's no script for it, by the way.

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There's no script.

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All we know is act one, two, three, and four.

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We know how that part of the play goes and we know how the end part of chapter of act

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five goes.

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The book of revelation, God's kind of creating and recreating new creation, healing the world

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and new heaven and new earth.

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We know how it's ending, but we are plunked right somewhere in the middle of act five

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and we have to figure out how to live knowing what came before and what came after.

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Friends, all I'm saying is that's the story the Bible tells us.

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And when we live in that story, how can it not but transform us as human beings?

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That's what stories do.

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And God gives us the best story of all.

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And so just to recap, the Bible is not given for our information.

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It is given for our transformation.

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That's how the engine works.

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That's what the pieces are doing by giving us the true picture of God and by telling

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us the true story of the world.

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We're not just informed, we're transformed.

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That's what it was supposed to do.

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That's what it's for, which means that you've got a decision to make when you read the Bible.

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This is kind of a complicated chart, but I just wanted to share this a bit with you.

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You can choose to read the Bible when you read the Bible.

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If you read the Bible, you can choose to read it for information or you can choose to read

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it for transformation.

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And the way you read it actually affects what you're getting out of it.

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So for example, if you want to read for information, you're going to read the Bible really fast

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and you're just going to be looking for highlights and the information.

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Give me the details, right?

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But if you read for transformation, you will read it slowly and you will read the Bible

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for depth.

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If you read the Bible for information, you're going to kind of stand over the text as some

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kind of authority of the text.

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But if you read the Bible for transformation, you will actually stand under the text of

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the Bible and let it be the authority in your life.

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If you read the Bible for information, the Bible becomes an object that you can manipulate.

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But if you read it for transformation, we become the object that we allow God's word

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to manipulate and change.

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You can read the Bible analytically or you can read it receptively.

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What is God saying to me today?

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You can read the Bible to become a master of scripture.

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That is the high point of informational reading.

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Or you can read the Bible to be mastered by scripture.

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And that is the point of transformational reading of the Bible.

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Do you read the Bible or do you let the Bible read you?

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Right?

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It is important to get this right because if we read the Bible just for information,

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yeah, we may learn a lot, but we may still end up being conceited and arrogant jerks.

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Right?

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Because we haven't let the Bible transform us.

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We've only let it inform us.

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But if you read the Bible for transformation, then you'll see this true picture of God and

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you'll gravitate toward it.

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Then you'll hear the true story of the world and you'll find yourself lost inside of it.

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And that can't help but change you.

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And that's what we're trying to send just by looking at the scripture that Ali read

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for us a few minutes ago.

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Paul wrote these words to Timothy and look carefully at how this is exactly how Paul

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understands what scripture does.

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It transforms us.

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He says, Timothy, all scripture is God-breathed.

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It's useful.

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Isn't that a neat word?

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That's what we're trying to figure out.

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What is this used for?

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00:27:47,840 --> 00:27:48,840
What is the point of it?

477
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:49,840
Right?

478
00:27:49,840 --> 00:27:53,200
It's useful for one, teaching.

479
00:27:53,200 --> 00:27:54,200
Right?

480
00:27:54,200 --> 00:27:55,200
Teaching.

481
00:27:55,200 --> 00:27:56,440
How do we follow Jesus?

482
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:57,560
That's what it's useful for.

483
00:27:57,560 --> 00:27:59,120
And secondly, rebuking.

484
00:27:59,120 --> 00:28:01,440
How do we not follow Jesus?

485
00:28:01,440 --> 00:28:03,960
Correcting, training and righteousness.

486
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,480
All this language sounds like the language of formation and transformation.

487
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:13,160
So that, and here's the end goal, that we, that the servant of God may be fully equipped

488
00:28:13,160 --> 00:28:16,960
for every good works.

489
00:28:16,960 --> 00:28:20,120
And so in other words, he's saying, Timothy, we read these scriptures so that our thinking

490
00:28:20,120 --> 00:28:24,840
and our feeling and our believing is so transformed that we become a certain type of person in

491
00:28:24,840 --> 00:28:29,880
the world, a person of love and justice and peace and compassion and generosity.

492
00:28:29,880 --> 00:28:35,160
A person who looks a lot like Jesus.

493
00:28:35,160 --> 00:28:41,040
Dallas Willis says, we come to the scripture as part of a conscious strategy to cooperate

494
00:28:41,040 --> 00:28:44,600
with God for the full redemption of our lives.

495
00:28:44,600 --> 00:28:49,440
Do you have a strategy to cooperate with God for the redemption of your lives?

496
00:28:49,440 --> 00:28:50,820
This is it.

497
00:28:50,820 --> 00:28:52,720
Read the Bible.

498
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:57,840
If you don't bury yourself in this story, then the gravitational pull of all the other

499
00:28:57,840 --> 00:28:59,840
stories in the world will suck you in.

500
00:28:59,840 --> 00:29:05,740
And 10 years from now, you may not like the person that you have become.

501
00:29:05,740 --> 00:29:09,880
But if you allow this Bible to show you the true picture of God and tell you the true

502
00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:14,760
story of the world, then 10 years from now, you will find yourself living and acting and

503
00:29:14,760 --> 00:29:22,000
thinking and speaking and loving in a way that may even surprise you as you look more

504
00:29:22,000 --> 00:29:24,720
and more like Jesus.

505
00:29:24,720 --> 00:29:26,360
It won't happen overnight.

506
00:29:26,360 --> 00:29:29,440
Formation, transformation never happens quickly.

507
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:36,640
But every day, wake up, open up your Bible, read it.

508
00:29:36,640 --> 00:29:39,080
It's doing something to you.

509
00:29:39,080 --> 00:29:41,200
It's taking you somewhere.

510
00:29:41,200 --> 00:29:45,640
It's making you someone.

511
00:29:45,640 --> 00:29:49,280
That's what all the pieces are for.

512
00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,340
There is a big difference between being a Bible believing person and a Bible living

513
00:29:53,340 --> 00:29:55,200
person.

514
00:29:55,200 --> 00:30:01,760
Bible wasn't designed for you just to believe it, but not just to read it or know it or

515
00:30:01,760 --> 00:30:02,880
even understand it.

516
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:05,000
You have to live it.

517
00:30:05,000 --> 00:30:08,240
And when you do, you'll see it's not just a system of belief.

518
00:30:08,240 --> 00:30:09,240
It's a way of life.

519
00:30:09,240 --> 00:30:11,800
It's a way of life.

520
00:30:11,800 --> 00:30:12,800
Thanks be to God.

521
00:30:12,800 --> 00:30:19,800
Amen.